Have you ever watched Battlebots on the Discovery Network? It is a competition where engineers build really cool robots with weight and other restrictions and enter them into an arena to watch them get torn apart! Last night were their Finals and it was the first time in their illustrious history that an international competitor won the Giant Nut, giving them ultimate bragging rights. That competitor was End Game. Captained by Nick Mabey, the remainder of this Auckland, New Zealand's team consists of Jack Barker, Steven Barker, Shane de Rijk, Devin Jerram and Emma McMillan.
Having competed for 3 years, End Game is sponsored by the University of Auckland Faculty of Engineering, Tunnel and Civil Ltd., Renold NZ and Steelmasters. The team is from OYES Robotics. According to their press info, the team members are constantly at odds over which song the robots name was derived from. In order to be crowned champion last night, End Game had to defeat the number 19 seed Shatter! in the Quarter Finals and the number 18 seed Tantrum in the Semi-Finals. Then, this number 6 seed robot had to face the number 8 seed Whiplash and ended up winning by KO. They first had to earn the right to enter a bracket of 32, by having a good showing in the preliminary battles.
The arena that these robots have to display their skills in is referred to as the Battlebox. End Game did have a very satisfying victory by KO over the much-favored Tombstone early on in the competition. End Game's drive system runs on four custom motors that are each chained to their own individual wheel. To gain maximum control over this bot, two drivers are needed with fourteen radio receivers distributed throughout the machine. One of the other highlights from last night was the way Black Dragon handled itself after being on fire for well over two minutes. This is an accomplishment seeing how the bouts are only three minutes!
With this being the season of Covid, the only people in the audience were the teams from those competing this season in a very socially-distanced way. Battlebot Co-Founder Trey Roski lived up to his promise of getting a haircut if this season was able to be completed in a safe and successful way. MLB's Chris Rose and UFC's Kenny Florian complement each other well as the announce team. However, nothing anywhere compares to Faruq Tauheed's introductions of the bots before each battle. I can't wait until next season when "It's Robot Fighting Time" again!
