The wootiest animal show ever... Reviewed!

Melee 1

This was a good opening melee. Bulldog looked purposeful, and Mantis looked cool. However Infernal Contraption looked mental and Jabber looked... Um. Lifted by Mantis to tell the truth. We never saw it do much.
Bulldog got a few good attack in, but Id say the definite star of the melee was Mantis, with their bizzarre grabber/lifter. Infernal Contraption didnt seem to do much, but Im sure that netting hanging out of the dog was due to them.

About the contraversy... Bloody stupid. The Bulldog team explained what the netting was actually for, a fair purpose in my book, and in any case the team certainly didnt want it hanging out. I think the whole contraversy was brought about to try and add a bit of tension to an already good episode and the Bulldog was unfairly picked on. Rant mode off.

Melee 2

Another good melee:proud: it started off very fast and furious with Hard and Velocirippa zooming around everywhere. T-Wrecks was in amongst the action fairly often too and Kat 3, once Refbot had unpinned them, also looked good.
T-Wrecks looks like a good idea, but the blades were bent every which way but lose. Maybe if they removed some of the blades and made which ones remained stronger...
Then the action slowed down a touch and both T-Recks and Velocirippa were pitted by Hard. Good work from the Belgiums.

Middleweight final

OK, time out. Weve had featherweight melees to give us the finalists, so why not do the same with the middleweights? Anyhoos to be honest this fight was boring. Typhoon, obviously not wanting to ride up someones wedge and be tipped over, was doing a lot of running away. Phoenix seemed to die with one hit, and Steel Sandwhich was also rendered immobile after a few blows, so once again Typhoon retains the middleweight tropy. Althouth to be fair, as they only have to win one or two melees to do it, theyre not being made to work very hard for it. If there were as many middleweight fights as heavyweight, we might just see the title change hands.

Bulldog vs Hard

Oh dear. Hard looked so good in the world champ qualifiers, and the first melee, but as soon as they come against someone who not only fought back, but did it effectively, they prove that internally, maybe theyre not as tough. Externally though...
Several flips from the dog.
At least two hammer blows from Psycho that I can remember.
Being picked up by Psycho twice.
Floor flipper.
Gas cooker from the drop zone.
...And it doesnt even seem dented! WHAT is that thing made of? Adamantium??

Kat 3 vs Mantis

Both robots spent most of the fight circling one another, allowing for a very tense match-up. Kat seemed the more aggressive, and also had a more sucesful attack ratio, with their attacks allowing it to grapple and shove Mantis around, but Mantis stayed in there and tipped the Kat over once or twice, although they self righted each time. Both opponants seemed evenly matched but from what we saw I think the Kat deserved the kream.

Bulldog Breed vs Kat 3

Much to my surprise, the initial advantage seemed to be with Kat 3, as they bashed the top of bulldog with some sucesful attacks, but then the dog started to fight back. Again, a lot of the battle was spent on what Babbeth calls Robo-Waltz and I think the match was improved for it. Bulldog spent much more time on top, while the Kat spent a fair amount of time... On side. My fave moment was when Bulldog beaned Killalot with Kat 3, also making this... Fight of the night:proud:

Frank,

One of the batteries in Hard died while we drove in the arena. Hence no more power. It was already dead before Bulldog breed even touched us.

It was our own fault. We had (unknowingly) abused our batteries because we didnt charge them correctly during more than a year...

Now we have a new set of batteries and so far theyre ok. But we now have other issues...stay tuned..

Cheers,

Frank

Well this was an entertaining heat. The battles seemed on this occasion to be well contested and thought by machines of equal calibre, which made for plenty of good fights. Heres my view of the action:

Melee 1

Well it certainly got off to an entertaining start, with Bulldog nearly tossing Infernal Contraption OOTA...twice!
Mantis then showed its stuff and picked up Jabber, who we never really saw a lot of, in fact it only appeared again when it was flipped by bulldog. The Infernal Contraption also seemed to fade into insignificance late on, but Bulldog stayed active thorughout, and mantis looked very impressive. About that controversy though...I thought it was really exaggerated to make good TV. Bulldog had explained what happened and it was very obvious once explained. I wouldnt have forgiven the judges if the decision had gone the other way.

Melee 2

A great bout. Very fast and competative. Well done Hard. T-wrecks looked like a good idea, but the spikes seemed to get bent very easily. Velocirippa was very fast, and Kat 3 looked solid as always.

Middleweights

The final already? Anyway...yawn.

Second Round 1

Oh dear i had high hopes for this fight... two well built, evenly matched machines, but it was not to be. An obviously disgruntled Bulldog only had to attack an already dead Hard to prove itself the winner. Too short for me.

