Hypno-Disc

"Hypno-Disc is one I do remember...it's not something you can forget"

- Robot Wars judge Mat Irvine

Hypno-Disc (sometimes spelled Hypnodisc or Hypno Disc) was a low rectangle shaped robot that competed in Series 3, 4, 5 and 6 of Robot Wars, also entering in both series of Extreme. Its main weapon was a horizontal spinning flywheel, the first of its kind, which was capable of ripping opponents' armour clean off. Because of the flywheel, Hypno-Disc was quickly dubbed "the most destructive robot in Robot Wars" in Series 3 and, for its original design, Hypno-Disc was awarded the Most Original Entry Award. In Series 4, a side mounted self-righting arm was added behind the flywheel as a countermeasure in case the robot should get flipped over. Hypno-Disc made the Grand Final three times, one of the only two robots ever to do so (the other being Firestorm), and coming second in its first appearance. Hypno-Disc is the only robot to reach three successive Grand Finals (Series 3-5). Hypno-Disc is generally considered to be one of the greatest robots never to win the UK Robot Wars title. "We did not want to meet Hypno-Disc...This machine was stunning for the amount of damage it dished out. The pits were very quiet when it was on."

- Peter Kinsey of Beast of Bodmin

The Hypno-Disc team consisted of twin brothers Dave and Derek Rose and their father Ken. The design for Hypno-Disc originally came from Dave Rose's three year old son, who made it out of Lego. The Hypno-Disc's motto was "Spin to Win", a motto soon adopted by many a roboteer.

Appearances in Merchandise
"So good they made the toy"

- Craig Charles before Hypno-Disc's Mayhem.


 * Hypno-Disc/Pullback
 * Hypno-Disc/Pitstop
 * Hypno-Disc/Minibot

Series 3
"This is the most complete destruction I think we've seen on Robot Wars ever..."

- Jonathan Pearce

Hypno-Disc's debut to Robot Wars was nominated as one of the best battles of the series. Against Robogeddon, Hypno-Disc hit its reptillian opponent several times, as the armour started buckling, then coming off completely. Further attacks damaged the wheels and weapon, as well as rupturing its CO2 canister, leaving the robot in a huge mess. "Before the fight with Robogeddon, we knew nothing at all about the level of destruction we were going give...and one or two people on the website tended to think it was a setup....I can assure them that it was not a setup, because we didn't know that the robot was going to perform as well as it did."

- Ken Rose

After defeating Stealth in a similar fashion, by ripping off its armour and saw, tearing out its wiring and sawing its flipper mechanism in half, Hypno-Disc was drawn against Berserk 2 in the Heat Final. Berserk's armour was notably harder than the other two competitors and Hypno-Disc was only able to cause a few slices in the rear of Berserk 2. However, about halfway through the bout, Berserk 2 was flipped onto its side by an arena spike. Hypno-Disc sportingly righted the machine and went through on a judge's decision. However, there was a real scare for the future runners-up, as Berserk 2 had damaged the disc and Sergeant Bash had caused the robot to have blackouts. To make matters worse, Derek departed for America, leaving Dave and Ken alone to work for four hours straight in order to avoid disqualification. They nearly had to retire from lack of parts and time, but fortunately, the Spin to Win boys brought their robot back to life just in time. "Hypno-Disc; lethal, destructive. A robo-vore - it eats other machines alive."

- Jonathan Pearce in the Semi-Finals

Hypno-Disc entered the Semi-Finals against Evil Weevil. Hypno-Disc smashed the sides of Evil Weevil and broke a wheel. Evil Weevil suffered control problems and the house robots finished it off. This led to one of the closest battles in Robot Wars against 101. 101 drove in bravely and pushed Hypno-Disc. It managed to stop the blade and drove on top of Hypno-Disc. 101 then reversed into Dead Metal and Hypno-Disc attacked it a few times, before reversing into Dead Metal itself. Hypno-Disc escaped and pushed 101 into Dead Metal. Both robots attacked each other and the fight ended with a pushing match. This was an extremely close match; for the first time ever, the judges emerged from their booth and studied the robots for damage before making their decision in favour of Hypno-Disc. In the grand final eliminator, Hypno-Disc met Steg-O-Saw-Us. Steg-O-Saw-Us drove in immediately and attacked Hypno-Disc's rear. Both bots drove into CPZs, and Hypno-Disc then attacked and ripped Steg-O-Saw-Us' side armour. The dinosaur robot tried to avoid Hypno-Disc's blade and it rammed it again. Hypno-Disc then rammed the rear of Steg-O-Saw-Us and managed to jam one of its wheels. Hypno-Disc was through to the Grand Final against Chaos 2. Chaos 2 had a fast start, circling Hypno-Disc, getting in a good position for a flip. However, it seemed to be very sluggish and appeared to have control problems and, luckily for them, Chaos 2 decided not to immediately finish the battle and drove away. Chaos 2 then used its flipper unsuccessfully, bouncing and landing on Hypno-Disc's disc, temporarily stopping it. Chaos 2 luckily managed escape without any damage done and was able to drive in again and land the final blow, ironically, getting under Hypno-Disc to flip it and win the title. However, Hypno-Disc also won the award for Most Original Entry that series.

