User blog:RA2/Top 11 robots that were too darn creative for their own good

Now it’s time for me to act like a grumpy old man. There’s no way you can read this list’s title and sound like a young person. People have done their “top x most creative” and their “top x most poorly designed,” but here’s a thought, what if I did them both at once? The idea came to me after I happened to hear Team Run Amok’s mantra “Complex is easy, simplicity takes work.” Now, I may have had my disagreements with them, and I may have said some nasty things, but one thing I’ll never say is that they don’t know how to build robots. They took to Robotica like Richard Hatch to Survivor - a contestant who knew how to play the game extraordinarily well despite it being the first season.

So, I racked my brains for all the robots whom I considered particularly innovative, and lo and behold, Team Run Amok’s advice held! For the most part, I found that extreme creativity and success rarely went hand-in-hand. I should clarify, when I say"innovative" robots, I don’t mean the ones like Twn Trwn where it just looked like the team had no idea what they were doing. This list isn't for robots who were just unique, it's for ones that went out of their way to ignore conventions, and probably ended up regretting it.

While it’s true that innovation in Robot Wars gave rise to Chaos 2’s flipper and Razer’s crusher, invention is largely a process of trial and error. And most of the unique robots were the “errors.” Here are the top 10 robots that were let down by their own creativity.

10. Diotoir Odd choice, but bear with me. I’m not saying that their design as a whole was flawed, because its combat record speaks for itself. But there was a certain creative aspect to their design that let them down time and time again, and was never imitated with good reason. It’s not the fur, it’s the springs. The spring loaded flipper was a clever idea, but it let them down so many times. It proved time and time again to be too weak to self-right with, and it looked like it was a real royal pain to service in the pits. I’m honestly surprised that Diotoir’s weapon was allowed to be cocked outside of the arena, those high-tension springs looked primed to snap at any moment, probably breaking the weapon and possibly injuring a team member. I’d have thought the last straw would be the Series 4 fiasco, but I was proven wrong when they returned for Extreme with the same spring-loaded flipper design. My fears came true in the Mayhem against Panic Attack, when Diotoir’s springs gave way as the announcer was saying “Roboteers, stand by.” There comes a day where you have to realize your innovative weapon system just isn’t working for you anymore. Hopefully that comes before you try to get even more creative and add a crusher/srimech that doesn’t do either of those things.

9. Joint placement, Niterider and Hammer And Tong Credit where credit is due, six wheels and an active weapon was more than a lot of teams could manage to do within the weight limit. But any hopes of success went pants because of the builders’ overamibiton. The arm was set up to function as an axe on the downswing and a flipper on the up. It probably looked good on paper - not a microjoule of energy went to waste. But in practice, the two weapons just ended up getting in the way of each other. The spike folds up when it hits the floor in order to accomodate the flipper, but what’s to stop the spike from folding when it hits another robot? When you spring-load a spike like that, it’s going to wipe out most of the piercing damage that should be going into the opposing robot. In the down position, the flipper was about as wieldy as you’d expect a foot-long narrow protrusion to be. The end result was a robot with a massive body-to-attack-zone ratio who just looked all around ineffective.

I ranked Niterider in this slot too, because it was pretty much the same story. 6 wheels and an active weapon made it look like a real contender, but said weapon’s design let it down in the end. Using a drill as a weapon is usually a good sign you’re on the wrong track, it’s difficult to line it up for an attack, and requires that the other robot not move around too much. And their “flanges” were very novel idea, but realistically, they couldn’t possibly do any good. Even if the drill could pierce through a sturdy sheet of metal, how do they get it out again? The flanges would create a veritable ship-in-a-bottle effect - stuck in the open position, and most likely getting torn off when Niterider attempts to pull itself free. The point I’m trying to make is, Niterider’s drill would need real precision driving, and a thunderous ramming speed to be effective. And if Niterider had that kind of capabilities, they’d be better off ditching the weapon and relying solely on their wedges and ramming power. And I can’t think of a better way to underscore that last statement than to remember who won the tournament that Niterider was competing in.

8. Darke Destroyer 2

It’s a shame that this one makes the list, the original was decent enough. For the longest time, I had no idea what this robot’s weapon were. The official guide said it was “spring loaded axes,” and having not seen its heat, I didn’t know any better than to accept it. I’ll give the team this much: I would have never guessed their real weapon in a million years. But after seeing it in action, I’m tempted to say that they would have had better luck if the other end was their primary weapon. In vaguely the same vein as its predecessor’s weapon, DD2’s wagglers were designed to scratch and chip. The one thing it couldn’t emulate though, was causing damage to sway the judges. I can’t fathom what circumstances led to the team scrapping their moderately successful weapon in favour of such a risky new one. As I’ve said before, I don’t think springs are a good means of weapon power. They’re tempermental little things that love to break, carry an increased risk of injury to the roboteers, and waste a fair bit of kinetic energy on the recoil. The weapon setup isn’t too hot either, it reminds me a lot of Cassius Chrome. And as you’ll recall, he weighed as much as several Darke Destroyers, and couldn’t even damage a pre-shredded Mekaniac. Rob Darke and co had the right idea for designing a novelty weapon that would get them on tv, but it didn’t do much in terms of fighting. It was very charmed to escape round 1 (the attacks were largely between the other two robots involved), and in round 2, Kronic didn’t look at all averse to charging straight into Darke Destroyer’s weapon.

That's all I have for now. I like to punctuate the gaps in between posts with some near misses, either robots that would be number 11 if I were going that far, or robots you might be expecting to see higher up. Here are some now.

Constrictor: Didn't have a lot to say about this one that I didn't already say about Hammer and Tong. They tried to make a robot that had a flipper, a crusher, a srimech, and was invertible. The cost was that it didn't do any of those things particularly well.

Napalm: The team's intention was to make a robot that had personality, like one of the house robots. I wasn't sure if that creativity was what did them in, but it's certainly food for thought. Their swinging spikes pulled the ripcord to start the chainsaw, that was pretty innovative, and as you'll soon see, too practical to warrant a placing on this list.