Cathadh

"I’m fortunate to be driving probably the baddest spinner in the event. It’s fierce."

- Michael ‘Fuzzy’ Mauldin

Cathadh was a robot which represented the United States of America during Robot Wars: World Series, part of the tenth series of Robot Wars. It was entered by Team Toad, who were known for competing in BattleBots and the US live circuit. The robot was a loanerbot built by Robo Challenge, which had a previous identity as Arena Cleaner. The name "Cathadh" is Gaelic for "blizzard", continuing Team Toad's theme of naming their robots after cold weather conditions.

Design
Cathadh was an invertible robot armed with a horizontal spinning bar, weighing 20kg with one tipped blade on each end. A small rubber mount also holds the front end of the 103kg robot up. Cathadh used 3mm of HARDOX armour, and the weapon was particularly powerful, but its two-wheel drive system was completely exposed, including part of its NPC-T64 motors. "We were given a horizontal spinner that had previously competed in celebrity specials, called "Arena Cleaner". A respectable robot in its own right, I still wanted to add some Team Toad touches to [show] we weren't just driving someone else's robot."

- Michael Mauldin

The robot had previously competed as Arena Cleaner in Robot Wars: Battle of the Stars, and thus reuses many of the stock components used by the other loanerbots built by Robo Challenge. It differs from Arena Cleaner in using new wheels, tyres and electronics - including a new transmitter - all supplied and installed by Michael Mauldin. To accommodate the new additions, various weight savings were made to Arena Cleaner's chassis and armour, primarily through smoothing off the sides and cutting holes through the top and bottom of its weapon mount. Cathadh was also repainted into the signature orange-and-black colour scheme used by other robots built by Team Toad, an alteration requested by Mauldin and approved by Robo Challenge.

Before filming of the World Series began, Mauldin built a scaled-down model of Cathadh, Cathadh Prime, which was used to test the robot's internals and tyres ahead of its appearance.

Series 10
"As team captain for Team Rest of the World, I want to make sure that we bring a variety of weapons to the fight, so that no matter which kind of opponent we’re facing, we have its Kryptonite sitting there in the corner, waiting to go."

- Michael Mauldin

Cathadh represented the United States of America during the second episode of Robot Wars: World Series. As experienced competitors in North American robot combat events, Team Toad were selected as captains of the Rest of the World team for this episode.

In the Tag Team round, Cathadh was paired with Canadian representative Terror Turtle; together, they faced seasoned UK Series competitors Thor and Concussion. Following an inter-team discussion, Terror Turtle fought first, with Cathadh staying out of the action until the former was flipped and immobilised by Concussion. Having spun its weapon up in the meantime, Cathadth slowly drove out of its corner and into an approaching Thor; the impact deflected it away from Thor, leaving Cathadh vulnerable to an axe blow from the Series 8 Grand Finalist. Cathadh’s spinner caught one of the steel cables attached to Thor’s front, ripping the cables and causing its weapon belt to slip. The robot sustained another side-on slam from Thor which stunned it – seconds later, Concussion left its corner to throw Cathadth over and into Shunt. By this point, Cathadh’s mobility was severely limited – Shunt pushed it into the centre of the arena, where it was left struggling to drive around upside-down.

Cathadh was briefly pushed aside again by Thor and Shunt, and was left completely immobilised seconds before the klaxon sounded. Although both of the Rest of the World machines had been counted out, Michael Mauldin objected to the attack made by Concussion, which was considered to be illegal under the Tag Team rules.

When Mauldin’s objection was upheld by Dara Ó Briain and Angela Scanlon, Michael Oates of Team UK agreed to forfeit Thor and Concussion’s victory, with three points being awarded to the Rest of the World team as a result.

Cathadh would not fight again until the last Head-to-Head of this episode, where it faced Eruption. By this stage, the Rest of the World team had incurred three consecutive losses, resulting in them losing the episode to Team UK before the battle had begun. Nevertheless, Michael Mauldin was adamant that he would try his best against the recently-crowned Series 10 champion. "Well, this is coming down to Britain versus the Rest of the World, and the British dominant robot is the flipper. And in America, at least, the dominant robot is usually the spinner. So this is going to come down to a spinner/flipper battle and I hope to smack the heck out of my opponent."

- Michael Mauldin

In an attempt to gain an advantage over Eruption, Cathadh was positioned sideways on its starting spot, with the intention of turning and hitting Eruption with the spinner as it came near. However, Team Toad’s plan unravelled in the opening seconds, as the spinner failed to start before Eruption drove towards it due to the damage caused by Concussion in the Tag Team Stage. Cathadh darted away over the spark jets, but was constantly bumped, pushed and chased around the arena by Eruption, eventually hitting the Arena Tyre. In doing so, it triggered ‘Rogue House Robot’ – Shunt momentarily drove after and into Cathadh, but Cathadh escaped by reversing and bumping into the Tyre. Despite sustaining another few bumps and shoves from Eruption and Shunt, it continued driving through an empty CPZ, even proceeding to drive into the side of Shunt as he chased after Eruption.

