Eric

"We wanted a non-aggressive name, something totally mundane."

- Mike Hammerton on naming his robot

Eric is a heavyweight robot which competed in Series 3 and 4, losing in Round 1 of Series 3 to King Buxton, but made the Heat Final of Series 4 before losing to Splinter.

Design
Eric was a triangular wedge-shaped robot, somewhat similar in design to Raizer Blade. Built with a space-frame triangulated, fully welded chassis made of Aluminium and with a top speed of up to 12mph, it was armoured in aluminium and stainless steel,  painted green by captain Mike Hammerton's daughter Michelle. It also featured flame decals down each side, along with eyes- presumably to give it more of a "personality", in keeping with its name.

Its weapon was a hydraulic Lifting Arm powered by a starter motor from a grass cutter, capable of lifting 200kg and with a spatula wedge on the end of it for getting under opponents. This concealed a set of teeth along the chassis and underneath the Lifting Arm, for clamping and crushing with a force of 1.25 tonnes. Eric also had a self-righting mechanism, consisting of two arms on the sides of the robot, which were activated by the main weapon's hydraulic ram.

Qualification
Team Riptide, the current owners of Eric, applied to enter the 2016 series of Robot Wars, though ultimately it was not chosen to compete.

Series 3
Eric debuted in Series 3, coming up against previous semi-finalists King Buxton in the first round of the heat. In the battle, King Buxton immediately lifted Eric, but was then lifted itself, and lost one of its spike tips on the lifting forks. King Buxton then pushed Eric towards the pit of oblivion, but in trying to push Eric into the pit, King Buxton missed and both robots got stuck over the edge with their left wheels hanging over the pit. Unable to escape, Eric reversed in an attempt to pit King Buxton, but in doing so accidentally freed its opponent and drove into the pit itself, eliminating Eric from the competition.

Series 4
"Eric, I think, are dark horses for this Heat"

- Jonathan Pearce, at the start of the Heat

Eric returned to Robot Wars with an extended lower section of the front flipper as its only upgrade, and was drawn against the 16th seeds Killerhurtz and Destruct-A-Bubble in the first round. Eric tried to flip both of its opponents in throughout the battle, but Destruct-A-Bubble was too top-heavy, and Killerhurtz too wide. Eric teamed up with Killerhurtz to push Destruct-A-Bubble around, pushing it into the CPZ and then the Arena Wall. Eric managed to lift Killerhurtz onto an angle grinder, but Killerhurtz recovered and attacked Eric with its axe. The battle ended, and Destruct-A-Bubble was eliminated on the judges decision.

This put Eric through to face Small Torque, the new machine from Team Torque. Small Torque tried to attack Eric with its disc, but it was ineffective. After flipping Small Torque, Eric pushed the invertible robot into a CPZ, where it started smoking and eventually broke down. This put Eric through to the Heat Final.

Eric met promising new robot Splinter in the Heat Final. Eric used its flipping arm, tipping Splinter onto its side. Splinter self-righted and shoved Eric up against the arena wall, where it was pinned as its flipper had gotten stuck on the wall. The judges gave the battle to Splinter, who they ruled had been more aggressive.

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 2
 * Losses: 2

Series Record

 * Series 1-2: Did not enter
 * Series 3: Heat, Round 1
 * Series 4: Heat Final
 * Series 5-7: Did not enter
 * 2016 Series: Failed to qualify
 * 2017 Series: Did not enter

Robot Wars Live Events
Eric was originally going to be returning to Robot Wars in September and entering the World Championships, however was withdrawn due to time and financial restraints. According to Matt Smith of Team Riptide, the armour is far too weak for today's competitions and didn't feel comfortable entering the machine until it had been completely upgraded.

Despite initial worries, Eric made its debut in the second show of the first Robot Wars Live Event of 2016 at Manchester where in a battle suffered a lot of extensive body damage from Gabriel, which bent most of the chassis and panels out of shape. The damage has since been repaired.

During Manchester, Harry from Team Panoramic made a short documentary with the team called "The Erickoning - An Eric Documentary" showing some testing, fights during the Sunday shows, quick speeches and an interview in front of the crowd.

Outside Robot Wars
After Robot Wars ended, Eric was sold to Adam Emmett, the captain of Team Mute, who was intending to give it upgrades. However, due to other commitments, Emmett was too busy to take Eric on as a project so it was sold once more, to Tony Smith of the newly named Team Scar, a Glasgow-based team who also ran Scar and Chimera from Team Death. Team Scar planned on converting an existing robot into a featherweight version of Eric called Eric Jr.

Eric came out of retirement in 2012, fighting at a Robots Live! event battling against Storm Force, Merlin and Toon Raider, and finished third.

More recently in 2015, Eric was sold again to Team Riptide who intended to upgrade it with the intention of re-entering it in competition. It was to receive a full hardox armour upgrade, as well as LiPo batteries, up-to-date speed controllers and a full pressure pneumatic system to bring it more up to date with current machines.

Two Eric machines are currently under construction, a 'Retro Eric' built as a replica of the old Eric but with survive-ability and general maintainability upgrades for the live circuit. Eric 2 is also under construction, but details are scarce thus far.

According to the TeamEric twitter page, Eric has been applied for the 2017 series of Robot Wars.