Flipping weapons

Flipping Weapons were designed to get underneath opposing robots and forcefully throw them into the air. Not only could flipping weapons flip an opponent over, many were capable of throwing opponents high enough to get them over the barrier and out of the arena. There were two main types of flippers, True Flippers and Flipping Arms. Each type was subdivided into front and rear-hinged flippers. Flipping weapons remain the most popular weapon type in the UK since the main venue for robot combat does not allow heavyweight spinners.

True Flippers
True flippers were often of a reasonable size, and had the most power of all lifting weapons. Both front-hinged and rear-hinged flippers were popular and notable in the history of Robot Wars.

Rear-Hinged Flippers
"In arenas where it's possible to win by throwing an opponent out of the arena, a monster flipper is a viable design choice"

- Aaron Joerger

Rear-Hinged flippers were the more common of the two types of flipper. They first came into existence when Chaos 2 stormed through Series 3, becoming Grand Champion. Before that all rear-hinged weapons, limited as they were, were lifters. The other innovators included Facet. As the series progressed, flippers became more powerful, easily able to toss house robots over and throw other competitors out of the arena. The most notable robot with a rear-hinged flipper is Chaos 2, also the first robot to throw another out of the arena, but as the series progressed, other more powerful robots such as Wheely Big Cheese, Gravity, Spawn Again and Dantomkia also came into the spotlight. The strengths of rear-hinged flippers were that they could easily end a battle quickly by throwing a robot onto its back or out of the arena. They could sometimes double as a self-righting mechanism, depending on the design.

However, flippers were fragile, and could be broken. Also, CO2 powered flippers only had a limited supply of flips. Flippers rarely offered damage potential and their effectiveness was decreased when Self-righting mechanisms and invertible robots became more popular.

List of Robots with Rear-Hinged Flippers
Robots are listed alphabetically. Robots that are not heavyweight are listed with a green background.

Front-Hinged Flippers
The other type of true flipper is the front-hinged flipper, the less common of the two. They were pioneered back in Series 1, with Rex Garrod's Recyclopse leading the way. It was powerful enough, even back then, to throw Matilda onto her back. Since then there have been some excellent robots with the weapon, most notably Firestorm. Front-hinged flippers featured many of the same strengths and weaknesses as rear-hinged ones did, however unlike rear-hinged flippers, front-hinged flippers needed to be much more underneath the opponent in order to flip it.

In theory, front-hinged flippers were also capable of OOtA's, however, none in Robot Wars managed to do so except Firestorm. Firestorm featured an adjustable caster at the back that could be retracted in, allowing it to "rear up". When it was against the sidewall, rearing up would align its flipper in just the right position to push opponents over the wall. Currently, the only other front-hinged flipper to successfully OOtA an opponent is Hall-of-Famer Envy. Envy's flipper alone is powerful enough to throw opponents out of the arena, without assistance from adjustable casters.

List of Robots with Front-Hinged Flippers
Robots are listed alphabetically. Robots that are not heavyweight are listed with a green background.

Flipping Arms
The other type of flipping weapon was the lifting arm. These were much thinner than true flippers, and were designed to flip robots over rather than out of the arena. Like true flippers, there were rear-hinged, and much less often, front-hinged flipping arms. The pioneer of flipping arms was one of these few: Rex Garrod's Cassius, the first robot in the UK to ever self-right. Flipping arms were often used in conjunction with axes as they could easily be placed next to each other. Mortis was he first robot to employ the combination. Flipping arms usually needed less power to operate that true flippers, so would be capable of more flips. Also, they were usually extremely durable.

However, with the advent of srimechs and invertable robots, the lack of being able to throw another robot out of the arena meant that flipping arms didn't progress very far in later wars.

Rear-Hinged Flipping Arms
These were the more common of the two types of flipping arm. They were most effective at lifting up a robot on one side and toppling it over. The most notable robot with a rear-hinged flipping arm is Gemini. The clusterbot was the only robot with a lifting arm to throw another out of the arena, after they combined against The Creature.

List of Robots with Rear-Hinged Flipping Arms
Robots are listed alphabetically. Robots that are not heavyweight are listed with a green background.

Front-Hinged Flipping Arms
Front-Hinged Flipping Arms were less common than rear-hinged ones but would become even more influential on combat robotics. Rex Garrod's Cassius became the first robot to sucessfully self right in the UK and only the third anywhere in the world. After finishing second in Series 2, clones were spawned of Cassius, most notably Gravedigger who reached the Series Semi-Finals of the following wars, outperforming Cassius itself in that series. Despite these sucesses, front-hinged flipping arms remained few and far between.

List of Robots with Front-Hinged Flipping Arms
Robots are listed alphabetically.