Last year in BattleBots, one of the large bots that participated in the hobbyweight (12 lb weight limit) division at Motorama was Apachi, an experimental bent-bar spinner with a shuffler-style drivetrain. The drivetrain worked exactly as intended and the robot pitter-pattered its way around its opponents. Its downfall was its bent bar weapon, which snapped in half after receiving a hit. An improvised chain-based weapon ultimately gave Apachi the (audience decided) victory in the hobbyweight rumble. Chonki, a new robot (shown above), is taking the lessons learned from Apachi and making another bot with a shuffler-style drivetrain. Chonki is a shell spinner, a weapon type which will benefit greatly from the additional 50% weight afforded by using a shuffling drivetrain instead of the typical wheels. If you’d like to see a video of Apachi in action, follow this link.
