Cobalt

Cobalt's Discovery Season 4 appearance.

Cobalt is a robot built by Team Carbide from the United Kingdom, which competed in the second season of ABC's BattleBots reboot, as well as the fourth season on Discovery and Science. It was an invertible, two-wheel drive robot armed with a powerful asymmetrical bar spinner, which bore a close resemblance to a bladed axe head. Cobalt performed well in its debut season, reaching the round of 32.

For Season 4, Cobalt received a completely new build, sporting a black and green color scheme like Carbide's, and a design similar to their This is Fighting Robots entry Tungsten. In this form, it adopted a steep wedge-shaped profile and a vertical flywheel with several sharp teeth resembling those of a large sawblade. Unlike Tungsten, the Season 4 Cobalt didn't have an electric self-righting axe. Despite a decent start, Cobalt suffered from its wedge body being too steep and relied on a wedge piece at points, which cost it three matches. With Cobalt's main wedge body, without the wedge piece at the front, Cobalt couldn't get underneath anyone. It didn't help the fact that Cobalt had to use bigger tires in its last 2 matches to avoid getting high centered, which left the center wedge piece even more vulnerable to getting ripped off in both matches and making it even harder for Cobalt to get under, since its body was no longer scraping the ground, while other robots, like Minotaur, were able to push the British bot around from the front without getting hit by the disc.

The robot was co-built by Dave Moulds and Sam Smith; the former also joined Team Robo Challenge for their ABC Season 1 entry with Beta. Smith was the original builder of Tiberius, which competed in Series 4-7 of Robot Wars and Series 2 of Robot Wars Extreme, later entering ABC Season 2 as Photon Storm. For ABC Season 2, Moulds and Smith were joined by Sheryl Prior and James Cooper.

Around the same time that Team Carbide developed Cobalt for BattleBots, the same team also made a similar-looking heavyweight for Series 8, 9, and 10 of Robot Wars, Carbide, which had great success in its appearances. Both the ABC Season 2 Cobalt and Carbide were largely similar in shape and design; Carbide differed in using a symmetrical bar spinner, different armor and internals, and a black and green color scheme instead of Cobalt's original white, blue and red.

Cobalt didn't return for the 2018 season of Discovery's BattleBots reboot, due to filming clashes with the Chinese robot combat show This is Fighting Robots, which Team Carbide had much more success with.

Robot History

ABC Season 2

Cobalt's Season 2 appearance.

Cobalt fighting Overhaul.

Cobalt's first ever match in BattleBots was against Overhaul. In the beginning of the match, Cobalt started spinning its blade and Overhaul moved toward the drivers booth. Overhaul was able to consistently deflect most of Cobalt’s hits and Cobalt started smoking. Despite this, Cobalt's blade was still moving and gave Overhaul one more hit. This hit disabled Cobalt's spinning blade and Overhaul lost drive on one side. Cobalt was able to escape and Overhaul was now being counted out. Although the motor was still spinning the blade, the team wouldn't trust it for another fight. So they decided to modify the chassis to take a bigger motor they could get delivered overnight. In spite of this, Cobalt won the match by KO at 1:26 and advanced to the round of 32 with its No.14 seeding, where it faced the No.19 seed Bombshell.

Cobalt's wheels being shredded by Bombshell.

The match started out fairly evenly as Cobalt approached Bombshell while facing backwards and withstood the first attack. However, after a few more attacks, one of Cobalt's tires was torn off, leaving the robot to vibrate a bit as it moved around. A few seconds later, Cobalt's remaining tire was torn off, leaving it unable to move. Cobalt was counted out and Bombshell won by KO at 1:45. This meant that Cobalt was eliminated from the tournament.

Discovery Season 4

Cobalt's first match since 2016 put it originally against Captain Shrederator, whom was accepted to fight with little time to make any final adjustments. However, Captain Shrederator's team had fought Cobalt recently and didn't want a repeat performance so they opted to switch opponents with Cobalt. This put Cobalt against SubZero. For this fight,

Cobalt rips a piece off of SubZero.

