Very Very Obvious
Bolt was a heavyweight robot designed by Team Panic, which applied for BattleBots World Championship V.
It was a two-wheel drive, cut-off wedge shaped robot armed with a large angled bar spinner shaped like a lightning bolt, hence its name. Bolt was largely black with lightning designs across the top and high voltage warning signs at the front, with the wording across the top. A scaled-up version of Ben Hayton's featherweight Very Very Obvious, the Australian native formed part of multibot team Gemini in World Championship IV.
Bolt was not selected for the 2020 season, confirmed on Team Panic's YouTube channel due to a lack of funding in shipping the robot from Australia to the US. Having asked for feedback on the robot's design, Bolt's silhouette was deemed "too boring" in Team Panic's own words.[1] They then offered to be considered as a "pay your own way" team and were given the nod by BattleBots. However, it became apparent that much of Team Panic would not be able to be present for the majority of the original filming dates for World Championship V. The team were also lacking sponsors and time ahead of filming, so ultimately withdrew from the season. Irrespective of this, Bolt would have been forced to withdraw from the competition due to travel restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Team Panic later applied for World Championship VI with MacGuffin, but were again not accepted. Undeterred, the team reapplied for the 2022 season with meltybrain spinner ZAP.
Ben Hayton has also competed in lower weight class events with success over the years, competing in UK beetleweight web-series Bugglebots with AnnieRUOK and designing multiple 150g robots with the use of 3D printing.