Big Carioca

**Big Carioca** (Chinese: **里约老炮** (**Lǐ yuē lǎo pào**), translating to **Rio Old Cannon**, alternately referred to as **Rio's** by Zhejiang STV) was a Brazilian competitor robot which fought in Season 2 of *King of Bots*. Built by ODDBotz, a team captained by a former member of Team RioBotz, Big Carioca is the heavyweight counterpart to the 60kg robot Carioca.

In *King of Bots II*, Big Carioca joined Tao Shen's team after violently defeating Storm Cut in its first battle, although it lost a head-to-head battle on his behalf after a close Judges' decision which favored Black Rabbit. In its final battle, Big Carioca was blown apart in a devastating loss to Megabyte, and as the team lacked spare parts, they allowed Tao Shen to cut Big Carioca from his team.

## Design

Big Carioca is a compact robot centralized around its vertically spinning bar, in the center of the robot. The main body of Big Carioca is a wide block, positioned high above the arena floor by the robot's relatively large wheels, which also allow Big Carioca to run inverted, due to the supportive frame surrounding the bar spinner. Two sharpened wedgelets are found at the bottom of this structure, to lead other robots into the robot's spinner, although wedges are not found on top of the frame, forcing the robot to use the arena to self-right if it wants to deliver an upward strike with its blade. Optional armor panels could also be applied to the side of Big Carioca's weapon housing, when fighting horizontal spinners, providing additional defence and two extra forks for lower ground clearance.

## Robot History

### King of Bots II (Season 2)

Big Carioca made its *King of Bots* debut in Episode 3 of Season 2, after the celebrities had already filled their teams with three Chinese machines. Big Carioca was randomly drawn against the Chinese Storm Cut of Tao Shen's team, with the opportunity to join Shen's team being available to Big Carioca if it won the match. The battle was only broadcast as part of highlights within a montage.

Both robots spun their weapons up to full speed, but it was Big Carioca that drew first blood, bringing its bar spinner under the blade of Storm Cut to launch it upwards, and briefly onto its back, although Storm Cut quickly fell back onto its wheels, after hitting the weapon housing of Big Carioca with the face of its now-motionless weapon while airborne. Big Carioca had completely bent Storm Cut's blade out of shape with this attack, and when the two robots came together again, Big Carioca threw sparks off the wedge of Storm Cut, which suddenly started to smoke copiously. Big Carioca did not let up, and connected another blow with the motionless bar spinner of Storm Cut to launch it into the air and towards the Grinders, although Storm Cut landed on its wheels.

The robots returned to the center of the arena, and Big Carioca landed a blow on one of Storm Cut's rear wheels, which was enough to disable its drive on one side, also further bending the bar spinner of Storm Cut. While Storm Cut pivoted on one wheel, it vented more smoke, and came to a complete standstill. Big Carioca therefore won the battle by knockout, and joined Tao Shen's team for the remainder of the competition.

Confident in Big Carioca's abilities, Tao Shen nominated it to fight in a head-to-head battle against Black Rabbit at the beginning of the next round.

Despite a tentative start for both robots, Black Rabbit quickly got round the side of Big Carioca, before getting underneath and flipping the Brazilian machine upside-down. Big Carioca drove towards the red corner and re-righted itself while being rammed by Black Rabbit again; in doing so, Big Carioca tore one of the wall spikes off. The two competitors clashed again by one of the floor flippers; Big Carioca flipped itself over after striking the side of a spinning Black Rabbit, only for the flipper to throw it back upright. Black Rabbit pursued and slammed into Big Carioca once more, only for Big Carioca to land several more blows on it with its vertical spinner. Big Carioca continued to chase Black Rabbit, whose own drum spinner was struggling to get up to speed, before landing another heavy hit which sent Black Rabbit spinning away.

Black Rabbit quickly recovered, dodging then pushing Big Carioca into the wall spikes. Another head-on collision ensued between the two robots, before Black Rabbit resumed its earlier assault by pushing Big Carioca into the spikes again, then the circular saws. For the next few moments, Big Carioca bumped and chased Black Rabbit across the arena, only to be scooped up and steered towards the spikes once more by Black Rabbit. With less than fifty seconds to go, Big Carioca drove off the top of Black Rabbit, only to slam into and attack Black Rabbit's right-rear wheel with its spinner. This attack, however, did not affect Black Rabbit severely, as it proceeded to turn round and drive Big Carioca into the wall spikes yet again. A few more pursuits and rams ensued, with Big Carioca pushing Black Rabbit sideways just before time expired.

