Jellyfish

Jellyfish is a robot which competed in Series 9 of Robot Wars, built by Dave Lawrie who competed in the previous series as part of Team Nuts.

Design
Jellyfish is armoured in HDPE plastic, and sports a comical design, featuring googly eyes and colourful spots. The design is loosely based on a jellyfish, hence the name. Its weapon is a horizontal clamp, partially inspired by that of BattleBots middleweight Huggy Bear, also adhering to the restrictions of the team's available parts, which included a power source of sealed lead acid batteries. Jellyfish runs on a two-wheel drive system, but has a high ground clearance at the rear. Depending on its setup, Jellyfish weighs between 85-95kg.

Before building Jellyfish, Dave Lawrie, as shared on his team's Facebook page, prepared a checklist of requirements for his robot, with the goal of making it simple, inexpensive, and good for TV. Jellyfish met these requirements, having been constructed using readily available parts.

Series 9
"A group of jellyfish is called a smack. We're coming to Robot Wars to lay the smack down!"

- Dave Lawrie

Jellyfish competed in Episode 1, fighting Nuts 2, Rapid and Terrorhurtz in its Group Battle. However, Dave Lawrie quickly noticed that Jellyfish was suffering from interference issues, and proved challenging to drive.

When the battle began, it was immediately scooped under and thrown against the wall by Rapid, before being collected by Terrorhurtz. Jellyfish lingered close to the wall as Rapid pushed it over the Flame Pit, with Terrorhurtz getting underneath and axing it close to the Arena Tyre. "Come on, Jelly!"

- Gemma Lawrie as Jellyfish is attacked by Terrorhurtz

Again, Rapid got underneath and pushed Jellyfish around the arena and into Terrorhurtz, before flipping it again. Jellyfish withstood an axe blow from Terrorhurtz as it escaped the empty CPZ, before attacking two of Nuts 2's minibots. It was then pushed into another CPZ and flipped over by Rapid once again, where it lost an eye and was left unable to drive inverted. After some time, Jellyfish was counted out, and initially eliminated alongside Nuts 2.

"I have no problems losing fights or being knocked out by superior machines but I'd rather go home in many pieces than get picked off because I couldn't drive properly. Such is life, I guess. No excuses, the best machines progressed."

- Dave Lawrie

However, following Rapid's withdrawal due to damage sustained in its battle against Aftershock, Jellyfish was reinstated to take its place in the Head-to-Head stage, as a result of it outperforming Nuts 2 in the aforementioned Group Battle. With Rory Mangles and Alex Shakespeare from Team Nuts joining the team in the pits and control room, and two protective plates attached to its top panel, Jellyfish faced Terrorhurtz again for its first Head-to-Head battle. In the opening seconds, it embraced Terrorhurtz as the latter rammed and axed it, losing its eyes and protective plates in the process, before being steered round and slammed into the wall.

These attacks immobilised Jellyfish almost immediately, which was counted out as Terrorhurtz axed it one more time. Jellyfish scored no points as a result of this defeat, and sustained damage to its speed controller as well as having one of its wheel magnets sheared by the force of Terrorhurtz's axe. "I can’t even find where the axe actually hit it. So, we'll have to do a diagnostic."

- Dave Lawrie assesses the damage done to Jellyfish

Jellyfish, assisted by Team Nuts, needed to find the damage caused by Terrorhurtz, which was not immediately obvious. Once this repair was made by installing a spare speed controller offered by Team RPD, Jellyfish was ready to battle Sabretooth in its second - and last - Head-to-Head. "What it transpired had actually happened was Terrorhurtz hit us so hard that one of the chips popped off on the speed controller circuit board. That speed controller in turn was also providing power to the receiver, so John just hit a sweet spot! The removable link didn't even come out! Fascinating."

- Dave Lawrie

Jellyfish required a knock-out victory in order to equalise Sabretooth and Terrorhurtz on points, and have a chance of securing a place in the Heat Final.

At the start, Jellyfish grabbed Sabretooth and pushed it around the arena, using its clamp to prevent Sabretooth from driving away effectively before Sabretooth hit its side with its drum. "And we know that Jellyfish would love to give it [Sabretooth] a big hug. Is there going to be a Jellyfish sting in the tail of Robot Wars?"

- Jonathan Pearce as Jellyfish assails Sabretooth

Jellyfish momentarily launched Sabretooth off its wheels as the latter drove up one of its sides, before steering it towards Sir Killalot's CPZ. Sabretooth escaped by driving over Jellyfish's top, with Jellyfish again pursuing Sabretooth as it got caught on the pit panel. After a brief hesitation, Jellyfish clamped Sabretooth again, spinning it around in circles and steering it close to the Flame Pit. "That's it! Jelly's having his cuddle!"

- Gemma Lawrie as Jellyfish grabs Sabretooth again

Again, Sabretooth escaped by using its drum to launch itself on top of Jellyfish, but got stuck on one of its rear poles as Jellyfish pushed it back onto the pit panel. Both robots became stuck on the pit as a result, with Sir Killalot coming out of his CPZ to separate them as they struggled to drive free. Eventually, both Jellyfish and Sabretooth got stuck together again and moved no further as 'cease' was called, and the battle went to a Judges' decision. The Judges voted 2 to 1 in favour of Jellyfish, awarding it two points and fourth place on the Head-to-Head leaderboard. As a result, Jellyfish did not score enough points to progress to the Heat Final, and was therefore eliminated from Series 9. "I won a fight on Robot Wars. I am super proud of this fact and seeing my 2 points up on that board was life-affirming but it is certainly not something to gloat about. I managed to beat Sabretooth after the Aftershock damage had already taken it's toll. I was lucky and I'm sure the fight would have been a whole heap of different had both robots been at their finest, but particularly theirs."

- Dave Lawrie

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 1
 * Losses: 2

Trivia

 * The mascot on the team's shirts is called Bloop. Indeed, during promotional material on Dave Lawrie's Twitter he continually used #OneMachineGoesBloop to emphasise the mascot.
 * Jellyfish is the second robot in the main competition to be eliminated in the Head-to-Heads while still having won a battle; the first being PP3D in Series 8. However, it was the only robot to do so upon being reinstated.