M.R. Speed Squared

"At work, we try to avoid fatalities, but at Robot Wars, that's the mission!"

- Peter Forsey, cardiologist and team captain

M.R. Speed Squared, pronounced "Mr Speed Squared", is a heavyweight robot, built by Team Forsey, who entered Series 8-9 of Robot Wars. It reached the Head to Head stage after convincingly winning its Group Battle, but was eliminated after failing to score enough points to progress to the Heat Final.

The name M.R. Speed Squared is derived from the equation that calculates the power of the spinning rim, mass x radius2 = speed, or S = mr2.

Team Forsey had also previously competed in the original series of Robot Wars with Trouble 'n' Strife, which took part in Series 5, and Revenge of Trouble & Strife, which competed in Series 6-7 and the second series of Robot Wars Extreme.

Design
The team decided to forego the flipper of previous iteration Revenge of Trouble & Strife on M.R. Speed Squared to allow the robot to be invertible.

The robot was armed with an angled full-body spinning steel rim. The 22kg rim was capable of spinning at a force of 80 kilajoules (1000 RPM during the build process), creating high amounts of kinetic energy on impact. The rim was interchangeable, so the team could pick the most appropriate blade depending on its opponents. Its armour consisted of rubber-mounted 3mm aluminium over a 3mm steel frame. However, the team were forced to remove part of this armour as it pushed the robot over the weight limit, leaving one side vulnerable to overhead attacks, and the robot was slow at 8mph.

A brand-new M.R. Speed Squared returned in Series 9, sporting a much lower profile. Although its spinning rim now spins at 900rpm, it now weighs 35kg, and the robot's speed was more than doubled. The rim is made from 10mm HARDOX with two 10cm tool steel teeth. However, the robot is still exposed to overhead attacks.

Series 8
M.R. Speed Squared appeared in Episode 2, and faced three newcomers to the main heavyweight competition, Chimera, Draven and Foxic. Due to the robot being overweight, Team Forsey had to remove the armour on the bottom of the machine, leaving its internals exposed. When they entered the arena, the exposed internals were visible to all, as M.R. Speed Squared had entered the arena inverted.

M.R. Speed Squared spent the first few seconds getting their spinning rim up to full speed, and once they had, it immediately targeted Chimera, and punctured one of its tyres, tearing it loose, the second hit removing the tyre completely. With Foxic and Draven remaining, M.R. Speed Squared chose to target Draven next, sending it spinning away with a blow, ripping kevlar from its body. Although Draven was attacking the nearly lifeless Foxic, M.R. Speed Squared landed another blow on Draven, immobilising it. M.R. Speed Squared had qualified for the head-to-head round with Foxic, although it was later realised that the robot had lost some weapon bearing motors in the process. M.R. Speed Squared's first opponent in the head-to-heads was Thor. Proving this to be a regular tactic, M.R. Speed Squared avoided Thor in the opening moments to get its spinner up to speed, although it was slammed into the pit release button, halting its progress. The team's efforts to run away saw M.R. Speed Squared slammed into the arena wall, over the flame pit, and into Dead Metal's claws, where Thor punched a dent into the aluminium armour, and slammed it into a wall again. M.R. Speed Squared seemed to have lost the ability to spin its weapon, and an axe blow from Thor put a huge gash in M.R. Speed Squared. The spinning rim eventually started working again, but Thor's anti-spinner wedge protected itself. Both robots drove over the floor flipper, which threw both robots, leaving M.R. Speed Squared's unarmoured underbelly exposed. Although M.R. Speed Squared's spinner protected it at first, a strong blow disabled it for the rest of the match. The spinning rim was hammered by Thor, before the exposed internals were punished by Thor. Either by accident, or to protect the robot's internals, M.R. Speed Squared drove straight into the pit, awarding themselves a loss. Drawn against Foxic again, M.R. Speed Squared implemented its usual tactic of running away to get the rim up to speed - although in this match, the rim had broken, so M.R. Speed Squared spent the entire match fleeing from Foxic, which was in turn focused on attacking the House Robots. Finding something to do, M.R. Speed Squared pressed the pit release button, before continuing to keep its distance. M.R. Speed Squared launched a gentle final attack of driving into Foxic, but was lifted in return, and cease was called on an uneventful match. The Judges ruled, on a 2-1 split decision, that M.R. Speed Squared had won the match, on the basis of not driving into danger, awarding them two points. Professor Noel Sharkey deemed this the worst fight he had seen in Robot Wars, calling it complete rubbish. "Bit of an anti-climax really, we'd spent a lot of time fixing the disc, hoping to get a big bang on Foxic. Unfortunately in the arena it didn't spin up, we don't know why, everything else was fine, we got the Judges' decision, but it didn't feel very glorious, really."

- Peter Forsey

On two points, M.R. Speed Squared had the opportunity to qualify for the Heat Final, if they could defeat Shockwave. Rather than flee, M.R. Speed Squared drove in circles to maximise the speed of its rim, although Shockwave was mostly unharmed, and pushed M.R. Speed Squared into Sir Killalot and Dead Metal, which cut through the chassis. When M.R. Speed Squared attacked Shockwave, it buckled its opponents scoop and knocked a drive chain loose, but then M.R. Speed Squared was lifted against the arena wall by Shockwave, where it started to smoke, and was pushed towards Sir Killalot again. "Team captain Peter works in a hospital theatre as a cardiologist, plenty of heart in M.R. Speed Squared, but it's about to be arrested, it would seem, by Shockwave!"

- Jonathan Pearce

M.R. Speed Squared was not being given chances to spin up its rim, and was overturned by Shockwave, once again exposing its vulnerable internals. Rammed into the wall, M.R. Speed Squared was held above the arena floor, and then driven right onto the lip of the pit. Although both robots had nearly fallen into the pit, it was Shockwave that achieved the finishing blow, and M.R. Speed Squared was pushed into the pit, eliminating it from the competition. "M.R. Speed Squared into the square-shaped trap!"

- Jonathan Pearce

Series 9
M.R. Speed Squared will compete in Episode 3.

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 2
 * Losses: 2

Trivia

 * Erroneously, the robot's name was spelled simply as "MR SPEED SQUARED" on television, while the official website referred to it as "M.R Speed Squared". The correct name is "M.R. Speed Squared", featuring two full stops.