Series 4
"All eyes on the number 2 seed"

- Jonathan Pearce as Hypno-Disc gets up to speed

Hypno-Disc returned to Series 4 as the number 2 seed. Since Series 3 the team had changed the size and shape of the teeth on the disc; they were now thicker and were designed to grip hold of whole pieces of armour and tear them off, while the old disc did fairly localised damage to tougher armoured robots. They also fitted in a self righting-mechanism after the final against Chaos 2. The Rose family (and the new disc) did not disappoint, as their first battle against Predator and Raizer Blade was full of action. Hypno-Disc hit The Predator's rear three times, ripping off its armour. Raizer Blade bravely lifted Hypno-Disc, but the heat favourites landed back on its wheels. It hit The Predator again, causing the insides to start to fall out. At the end of the fight, only Hypno-Disc was moving, but Raizer Blade was put through as well as it sustained less damage. Hypno-Disc's second round battle was against the substitute robot V-Max, who by the end wished that someone else had entered in their place. V-Max drove into Hypno-Disc's side, but the 2nd seeds attacked it and ripped off a side panel. Carbon dioxide was leaking from V-Max when Hypno-Disc attacked again. The substitutes lifted Hypno-Disc and pushed it across the arena, but lost its battery when it was rammed by Hypno-Disc again. V-Max was shredded to pieces and Hypno-Disc was through the the heat final, where it immobilised Raizer Blade in a single blow, it then caused more damage; breaking off the whole top and side armour, before Raizer Blade was flung by the floor flipper sending Hypno-Disc into the Semi-Finals once more. "Sheer destructive power"

- Craig Charles on Hypno-Disc

In the semi-finals, Hypno-Disc met Team Ivanhoe and Splinter, initiating what would be Hypno-Disc's most famous battle. Splinter decided attack was the best form of defence and used its front scoop to deflect Hypno-Disc's spinning blade. It looked like there would be a major upset when Splinter grabbed hold of it and pushed it into one of the CPZs, until it escaped and came back on the attack. The blade created several gashes in the front scoop of Splinter, which seemed to be holding up well. But it then hit the flywheel at an angle, ripping it right from the front and leaving it hanging on by mere threads. Hypno-Disc then tore off the scoop completely before tearing off pieces of armour from the left-hand side. More attacks buckled Splinter's grabbing arms, and shredded the internal areas. Splinter was well and truly defeated ('left in splinters', in the words of Jonathan Pearce) and Hypno-Disc met Wild Thing. Wild Thing tried to ram Hypno-Disc's rear, but hit the blade and spun around. Wild Thing pushed Hypno-Disc's side and rear but Hypno-Disc attacked with its disc, causing some damage to Wild Thing's wheels. However, the 11th seeds kept attacking, and pushed Hypno-Disc into Dead Metal. Wild Thing then lifted Hypno-Disc onto the arena wall. The match ended with a judges' decision and the number 2 seeds were through to the Grand Final once again.

Hypno-Disc came up against the 19th seeds Pussycat in the Grand Final eliminator and one attack from Pussycat's blade damaged one of its wheel guards, jamming the wheel and leaving it with severe handling problems. It was pushed into the CPZ and Shunt smashed the disc with its axe, stopping it entirely and damaging its gearing. Hypno-Disc was eliminated, and the damage sustained prevented the playoff against Stinger from taking place. Stinger was awarded third place by default and Hypno-Disc placed fourth.

Extreme 1
Its Mayhem battle was the Main Event of Episode 2 of Extreme. Hypno-Disc convincingly won, tearing off both wheels of Ming 3 and immobilising Wheely Big Cheese, avoiding its opponents respectable weaponry with little difficulty. After that battle however, the robot struggled to make much of an impression in Extreme.

