Voltarc was a heavyweight robot which was meant to have fought in the 1997 US Robot Wars Heavyweight Face-Off. However, the robot's complex design meant it was incomplete by the time of the event. As such, Voltarc withdrew before the competition could begin.[1]
Design[]
Voltarc was a wedge-shaped robot armed with a lifting arm. It had four wheels, two attached to each other on both sides, allowing the robot to have some form of invertibility if need be otherwise they would be protected by the "wheel shields". The robot was made of aluminum and decorated with a number plate that read "FUNERAL" which was placed on the back of the robot. Voltarc took over a year to be built.[2]
By the time of the 1997 competition, only half of the robot was completed, with many integral components such as the motors, partial parts of the armour, the cooling gears for the "wheel shields" and the casters. Felk was inspired to create Voltarc from seeing BioHazard and La Machine compete from the year before.[3]
Etymology[]
The name Voltarc was inspired by a carpentry job Stephan Felk partook in when in San Francisco, having seen a "cool name" from a neon lamp from an elevator in the building he was working in.[4]
Robot History[]
1997 US Championship[]
- "I didn't want to compete with half a Voltarc. I wanted everything to be working. I thought it would be a really cool machine."
- — Stephan Felk on his 1997 withdrawal[5]
Being a Heavyweight, it can be assumed that Voltarc was to battle in the Heavyweight Face-Off for the 1997 competition, however, it arrived in an incomplete fashion. The robot was judged and inspected by Marc Thorpe and other organizers who agreed with Stephan Felk that his machine would not compete due to its unfinished state. However, Felk was gifted free tickets to stand as a spectator for the event.[6]
Outside Robot Wars[]
Despite its withdrawal from the 1997 championship, Voltarc would go on to be an allstar machine in BattleBots reaching great success along the way. Voltarc first appeared in the 1999 events, debuting in the Long Beach event where it lost all of its battles, including one against UK competitor Razer. In the 1999 Las Vegas event, Voltarc would perform much better, beating Slugger before getting vengeance against Razer in the following round. Voltarc would then go on to beat Mortis as well as Punjar before facing Vlad the Impaler in the final, where it would ultimately be defeated. In the first Season of Comedy Central's BattleBots, Voltarc would repeat its success from the Las Vegas event, becoming runners up after defeating Bender, BioHazard and Killerhurtz before facing Vlad the Impaler and losing to it once again.
Between Season 1.0 and Season 2.0, Voltarc was renamed into Voltronic as a result of copyright issues with a a lighting company of the same name. In Season 2.0, Voltronic beat DreadBot, Bigger Brother and finally FrostBite before facing and losing to Vlad the Impaler for a third championship in a row. In Season 3.0, saw a weaker performance from Voltronic as it managed to beat Greenspan and Bacchus before losing to OverKill. Season 4.0 saw Voltronic's worse performance after it was defeated in its first battle against M.O.E. However, in the final Season of the original BattleBots, Voltronic would see great success again, reaching the finals after defeating Diskontent, Stealth Terminator, Omega-13 before getting vengeance on OverKill and then facing and eventually losing to BioHazard.
Mosquito, Stephan Felk's cluster from The Swarm
In the original run of BattleBots, Stephan Felk also created the cluster Mosquito for the Superheavyweight clusterbot The Swarm. The Swarm would do poorly losing in the first battle in Season 3.0 and Season 4.0 to Dawn of Destruction and Swirlee respectively. In Season 5.0, The Swarm would win its only fight against Little Pink Butterfly of Doom before losing to Final Destiny.
In 2019, Stephan Felk would join Gary Gin for one season, World Championship IV, as part of the Free Shipping team. Here Free Shipping lost its first match against Hydra before losing to Yeti afterwards. Free Shipping, however, beat Bronco in its third match on a unanomous judges decsion then beat Railgun MAX on a split decision, however, this was not enough for Free Shipping to qualify to the next round. Free Shipping also fought a exhibition match against Texas Tornado where it won on a decision again before later appearing in the 2019 re:MARS all:STARS BattleBots Challenge, losing to Bronco in the first round.
References[]
See Also[]
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