Reaper

**收割者** (romanized as **Shōugē zhě**, translating to **Reaper**) was a Chinese competitor robot which fought in Season 2 of *King of Bots*. First appearing in the second episode, it was chosen by Zhu Zheng Ting to compete in the opening rounds of the competition, winning its battle over Silver Scorpion on a Judges’ decision. However, Reaper lost its place on Zhu Zheng Ting's team after losing a long battle against the experienced Tánshè. Reaper was then forced to win a four-way rumble in the Redemption Round, and despite tearing a wheel away from the highly successful Xiake, it was immobilized by the veteran and eliminated from the competition at that stage.

## Design

Reaper was an two-wheel drive, black and red robot armed with a horizontal undercutting spinner. The primary blade used by Reaper combined elements of bar spinners and horizontal flywheels, with large curved tips intended to cause major damage to opponents. Reaper also featured a powerful drive system for ramming and pushing other robots, either in conjunction with the undercutter or as a secondary offensive tactic. However, Reaper's disc proved to shear in battle, leaving the robot to fight without its weapon in these situations.

## Robot History

### King of Bots II (Season 2)

Reaper debuted in Episode 2 of Season 2, where Zhu Zheng Ting selected it to fight against Silver Scorpion in one of the episode’s head-to-head battles.

Immediately, Reaper darted across the arena and weaved its way into the side of Silver Scorpion, its undercutter causing damage to its opponent’s right tire. Circling around Silver Scorpion, it promptly rammed the latter again, sending sparks and a few nuts flying across the arena. Reaper next attempted to attack Silver Scorpion from the front; however, it hopped sideways and was briefly caught in Silver Scorpion’s pincers. Pushing Silver Scorpion back, Reaper eventually broke free, in turn hitting and breaking Silver Scorpion’s right pincer; seconds later, it proceeded to push Silver Scorpion into the red corner while tearing more of the nuts holding its opponent’s chassis together. Another heavy blow from Reaper sent Silver Scorpion spinning towards a grinder and dislodged one of its decorative metal plates.

Reaper darted away to the other side of the arena, before slamming into Silver Scorpion and causing its other spiked plate to detach. Its spinner appeared to stop rotating as it retreated towards the blue corner, before ramming Silver Scorpion again as the latter appeared to be fully immobilized. However, Silver Scorpion regained mobility moments later, and it soon became clear that Reaper’s spinner had malfunctioned completely as the two robots rammed each other head-on.

Despite this setback, Reaper proceeded to push Silver Scorpion further back, eventually ramming it into a grinder and under one of the hammers in the closing moments. Both robots survived the full three minutes, resulting in the battle going to Judges’ decision. Reaper was declared to have won the decision, securing the second place on Zhu Zheng Ting’s team for future stages of the main competition.

Unfortunately, Reaper's place on Zhu Zheng Ting's team was short-lived, as it was randomly selected to face the British entry Tánshè when it joined the competition in Episode 3, and Reaper was forced to defend its place on the team against the runner-up of *This is Fighting Robots*.

"*We've been chosen to fight Reaper, it's a very good undercutter, very fast. We mustn't underestimate it. However, I think we'll be able to beat it.*"
— Gabriel Stroud

Reaper instantly started spinning up its undercutter, and delivered a blow to Tánshè in the first six seconds of the match, but caused minimal damage to its opponent. Reaper was chased down, and upon Reaper's second hit to Tánshè, the undercutting disc flew away from Reaper entirely, leaving it weaponless in the opening stages of the bout. Tánshè went on the offensive from hereon out, and shepherded Reaper into the arena wall, where the spikes were lined.

With Reaper's weight significantly reduced, Tánshè's first flip sent it flying across the arena until it hit the outer wall near the Out-of-the-Arena zone, although Reaper managed to bounce back into the main arena without falling into the corner where it would have been counted out otherwise. A minute of the battle had now passed, and Reaper was still trying to drive aggressively, but Tánshè caught its back end and bumped it. Not long afterwards, Tánshè drove under the defenceless Reaper, and threw it far backwards for a rough landing against the arena wall.

Reaper did not give up, and drove head-first into Tánshè, also driving over its own disc, but Tánshè drove Reaper back into the spikes, and then launched it high into the arena wall. Tánshè drove the inverted Reaper over to another corner, briefly being clipped by the floor flipper in the process, but here Reaper started to emit smoke. Tánshè collected the struggling machine and somersaulted it into the wall stylishly, until Reaper seemingly came to a complete standstill with less than twenty seconds left in the match. Reaper did come back to life, only to be flipped over lightly by Tánshè until time expired on the battle. Reaper lost the battle via Judges' decision, and forfeited its place on Zhu Zheng Ting's team to Tánshè.

"*After Reaper broke its weapon on our armor, and it fell off! We thought, oh, he's beached, but he carried on driving around, and was very very good, very tricky to catch, and he was still hitting us all the time, so he wouldn't stop, and I would say that he should really be encouraged to fix that robot. He can still come back into the competition, and he can still be on the winning team!*"
— Gabriel Stroud praises Reaper

Reaper was relegated to the redemption round, where it needed to win a four-way rumble over Green Elf, UFO and the experienced Xiake in order to retain its place in the competition, and join a celebrity team of its choosing.

All four robots spent the opening period of the match spinning up their weapons, although Green Elf's disc soon gave out and stalled. Reaper delivered the first attack of the match, driving its way around to Xiake's back tire while Xiake was spinning in place, and Reaper ripped the tire away entirely. However, on the next collision between the two, Reaper's undercutting blade deflected off Xiake's thick wedge, and threw Reaper over, causing it to drive into the arena wall. Reaper started exuding smoke after this violent drive, and only turned in place while Xiake focused on Green Elf, which had hardly been involved. Soon after, Reaper stopped moving altogether, and was the first to be counted out in the rumble which was ultimately won by Xiake. As a result, Reaper was eliminated from *King of Bots II*.

## Results

### Wins/Losses

* Wins: 1
* Losses: 2

## Series Record

 Season 2 | **Eliminated in Redemption Round**(1-2 record)

## Outside King of Bots

The teams also made a machine called **Heavy Hammer**(**重锤**, romanized as **Zhòng chuí**) to participate in *Clash Bots*. However, for unknown reasons, it was not selected for the main competition, and only briefly appeared in a promotional trailer for the show.

A featherweight version of Reaper has also competed at 30lb *King of Bots* events with greater success than its heavyweight counterpart.

## Trivia

* Reaper was the first robot in Season 2 to have its weapon completely detach from its body.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1jW411i7Rx?spm\_id\_from=333.999.0.0&vd\_source=31eca50888ca87f1c736118a7de40910&t=0.0