Broadsword

Broadsword
Participation Information
UK Series	Extreme 2
Team Information
Team Members	Julian Richards Adam Richards Olivia Richards
From	Stevenage, Hertfordshire
Robot Statistics
Weight	50kg
Dimensions	0.28m x 1.68m x 0.90m
Power	Electric Motors
Weapons	Medieval Broadsword
Statistics correct as of its most recent show/competition appearance, or if not applicable, qualification attempt.

"Warning Danny Boy, this is no toy!"

— Jonathan Pearce introducing Broadsword

Broadsword was a middleweight robot that competed in the Middleweight Championship of the second series of Robot Wars Extreme. It lost its first round battle to Typhoon and Steel Sandwich, and did not return for any other series.

The team later planned to enter the Series 7 Middleweight Championship with a robot called Voodoo Child. It was described as looking flimsier than Broadsword and rife with exposed wires. It did not make it into the arena, likely due to the reliability issues caused by its design.

Design

"Rather than being useless, it was virtually indestructible against even Typhoon. Add to that the problem that our ground clearance was so high that Typhoon's cutters passed harmlessly underneath"

— Captain Julian Richards, explaining the advantages of Broadsword's design.

Broadsword was a circular, invertible robot with two wheels and armed with an unusual medieval sword blade as its weapon. Work on Broadsword began as early as August 2001, parallel to filming for The Fifth Wars. However, it is not thought to have been entered for that series. The construction was made entirely out of HDPE plastic pipe, providing thick armour, albeit not too securely held together. Although simplistic in its design, the team claimed that the robot was optimised in order to withstand Typhoon's blows, featuring a high ground clearance to prevent its cutters from reaching the body. However, Broadsword suffered from exposed wheels, a weapon which could easily be damaged, and reliability problems which proved costly in its only battle.

Qualification

Prior to its appearance in Extreme 2, Broadsword attempted to qualify for The Sixth Wars, presumably with a heavyweight version of the same name. In the qualifiers, it faced X-Terminator, Destruct-A-Bubble and a third, as-yet unknown robot armed with a bludgeoner, described by Julian Richards as looking similar to Inverterbrat. It is unknown which robot of the four won the qualifier, but regardless, Broadsword failed to qualify for the series.

Robot History

Extreme 2

A ruined Broadsword is attacked by Shunt

Broadsword's innards tumble out

Broadsword began by attacking the back of Steel Sandwich ineffectively. Then it turned its attention to Typhoon, but again had no effect. While Malc 1.5 grappled with the House Robots and the other competitors grappled with each other, Broadsword appeared to have broken down, and Dead Metal took it into its CPZ, where both it and Shunt attacked Broadsword, bending the sword up 90 degrees. Shunt then flipped Broadsword onto the angle grinder and ripped off the top armour panel. Just after cease was called, Dead Metal pulled out all of Broadsword's components, removing the drive motors with the wheels attached before mercifully retreating.

The remains of Broadsword after the fight

" What you didn't see, but the audience did, was a long fight between Broadsword and Typhoon where we used our speed to ram. This stopped when I mistimed the charge and our wheel hit the cutters. We came to a halt and then all the damage was done by the house robots, especially Shunt who took us into the side rail. Why didn't you see this? The RW people thought it better that you saw Malc minus one wheel go round and round in circles. Having bad mouthed us in the interviews, Typhoon's driver Gary admitted that he had been worried by our performance. I don't think that Typhoon had a stronger opponent in its three years of winning the middleweight championship in terming of fighting if not in engineering."

— Captain Julian Richards' take on the fight

Results

Wins/Losses

• Wins: 0
• Losses: 1

Series Record

Main Series	Broadsword Series Record
The First Wars	Did not enter
The Second Wars	Did not enter
The Third Wars	Did not enter
The Fourth Wars	Did not enter
The Fifth Wars	Did not enter
The Sixth Wars	Failed to qualify
The Seventh Wars	Failed to qualify for Middleweight Championship with Voodoo Child
Series 8	Did not enter
Series 9	Did not enter
Series 10	Did not enter
Robot Wars Extreme	Appearances
Series 1	Did not enter
Series 2	Middleweight Championship, Round 1

Outside Robot Wars

Broadsword made an appearance at a British live event in the early 2000s where it fought Beast, under the controls of Craig Danby. With a flip, Beast was able to make Broadsword fall apart in a surprisingly destructive loss, also shorting its speed controllers in the process. Craig Danby sold the Broadsword new speed controllers after this, although it is unknown if Broadsword made any other competitive appearances on the live circuit.

The version of Broadsword that competed in Robot Wars was known as "Broadsword II" by team member Julian Richards, signalling the existence of an original Broadsword machine that predates Extreme 2. A third version of Broadsword was under construction, however it was never completed and instead became the blueprint for Broadsword IV, also a middleweight. It is currently unknown whether Broadsword IV attended any live events.

Trivia

• The Broadsword team were the only team in the Middleweight Championship of Extreme 2 not to appear in any other series.