Chinkilla

Chinkilla was a robot owned by Jay Leno that competed in several demonstration events during the original run of BattleBots. Since Chinkilla was 450 pounds, it was too heavy to compete in the regular tournaments - even in the superheavyweight class - and consequently only fought in demonstration battles. Chinkilla's main weapon was its flipping arm, which was painted to look like Leno's face, which possibly gave it its name. It also had four spinning blades on the sides to defend itself from flanking attacks.

Chinkilla also applied for season 1 and 2 of Battlebots on ABC, and was accepted both times. It was rebuilt to be up to date with modern technology and to fit within the weight regulations, but it withdrew from the event on both occasions.

Robot History

Season 2.0

ChinKillavsGinsu lv00 — Chinkilla lifts Ginsu.

Chinkilla's only exhibition match in Season 2.0 was against Ginsu. At the start, both robots went straight at each other, before Chinkilla flipped Ginsu onto the killsaws. After moving away from the killsaws, Chinkilla got its flipping arm on the left side of Ginsu and flipped it onto it's side. Chinkilla celebrated its attack with a victory dance, while Ginsu was popped by the hellraisers. Chinkilla then decided to knock Ginsu back onto its feet, before a pushing match ensued. Ginsu moved away, only to be caught by Chinkilla's flipping arm again, before crashing into the arena wall. Ginsu then landed on an inactive pulverizer, with Chinkilla's involvement needed to eventually free it. In the closing period, Chinkilla dragged Ginsu on the killsaws and onto the spikestrip. Ginsu flipped itself against the rear on Chinkilla, but got back onto its feet shortly after, before time ran out. Chinkilla won the resulting Judges' decision by a unanimous 45-0 score.

Season 3.0

ChinkillavsGasPump — Chinkilla going towards a gas pump.

Chinkilla's first exhibition match in Season 3.0 was against a gas pump. Chinkilla tips the gas pump over and pushes it towards the pulverizer. The gas pump was destroyed and Chinkilla was declared the winner.

Reactore slams Chin-Killa — Chinkilla gets hit by Reactore.

Chin-Killa caught on Nibbler — Chinkilla's chin gets caught on Nibbler.

Chinkilla's second exhibition match was against Nibbler, Reactore, SMD, Mordicus, Gungnire and General Gau. At the start, about half of the lightweights drive off in random directions. General Gau gets one of its spinning chains taken off by one of ChinKilla's blades while the chin flips SMD. Reactore scratches some of the face drawing. ChinKilla wanders around. Gungnire runs into one of ChinKilla's spinning blades, disabling all of the blades. Reactore was the most violent robot among the smaller robots team, popping ChinKilla pretty hard given the weight difference. Nibbler has stopped moving for some unknown reason. ChinKilla gets the chin stuck on top of Nibbler, lifting ChinKilla's wheels off the ground. Reactore comes over and whacks ChinKilla loose. ChinKilla takes on Reactore, since the other robots are either not moving or without working weapons. ChinKilla tries to flip Reactore, but Reactore gets the better of the collisions, bending the drawing portion of the chin up from the metal base. Now the chin wedge has essentially become useless for flipping because it can't get under anything lower than three inches off the ground. SMD feebly pushes itself into ChinKilla, then stopped moving after touching Reactore. Gungnire suddenly springs to life from the middle of the floor and tries to ram into ChinKilla, but misses and hits an up-to-speed Reactore instead. Reactore then hits ChinKilla a couple more times. As SMD and General Gau scamper about near the front of ChinKilla, ChinKilla backs into Reactore, knocking it onto its side. After this, the time ran out and no winner was declared.

Chinkilla's last exhibition match was against Ginsu (driven by The Man Show's Adam Corolla and Jimmy Kimmel), Dreadnought and La Machine. La Machine and Dreadought showed the most aggression of the three challengers and even turned on Ginsu at one point. The time ran out and Chinkilla won on a close 23-22 judge's decision.

Chinkilla was due to participate in a grudge match as part of the 2015 ABC Reboot, but since NBC held the rights to the images on the robot it could not compete.