Manta

Not to be confused with the BattleBots IQ middleweight of the same name which competed in 2004.
Manta, known formerly as Drago, is a heavyweight robot designed by Team Tanto which applied for BattleBots World Championship VII.
It is a four-wheel drive robot armed with a 20" wide, 60lb eggbeater drum spinner machined from 4340 alloy steel. The primary weapon is powered by two TP5870 brushless inrunner motors.Public message by Nick Dobrikov in the Out of the Arena Discord server Manta also sports four large serrated forks at the front, which are hinged to feed opponents into its spinning drum.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QU7_YUfEpE According to the team, Manta's drum is capable of hitting 12,000rpm. It also features a separate self-righting arm at the rear, behind Manta's primary weapon.
Team captain Nick Dobrikov has previous experience with Malice in both the 2020 and 2021 seasons of BattleBots and has previously designed and build various drum spinners in lower weight classes. It is one of two robots to be sponsored by Team Malice ahead of the seventh reboot season, alongside Banshee.https://www.facebook.com/malicebattlebot/posts/511694550359419 Unlike Banshee, however, Drago was not selected to compete.
In 2022, Drago was renamed Drago X, before eventually settling on the name Manta. The team intend to apply for World Championship VIII following the conclusion of RoboGames 2023, which marked the robot's competitive debut.https://discord.com/channels/293793025761476611/412189458637520896/1094773685480587315 Dobrikov intends to drop the separate self-righter arm seen on Drago's CAD, which was also not present at RoboGames, and give Manta and blue and white color scheme to accompany its bright yellow weapon.Public message by Nick Dobrikov in the Out of the Arena Discord server
Manta is scheduled to compete in BattleBots Proving Ground on the weekend of June 23-24, 2023, fighting twice against a robot called Atomic Pumpkin.
==Outside BattleBots==
Nick Dobrikov regularly competes at Norwalk Havoc Robot League events with Noisy Boy and has previously entered the 2017 and 2018 editions of RoboGames with Tsunami and Tsunami Light. Tsunami won gold in the junior bracket of its debut RoboGames campaign, but neither it not its smaller counterpart could replicate that success a year later.
Team Tanto also entered robots called Maverick and Rogue Wave into RoboGames 2017, ending with 6-2 and 0-2 records respectively. Team Tanto Robotics has also competed in Sparkfun AVC 2017 with Tsunami, Maverick, and a hobbyweight named Typhoon.
With assistance from former Team Malice member David Small, Nick Dobrikov entered the 2023 edition of RoboGames with Manta. After receiving a bye in the first round, Manta took out Banana Runt in destructive fashion. Returning for Day 3, Manta lost to veteran HexaDecimator in the winner's bracket, bursting into flames after being flipped upside-down, despite causing serious damage to Team WhoopAss' robot. 
After having its internals replaced, Manta returned to winning ways as it knocked out Ray Billings and Stinkeye. It then took the win over BattleBots World Championship VII alternate Terrortops in controversial circumstances; both robots were on the unfortunate end of an arena breach, in which one of Terrortops' forks damaged the Lexan roof and landed outside the arena, mere feet away from the camera crew. 
Despite this, however, Manta was still eligible to advance in the bracket, winning its next fight over Ziggy Jr. before facing White Rabbit in the final. Here, the battle was stopped following another arena breach, in which an inner Lexan panel was dislodged and fell from the ceiling after Manta ripped one of White Rabbit's weapon teeth off. Despite arena safety being compromised at that point, the battle was restarted with no immediate repairs being carried out to the Lexan. Manta continued to inflict damage to White Rabbit, eventually throwing it into the ceiling and dislodging another Lexan panel in the process. White Rabbit tapped out immediately, enabling Manta to face Cataclysm in the overall final. Manta won the first of two potential encounters against Martin Mason's machine, damaging it so severely that Mason decided to formally forfeit the rematch. Thus, Manta was declared the overall 2023 RoboGames heavyweight champion.
==Trivia== 
*If accepted, the robot's 20" weapon would have been the widest drum spinner in BattleBots history.
*According to an interview on the Green Square Talks podcast, the robot's drum was originally going to be made from S7 steel. This was changed to 4340 alloy steel for unknown reasons.https://youtu.be/19KRLzKvU60?t=12731 
==References==
Category:Heavyweight Robots
Category:Robots armed with Spinning Drums
Category:Invertible Robots
Category:Robots from Arizona
Category:RoboGames 2023 Applicants
Category:Robots that were rejected
Category:RoboGames 2023 Competitors
Category:World Championship VIIl Applicants
Category:BattleBots Proving Ground Competitors
Category:Robots armed with Eggbeaters