In its All-Star first round against Behemoth, where it was favoured to win, the disc couldn't cause any more than superficial damage while Behemoth pushed it around the arena and into CPZs. It got to use its srimech arm for the first time at one point in the battle, but it had a mechanical problem and was left on the flame pit, eliminated.

It was back for the Annihilator, but its performance was similarly disappointing, due to all its competitors ganging up on it. In the first round it was flipped by Thermidor 2 and continually axed by X-Terminator, Splinter and Arnold A. Terminegger but scraped through due to Therimdor 2 breaking down. After failing once again to get the disc to anywhere near its full speed and once again taking damage notably from Arnold A. Terminegger and Sgt. Bash in the second round. However, it had another lucky break when Pussycat knocked X-Terminator's removable link out, immobilising it. The game was up in the third round as it failed to move at all after entering the arena and was pushed into the pit by Pussycat (who was pushed in after Hypno-Disc due to Splinter).

It also faced with Nasty Warrior in a U.K. vs. Germany battle. Despite its opponents inferior weaponry and armour Hypno Disc still lost the battle. It was on top for most of the battle causing damage to the German machine before it suddenly stopped moving and handed the win to Nasty Warrior. This was thought to be due to a splinter of Nasty Warrior's armour that Hypno-Disc had ripped off and had actually immobilised Hypno-Disc by getting into its system.

Unbeknown to most, Hypno-Disc also took part in a Wild Card Warrior battle in Extreme 1 where it fought TX-108. It started the battle well, creating a few gashes in the side before it suddenly broke down 30 seconds into the fight. This made Hypno-Disc become the only veteran to lose to a newcomer in the Wild Card Warrior battles. However, this fight was never aired on television.

Hypno-Disc was also due to fight Razer as part of the Peoples Challenge, due to both being dubbed as "the most destructive robot ever". However, as they did not want to have their robot badly damaged purely for the sake of entertainment, both teams declined.

Series 5
Hypno-Disc returned for Series 5 as the 3rd seed. Its first fight of the Fifth Wars was up against a 200kg walkerbot called Black Widow. The flywheel tore several of the many legs off and became coated in fake webbing before Black Widow's mobility completely ceased. Refbot counted out Black Widow, with its axe still swinging, and Hypno-Disc advanced to the second round. In Round 2, for the first and only time in Robot Wars history, the two seeds of a heat fought each other before the heat final as the 3rd seeds Hypno-Disc went up against the 22nd seeds Atomic 2. Hypno-Disc was flipped once before it righted itself with the center mounted self-righting arm. Hypno-Disc then began to start performing as it tore off its opponent's weapon almost completely and put several gashes down the side too, Atomic 2 was immobilised, counted out by Refbot and Hypno-Disc went through to the heat final. In the Heat Final, Hypno-Disc went up against Bulldog Breed 3. Bulldog Breed 3 was able to flip Hypno-Disc once, almost onto its back, but Hypno-Disc recovered and came back on the offensive. After a lot of slices into the Bulldog's outer shell, Hypno-Disc managed to knock out its safety link, immobilising it instantly. Rather than continue to attack the defenseless opponent, however, the Rose family sportingly pitted Bulldog Breed 3 to spare it damage from the house robots, and Hypno-Disc was through to the semi-finals once more. This occasion was interestingly the only time Hypno-Disc ever rammed an opponent down the pit.

Hypno-Disc's run to the finals was considered unspectacular by many compared to previous performances from it. In the first round of the Semi-Finals it immobilised its opponent, the 7th seeds Firestorm 3, after just one hit from the flywheel, before Firestorm 3 was pitted by the House Robots. In Round Two, Hypno-Disc was up against the 11th seeds Dominator 2. It managed to hit one of the wheels, immobilising Dominator 2 on one side. After a couple more light slams down the side of Dominator 2, the Rose boys held back their machine to avoid sustaining damage and Dominator 2's axe was still coming down ferociously, Hypno-Disc left Dominator 2 to be counted out. However, for some reason, Dominator 2 was not counted out and the match ran down to a judges' decision, with Hypno-Disc merely sitting back waiting for time to run out. The crowd didn't like this and the judges described it as the most boring battle they had ever seen. Nonetheless, Hypno-Disc had earned its place in the Grand Final for the third time.

