BattleBot veteran, Jerry Clarkin, from Team Hammertime, enjoys the calm before the storm as he poses in the starting square with his super-heavyweight chucker-bot, Bounty Hunter. This picture gives you an idea of the size of these 340- pound professional competitors.

You know they say that a pet owner ends up looking like their pet and the same thing can be said about combat robots…each roboteer will usually end up designing and building a robot that reflects his or her personality. So what kind of personality do you have?

There are many different RC fighting robot designs and implementations, but most robots fighting in the combat arena today are all derived from one of a few basic design concepts. We'll look at these different robot types and consider the advantages and disadvantages of each. Then you may be able to decide which one fits your personality best!

	Bounty Hunter is a pneumatically-powered bot chucker. This robot doesn't simply lift its opponent, or even merely flip it.it tosses the bad guy several feet into the air. That's another 340 pounds in flight!

THE BASIC WEDGE-BOX

I like to call the simplest type of combat robot a battle box instead of a BattleBot because this design invariably ends up looking like a pizza box. Many newcomers to the sport dream about the impressive and destructive designs they see on TV, and while they hope to build one some day, most beginners will start with a simple box. A battle box has no frills, just the basics: a frame, drivetrain, and LOTS of armor. Most roboteers will quickly upgrade this box with the most basic form of weapon--a wedge. That is why I group these two related types together and call them wedge-boxes.

Many roboteers will scoff at the simple wedge-box because it is easy to design and easy to build, but this design persists in combat because it WINS. No matter how much money you might have, every roboteer also has a weight budget. How will you 'spend' your weight? Most seasoned builders will refer to items on their robot as if pounds were gold coins. “That motor cost me three pounds.” That is because every pound you spend on one item is a pound that comes out of another area. The wedge-box builder spends his entire weight budget on drivetrain and armor. The result is a tough, maneuverable robot whose builder has had a lot of driving time before the event. A very tough combination to beat, but also one that doesn't get many screams of excitement from the crowd.

A wedge-bot has to be VERY tough to beat a powerful spinner. We all know scissors usually beat paper, but here the triumphant wedge-bot, Devil's Plunger, surveys the vanquished drum spinner bot named Falcon. TYPES OF RC FIGHTING ROBOTS WEDGE-BOTS THWACKBOTS Melty-Brain Thwackbots Hammer Bots SPINNERS Disk/blade/bar Spinners Horizontal blades or bars Vertical blades or bars Drum/Thresher Spinners Full Body Spinners LIFTERS Flippers Bot chuckers

	Shovelhead is a good example of a robot that has made the transition from a simple wedge box to a lifter bot. You can see the solid 6-wheel drivetrain and the very effective lifting wedge of Shovelhead in action against another lifter bot, Black Knight.
	Backlash is a classic vertical disk spinner while JRCV is a classic wedge.

The Judge is one of the few effective hammer bots. and boy oh boy is this one effective. This 340- pound robot easily pierces 1/2-inch thick steel. Here you can see that the impact force of the hammer coming down actually throws 340 pounds of robot several feet into the air.