Beast

Beast was the name given to a series of heavyweight robots which entered three different series of Robot Wars. In the original run of the show, the robot was spelt 8645T in the style of a number-plate. The team claimed that squinting at this spelling made it look like the word "Beast", and it was often referred to as such by Jonathan Pearce, Stuart McDonald and Philippa Forrester.

The robots were entered by John Lear with his son, John Lear Jr., alongside his nephew James Wood in Series 5 and 7, or Alex Marler in 2016. 8645T reached the second round in Series 5, failed to qualify for Series 4 and 6 and was defeated in the first round in Series 7 as 8645T 2, while Beast reached the Head to Head stage in Series 8. The newest version of Beast, Harpy, was invited to attend Series 10 as a reserve, but ultimately went unused.

8645T
In Series 5, it was a long narrow wedge with a full pressure CO2 powered flipper off a hydraulic ram delivering 750PSI pressure that doubled as a rear spike-axe, a design later utilised by Robochicken in Series 7. The robot was one of the tallest in the series due to its axe, and was fairly fast, though it could not self-right, and also featured exposed wheels.

8645T 2
In Series 7, it was known as 8645T 2, and was a much shorter wedge. Its flipper was raised to a higher height, and had more power, but still combined with the axe, which was also more powerful due to the improvements to the flipper. The robot had even more speed, and improved tyre protection, but it still could not self-right due to the axe. "That's a beast of a problem to have!"

- Jonathan Pearce on 8645T 2's inability to self-right

Beast
"We have a massive buffer tank, big weapon, and we've got to show it off by having no armour!"

- John Lear

Beast was a curved wedge-shaped heavyweight robot, armed with a full-pressure rear-hinged flipper, capable of flipping 115kg. The robot was rather bare in terms of armour, instead using a structure of framework with many gaps to keep the robot’s weight down, much like R.O.C.S., leaving the robot’s wheels exposed to certain types of weapon. In response to Beast's skeletal frame, the team claimed ‘other robots hide behind [HARDOX] boxes’. LED lights also appeared inside the robot.

Harpy
To compete in Series 10, Beast underwent a rebrand, and became known as Harpy. The robot's shape and core design was the same, but its armour was much more reflective. The flipper of Harpy was redesigned to feature no padding to defend against axes, nor the robot's logo, and instead features a new conventional wedge blade. Most notably, Harpy has an interchangeable, flatter wedge, which is used in tandem with Harpy's alternative weapon - its large overhead gear-driven axe. Unlike 8645T, Harpy's axe works independently of the flipper, and can allow the robot to self-right.

Qualification
8645T won two qualifier battles on Series 4's tour, but despite this success, it still was not selected to compete.

At the Series 5 qualifiers, 8645T fought Kan-Opener. 8645T won the battle, and both robots were given places in the series. 8645T 2 failed to qualify for Series 6 because it was disqualified from the qualifiers after its axe damaged the arena floor. At the Series 7 qualifiers, 8645T 2 fought Mighty Mouse (who it would fight in Series 7), TX-108, and an unknown third opponent. 8645T 2 won the battle, thus gaining guaranteed qualification.

Beast was chosen to compete in Series 8 through an open application process, but this method did not work twice, and Beast was not chosen to return when the team applied for Series 9. Returning to Series 10 as Harpy, the team were invited to attend as reserves, but completed filming as one of only two unused reserves, alongside Infernal Contraption.

Series 5
"We wanted to fight Chaos 2..."

- John Lear

8645T fought in Heat A of the Fifth Wars. 8645T's first round battle saw it go up against Team Roaming Robots' machine T-Bone. 8645T used its axe weapon unsuccessfully, and T-Bone charged into 8645T's side, but its disc was not working. 8645T flipped T-Bone up several times, before finally impaling T-Bone with its axe. The two robots dragged each other around until the end of the battle, where it went to a judges' decision, which went in favour of 8645T.

In the second round of the heat, 8645T fought S.M.I.D.S.Y., the 24th seed, who stood between 8645T and its dream adversary, Chaos 2. 8645T pinned S.M.I.D.S.Y. with its axe, and S.M.I.D.S.Y., unable to escape, pushed 8645T into the side wall where it was attacked by Shunt. Suddenly 8645T was on the defensive, taking damage from Shunt's axe and with S.M.I.D.S.Y. worming its way beneath it. S.M.I.D.S.Y. then used its jaws to tip 8645T onto its side in Shunt's CPZ. 8645T managed to escape, and charged S.M.I.D.S.Y. once more, with the Cyberspace machine mercilessly charging 8645T and tipping it onto its back once more. 8645T then was seized and taken to the floor flipper by Sir Killalot, but managed to flee as it was unintentionally dropped back onto its wheels. Cease was called, since 8645T had already been counted out. "Oh, I wanted to see the beast fly!"

- Jonathan Pearce at the end of the fight

Series 7
8645T 2 went up against Mobot, Mighty Mouse and the 14th seeds Thermidor 2 in the first round of the Seventh Wars. 8645T 2 was immediately targeted by Thermidor 2, who flipped it onto its back straight away in an unoccupied CPZ. 8645T 2 swiftly self-righted, and got away from danger, then deciding to take on Mobot, trying to flip it but missing. But Thermidor 2 then came back with a run-up and threw 8645T 2 back onto its side. 8645T vented huge clouds of CO2 trying to self-right, but ultimately failed. After being counted out, 8645T 2 was righted by Thermidor 2 and assaulted by the House Robots. Pulling away, it charged across the arena, evading the House Robots. Suddenly, the arena floor flipper activated, throwing 8645T 2 through the air and causing it to land on the other side of the arena. "We got you in the end!"

