Aquatic Machine Force, formerly known as Team Blaze, are a team who competed in BattleBots World Championship III and V with their heavyweight entry Sharkoprion, later known as Sharko.
Under their original name, the team fought in Season 5.0 with P.T. Bruiser, and the final three seasons of Comedy Central BattleBots with Robot X.
Sharkoprion was also present in the 2019 season, but only fought in exhibition matches. Aquatic Machine Force have since designed robots for the 2021 and 2022 competitions named Mantasaur and TriloBot respectively.
Team Members[]
Edward Robinson[]
Captain of Team Blaze and Aquatic Machine Force, Edward Robinson is a long-time competitor within the sport, having appeared on many different robot combat shows in the US, UK and China. Notably, he previously competed during the Comedy Central era of BattleBots with Robot X and P.T. Bruiser. Around that time, he also featured on other shows with an array of shark-themed robots. He competed in the second season of Robotica with Fintastic, but lost in the preliminary stage of its episode. He and John Hoffman also appeared in Season 2 of Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors with Snookums, where the team took on a pirate theme to accompany the bot, which was designed to resemble a swordfish. Despite being eliminated in Round 1 of the main competition and the special Tag Team event, Snookums won two fights and earned the right to face off against three Robot Wars House Robots alongside fellow competitor Snake Bite, but lost the finale overall.
More recently, Edward Robinson competed in the second season of Chinese show King of Bots with Excelsior, which became the inspiration for Sharko in 2020. He was joined by Malice team captain Bunny Sauriol for the competition, but was eliminated with just a single win and loss to its name. Despite announcing his retirement from the sport, Ed Robinson later mentioned on his Facebook page that he was working on a new robot called Mantasaur, which featured a drum painted like a radioactive barrel. However, it was not chosen for World Championship VI. In April 2022, Robinson began a controversial Reddit thread suggesting that, for a third successive year, he would require crowdfunding in order to finish his latest heavyweight which was "85%" complete. Fellow builders were quick to condemn the fundraising efforts, and the post was eventually deleted.
John Hoffman[]
Best friend to Ed Robinson, John Hoffman spent over 20 years with the team, appearing on multiple televised robot combat shows until his passing in June 2020 following a long battle with cancer. He worked as a senior systems engineer for NOVO Engineering.
Outside BattleBots, he captained the Robotica entry Buzz Bomb.
Zak Hassanein[]
Captain of Deviled Egg during the 2018 season, Zak Hassanein joined the team ahead of Sharko's 2020 season. He has remained on the team in their unsuccessful attempts to compete since BattleBots: Bounty Hunters. He also applied for the 2021 season with a brand new Deviled Egg with Ed Robinson driving, but the team were not selected. He would later join Team Break32 and Riptide.
Robots[]
| Name | Weight Class | Season |
|---|---|---|
| Robot X | Lightweight | Seasons 3.0 Season 4.0 Season 5.0 |
| P.T. Bruiser | Heavyweight | Season 5.0 |
| Sharkoprion | Heavyweight | World Championship III World Championship IV (Exhibition only) World Championship V (as Sharko) |
| Mantasaur | Heavyweight | World Championship VI (Withdrew) |
| TriloBot | Heavyweight | World Championship VII (Not selected) |
Win/Loss Record[]
- Wins: 5
- Losses: 10