2024 World Championships Qualifier Spotlight: 30lb
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By Daniel Dischino
(Editor's note: Any opinions presented here are Daniel's, and do not necessarily reflect the views of NHRL.)
Emulsifier is the 30lb division’s final boss.
For all three years NHRL has hosted a 30lb World Championships, the flagship creation of team Bots FC has placed at lowest 2nd, including two straight Championship wins in the last two years. As you might expect, they’ve done quite well outside of these Championship matches as well- They’ve won all but one NHRL Open event they’ve ever attended, as well as sweeping the 2024 Teams event.
The question that consumes this division, and has since 2022, is how do we stop this titan?
On December 7th, 21 bots will bring their own answers to this question to the 2024 World Championships, looking to test their hypotheses in the arena of robot combat. Some formulas look to dominate through sheer weapon power or multibot madness, while others base their formula on speedy drive systems their opponents don’t have time to handle. While twenty of them look for creative ways to provide some way to win the division, one of them looks to remind the world for the third straight year that you don’t stop Emulsifier.
Let’s take a look at two challengers and the returning champion who bring their own particularly interesting answers to this question into the 2024 Championships.
Challenger #1: MegatRON (32-8, 21 KOs)
It felt quite fitting when NHRL got sponsored by Transformers One for the September stream and MegatRON was competing.
MegatRON was originally named after builder and driver Jamison Go’s first combat robot, a beetleweight named RON which was a much smaller and somewhat less well-built version of this same concept.
MegatRON’s Answer
MegatRON’s beat Emulsifier before, twice in a row in dramatic fashion at the 2021 World Championships. Its smothering control and the damage it can deal once it achieves that control can work against almost anyone, and thanks to a few noted upgrades to the robot made this year it looks as primed to wreak havoc as it ever has.
Strengths
Hammersaws, a bot type of which MegatRON essentially invented, rely on gaining control of their opponent before raining death from above with the spinning blade on their hammer arms. MegatRON at NHRL has always been a top-tier control bot, as evidenced by this clinic put on against fellow multi-year Championship qualifier Phenomenon. This year, however, it’s switched to treads instead of wheels for its drive, greatly improving its weight distribution and its drive capabilities. (If you’re interested in further design information from Jamo, he’s written about the bot’s redesign extensively on his blog, found here.) MegatRON in 2024 is such a good control bot it went 4-1 with 3 KOs in September, against only robots that qualified for the Championships, even though the spinner that allows it to do any real damage was broken for all but one fight. Even the one loss came out of the arena, a forfeit to preserve a mostly working robot from unnecessary pre-Championships damage. Oh yeah, and on top of that control it also has a spinning blade on the end of it’s hammer arm that’s netted the bot at least one knockout win against every bot it’s faced- except for Emulsifier, who was saved by the bell in the 2021 Championships.
Weaknesses
While the drive changes have done wonders for MegatRON, the weapon update—switching from a belt driven spinner to a directly mounted hub motor—hasn’t been as clean-cut of an upgrade. Winning a tournament with a semi-functional weapon is impressive for the drive system, but engenders less optimism in the weapon’s reliability. Besides that, hammersaws in general usually end up as sort of glass cannons, their greater amount of moving parts demanding weight that would be traditionally dedicated for armor. If MegatRON commits a driving error that the opponent can capitalize on, it can often result in a KO for the opponent like in this 2023 match against Emulsifier.
Wild Card Factors
Two major subsystem changes in one season is a lot to manage for a bot that’s stayed pretty consistent in its overall body plan for multiple years- we’ve seen the drive perform well, but the weapon still raises some questions coming into December. Few builders are more consistent about testing their bots before events than Jamo, but the hardest thing to test in an NHRL bot is the weapon system of a 30lb robot due to the logistical challenges of testing it safely. Overall, it’s hard to say how prepared the bot will look at Championships, and that preparation typically makes all the difference at this level of robot combat.
Challenger #2: Vorion (11-4, 7 KOs)
I've always wondered what monster could leave those claw marks on Vorion's top plate.
Vorion is a wide 2 wheel drive disk spinner with a self-righting arm, similar in shape to the older platform Phenomenon. Both robots are built and driven by Brandon Bennett-Young.
Vorion’s Answer
Vorion looks to do what Emulsifier does, build a wide-bodied big disk vertical spinner with long forks, but change the formula just slightly. Vorion opts for a smaller overall robot, with less emphasis on the devastating hits and more emphasis on speedy precise driving. This machine, along with its brother Phenomenon, have long been knocking on the door of true championship stardom. This could be the year they force that door wide open.