- Jonathan Pearce's desire to see the Beast fly comes true 8645T 2 made one final attempt to pit the now immobilised Mighty Mouse, but drove straight into the pit itself. "Oh well, there's always next year, just have to lose the axe and just have a flipper, or do we make another robot, a spinning cooling tower which runs any way up called RPL perhaps?"

- The 8645T website on their plans after Series 7

Series 8
Beast competed in Episode 5, where it fought Crazy Coupe 88, Gabriel and Infernal Contraption in its first round melee. Beast could not use its flipper effectively in the opening stages, failing to lift Infernal Contraption and Gabriel on separate attempts, but after stopping the spinning blades, Beast flipped Crazy Coupe 88 over, which eliminated itself by driving into Dead Metal afterwards. Although Beast pushed Gabriel, its efforts mostly turned towards Infernal Contraption, pushing it over the flame pit while missing with another flip. Beast turned Infernal Contraption around, which drove itself into the pit, allowing Beast to qualify alongside Gabriel. "Flipper wasn't coming back down as fast as we wanted it to, so just need to find out the problem."

- John Lear, Jr

Beast was next drawn against Ironside3, a dangerous spinner built by Trevor Wright, who Team BEAST had fought in the Seventh Wars. Beast needed to chase Ironside3 as quickly as it could in order to stop the spinning bar from gaining speed, but could not catch its equally fast opponent, and Ironside3 sent Beast spinning away with an attack. An attack to Beast's flipper seemed to hamper its mobility, and it failed to flip when Ironside3 drove over the top of it. At this stage, one of Beast's tyres had locked, and when Ironside3 tore into Beast's mobile tyre, it was rendered immobile after gas quickly escaped from it. Beast could only fire its flipper to feign mobility, but it was counted out, and lost the battle. Beast then fought another spinning weapon, Pulsar. It slowly approached its opponent, but once again could not get underneath. It suffered from drive problems almost immediately, and stood almost still when Pulsar attacked the side. Beast was flung up by the drum, and completely immobilised by the second hit of the drum when it landed. Beast's second loss meant that it could no longer reach the Heat Final.

Despite its elimination, Beast still fought Gabriel for one last match. However, Beast suffered even more problems before the battle began, as its flipper fired shortly before the battle, and it had to be forced back into a neutral position. Thus, Beast entered the arena without a weapon. Team Saint also noticed Beast's exposed tyres, and intended to aim for them with their robot's sword swings.

Beast barely crept forward in the match before Gabriel rained down blows on it, immobilising one side of Beast from the very beginning. When Gabriel pressed the pit release button, its team noticed that Beast was effectively immobile, and after a few more tentative swings, held off. Beast simply drove in circles to show signs of life, but the team admitted that they had lost the battle, and encouraged Gabriel to land more attacks. It nudged Beast closer to the pit, but held off once again as Craig Colliass noticed that Beast was starting to overheat, and cease was eventually called. Dead Metal came in afterwards, and sliced through the top of Beast, to cause extra injury to the fallen robot. Although the match lasted the full three minutes, the Judges declared that Beast was immobilised early into the battle, and it lost via KO. "Although Beast was still mobile on one of the wheels, it basically was not going anywhere. That was loss of control, loss of mobility."

- Professor Sethu Vijayahumar

It was later revealed that Beast's mobility was hampered in its final two battles because the magnets within one of its motors was broken, which the team did not realise until filming was complete.

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 2
 * Losses: 5

Robot Wars Live Events
Beast competed in the first live event of the new Robot Wars at Barnsley in February 2013, where it was thrown out of the arena by Ripper in the first round. Beast also participated in the Robot Wars Winter Tour 2013 held at the end of the year where it qualified through to the finals after throwing Meggamouse out the arena during the secondary heats in held at Doncaster and won the separate competition held at that event. In the finals held at Gloucester, it beat Titan on a Judges' decision, but lost to Manta in the semi-finals after getting immobilised where it was stuck on top of the arena wall in a comical way. For the purposes of the Live Events, a new version of Beast, known as Beast 2 was built, sporting a red colour scheme, and smaller wheels. However, the robot was not operating as well as the original Beast, thus, it did not compete in Series 8 of Robot Wars. Both versions of Beast made separate appearances at the Robot Wars World Championships in 2015, held at Colchester. Beast fought in the main competition, where it fought Brutus and Ka-Pow! in the first round. It qualified on a Judges’ decision, having thrown both robots around the arena. In the second round, it fought Tough as Nails and Gabriel. Beast started reasonably well, but was eventually grabbed by Tough as Nails, which damaged Beast’s tyre and pitted it, eliminating Beast from the competition. Meanwhile, Beast 2 fought in the Annihilator side event, with more success. Beast 2 made it all the way to the final, where it immobilised Ka-Pow! with a single flip, but lost a long match to Toon Raider, meaning Beast 2 placed 2nd overall.

Beast 2 has now been renamed Khaos (not to be confused with former Robot Wars champion Chaos 2). It first competed under its new name at the Robot Wars event in Colchester 2016 where it had moderate success.

Outside Robot Wars
Meanwhile, team member Alex Marler originally started off with his own team in 2006. He fought with three featherweights on the live event circuit, his first was Psycho Fling which started off as a Zeobot featherweight kit purchased from Technobots and was made of old arena polycarbonate (later stainless steel) before it was rebuilt as a two-wheel driven invertible design with a front lifter. He has also fought with Block of Wood so called due to its choice of armour which managed to finish 4th in the 2007 Featherweight UK Championships. Since 2008, Marler has also fought with a 3rd featherweight called Crumple Zone armed with a vertical crushing jaw.

Trivia

 * The 2016 version of Beast was originally conceived shortly after Series 7, with the intentions of entering a new series as early as 2005.
 * Team BEAST is one of very few teams with two members who share the same name. Others include Leveller 2's team and Team 13.