Donald Thump

"We’re gonna make Robot Wars great again!"

- James Davies

Donald Thump was a heavyweight robot built by Team Ballistix, which entered Series 10 of Robot Wars. Its visual design and name is an obvious homage to 45th U.S. President Donald Trump, who was inaugurated between Series 9 and 10 of Robot Wars. The robot had a previous identity as Terror-Bull.

Design
"It’s gonna be tremendous"

- James Davies

Donald Thump sported a wide, plough-shaped design, with five flat sides. It featured a small front wedge, designed to lead robots into the 16kg vertical spinning bar, driven by a 1kg belt pulley, allowing the weapon to reach speeds of 145mph (5000rpm). The weapon can reach its top speed within a very short period of 2 seconds. The robot was armed in comparatively thin 3mm HARDOX, weighing 102kg in total, although its self-righting had not been tested. The robot and its weapon were painted gold, in homage to the U.S. President, Donald Trump. It was decorated with Trump’s eyes, eyebrows, and a comedy mouth. Donald Thump could also be equipped with 'blonde hair' made from straw, seen in its official imagery, but this was not used on television as the team feared it would cause their own spinning bar to become entangled. Originally a purple minibot, known as Nigel Barrage, was to fight alongside it, but the combined weight was too high. "It’s a solid gold bar. I use gold, because gold is the hardest metal in the world, guaranteed, okay, guaranteed! Some people think it’s small, but if they say the bar is small, then something else must be small, okay, I guarantee you folks, it’s not an issue!"

- James Davies, in character, on Donald Thump’s weapon

Qualification
Before it was rebranded as Donald Thump, the robot was originally known as Terror-Bull. Team Ballistix had applied for Series 8 using a rebranded version of Leveller 2 Mk 4.5 known as Terror-Bull, but their Series 9 entry was the bar spinner that would later become Donald Thump, instead using a brown bull-themed design, featuring a nose ring. Regardless, Terror-Bull was not selected for Series 9.

Donald Thump initially applied for Series 10 using the same Terror-Bull design, fearing that political designs would not be accepted by the BBC, but Terror-Bull was still not selected to compete. Closer to filming, Team Ballistix revealed Donald Thump in a comedic video, where James Davies dressed up as Donald Trump, and utilised every well-known Trump quote while introducing the robot. This would eventually lead to Donald Thump's inclusion in the series, hardly a week before filming began. An official trailer for Series 10 included a small clip of this video. "We're gonna start winning, bigly!"

- James Davies in the Series 10 trailer

Series 10
"[James Davies], recently qualified, is here with his bodyguard, a.k.a. accountant Dad, to bring some covfefe to proceedings!"

- Angela Scanlon

Donald Thump competed in Episode 1. "You've never seen a robot like this before, it's one of the greatest. It's so powerful. It's got wheels. It's got spinners. It's got... weapons, and metal... it's, it's got all of the bits, okay!"

- James Davies, in character

Results

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Robot Wars Live Events
Team Ballistix competed at Robot Wars live events between 2013 and 2016 using Leveller 2 Mk 4.5. Aside from Leveller 2, Team Ballistix also competed with a brand-new flipper known as Schu-Bot, resembling Scraptosaur, which remains active today. Schu-Bot is named after Shubert’s Unfinished Symphony, due to the robot’s unfinished state. At the Colchester event in 2016, Schu-Bot fell to robots such as Eruption and TR2, but collected a victory over Iron Heart 88.

Outside Robot Wars
Donald Thump made its combat debut at the Extreme Robots event in Manchester, in April 2017. The team intended to run their spinning bar at 125mph, but after the roof of the arena was deemed to be unsafe, Donald Thump could only compete without the use of its weapon. In its first fight, electrical issues caused it to fall to Iron-Awe 5 and the eventual winner of the battle Suspension. Donald Thump then lost its second fight to Big Nipper due to a faulty connector, before battling HIGH-5 and Thor in its final battle. After the same connector led to Donald Thump’s immobilisation, James Davies invited Jason Marston to land repeated axe blows onto his robot, which Donald Thump withstood reasonably well.

At the Extreme Robots event in Gloucester in October 2017, a completely rebuilt Donald Thump appeared on the first day and replaced S.M.I.D.S.Y. whose battery had begun to smoke after entering the arena. It was permitted to use its spinner, but the robot had intermittent control in a battle with ACE and Rattler, and could not properly land a blow.

Trivia

 * Team Ballistix wished to enter a minibot named Nigel Barrage alongside Donald Thump, in reference to UK politician Nigel Farrage, but could not do so due to weight restrictions.