Strengths
Vorion is one of the most well-driven bots I’ve ever seen, with the prime example being this absolute clinic against the best pure control bot in the division, Red Storm. It’s just so snappy when turning and Brandon’s so patient with its positioning, great at cutting off space and capitalizing on opponent’s mistakes. It’s a reflection of Brandon’s mid-fight mood, as he’s gained some renown for being absolutely cool as a cucumber in a fight. Look at him at the end of that Red Storm fight. That’s the level of nerves I’d expect of someone walking through a mildly interesting art museum, not finishing the finals of an invitational robotics championship. There’s also some interesting gamesmanship possible thanks to the self-righting arm, which has enough power to flip over opponents- a flip to get an opponent into a bad position before coming in for a hit, for example, could change the tide of a fight very quickly, particularly when combined with that brilliant driving mentioned earlier.
Weaknesses
Self-righting effectively has been this bot’s white whale for a while, and while Brandon’s engineered some pretty good solutions to the problem, it’s still the biggest downfall. A snipe of the self-righting arm took out the bot against Emulsifier in March, on a hit that wouldn’t have much troubled the rest of the bot. Due to the exposed nature and necessity of the system the self-righter is much less robust and harder to armor.
Wild Card Factors
So from what Brandon’s been saying about his bots it seems like Phenomenon will stay the testing platform while Vorion will stick to tried and true designs, but he did just have a very successful run with a new hubmotor on Phenomenon and did some testing with a 3lb version for new self-righting loops. I’d imagine the loops will come over to this bot, but I wonder if we will see a hubmotor Vorion as well as Phenomenon in December. Since the only loss in March came only once Emulsifier sniped the self-righter, an improvement to that system could be a difference-maker against top competitors.
The Champion: Emulsifier (27-5, 24 KOs)
NHRL’s Thanos.
Emulsifier is a terrifying treaded vertical spinner that runs alongside a ragtag group of minibots, whom I like to imagine have the personality of obsequious evil cronies to their gigantic boss. The main bot is driven by Matt Bores, with the minibots being controlled by other Bots FC members and friends.
Emulsifier’s Answer
Emulsifier answers the question pretty simply: you can’t beat Emulsifier. Their solution is battle tested through two straight years of attempted disproof, and they look to prove yet again that no one knows the answer to the formula.
Strengths
Emulsifier is the greatest power-speed bot in the world. Its ability to demolish and overwhelm its opposition has shown no real cracks for the majority of the history of NHRL. Most of their fights show this ability, so here’s one of the most entertaining examples, an absolute highlight reel against fellow championship-caliber vertical spinner ARES. Look at how this fight against Huge, a bot expertly crafted to take out 4 wheel drive vertical spinners, ends after like thirty seconds of carnage and three exchanges because Emulsifier is just that powerful and fast. It feels like watching Lynx fights two years ago- even when the bot is bouncing around chaotically it’s already caused so much devastation in the first seconds of the match that opponents simply cannot capitalize on its vulnerability. Emulsifier becomes the director, the dictator of pace in all of its fights, and when it is allowed to give those directions no one has been able to challenge its creative vision. The last bot to convincingly out-class it was Polyester, who swiftly lost twice in the finals to Emulsifier; the last bot before that was MegatRON, who has dropped the last two matches between them.
Weaknesses
Technically, this bot is a glass cannon. If someone gets around its front end assembly to hit those treads or even its skeletonized back, a powerful 30lber could really tear into them. It feels insane to make this classification, however, since Emulsifier has literally never been knocked out. Maybe they are a glass cannon, but if all anyone can do is get hit by the cannon, how would we know how easy it is to shatter their glass? The biggest mechanical issue they’ve run into is their treads falling off, which used to happen from time to time. However, even that weakness seems to be mitigated in this latest version as it can drive on the gears that drive its treads if the treads are removed or fall off, neither of which have even happened in quite a while.
The biggest weakness, truth be told, is their much less robust minibots they run alongside the main Emulsifier. Under the current ruleset, in any fight that goes to a judge’s decision, the lack of aggression and control demonstrated combined with the high likelihood of tremendous damage experienced, when counted equally with Emulsifier’s contributions to the fight, would likely end up heavily hampering them unless the minibots put up a tremendous effort or Emulsifier manages to so thoroughly incapacitate and outmaneuver its opponent that the fight was only really saved from being a knockout by the time limit.
Wild Card Factors
Emulsifier is a known quantity, so known that I have a hard time assigning any wild card factors to their robot. The main wild card in their performance is the competition. Someone could try something Emulsifier hasn’t faced or is ill-prepared to fight, like Georgia Tech's shell-spinner Chonkiv, or perhaps improvements to some of the other top-tier competitors like MegatRON or Vorion will be more than they can handle.
Also check out Daniel's NHRL World Championships preview for 3lb and 12lb bots.
You can find more of Daniel's robot reviews on his Medium page.