Slash Boy

Slash Boy's statistics

**Slash Boy** (Chinese: **斜杠青年**, romanized as **Xié gāng qīngnián**, meaning **Slash Youth**) was a heavyweight robot which competed in the 2018 series *This is Fighting Robots*. Its promising design - dubbed the series' "best" horizontal spinner by its builders - led to it becoming the third robot chosen by Sa Beining to compete as part of the Yellow team.

In spite of this, however, Slash Boy enjoyed limited success, losing its debut Freestyle Combat round to Xiake after having its weapon chain dislodged in battle. It would end up becoming immobilized by Tungsten - built by UK *Robot Wars* champions Team Carbide - in the Alliance War 2v2 rounds, eliminating Slash Boy from the competition alongside its teammate Saturn.

## Design

Slash Boy was an invertible robot driven by two wheels, somewhat low-profile in nature. Its primary weapon was a large horizontal bar spinner, with a high top speed in order to inflict severe damage upon its opponents. The bar spinner had several holes cut out of it, in order to conserve the robot's weight. However, the weapon was unreliable, and its chain slipped in combat.

## Robot History

### This is Fighting Robots (Season 1.5)

During the initial 'blind selection' process, Sa Beining saw potential in Slash Boy's design and selected it as the third robot to join his Yellow team line-up. Thus, its place in the main competition was secured. Slash Boy debuted in a three-way Freestyle Combat melee, where it fought newcomer Snow Leopard, and Xiake, the successor to *King of Bots* Season 1 runner-up Chiyung Jinlun.

Slash Boy initially held back to accelerate its bar spinner, first making contact when Snow Leopard drove straight into the weapon, although Xiake promptly charged past Slash Boy to immobilize the Kazakh machine. As Xiake had been overturned by the floor flipper, Slash Boy was relatively immune to its opponent's drum spinner; nevertheless, Xiake slammed straight into Slash Boy's bar spinner and disabled it, as the chain had fallen loose while Xiake pushed it into the wall. Slash Boy was then rammed into the Grinder by Xiake, and in its efforts to flee, Slash Boy drove over the circular saws, which threw sparks from the machine. In the final ten seconds of the battle, Xiake caught Slash Boy side-on, and drove it back at high speed into the arena corner. Onscreen, this was considered a knockout attack, resulting in Slash Boy losing to Xiake.

During the first part of the Alliance War stage, Slash Boy's captain accompanied Wang Xi as the pair discussed possible robot choices with Sa Beining and Zhang Yishan. This lead to Greedy Snake being chosen to fight alongside Beining's 008 in a 2v2 against Vulcan and Xiake, a match that the former two would subsequently win. However, it was revealed at this point that Slash Boy had encountered a malfunction while being worked on in the pits.

**Sa Beining**: "*Another one is burnt? What is the problem?* "
**Zhang Yishan**: "*Self explosion.*"
**Sa Beining**: "*Did they intend to test my mental condition?*"
— As Slash Boy is revealed to have technical issues

Slash Boy, nevertheless, was ready in time to be selected to fight a subsequent 2v2 match alongside British machine Saturn (Yishan, Blue). Together, they fought UK vertical spinner Tungsten (Zheng Shuang, Green) and camouflage pink drum spinner Red River Hong (Wu Chun, Red). Prior to the battle, Sa Beining expressed confidence in a repeat win for him and Yishan, having earlier been told by Slash Boy's builders that it was the "best" horizontal spinner in the competition.

At the start, Slash Boy got its bar spinner up to speed, and hesitated as Tungsten approached it. However, with Tungsten suddenly turning and almost driving itself into the trap, Slash Boy drove forwards and hit the British robot’s side. The impact knocked Tungsten’s on-board camera off and threw the latter into the trap, to Sa Beining’s delight. Slash Boy was also thrown back towards its starting position, and coasted to a stop, seemingly immobilized by the recoil. Moments later, it regained mobility, slowly driving across the arena and getting its weapon up to speed again. Slash Boy stopped as it and Red River Hong waited for Tungsten to rejoin the battle; after turning itself around, it suddenly stopped again, leaving it vulnerable to a side-on attack from Tungsten.

This attack resulted in one of Slash Boy’s side panels being torn to pieces, before it was swiftly flipped over against the wall spikes and immobilized by Tungsten. Slash Boy sustained another blow from Tungsten’s disc – this time to its weapon mount – before it and an already-immobile Saturn were deemed to have lost via knockout.

As a result, Slash Boy and Saturn were both instantly eliminated from the competition. Slash Boy's team, disappointed with their loss, covered their machine up and left the pits complex.

## Results

### Wins/Losses

* Wins: 0
* Losses: 2

## Outside King of Bots

Slash Boy was retired after its appearance in *This is Fighting Robots*, and remained hung on the wall of the *King of Bots* headquarters until the show's demise. In this state, it featured no internals, but kept its bar spinner and wheels.