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 the 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. "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 the Donald Thump design to the producers, and the robot was selected as a reserve one week before the series was to be filmed. After an unknown robot withdrew from Series 10, Donald Thump joined the main line-up.

Series 10
Donald Thump competed in Episode 1.

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 was first publicly revealed through a comedy video released on the Team Ballistix Facebook page, where James Davies dressed up as Donald Trump, and utilised every well-known Trump quote while introducing the robot.

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.

Trivia

 * Although Robot Wars: The Official Handbook claims that Donald Thump weighs 110kg, the robot actually weighs 102kg.