Second Round 2

This was a good fight, it was very even. I thought that the late lift from Mantis might have swung it the other way...but never mind. A bulldog/kat rematch seemed to be on the cards.

Final

The battle of the show. Very competative and hugely entertaining. 5 flips against 2 good hits...i agree with the judges.

The oncoming semi finals

So..Bulldog finally makes it there. Has a good chance Id say. Solid and well built.. and now 8 out of 11 in the smeis are flippers, and the two others encoporate lifting aspects into their designs. The flippers ae really dominating this year, and Id say a flipper will lift the title.

i would disagree on that one.

Best bits: Infenal Contraption almost thrown OOTA by Bulldog Breed & Bulldog Breed throwing Kat 3 over Sir Kill-A-Lot

Worst bits: Middleweight Melee

Bulldog Breed will be in Semi-Final 1 facing the winner of Heat M (the seed for that heat is Panic Attack). If Panic Attack made the semis, they wouldnt have a chance of beating Bulldog Breed. My predictions for the next heat will be posted on Wednesday on the Heat 12 page.

The middle weight melee was boring but the first round battle with Hard, Velocerippa, Kat3 and T-Wrecks was probably my favorite of the series so far!

Of course Mentorn just want a bit more aggro to add to the competition, but Bulldog Breed didnt do themselves any favours with their explanation for why they had used that netting. I was left thinking that they had done it on purpose to entrap spinners. If anyone from that team wishes to give a fuller explanation on this forum, I would be interested.

Jeremy

They only used the net to protect the rams, It was not clear in the rules that that would not be allowed... Id do that to if I were them, those rams cost a good grand or so.
Cheers, ewan

Why didnt they do them selves any favours though?

According to the rules, no rule exists that bars nets.

*checks 2003 rules once more, no, not a rule*

Anyone know where Mantis is from?

here some more info to get the round one heat K into context.

Infernal Contraption does have some control issues, this is as it has 3 receivers one for each of its independent modules.

there was some drastic editing, which included the removal of the part where our spinning disc was inside bulldogs open flipper, this is were we dislodged the netting the bit as seen on the arena floor was only a small part of it the rest had wound its self around the internal gears of bulldog and reduced their drive and manovereing capability. Other scenes not shown was our major hits on bulldog which on inspection in the pits revealed a twisted chassis.

Ours was the only robot that took no damage and would have been ready to go back into the arena ten minutes later with just a change on batteries.

Ray t
http://www.infernalcontraption.co.ukwww.infernalcontraption.co.uk

Mantis resides in a garage in Balderton, Nottinghamshire sulking cos were building a better one.

Dunc

http://www.mantis-robot.co.ukwww.mantis-robot.co.uk

Ewan,

I dont believe that a net would be at all effective in protecting the rams. I think that it was put there to entrap spinners. I would certainly take the Derek Foxwell line on this.

The 2003 rules give discretion to the organisers to ban or disqualify a robot. I wonder whether the netting was already present at the time of the tech check?

Jeremy

Jeremy, that remark comes close to implement that the guys from Bulldog were cheating...

Sorry, but no rule in the 2003 bans a net or simular idea to ensnare spinners.
So ,the only thing that could happen was that during the techcheck a bigshot(like Derek) asks to remove it. NO intentional foul play going on.

But as no Bigshot passed by(I suspect)or made any comments....

Adam Clarks comments on the Robot Wars forum may be of interest:

http://www.robotmayhem.com/forum/messages/22/14536.html#POST196892http://www.robotmayhem.com/forum/mes...tml#POST196892

Seems clear to me that Bulldog Breed was entitled to use nets for any reason they liked.

Also Jeremy there was no garantee that the net would come of bulldog breed so I think that it was quite clearly there to protect the rams which if they were worth £1200 they would not want damaged. Surely you can see that they wouldnt?

Having read Adams post and the comments from Mario, Jim and Mike, I withdraw my earlier statement, and apologise to the Bulldog Breed team.

Jeremy

Bulldog Breed will be in Semi-Final 1 facing the winner of Heat M (the seed for that heat is Panic Attack). If Panic Attack made the semis, they wouldnt have a chance of beating Bulldog Breed. My predictions for the next heat will be posted on Wednesday on the Heat 12 page.

That is correct, but St. Agro vs X-Terminator for the St. Agros series semi-final I believe is still wrong.

Never mind, its right

Tony how did you keep from laughing when foxwell slapped your wrist

Just something to say, having just seen the fight again...

Judges, are you stupid or something? Didnt you even THINK that, if the netting in Bulldog Breed was intended to jam spinners, that they would have fired it out much earlier in the battle, instead of near the end, when they were already way on top (to be fair, that battle was all Bulldog Breed and Mantis), and in no need to fire it out?

Honestly! Sometimes these judges dont even think!