Cannons are a unique weapon type which consist of a barrel capable of launching a tethered or untethered projectile at its opponent. They typically contain a single or numerous metal slugs which serve as ammunition within a cannon powered by a pneumatic system.
As with the pneumatic systems used in robots armed with flipping weaponry, cannons are not allowed to utilize carbon dioxide gas as per BattleBots design rules. Instead, nitrogen must be used.
Design and History[]
Neptune after its first and only battle.
The first example of a robot with projectile weaponry competing in BattleBots was Neptune, which sported six, single-use 'harpoons' which fired similar to that of a cannon. It lost its only battle in the preliminary rounds to JuggerBot and did not return.Until the reboot era of BattleBots, weapons which included untethered projectiles were discouraged for safety reasons. This was largely true of other televised events also, as the British show Robot Wars outright prohibited them throughout the show's history, even outlawing the weapon type in their three reboot seasons. However, BattleBots production grew lenient towards allowing experimental weaponry under special circumstances and entirely at the show's discretion.
Double Jeopardy's cannon weapon in 2018.
This allowed for the first robot sporting cannon weaponry to debut in World Championship III - Double Jeopardy. Although only able to fire once per fight in its first season, the weapon system was altered between competitions to fire multiple times. However, it malfunctioned during the team's 2019 campaign as Double Jeopardy would often fire multiple slugs at once, rather than firing one at a time. This led to criticism over Double Jeopardy essentially being reduced to a pushbot without an active weapon after firing its one-time use cannon, something BattleBots had fought tried to avoid since its 2015 revival. Due to the weight dedicated towards such a complex system, Team Double Trouble had to make sacrifices elsewhere to keep the robot within 250lbs. This meant the early iterations of Double Jeopardy had extraordinarily thin armor.
As Double Jeopardy entered a two-season hiatus, a brand new cannon design applied for World Championship VI named Broadside. Its earliest CAD showed a similar, low-profile design to Double Jeopardy with a front-mounted cannon boasting the ability to shoot "3-5" metal slugs per match. Later CAD reveals showed Broadside with a side-mounted cannon, and a secondary weapon in the form of a large overhead axe. Despite this innovative take on an already unique weapon type, Broadside was not selected to compete. Even if they had been accepted, issues concerning international teams obtaining NIE Visa exemptions would have forced the British team to withdraw. Double Jeopardy returned with another upgraded build for BattleBots: Champions I, resolving many of its previous problems having demonstrated the robot's ability to reload in test videos. It remains the only competing robot to use a cannon as its primary weapon in BattleBots history.
Notable Competitors[]
| Robot | Seasons | Image |
|---|---|---|
| Broadside | World Championship VI (Not selected) |  |
| Double Jeopardy | World Championship III World Championship IV BattleBots: Champions I |
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| Neptune | Season 3.0 |  |
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