Trolley Rage

Trolley Rage (also known as Trolley Rage 2 ) is a robot which competed in Series 9 of Robot Wars, entered by the University of Greenwich under a budget of £500. The team consists of two senior managers from the university's engineering faculty, one of their sons, and Gareth Anstee, builder of Dystopia and driver of the robot. It was defeated in its Group Battle after suffering terminal damage at the hands of Carbide.

Design
"Trolley Rage is probably the hardest robot we've ever created - as it's designed for a child to look at and be inspired."

- Team. Ablaze Facebook page

Trolley Rage is box-wedge shaped in design, and is armed with a bladed axe which rests on the handlebar at the back of the robot, and serves as the robot's self-righting mechanism. Trolley Rage was built in a way that required little funding to create, using easily accessible materials such as wheelchair motors, despite featuring other modern internals for safety reasons. Trolley Rage, apt to its name, was built from an upturned shopping trolley, and armoured in 3mm steel plating, protected by a 40mm thick box-section frame. Semi-circles were added to Trolley Rage's sides to the robot could not be side-stranded. Trolley Rage can also be equipped with spikes at the front. However, the robot was slow at only 6mph, running on wheelchair motors, before having its voltage raised before entering the arena.

Series 9
Trolley Rage competed in Episode 5 of Series 9, where it faced the previous year's runner-up Carbide, as well as newcomers Meggamouse and Crackers 'n' Smash. However, this proved to be a huge handicap for the team, as Trolley Rage was initially intended to fight Aftershock, Sabretooth and TMHWK - this is why Trolley Rage entered the arena in its setup used for fighting vertical spinners. However, after Crank-E was unable to participate in this Group Battle, Trolley Rage was moved into this fight with no time to apply its bar spinner defence.

Trolley Rage initially aimed itself towards Meggamouse, but turned to the left after Meggamouse rammed Crackers. Trolley Rage was met with an attack from Carbide, which left its front-right panel dangling loose. Trolley Rage then made its way over Crackers, which was stuck on the Flame Pit, although Trolley Rage failed to connect with an attack of its axe. Trolley Rage then made its way over towards the other competing machines, but was once again met with a cynical attack from Carbide, which caused significant bodywork damage as well as ripping out its removable link, leaving Trolley Rage immobilised. "And that could have done enough damage, there, to end the dreams of Trolley Rage very early on."

- Jonathan Pearce

After Meggamouse was also dealt a killer blow by Carbide, the battle came to an end, and Trolley Rage's elimination was confirmed. "To be honest, I don't think it went too badly overall. It certainly moved - it certainly fired. Hopefully it inspires some people to say yeah, we can build a robot out of the scrap metal that's lying in the scrapyards, or wheelchair motors that no-one's going to be using anymore, and we can actually go and build something."

- Gareth Anstee states the positives that can be taken from Trolley Rage's appearance on the show

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 0
 * Losses: 1

Robot Wars Live Events
Ahead of its televised appearance, the original Trolley Rage entered the Maidstone leg of the Robot Wars tour in 2016. Although it lacked its axe, it fought one battle against Stinger and Meggamouse. Immediately it was flipped by Meggamouse, but was able to roll over back onto its wheels. Trolley Rage drove backwards and rammed Stinger before turning away, however Trolley Rage had moments of pausing, leaving it inactive for some periods of time. Trolley Rage was chased by Meggamouse, which flipped it against the arena wall. Trolley Rage tried to get away but Meggamouse pursued and threw Trolley Rage across the arena. After a bombardment of flipping, Trolley Rage begins to move sluggishly, and only could only spin on the spot, while the other two fought on. After managing to get itself to the centre of the arena, Trolley Rage was flipped once more by Meggamouse, this time ontp its back, unable to self right. After this battle valuable experience was gained, and improvements were made to Trolley Rage 2 after the event.

Trivia

 * Trolley Rage's wheels were covered in bike tyre for extra grip, and the team brought spare tread which was eventually used by Arena Cleaner.
 * Although Trolley Rage's speed was listed as 6mph on the Robot Wars website, its speed was much higher with at least 10mph being achieved in testing.