Cassius

"Floats like a butterfly, Stings like a bee"

- Motto on the side of Cassius

Cassius, a competitor robot from the second and third series, was a wedge-shaped robot from Stowmarket in Suffolk. Its main weapon was a forward-hinged flipping ram, made out of a modified motorbike suspension fork. It produced 1.5t of lift, giving it enough power to overturn even many of the house robots, and for 2 years, was the robot that came closest to flipping Sir Killalot. Cassius' frame was made of mild steel box section covered in polycarbonate panels.

Although a powerful robot, Cassius' main weakness came in the form of its gaping ground clearance, which at times caused it to struggle to get underneath opponents (later rectified by adjustable air suspension in Series 3), as well as causing it to do poorly in its Semi-Final Gauntlet run. Sir Killalot also exploited this weakness by turning it over with its lance twice (although this did allow it to utilise its famous self-righting mechanism), as did Panic Attack. Cassius reached the Grand Final in Series 2, where it placed second overall after being pitted by Panic Attack in the final battle. In both series, Cassius was intended to be in one of the earlier heats of Robot Wars, but technical difficulties caused it to be pushed back towards the latter end of the Series.

Although not the first robot to attempt it, Cassius was the first robot to successfully use a self-righting mechanism, or srimech in Robot Wars. When Sir Killalot flipped it over during the Pinball trial, Cassius used its flipping arm to throw itself back over onto its wheels, allowing it to score some more points. Since then, the srimech has become something of a Robot Wars essential.

After its successful run in Series 2, the team built a second, separate robot called Cassius 2, which had a simular design to its predecessor, but with translucent and more angled perspex armour, a wider and more powerful flipper (a flip-up paddle according to its statistics in Series 3) and a brand new rear weapon; a ¾ metre-length pneumatic spike at the back, powerful enough to catapult the whole robot out of the pit if it were to fall in backwards (this was never actually seen on-screen). Besides these more obvious changes, it had some more subtle differences between the original Cassius. It was faster and lighter than the original, and was equipped with a unique variable air suspension system which it would use to adjust its ground clearance mid-fight, adjusting between higher clearance and lower clearance modes for manouverability and fighting respectively. Unfortunately, it fell relatively early in Series 3 after some skillful driving from Pussycat caused it to reverse straight into the pit. Interestingly, every fight which Cassius ever lost was by being pitted, ending up there four times in all (although technically, it had already won the battle in one of these circumstances).

Cassius was created by former children's TV presenter Rex Garrod. He was very much a sporting person, and would prefer to attack a house robot rather than a competitor that had already been beaten. Team Cassius retired after Series 3, due to several behind the scenes incidents, but competed in live circuits for a while afterwards as Cassius 3, which looked more like Chaos 2, but was all together more angular than its predecessors, had two self righting rams on either side of the machine, and it was the first and only Cassius with a rear hinged flipper. All three of the original Cassius robots still appear as display robots at the annual Debenham robot rumbles, alongside The Steel Avenger, Chaos 2 and other famous competitor robots that are now retired.

Rex Garrod originally entered in the first series of Robot Wars with his first machine Recyclopse, this was coincidently the first robot to flip a house robot (Matilda).

Series 2


Cassius began its Robot Wars debut as the fifth seed, due to the impressive performance of Series 1 Grand Finalist Recyclopse. Johnathon Pearce himself mentioned that amongst the roboteers, Cassius was the competition favourite.

"Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee, power and pace is Rex Garrod's key."-Johnathon Pearce on Cassius's gauntlet run.

In the Gauntlet, Cassius whizzed straight past the Sentinel and Dead Metal to claim the fastest run in the heat, and scored the second goal in the trial after freeing the ball from the wall with its wedge and getting chased by Matilda. After pushing Wizard into the PPZ in the semi-final, Cassius went after the house robots. It did the same after flipping Loco in the final - it attacked Dead Metal, Shunt and Matilda, finally flipping Matilda like Recyclopse did in Series 1. Eventually it was ganged up on by the house robots and knocked sideways into the pit, but had already won the battle and the heat.

Cassius went through the brick wall in the Semi-Final Gauntlet, but was pushed back by Shunt. It spent the rest of the time going round in circles after its chassis got wedged onto a brick. The distance of 5.15 metres was sufficient to pass through to the Trial after beating the distances set by Haardvark and Plunderbird 2, the latter falling at this particular stage. Cassius scored 200 points in the Pinball, but midway through, it was then picked up by Sir Killalot and turned upside down. It then used its flipping mechanism to perform a somersault and right itself, much to the delight of the viewers. This was the first succesful appearance of the self-righting mechanism. By now, Cassius had become the favourites to win the Series since the demise of Mortis in Semi Final 1. It tossed Haardvark onto its back to win the Arena fight, and progressed into the Grand Final.

Cassius was drawn against the reigning champions, Roadblock. Roadblock got beneath Cassius and pushed it. Cassius got stuck on the side of Roadblock, but fell off after driving round in circles. Cassius was then turned over by Sir Killalot again, and it used its pneumatic ram to flip itself back onto its wheels, allowing it to continue the fight. Meanwhile, Roadblock had got stuck in the PPZ. Cassius came in, got underneath Roadblock, and turned it onto its side for the win. In the Grand Final, Cassius got under Panic Attack but could not flip it. On the second attempt at driving at each other, Panic Attack drove straight over Cassius, landing on its wheels. Cassius briefly attacked Dead Metal to escape, having been pushed into the House Robot by Panic Attack. The robots drove around, and then Panic Attack charged Cassius from the side, knocking it into the pit to claim the title.

After series 2, Mortis and Cassius took part in a special Grudge match, which Mortis won due to Cassius accidentally driving into the pit after trying to pit Mortis, who was stranded on the side of the pit with a broken track. Even still, Mortis was pushed into the pit afterwards by Shunt, before the overturned Cassius fired its ram from the bottom of the pit to push Mortis back out.

Series 3
The first round for Cassius 2 was a grudge match against Dundee, who were behind Loco in Series 2. In this fight the robots kept avoiding each other and trading small blows (With Cassius 2 pushing Dundee into Sir Killalot's CPZ at one point), before Cassius 2 finally slid beneath Dundee and threw it over with its powerful new flip-up paddle. It then attacked Matilda, dislodging the female house robot's rear armour, before being itself attacked by Shunt, who axed the flipper, causing a large hole in the top of the robot.

The second round drew it against Pussycat. Cassius 2 started quickly and immediately smashed into Pussycat, knocking it over. Pussycat attacked and bounced over Cassius 2, with Cassius 2 then used its new pneumatic spike, knocking Pussycat back a short distance. It then reversed at Pussycat in an attempt to pit it, but the feline-themed robot drove out of the way, causing Cassius 2 to overshoot and drive backwards into the pit. The pneumatic anti-pit spike was not able to work at this point because it fell in at the wrong angle, landing with its wedge and rear wedged sideways against the edge. This shock elimination of the previous series' runner-up was one of the most major upsets in the Third Wars.

Cassius 2 was intended to represent the UK in the Third Wars International League Championship, but was unable to compete, so Razer fought - and won - in its place.

Rex Garrod harboured his disagreements for some of the Robot Wars rules (see Garrod's Protest), this was the reason he did not return after Series 3.

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 5
 * Losses: 3

Series Record

 * Series 1: Entered with Recyclopse
 * Series 2: Runner-up
 * Series 3: Heat, Round 2
 * Series 4-7: Did not enter