Nuts

"...all eager to do damage with spinners, axes, flippers and...whatever that is."

- Jonathan Pearce previewing some competitors, including Nuts, in Meet the House Robots

Nuts is a heavyweight robot that entered the Series 8 of Robot Wars, also returning to Series 9 as Nuts 2. It reached the Head to Head stage in Series 8, but lost all three battles in the Head to Head stage.

Team Nuts all wear top hats and fluffy waistcoats on the series, and each team member wears a differently coloured waistcoat.

Nuts
Nuts was a two-wheeled thwackbot armed with a set of chain flails as its primary weapon. Its wheels were made from HDPE, a very tough plastic. The robot protected its huge wheels with a metal ring around the outside, which the flails are attached to. The ring was able to rotate vertically in order to provide extra mobility, turn the robot over to escape from danger, and the ability to lift other robots, as well as satisfying the requirement for a robot to have an active weapon. Nuts had a top speed of 13mph, and its combined weight with its minibots was 110kg. Like most thwackbots, Nuts could spin on the spot at 180rpm for a defensive form of attack, with exceptionally far reach due to the length of its flails. Nuts was accompanied by two smaller wedge-shaped clusterbots, to attempt to impede the movement of opponents by driving underneath them, and cause distractions. The clusterbots were originally covered in fur which had to be removed for safety reasons. The team claimed that Nuts sacrificed better armour to make its weaponry as strong as possible.

Nuts 2
Nuts 2 uses a more compact and lighter design, now weighing 90kg, and swapping the square rim for an octagonal ring. Its 3m flails have 2kg heads, and Nuts 2's upgrade to 20mph top speeds means that the robot can now spin on the spot at 500rpm. Nuts 2's wheels are more sleek, and abandon the axles on the side of the previous version. Its chassis is made from 3.2mm HARDOX, with 6mm HARDOX armour, while the ring is made from 3mm mild steel. "This thing should pack a serious punch! Similar to being hit by a 180mph sledge hammer in fact..."

- Team Nuts Facebook page

Nuts 2 is accompanied by three new minibots, which are lighter than that of the previous series at 3kg each. The minibots' wheels are no longer exposed, slotting into the 10mm HDPE base plates of each minibot, compared to the 8mm HDPE of their predecessors. "All fully CNCd, including custom battle hardened googly eyes!"

- Team Nuts Facebook page

Series 8
Nuts received an extremely tough draw for its first battle, as it was pitted up against Razer, Terrorhurtz and Robin Herrick with his new machine, Kill-E-Crank-E, all three of which had been grand finalists in previous series of Robot Wars. It was targeted for most of the battle by Terrorhurtz, but managed to evade the majority of its opponents' axe blows despite being pushed onto its side a few times. Razer managed to puncture one of the minibots, but Nuts itself remained mostly unharmed. Nuts qualified for the Head-to-Head stage alongside Terrorhurtz after Razer and Kill-E-Crank-E both fell into the pit. For its first battle in this stage, Nuts went against another veteran, Behemoth. Here, it was able to use its chain flails effectively to keep Behemoth at bay briefly, but was pushed around the arena for the majority of the battle, with Behemoth nearly flipping its minibots out of the arena and Nuts getting one of its flails caught in the floor flipper mechanism at one point. Nuts managed to hold onto a judges' decision, but Behemoth was given the unanimous win. Nuts was next pitted against deadly bar spinner Carbide. Despite trying to play defensively, an early hit by Carbide caused Nuts' ring and flails to break off completely. Forced onto the defensive, Nuts continued to receive severe damage from Carbide's spinning blade, which ended with one wheel being severely buckled and the other being torn off and flung out of the arena completely. This left Nuts immobile, and Carbide was declared the clear winner.

The team managed to fix Nuts as best they could for its final group match against Terrorhurtz again, although its wheels were still badly bent. Within the first few seconds of the battle, Terrorhurtz managed to break off Nuts' ring and flails again, but this resulted in the former grand-finalist getting caught in the mechanism, hindering its movement for the rest of the battle and giving Nuts a chance to escape. Terrorhurtz eventually hit Nuts with its axe, before driving it into Shunt who landed a blow of its own. Nuts was severely limping by the end of the battle, but just about managed to last the full three minutes after Terrorhurtz got caught on the remaining minibot. The judges decision went in favour of Terrorhurtz, eliminating Nuts from the competition as it had scored no wins during the stage. However, by forcing the fight to go to a judges' decision, Terrorhurtz was also eliminated from the competition, as it failed to score enough points as a result.

Series 9
Nuts will compete in Episode 1 just like in the previous series, once again facing Terrorhurtz; but also facing newcomers Rapid and Dave Lawrie's new machine Jellyfish.

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 1
 * Losses: 3

Robot Wars Live Events
Nuts made its combat debut prior to the TV series at Robot Wars live events, competing at various Robot Wars Live Tour events, albeit with few victories.

Despite this, Nuts performed reasonably well at the Robot Wars World Championships in 2015. Nuts fought Iron-Awe 7, Meggamouse and Weird mAlice in the first round, where it qualified after Weird mAlice was thrown out of the arena by Iron-Awe, and Meggamouse drove into the pit. In the second round, Nuts was drawn against Thunderchild and Apex. Thunderchild’s flipper was not working, so was rendered immobile after being turned over by the floor flipper, leaving Nuts to fight Apex alone. Nuts won the resulting Judges’ decision due to its aggression and damage caused in the battle. Nuts was eliminated in the quarter-finals, after being immobilised by repeated axe blows from Thor destroying the removable link.

Outside Robot Wars
After Series 8 ended, Nuts was repaired to fighting condition and in October 2016 appeared at a Robots Live! event in Stevenage, fighting in the 2016 FRA UK Heavyweight Championship. It beat Gabriel in round one, before progressing along with Dystopia in round two after the latter flipped out Photon Storm, before losing to TR2 in the quarter-finals. Nuts also lost to Gabriel in the subsequent losers' melee, but its impressive performance meant that it finished fifth overall.

The members of Team Nuts all have their own teams and fight with their own robots in both live events and antweight class events. Dave Lawrie, Chris Shakespeare & Alex Shakespeare joined Team Nuts for Series 8 of ''Robot Wars. ''For more information, see the Team Nuts page.

Trivia

 * Nuts cost around £1,100, making it one of the cheapest robots in Series 8.