008

008 on the turntable

**008** was a robot from Scotland which competed exclusively in the 2018 series *This is Fighting Robots*. It was built by former *Robot Wars* UK champion Gary Cairns, and was the follow-up to Crossfire, which competed in Season 1 of *King of Bots*.

008 was not selected by any team managers during the initial selection process, and became immobilized in its preliminary group battle before it could be chosen to compete in the main competition. However, it was later selected by Sa Beining as a late replacement for one of his original robots - Mad Moustache - securing its place as part of the Yellow team.

Team Far North's machine encountered a similarly shaky run from that point on, losing its Freestyle Combat round to Weber on a Judges' decision and becoming immobilized during its Alliance War 2v2, partnered with Zhang Yishan's Greedy Snake. However, both robots would subsequently win the latter, after Greedy Snake single-handedly pitted Xiake and dominated over Vulcan following 008's immobilization. 008 was finally eliminated during a head-to-head challenger battle, where it became immobilized once again while trying to defend its place against Formula. Formula directly replaced 008 in the Yellow team as a result, eliminating it from the competition entirely.

## Design

008 uses an invertible design, with two exposed tires at either side of the robot, and two plastic skids on top with a further skid rotating under the disc. Its primary weapon was a 30kg horizontal flywheel, mounted underneath the robot's body to undercut opponents and strike the lowest point of other robots. 008 was also armed with four rear flamethrowers. Its weapon is extremely powerful, although it also inflicts heavy recoil upon the robot. Its wheels, flywheel and weapon shaft were all reused from Gary Cairns' robot **PP3D**, while the weapon belt tensioner mechanism were reused from Crossfire. A LEM 170-127 racing spec motor powers 008's weapon, and its weapon bearings were remade, with the design originally being used by PP3D. The robot's drive motors were also salvaged from PP3D, but were improved with CNC machined gearbox casings and stronger bolts. However, 008's wheels could be bent out of alignment to immobilize the machine, a weakness Xiake exploited.

The etymology and aesthetic design of 008 was heavily influenced by the production team. Gary Cairns planned to name the robot **Stellar**, and paint the robot purple and green. However, the production team advised that the robot be named 008 (phonetically "zero-zero-eight" in English pronunciations), and use white, gray, black and gold for its color-scheme.

"*The colour scheme and name were picked by the production team. I originally wanted it to be purple and green but they wanted the white, grey, black and gold (pain in the arse to paint!). They wanted to called it zero zero eight. I wanted stellar but they said 008 would sound better to a Chinese audience. I just went with it because they're the ones paying the bills*"
— Gary Cairns

## Robot History

### This is Fighting Robots (Season 1.5)

008 was not initially chosen by any of the celebrity team managers during the 'blind selection' process, and so was required to compete in a preliminary group battle in order to impress them. The four-way match put it up against fellow UK entries Ninja and Saturn, along with Xiake, successor to *King of Bots* Season 1 runner-up Chiyung Jinlun.

Brief highlights of the group battle were featured in Episode 2; one of 008's notable moments saw it drive disc-first into Xiake's drum, causing both robots to recoil across different parts of the arena. However, 008 subsequently had its right wheel ripped off by Saturn, which also hit one of its side panels. The wheel bounced across the arena as 008 was left spinning in circles, resulting in it getting eliminated from the battle via knockout. Aware of the battle conditions, Gary Cairns also attempted to impress the celebrities by firing 008's flamethrowers. Despite being immobile on one side, 008 survived the full duration of the battle, though onscreen graphics in the Episode 2 highlights affirmed it as having succumbed to a knockout. Consequently, none of the team managers selected 008 for their line-ups, initially eliminating Team Far North at this very early stage.

After the group battles had concluded, 008 was given a reprieve when Turkish competitor Mad Moustache withdrew from the competition, opening an extra place in Sa Beining's Yellow team roster. Despite expressing 'hesitance' towards it in light of its previous immobilization, Beining considered 008 to be his second preference alongside Unlimited Numbers, and even offered it to Green team manager Zheng Shuang at one point. With persuasion from Wu Chun (Red team), Beining enthusiastically picked 008 to replace Mad Moustache, confirming its reinstatement for the main competition. Later on in Episode 2, 008 was briefly seen to be inspected by Beining during the 'learning' process, where he appeared to express greater interest in its rear flamethrowers than its more damaging undercutter.

