Discus was a heavyweight robot designed by Ciruclar Robotics[1] which applied for BattleBots World Championship VII, however, the team withdrew their application.
The robot was designed with a 30" diameter, 66lb ring spinner made out of S7 tool steel. The bot would would also include meltybrain motion control, meaning it would have redundancy in its weapon in case the weapon motor broke. The design originally was planned to be donut-shaped, but this was later scrapped for a more conventional frame. Most of the team's design mindset was taken from Copperhead and Tantrum in keeping the bot extremely compact and durable.
The team had numerous problems regarding their design and application. This included finishing their application six months after the suggested February deadline for submission, a lack of sponsors, fitting of certain parts, unknown tolerance requirements on the ring, and safety concerns regarding their bearings. This culmination of problems lead Discus to only be created in CAD, with no construction being done. The materials were uploaded to the BattleBots website for submission[2], but the team stated they eventually pulled out.
Several months after work stopped on Discus, the team went back to the project to work more on the electronics set up and polish of the robot such as adding bolts, but was then abandoned once again due to new batteries not fitting. The team has since moved on to other speculative heavyweight designs.[3]
The Ciruclar Robotics team later applied for World Championship VIII with a new robot, Proud Mary. However, they again withdrew their application due to time and cost constraints.
Trivia[]
- Discus was one of two meltybrain designs to attempt to enter World Championship VII, the other being ZAP.
- Discus was initially a two part multibot named Pisces, before the idea was scrapped.