With its bar spinner still not functioning, Cathadh bumped and lured Eruption across the arena, before pushing the latter back and forcing it to flip itself over. It retreated into the corner just as ‘Fog of War’ was enabled, before driving into Eruption just as the fog cleared. After some time trying to lure Eruption around again, Cathadh was flipped twice by Michael Oates’ machine; the second flip resulted in Cathadh landing upside-down after its rear clipped the wall. Spinning in circles, Cathadh was thrown into the wall twice more by Eruption, only for its bar spinner to suddenly start rotating. With this, it reversed, sparks flying as it hit Eruption’s flipper. Cathadh continued to damage Eruption while being simultaneously pushed into the corner – however, the sustained impacts caused the weapon belt to slip off.

"Well, it worked for a while."

- Michael Mauldin as Cathadh’s spinner briefly works

Weaponless once again, Cathadh was thrown violently against the wall by Eruption, reversing and spinning away to escape. However, its right tyre sheared off its axle as it was thrown upside-down again, leaving it immobile on one side as Eruption continued to flip it alongside the wall. As in its previous battle, Cathadh was counted out, before Matilda pushed and threw it in the pit. "Great battling from Cathadh, but it wasn’t enough. Victory for the UK team captain – victory for the UK. The USA beaten."

- Jonathan Pearce after Cathadh is pitted

With this, the Rest of the World team finally lost the second World Series episode to Team UK; after the battle, Michael Mauldin apologised to Michael Oates for Cathadh’s performance, while later praising the efforts of his international teammates.

Results

 * }

Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 0
 * Losses: 2

NOTE: Although Cathadh initially lost its first battle by knockout, it was awarded the points of a victory due to a post-match forfeit

Series Record


NOTE: The previous identity of the loanerbot, Arena Cleaner, competed in Robot Wars: Battle of the Stars.

Outside Robot Wars
Team Toad were frequent competitors in the original run of BattleBots. All of Michael "Fuzzy" Mauldin's robots from the lightweight division and up were named after cold factors, including Cathadh, and were generally painted orange.

The team's currently active heavyweight is Polar Vortex, which has regularly competed at RoboGames since 2014. Originally driven by two pairs of wheels at either side, Polar Vortex was armed with a broad electric lifter, designed to push robots. It was redesigned in 2017 to feature a spinning disc. At RoboGames in 2015, Polar Vortex defeated Pump, [http://robogames.wikia.com/wiki/Whoops! Whoops!] and The Great Pumpkin before losing to Touro Maximus and Last Rites. In 2016, it defeated Vlad the Impaler II, but lost to fellow pushing robot Original Sin and Ragin Scotsman. The spinner version of Polar Vortex defeated Mega Melvin in 2017, but lost to Megabyte and Touro Maximus.

Michael Mauldin has confirmed that a brand-new version of Polar Vortex will compete in the eighth season of BattleBots, to be aired in early 2018.

Outside of robotics, Michael Mauldin is a farmer, owning the Lazy Toad Ranch. He had previously invented and served as a chief scientist for the Lycos internet search engine, which he initiated as a university project. As owner of the Lazy Toad Ranch, Mauldin also briefly operated the Robot Club & Grille, a restaurant which also included a Robot Fighting League-compliant arena for live events. The restaurant operated between December 2002 and the end of May 2003, after which it closed due to a lack of customers on non-event days. A segment on the Robot Club & Grille was featured as part of Episode 2 of the World Series.

Trivia

 * Team Toad, much like Team MAD and Dorset Roboteering Team, made an effort to place stickers representing their team on as many competitors in the main series as possible.
 * There was a time when Team Toad stickers appeared on many miscellaneous places such as the Eiffel Tower, and a large number of robots in BattleBots.
 * Press releases regarding Cathadh's involvement in the World Series erroneously addressed Michael Mauldin as a 'Silicon Valley millionaire' . Michael Mauldin is in fact a Texas resident, whose company Lycos was funded in Boston, Massachusetts.
 * Footage of Team Toad's featherweight Ice Maker was used in Episode 2 of the World Series, as part of a segment on Mauldin's former Robot Club & Grille (see Outside Robot Wars).
 * The pronunciation of Cathadh's name is a source of contention. Although Michael Mauldin originally had an understanding of how to pronounce his robot's name, he claimed to have been corrected by the producers into speaking its name as "Cath-Ard", which was used on television. Some Gaelic speakers still refute the way Cathadh was spoken on the show.