008's first battle of the main competition occurred in Episode 3, where it was chosen by Beining to fight Cat King (Zheng Shuang), Red River Hong (Wu Chun) and Weber (Zhang Yishan) in a Freestyle Combat melee.

Here, it was extremely passive in the opening stages, remaining in its starting area to power up its spinner, while avoiding the other machines. This was due to Cat King spinning up before the match started and Team Far North objecting to the referee standing beside them. 008 eventually drew close to Weber, causing the Russian machine to flip itself over, despite no contact being made between either machine. Outside of the televised edit, 008 struck the back end of Cat King, causing it to lose a drive belt. Red River Hong then charged into 008 for a weapon-to-weapon collision, generating many sparks.

008 and Red River Hong crashed into each other's weapons once again, ripping armor from both machines, and causing Red River Hong to start smoking. Despite this, Red River Hong smashed into the side of 008, ripping another armor panel from it, and 008 lost the use of its spinner shortly afterwards. 008 was starting to lose free movement as well, and lingered over the fire pit, before being stranded in the air by the battle rings on the arena floor. Towards the end of the battle, 008 could not leave its own circumference, and was flipped up by Weber, but it survived to a Judges' decision. Although the Judges were choosing between three robots that had lost full mobility, the winner was declared to be Weber.

Despite its loss, 008 remained in the competition as one of Sa Beining's available machines for the Alliance War stage. Here, it was chosen to partner Greedy Snake (Zhang Yishan, Blue) in a 2v2 fight, against Xiake for the second time, and fellow UK machine Vulcan from the Green team (Zheng Shuang). Moments before the battle began, 008 began smoking as a result of one of its speed controllers overheating. Despite concerns from Beining, Yishan and Greedy Snake's captain Wang Xi, Gary Cairns proceeded with the fight once he noticed that the smoke had cleared.

"*For those wondering, the smoke coming out the top of 008 was the speed controller I had running the 4 heater nozzles for the flame thrower at the back. The setup for this battle was a lot longer than normal so they were running for longer. I saw the smoke coming out, still had drive and disc and knew it wasn't going to get any better so shrugged my shoulders and got on with the match.*"
— Gary Cairns explains the cause for 008 smoking before its Tag Team battle

Immediately, 008 turned and drove into the front of Greedy Snake, to Sa Beining’s frustration. It proceeded to dodge an approaching Vulcan, only to clatter into Greedy Snake again as all four robots circled the edge of the opened trap. Moments later, 008 drove disc-first into Xiake, the impact lifting it off the floor and allowing Xiake to push the Scottish machine back. This resulted in 008 violently recoiling as its disc repeatedly hit the floor; however, it quickly stabilized and survived a second blow from Xiake’s drum.

The two competitors drove head-on into each other again; the impact caused 008 to cartwheel across the arena, into and out of the pit. Flames spouted from the back of 008 as it bounced and flew through the air, its disc once again hitting the floor at full speed. 008 landed upright, but its right wheel hub was badly bent and the tyre punctured, leaving it spinning helplessly on its disc as the fire spread across its body. After being nudged by Greedy Snake, 008 continued spinning until it became immobilized close to the maces, eliminating it from the battle.

However, after initially driving itself into the trap and being raised back up, Greedy Snake subsequently pitted Xiake and battled Vulcan until time ran out. The contributions of Wang Xi's machine, coupled with Xiake's elimination via the trap, were enough to award Greedy Snake and 008 the win by default, despite the Scottish machine's prolonged immobility.

