Chip

"What'll happen when the chips are down?"

- Jonathan Pearce

Chip was a Welsh competitor from Series 7 of Robot Wars. It was an invertible, black box shaped robot, made from polycarbonate, which was broader at the back than it was at the front, where the weapon, a 1500RPM horizontal spinning disc with two cutting blades, was situated. However, the disc was not too reliable.

A previous design for Chip was a more conventional-shaped blue invertible box made of titanium and macron, where the disc, that the team claimed to be 10 times stronger than Hypno-Disc's was interchangeable with two ramming spikes. An accurate weakness, although the robot was invertible, was that Chip did not like to be flipped over.

Chip had a long stream of bad luck in Robot Wars. Although it only competed properly in Series 7, Team Xenomania had tried and failed to qualify for every series since the Third Wars. The team failed to qualify for Series 3 and 4 with Xenomorph (not related to the Series 7 participant).

After Series 4, the students that had been part of the team left due to other concerns, such as university. The teachers go NEW WAVE CONCEPTS Ltd to sponsor the building of a new robot and Chip was built with the help of a few younger students at Denbigh High School.

At the Series 5 qualifiers, Chip fought Robofox. Chip's disc was not working, after a wire relay broke on the way to the qualifiers. Chip broke down quickly, after repeated blows from Robofox's axe, and was pitted by Shunt.

"The battle was short, I couldn't see too well under the blinding lights. After a rainfall of heavy axe blows CHIP was dead and house robot Shunt pushed us into the pit. Craig Charles asked us why we had died, I said that a wire in the electronics must have broken. He said you should have been an electronics teacher, I was too gutted to say that I was. The crowd cheered and we drove the 180 miles home. Needless to say we did not appear in Series 5."

- Chip Website on the Series 5 qualifiers

At the Series 6 qualifiers, Chip was one of three robots (the other two being Colossus and Splinter) that were immobilised by 259 in under 30 seconds.

"To be fair we were not disabled but impaled by our own disk on the arena wall. It all happened to quickly to say for definite why we ended up in the wall but 259 did cause us some hefty superficial damage. So we were out, bad luck really because some pretty weak robots got through that day because they were in easier fights."

- Chip Website on the Series 6 qualifiers

Finally, after making a brief appearance in the New Blood competition of Extreme Series 2, Chip managed to enter the main competition of the Seventh Wars. The glory of finally qualifying for the main competition was shattered quickly after Spawn Again threw it out of the arena in a matter of seconds, something which the team had expressed a fear of in the pits beforehand.

Extreme 2
After failing to qualify for 4 consecutive main competitions, Team Xenomania finally featured on the televised show as Chip was entered into the New Blood Championship of the second series of Extreme. In the first round of its heat, Chip was placed up against the Series 6 entrants Edge Hog and the 2 mph walkerbot RT81. In the battle, Chip hit Edge Hog with its disc in the early stages of the fight, failing to make much of an impression, so Chip activated the pit release button. RT81 was pushed into the action by Mr. Psycho, where Chip and Edge Hog attacked it, causing the walkerbot to catch fire and break down to see Chip and Edge Hog through to the second round. Chip had technical problems with its disc, so it had to be removed for the second round and replaced with a static spike, making it look similar to the original Tornado. It was drawn against Thor, and a single hammer blow from the future New Blood Grand Finalist stopped Chip dead, before it was fried on the flame pit and eliminated from the New Blood Championship. "The only thing that will be left of that are little wood chips, I would imagine!"

- Jonathan Pearce

Series 7
After four series of failing to qualify for the main competition, Team Xenomania performed badly in its only Robot Wars main competition. Chip participated in Heat N of the main competition, and was placed up against the number 6 seeds Spawn Again, Revenge of Trouble & Strife and the Dutch entrant NEATer Machine in the first round of the heat. In the battle, Chip spent its few seconds in the Seventh Wars retreating away from Spawn Again, towards the arena side wall. It tapped NEATer Machine with its disc, but didn't appear to damage the Dutch robot. Unfortunately, as Chip moved into the arena centre, Spawn Again closed in and tossed it high into the air and straight out of the arena, eliminating it from the competition.

Results

 * }

Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 1
 * Losses: 2

Series Record

 * Series 1-2: Did not enter
 * Series 3-4: Failed to qualify with Xenomorph
 * Series 5-6: Failed to qualify
 * Series 7: Heat, Round 1

Outside Robot Wars
Chip also competed in Techno Games. It competed in the Sumo competition of 2002 but lost in 2002, beating Mighty Mouse in round 1 of the Sumo before losing to Storm Chaser, putting it in the playoff, where it beat Hell Bound to get the Bronze medal, it lost to British Bulldog in round one of the Tug of War the same year. Chip was renamed Bruiser for the fourth series of Techno Games, fitted with various add-ons. It won by default in the Sumo after Sprocket broke the rules by using its lifter to get Bruiser's wheels off the ground and push it out in round one. It was then eliminated from the competition as the rules were changed to the quickest win qualifying. The team appealed that there should have been a time of 1 second added as they had an opponent they felt had cheated, but it fell on deaf ears, and the Chip team swore to never support Techno Games again.

Chip was revised one last time to have a lifter, but it has since been retired.

Tom Ross, Chip's driver, still has Chip's disc and other bits from Chip in the back of his shed.