The Mulcher is a fighting robot that was designed to compete in Robot Wars 1995. The Mulcher consists of a gas-powered lawnmower platform which has been mounted at a 45 degree angle between two electric-motor powered tank-tread assemblies. The whole shebang is then enclosed in a Kevlar composite shell to protect The Mulcher's delicate electronics and provide a tapered tail to "wedge" under other robots.
Unfortunately, The Mulcher was disqualified from competition
at the last moment by Robot Wars saftey officials on the
grounds that it was TOO DANGEROUS!! Really folks, death and
destruction are part and parcel of Robot Wars. However, Robot
Wars promoters were understandably nervous about
audience-bound shrapnel that might be generated by The Mulcher
during competition. For more details about Robot Wars, see
their home page
(URL: http://www.robotwars.com).
Blender Magazine, a multimedia periodical, had a feature article in Volume 1.5 about Robot Wars 1995. The article included a ficticious face-off between a robot called "Blendie" and The Mulcher. Blendie was literally a household blender appliance converted for battle with a small RC car kit, complete with toy arms and a foam-dart launcher. Can you guess which robot won from Blendie's picture below?
You should subscribe to Blender Magazine immediately because it is
very cool. They've also got a web site called Blender Web. For more
information about Blender, see their home page
(URL: http://www.blender.com).
Check out these QuickTime clips from the Blender article if and only if you can spare the bandwidth.