I am a massive fan of BattleBots. Have been for years. If you saw me gushing about the most recent season on the Couch Avocadoes threads the past couple months, you are likely already aware of that. (Sorry, by the way.) Now that the season is over (and, perhaps more importantly, now that I have the ability to publish threads of my own), I thought it would be fun to take over the open threads for a day to show off two of my current favorite bots, starting with the speedy snake itself, Claw Viper.

If you are unaware of BattleBots, it is a robot fighting competition show that initially ran for five seasons on Comedy Central in the early 2000s before being revived in 2015 on ABC and then Discovery. The revival just wrapped up its seventh season last month, with an eighth planned for next year. Two hundred and fifty pound bots pummel each other for three minutes to see which one survives the longest (or, at least, survives the best). At the end of the season a champion is crowned and awarded the Giant Nut. (Yes, that is what the trophy is called.)

The carnage. The wacky physics. The eccentric personalities. BattleBots has it all.

**I only talk about the qualifying rounds below and have avoided discussing anything about the end-of-season tournament bracket, but if you are worried about spoilers for Season 7 of BattleBots, skip ahead to the comments**

One of the competitors over the past few seasons has been Claw Viper, a grappler bot noted for being the fastest bot in the competition. With this speed has typically come a downside, however – it is very difficult to drive. This really hampered the bot during its first couple of seasons. With the addition of two hundred and fifty more pounds of downforce through magnets, however, Claw Viper became an absolute menace last season. Everyone was surprised by its ability to bully its opponents around, especially at a time when grappler bots were being seen as increasingly unviable. To see this in action, watch its fight against Dutch rookie bot Ominous:

(The video quality isn’t the greatest, but it’s the best I could find.)

For an even more spectacular performance, watch Claw Viper fight former number 2 seed Ribbot:

Have a great day, everyone!