The battle went to a Judges' decision, which ruled in favor of Black Rabbit; Big Carioca's captain Rodrigo Duque later admitted his frustration and disappointment at having lost for Tao Shen's team.

Big Carioca's next opportunity to represent Tao Shen came in a battle against Megabyte of Emma Dumont's team.

Within seconds, Big Carioca approached and drove into a spinning Megabyte, only for Megabyte to rip off its front-right wedge and send it recoiling into the grinders. Megabyte, meanwhile, ricocheted into the spikes, rebounding back into the blue corner before getting its shell up to speed. Big Carioca charged into Megabyte again, and as before was launched towards the grinder, this time with considerable damage to its right axle.

Despite this, Big Carioca drove into Megabyte’s shell twice more; these blows resulted in Megabyte tearing off one of Big Carioca’s weapon supports and its remaining wedge, as well as dislodge the Brazilian machine’s bar spinner entirely. As a result of this damage, Big Carioca began to overbalance, flipping its chassis upside down while Megabyte closed in. Megabyte cleaved Big Carioca’s right wheel off, sparks flying as Big Carioca was knocked back into the blue corner.

Big Carioca moved back and forth in a circle on its remaining wheel, and began to shuffle out of the blue corner in an attempt to avoid getting eliminated. Although the referee initially began counting Big Carioca out, its movements across the arena were noticed, terminating the countdown after three seconds. Big Carioca made its way towards the pit, at which point Megabyte charged forwards and slammed into it one more time. The impact sent Big Carioca flying into a grinder mount, and the remainder of its weapon mount into one of the polycarbonate screens directly above. Big Carioca came to rest against another grinder mount nearby, where it was left to smoke copiously. After a spectacularly destructive battle, Megabyte was declared the winner by knockout, securing Emma Dumont’s second consecutive victory in this round.

"*The Brazilian team is really good friends with Megabyte, the Megabyte team, and they said “Let’s do it, let’s go full out, let’s try our hardest… you know, come at us!”… that was really honorable and very, very cool.*"
— Emma Dumont’s verdict on Megabyte vs Big Carioca

Unfortunately, the Big Carioca team had not brought a sufficient number of spare parts to repair their machine after this explosive loss. As a result, the team waited until the end of the Attrition Battle which took place in Episode 8, and after Tao Shen's team lost the Attrition Battle, Rodrigo Duque informed his celebrity manager of this issue, and allowed Tao Shen to eliminate Big Carioca from the competition, sparing Tao Shen's other active machines from being eliminated in its place.

## Results

### Wins/Losses

* Wins: 1
* Losses: 2

## Series Record

 Season 2 | **Tao Shen's third cut**(1-2 record)

## Outside King of Bots

* Carioca, the 60kg competitor
* Scrap in December 2017
* StarKiller in June 2018
1/3
Big Carioca scales up **Carioca**, a middleweight robot armed with a vertical spinner. Carioca competed at the *Fighting My Bots* 60kg championship in January 2018. Carioca was itself a scaled-up version of the team's successful lightweight **Scrap**, which first competed in Winter 2015, and was rebuilt four times between 2015 and 2017. The team also competed with the beetleweight **StarKiller**, armed with a horizontal bar spinner, which was first built in 2015.

Before forming his own team, ODDBotz team captain Rodrigo Duque was previously a member of Team RioBotz, best known for their extremely successful heavyweight drum spinners, Touro Maximus and Minotaur.

## Trivia

* As Big Carioca debuted during a montage, the team's history was not touched upon in the robot's first appearance.
* Big Carioca is the second Brazilian robot to compete in *King of Bots*, after Spike Head, which competed in *This is Fighting Robots*.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.facebook.com/groups/RobotCombat/permalink/2055294514754378/

## External Links

* ODDBotz Facebook page
* Big Carioca's reveal on Instagram