Cobalt added an extra wedge to the front of it in hopes of getting underneath SubZero. When the match began, Cobalt got in the first hit, sending SubZero up and buffering one of the added wedgelets. The second sent a piece of SubZero's added wheel protection flying and tore a tire. Cobalt kept the punishment coming as it started tearing up the right side of SubZero, sending it up and breaking the front right tire. SubZero was still moving on its back wheels, so Cobalt kept the pain coming. SubZero tried to recover and managed to stop Cobalt by going wedge to flipper, but that only held Cobalt off for a second. SubZero tried running away, but Cobalt caught him, pushed him into the wall and tore off the left wheel guard of SubZero, as well as what was left of the front left wheel. Cobalt then got under SubZero and damaged the underside near the pulverizer. SubZero tried fleeing once more, but Cobalt caught up and slammed SubZero in its exposed spacing, tearing out one of its gas tanks and throwing it against the wall and onto its back, before hitting it again and putting them on their side. SubZero got off the wall, but Cobalt turned back around and slammed SubZero once more and SubZero stopped moving. SubZero was counted out, giving Cobalt its first win of the season.

Next for Cobalt was veteran DUCK!. In response, Cobalt added an extra wedge to hopefully get under Duck and cause damage. This proved to be a good idea because as the match began, Cobalt sent DUCK! flying through the air, but DUCK! came right back down seemingly unscathed. Cobalt continued to attack, sending DUCK! flying each time and eventually flipping DUCK! over near the pulverizer. DUCK! escaped and now had a bent lifting plow so Cobalt promptly tore it off, sending it out of the arena. DUCK! was now weaponless so Cobalt moved in for another attack, but ended up hitting a seem in the floor and landed directly on an uneven patch of the floor where it couldn't move. Cobalt was counted out, giving DUCK! the win by KO.

Cobalt was next placed against Bombshell in a rematch from 2016 where Cobalt had its tires skillfully removed. Cobalt went with its usual wedge extension to get under Bombshell and cause damage. This proved very effective because as the match got underway, Cobalt was easily able to get under Bombshell, throwing it high into the air but Cobalt lost its front wedge extension in the process. This didn't phase Cobalt, though as they got under Bombshell again, tossing them into the air once more and this time Bombshell landed upside down with no way to right itself. Bombshell was counted out, giving Cobalt the win by KO.

Cobalt's run in the 2019 season continued with a match against Jack Barker and End Game. As a result, Cobalt swapped out its tires for larger ones to avoid getting high-centered on the arena floor and a new front wedge attachment to get under End Game and hopefully cause damage. Unfortunately, this didn't go as planned as Cobalt started the match by losing its front wedge, with its wedge embedded into the arena ceiling. This made it very difficult to get under End Game and the tires that were chosen weren't providing sufficient grip on the arena floor. Luckily, End Game was having its own drive issues so Cobalt was able to get in a minor hit. However, Cobalt then took a big hit from End Game that sent it high into the lexan, but it landed upside down and couldn't self-right as a result of its weapon belt coming off, disabling its weapon altogether. Cobalt was counted out, giving End Game the win by KO.

Cobalt, having just come off a tough season, was still capable of making the Top 16. It just had to get past Team Riobotz and Minotaur. Cobalt had a new front wedge and a new 50 pound weapon to deal with vertical spinners. Unfortunately, Cobalt soon lost its front wedge and brought down pieces of lighting from above. Luckily, Minotaur couldn't cause much damage from this point so Cobalt mostly had sparks removed. Cobalt was then thrown high into the air and nearly out of the arena but managed to get back in. Additionally, Minotaur had no working weapon anymore but Cobalt struggled with Minotaur's pushing power and ended up against the arena barrier as time ran out. The judges awarded Minotaur a unanimous 3-0 decision and a spot in the Top 16.

At the end of the season, Cobalt was awarded the Most Destructive Robot Award.

Wins/Losses

• Wins: 3
• Losses: 4

Competition	Wins	Losses
ABC Season 2	Overhaul	Bombshell
Discovery Season 4	SubZero (Undercard Match) Bombshell (Undercard Match)	DUCK! (Undercard Match) End Game (Undercard Match) Minotaur

Faruq Tauheed Introductions

"Roses are red, this bot is blue. Poems are dumb. Now, you're gonna die. It's COBALT!"

"Made in the UK, pound for pound, it's the deadliest bot in the 'Box. It's the banger, you're the mash. It's COBALT!"

"This bot is made of one compound: fractures. Trust me, you are out of your element. It's going to give you the bluesies from the bruiseies. Here's COBALT!"

"Roses are red, this bot's now green. Blah blah blah it's... gonna kill you. It's COBALT!"

"If it were a beer, it would be called Bots Blue Rippin. Wastes great, best killing. Alright, it's thirlla time! This bot's for you. It's COBALT!"

See Also

• Carbide (Robot Wars)
• Tungsten (King of Bots/This is Fighting Robots)