Combat Robotics History

Beginnings (2016-2018)

The club began in 2016 when the founding members: Maddie Wilson, Chad Soukup, Dan Youst, Damon Mandideto, and Emily Perine decided to start the club under the name of “X-Bots”. They approached Professor Trent True and asked him to be the academic advisor. He accepted despite starting at Kent State the year before.

The first bots of the club were The Twins, Sorcerer & Apprentice. The Twins were two seven and a half pound bots, equipped with titanium wedges that allowed for a strong control game. They were active from the start until 2019 when Big-Ish was introduced. During their years, they went through a few revisions until they found success at Dayton and the National Robotics League’s competition in Pittsburgh. Their final and most successful redesign was wide-body bots with 6061 Aluminum wedges equipped to the front of the bots. The twins would be moved to the junior team in late 2017, and then retired after 2019.

After many competitions with The Twins the team decided to create a bot with a more aggressive style. This led to the idea of OSHA Approved. It was designed by Mike Nelson and kept the defensive style of the twins but added a proper weapon. The design was very low profile, with a cut off pyramid look to it. Aluminum wedges surrounded the rectangular body of the bot entirely except where the weapon was. It came equipped with a dual spinning vertical blade set up, which greatly helped the aggressive style the club was developing. Over its few years of life OSHA Approved was seen only at NRL competitions. For the 2018 season, OSHA Approved became OSHA Improved with a significant changes to its weapon and armor. Unfortunately, the OSHA series of bots where decommissioned in late 2019.

Big-Ish’s Introduction (2019-2022)

After a few years of the club existing, new members began to make a mark on its legacy. One notable introduction was Brendan Steele. He joined in 2018 and was the lead designer on the club’s next bot, Big-Ish. Big-Ish is a tall 12lb bot with a large vertical spinning blade in the middle of its two halves. The design takes heavy inspiration from the BattleBots competitor HUGE. Big-Ish’s design and creation was finished in 2019, right as Covid-19 began to take its toll on the club. Because of Covid, Brendan had to finish the bot at home, and the team was rushed to finish it for its first competition.

On top of rushing Big-Ish, Covid brought up other challenges for the club. The overall member count dwindled greatly and almost led to the club disbanding. This also caused the decommissioning of The Twins. Fortunately, with the creation of Big-Ish and the determination of its members, the club prevailed. Following the lift of Covid restrictions, Big-Ish was able to properly compete at the National Havoc Robot League (NHRL). Big-Ish found success, winning three out of its five matches.

The Current Age (2022-Present)

During these more recent years, the club went through a large expansion and gained many members. The board members reorganized and created the structural foundation of what we know the club as today. They also introduced a third bot to the club, Flash-BANG. Flash-BANG is a twelve-pound bot equipped with a drum spinner. The bot was originally designed by Austin Thebner & Gregory Wenner. It has fought at NHRL a few times and has competed at the Dayton competition.

Nowadays, the club continues with two active bots, Big-Ish and Flash-BANG. With these bots, they attend competitions when possible, with the main goal being to win NHRL. They also started a tradition of hosting an all-plastic bot competition. The first competition was held in the fall of 2023 and featured 1.5lb all-plastic bots. This is being followed by a 3lb all-plastic competition in the spring of 2025.