"*It was a confusing setup but the only reason I didn't go home was because [Greedy Snake] won the fight for us. We were told after that had Vulcan shoved us down the pit for the second time (even though the robot was dead) we would have lost the match as it would have gone to the judges.*"
— Gary Cairns’ thoughts on the aftermath of 008’s Alliance War battle

By Episode 7, 008 was one of only three robots remaining on the Yellow team, alongside Ninja and Shrederator Tiger Claw. Sa Beining opted to pit it against 'challenger' Formula - a flipper from fellow British entrants Team Precision - whereupon Gary Cairns openly admitted that his machine was not as 'reliable' as others.

The two robots met each other in the middle of the arena, and sparks flew as 008's flywheel bounced off of Formula's flipper. Going on another attack, Formula then got underneath 008, but failed to flip it and had its decorative spoiler ripped away as 008 drove over it. Chasing after it some more, Formula finally managed to get its flipper into play as it threw 008 into the air, and 008 landed with a crash.

As the battle continued, 008 seemed to be slowing down with fire visibly bellowing from its insides. Approaching each other tentatively, Formula once again collided with 008's still working flywheel, sending shards of the machine flying across the arena. By now, the true damage inflicted by 008's attacks was becoming clear, as Formula only seemed capable of driving backwards and forwards. However, 008 also showed limited mobility by this stage. As it limped forwards towards the heavily damaged Formula, it seemed to wedge itself onto its own flywheel, smoke now also rising from Team Far North's machine. The countdown started, and since Formula was at least showing some movement, 008 was the one to be eliminated by knockout, despite Formula losing mobility shortly afterwards. 008 was dropped from the Yellow team as a result, ending its run on *This is Fighting Robots*.

## Results

### Wins/Losses

* Wins: 1
* Losses: 2

*NOTE: 008's preliminary group battle is not considered to be a win or a loss.*

## Outside King of Bots

Prior to entering *King of Bots* with Crossfire, Gary Cairns earned several years of robot combat experience through competing in the UK TV shows *Robot Wars* and *Techno Games*. He initially competed in the latter shows as part of **Team Typhoon**, a team consisting of cadets from the Air Training Corps, where he served as one of their drivers. Among the team’s most famous and successful robots were the **Typhoon** series of full-body spinners, which were built to compete in different weight classes and featured cone-shaped bodies painted to resemble the roundel of the British Royal Air Force (RAF). Cairns drove the original version of Typhoon, which won three consecutive Middleweight Championships during the original run of *Robot Wars*, as well as a heavyweight derivative, **Typhoon 2**, which won the seventh series outright before making a one-off appearance at RoboGames in 2005.

Following *Robot Wars*’ initial cancellation, Cairns built an invertible horizontal spinner, **Swarm**, with the intention of competing with it in the 2006 UK Championships. However, Swarm was forced to withdraw from the championship due to technical issues, and did not appear at any live events thereafter.

Although Team Typhoon did not return for *Robot Wars*’ revival in 2016, Cairns formed his own team, **PP3D Robotics**, to compete in Series 8-9 of the rebooted show. Their entry for these series, **PP3D**, was an invertible robot utilizing an undercutting flywheel and 3D-printed parts. It reached the second round in both of its appearances, but ultimately progressed no further. PP3D provided Cairns with his experience in using undercutting flywheels prior to implementing one in 008.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/robotwars/comments/85lg0c/from\_the\_team\_behind\_crossfire\_and\_pp3d\_comes\_008/dvzk86w/
2. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/robotwars/comments/85lg0c/from\_the\_team\_behind\_crossfire\_and\_pp3d\_comes\_008/dvzk6fo/
3. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/battlebots/comments/8d38ip/this\_is\_fighting\_robots\_episode\_2\_discussion/dxoqudi/?context=3
4. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/battlebots/comments/8iczpy/this\_is\_fighting\_robots\_episode\_5\_discussion/dysvk8h/
5. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/battlebots/comments/8iczpy/this\_is\_fighting\_robots\_episode\_5\_discussion/dywn1yr/

## External Links

* Team Far North - King of Bots Facebook page
* Official PP3D Robotics (Far North) team website
* Team Typhoon and PP3D Robotics on *Robot Wars Wiki*