Gigan II

Gigan II
Participation Information
US 1994-1997 Events	1997 (withdrew)
Team Information
Team	Team Sinister
Team Members	Peter Abrahamson
From	Burbank, California
Other Entries	Gigan (1995-1996, Peter Abrahamson) The Master (1994-1996, Mark Setrakian) Nezumi (1996, Robert Orr) Snake (1997, Mark Setrakian) The Rat (1997, Robert Orr)
Statistics correct as of its most recent show/competition appearance, or if not applicable, qualification attempt.

Gigan II was a heavyweight robot built and entered by Peter Abrahamson into the 1997 US Robot Wars competition. A scaled-up redesign of Abrahamson's earlier featherweight Gigan, it was one of three machines intended to represent Team Sinister for that year, alongside Robert Orr's featherweight The Rat and Mark Setrakian's heavyweight walker Snake. However, Gigan II was forced to pull out of the competition entirely after suffering 'mechanical difficulties' from the outset.

Design

Gigan II was a large invertible tracked robot with a rounded parallelogram shape (similar to Scott LaValley's 1994 entry Doolittle) and an unpainted metal finish. No further information is available on the robot's internal systems, armor or weaponry; various photographs and 3D CAD renders suggest that it was a weaponless design by the time of its attempted 1997 entry.

Series Record

Events	Gigan II Event Record
1994	Entered with The Master (Mark Setrakian)
1995	Entered with Gigan (Peter Abrahamson) Entered with The Master (Mark Setrakian)
1996	Entered with Gigan (Peter Abrahamson) Entered with The Master (Mark Setrakian) Entered with Nezumi (Robert Orr)
1997	Withdrew Entered with Snake (Mark Setrakian) Entered with The Rat (Robert Orr)

Outside Robot Wars

Following the end of the original US Robot Wars events, Peter Abrahamson refined the Gigan II design further into the BattleBots competitor Ronin. The most significant change was to the chassis design, which incorporated separate drive pods and a modular weapon system similar to that employed by The Master. Initially, Ronin's main weapon consisted of a triangular lifting spike, though this would later be exchanged for a 20-inch diameter, carbide-tipped sawblade and a smaller undercutting flywheel for its run throughout the Comedy Central seasons. For Season 1.0 only, a defensive 'Pin Cushion' attachment was also implemented, consisting of several spikes attached to the sides of each drive pod.

Ronin (BattleBots Long Beach 1999)

Ronin (BattleBots Season 1.0)

Ronin (BattleBots Season 3.0)

Ronin (BattleBots Season 4.0)

Ronin's appearances in BattleBots started with the inaugural Long Beach event on August 14-15 1999. Reaching the quarter-finals of the main Gigabot tournament, it would progress no further upon losing to Vlad the Impaler, and Punjar in the loser's bracket. Ronin also fought in two exhibition battles: a head-to-head against Mark Setrakian's Mechadon, and a melee involving Agrippa and Ginsu. A follow-up appearance at the Las Vegas Pay-Per-View saw Ronin reach the round of 16 in the main heavyweight division - losing to Rhino - and participate in the Heavyweight Royal Rumble at the end of the event.

For the Comedy Central seasons, Ronin was reclassified as a superheavyweight following its upgrades. Initially armed with the vertical sawblade, it would reach the semi-finals of its division in Season 1.0 and the quarter-finals in Season 2.0. These results allowed Ronin to bypass the preliminary rounds of all subsequent seasons, though it would end up losing its first battle of Season 3.0 to Electric Lunch. Ronin, switching to the flywheel weapon, enjoyed better form in Season 4.0, reaching the round of 16 before being eliminated by Diesector. However, its Season 5.0 run would also be cut short, following an early loss to IceBerg. Similarly to the Las Vegas event, Ronin also fought in superheavyweight Rumbles in Seasons 1.0 and 4.0, which it would lose outright to Minion and The Judge respectively.

To promote the Steel Conflict 4 event, Ronin was displayed at the Peterson Automotive Museum between August 1 and August 12 2003, alongside El Diablo and OverKill. It would also make televised appearances in "Precious Metal", a Season 3 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and an unspecified episode of Judging Amy.

In a Reddit comment posted in October 2015, Peter Abrahamson confirmed that Ronin was still in his possession, while suggesting that it would need a 'complete redesign/rebuild' in order to survive against competitors from the modern BattleBots run. Ronin's Season 5.0 incarnation would instead be repurposed as a 'sculpture', as Abrahamson himself later showcased in a May 2018 Twitter post. Abrahamson, meanwhile, would become more involved in the technical and production aspects of the revived series, notably as their "Bot Whisperer" for the 2020 and 2021 Discovery seasons, and YouTube-exclusive content coinciding with the 2022/2023 season World Championship VII.

See Also

• Ronin (BattleBots)

External Links

• Ronin Special Effects website (Peter Abrahamson) (archived April 12 2003)