In the eliminator against the unseeded Bigger Brother, it completely dominated the battle, causing severe damage to Bigger Brother and destroying their flipper. However, when Bigger Brother went for the pit release button, Hypno-Disc attempted to block and pressed it themselves. Bigger Brother then managed to push Hypno-Disc into the pit in one of the greatest shocks in Robot Wars history. In the playoff battle against Firestorm 3, they pushed each other around as Firestorm 3's flipper had been broken by Razer in their previous fight. Firestorm and Hypno-Disc both drove into the pit at the same time. The Judges called for a rematch, but Hypno-Disc had suffered technical problems; the disc and srimech were both working, but the drive motors were immobile and couldn't continue, so Firestorm 3 won by default. This meant that Hypno-Disc finished 4th again.

Series 6
Hypno-Disc slipped another place to a ranking of 4th. In its first round melee, Hypno-Disc went up against 4x4, Granny's Revenge 2 and Barber-Ous 2. 4x4's snagging cloth was unsuccessful in preventing Barber-Ous 2 and Hypno-Disc from doing damage with their blades, before long, 4x4 was immobilised. Granny's Revenge was set alight by Sergeant Bash and destroyed by Hypno-Disc before it was counted out. Hypno-Disc then launched attacks on Barber-Ous, stopping the red and white machine too, leaving Hypno-Disc as the last competitor standing. 4x4 and Granny's Revenge 2 had already been counted out so Barber-Ous 2 went through with Hypno-Disc to Round 2. The second round saw a re-match of the Series 5 Heat B Final against Bulldog Breed for Hypno-Disc. Bulldog Breed put up another valiant fight, almost flipping Hypno-Disc straight away, with only the disc keeping the seed on its wheels. However after a few attacks, the 4th seeds left gashes in both side panels of Bulldog Breed and it lost drive to one side meaning it was counted out by Refbot. Dead Metal tried but failed to attack Bulldog Breed with its circular saw. This put Hypno-Disc through to the heat final where it fought Barber-Ous 2 again. Here, Barber-Ous 2 was immobilised by the very first hit from the horizontal spinning disc of the three times grand finalist. Hypno-Disc continued to attack Barber-Ous 2, slowly edging it towards the pit, until it left several gashes in its opponent's plastic armoury, then, Hypno-Disc left the immobilised machine hanging over the open pit as Refbot counted it out, sending Hypno-Disc through to the Series Semi-Finals for the fourth time in succession. This proved to be Hypno-Disc's final victory in Robot Wars, as an unsuccessful run of battles followed.

The Rose family's machine faced the 12th seeds Tornado and the two spent the whole match pushing each other around. Hypno-Disc avoided the pit several times, but this control was not enough to prevent Tornado from taking a unanimous judges decision. In the loser's melee against the 2nd seeds Bigger Brother and the 10th seeds Spawn Again, Hypno-Disc started aggressively, causing damage to both of its opponents, however its flywheel hit the arena wall after the robot ricocheted off Spawn Again and the whole machine stopped, it was counted out just as Bigger Brother pitted the similarly immobilised Spawn Again, eliminating Hypno-Disc from the competition, marking the first time in four attempts that this robot failed to reach the Grand Final.

Extreme 2
As in Extreme Series 1, Hypno-Disc's contribution to this series was consistently below expectations of its destructive capabilities.

In the All-Stars Tournament, it faced Spawn Again and Dominator 2 in Round 1. It began by slicing at Dominator 2, but it merely bounced off and not causing any visible damage. Then Spawn Again threw Hypno-Disc into the air, but then retreated to then slam Dominator 2 again, before being flipped by Spawn Again again. It then landed numerous blows on Dominator 2, but every time it just bounced off the bi-wedge shaped robot. The three robots met in the centre of the arena and suddenly Hypno-Disc conked out and its disc slowly ground to a halt. Spawn Again then flipped Hypno-Disc over and the Refbot counted it out, Hypno-Disc was then left to be pitted by Growler.

Hypno Disc also took part in the Extreme 2 Challenge Belt special to claim the right to face Tornado for the Challenge Belt at the end of the program. In its first round four-way melee, it didn't last long against S.M.I.D.S.Y., Dantomkia and Sir Chromalot. Hypno-Disc got one slice on S.M.I.D.S.Y. where it spun itself away without causing any damage before Dantomkia charged into Hypno-Disc and pushed it into the CPZ and flipped it onto its back propped against the arena corner. Mr Psycho tried to come in and attack Dantomkia but couldn't move forward, Dantomkia flipped Hypno-Disc out of the arena just as the disc was spinning up to full speed. This was Hypno-Disc's final televised battle.

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 22
 * Losses: 13

Series Record

 * Series 1-2: Did not enter
 * Series 3: Runner-up
 * Series 4: Fourth Place
 * Series 5: Fourth Place
 * Series 6: Semi-Finals, Round 1
 * Series 7: Did not enter