Cherub

Cherub is a robot which competed in Series 9 of Robot Wars, built by Team Saint, who used the name Team Cherub for television. Keeping in line with Team Saint’s naming theme, Cherub is named after the angelic beings that attend to God, according to Christian faith.

Design
Craig Colliass revealed at a Robot Wars Live Event that Cherub was not designed for combat – rather, Colliass wanted to build a robot which was capable of performing ‘handstands’. Based on this principle, Cherub uses its two small lifting forks to not only lift other robots, but also itself, as Cherub is well balanced enough to stand on its weapons, and its forks can rotate a full 360 degrees. These also allow Cherub to self-right.

Cherub is painted completely white, and features two decorative wings on top, to give the robot a biblical theme in every sense. It is normally invertible, although the wings – which are not present in live event appearances – handicap Cherub’s ability to drive when flipped. Cherub’s ground clearance is extremely low, and its forks can expertly breach ground clearances, but the robot suffers from having exposed wheels, comparatively light weight, and a lack of damage output.

The Team
Cherub was built by Craig Colliass, who had previously entered Gabriel into Series 8. He was noticeably absent from Cherub’s team, as he reportedly submitted an application to enter with Gabriel for a second series in a row but failed.

Cherub's team still features two members of Team Saint who had competed in the last series – Mark Colliass, who keeps Cherub in fighting condition, and Craig’s youngest son Toby, who drove Gabriel in a whiteboard match against Behemoth previously. The rest of the team is made up of daughters Sarah and Rosie, giving Cherub a team consisting almost entirely of young children – this is fitting, as cherubs are typically depicted as young children in artwork. Sarah is the team captain.

"Sarah is passionate about robot building but they think that their dad, Craig, was too generous in the last series and they want to prove that they will show no mercy."

- The Robot Wars website

Series 9
Cherub competed in Episode 2, where it fought three veteran teams from the previous series - Draven, PP3D and Team S.Tek's new robot Push to Exit.

Results

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Robot Wars Live Events
Cherub has been competing at Robot Wars Live Events over the three years they were active. In Newport, it fought robots including Manta, Terminal Ferocity, and Behemoth.

Cherub had a successful run at the Robot Wars World Championship 2015, held in Colchester. It narrowly escaped the first round despite being thrown out of the arena by Eruption, as Behemoth had luckily been thrown out beforehand, and TMHWK lost drive on one side, despite it staying in the arena for longer than Cherub. Cherub was thrown out of the arena again in the second round, this time by Toxic 2, but once again, Brutus had already been thrown out first. In its third battle, Cherub earned its own win by flipping over the immobile Apex. Cherub fell in the quarter-finals, where it was once again thrown out of the arena by eventual champion Toxic 2.

Cherub’s 2016 debut was in Manchester, where it fought a Tag Team battle, partnered with Ceros. Iron-Awe 7 broke down after throwing Ceros out of the arena, so Cherub fought a head-to-head battle with Crushtacean. Although Cherub was held in Crushtacean’s claws for most of the match, it won the battle via adjudication when Crushtacean broke down. At the Portsmouth event in 2016, Cherub fought against Thorak, Luzifer and Bullfrog, and later fought Bullfrog again in a melee with Behemoth and Rattler, but Cherub was thrown out of the arena. In another fight, it was immobilised by Stinger.

Outside Robot Wars
Away from Robot Wars, Cherub also competes at Robots Live! events, and other touring shows, although Team Saint are far more successful with Gabriel. In 2013, Cherub competed in the European Championship, where it survived until a Judges’ decision against Tornado and Alien Destructor.