Triple Crown

Template:Spoiler Template:Bot Triple Crown is a heavyweight robot built by Team Irresistible Force, which competed in Discovery Season 6 of the BattleBots reboot. It marked Todd Mendenhall's return after a decade long absence from robot combat.

Dubbed "the ultimate multi-bot weapon" by builder and driver Todd Mendenhall, Triple Crown is a three-wheel drive robot with three different weapons attached in between each drive pod. In the CAD which was posted to BattleBots Supporters on Facebook in early 2020, the robot was armed with two small horizontal bar spinners and a vertical spinner, though the exhaustive list of configurations remained unknown. Above the weaponry was a large metal ring, which exposed one weapon at at time while defending the other two. Despite being accepted for Discovery Season 5, builder Todd Mendenhall accepted a task for NASA approximately three months prior to the competition, a project which overran and ate into the time allocated to making Triple Crown competition-ready, designing another weapon and anti-horizontal, anti-vertical, anti-hammer and anti-flipper defensive attachments. As such, despite being largely functional in 2020, Triple Crown had to withdraw from the season.

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Team Irresistible Force and Triple Crown during BattleBots Season 6.

Work on Triple Crown continued in the following months, including an anti-vertical spinner attachment consisting of a a hinged hunk of metal connected to a block, which is then connected to another block of metal by a hinged four-bar mechanism, designed to retract in response to being hit and absorb shots. Though due to issues with their steering motors, which the team were unable to obtain enough of, Todd Mendenhall originally called to withdraw from BattleBots for a second time. However, Greg Munson later called to encourage Todd and his team to attend BattleBots irrespective of the bot's overall functionality.

Triple Crown became a surprise inclusion to the list of competing robots for Discovery Season 6, as in August 2021, it was revealed that Triple Crown would indeed compete via a Reddit post from Charles Guan of Overhaul. Todd Mendenhall confirmed in a February 2022 video that Triple Crown was no more than a backup option for the season, and was not originally part of the main roster prior to news of withdrawals from UK-based teams such as Monsoon and Beta. For the competition, veteran builder Todd Mendenhall was joined by his wife Valerie Mendenhall, who designed the team's t-shirts, as well as Dr. Michael Narigon. Team Irresistible Force is likely a reference to the paradox of the same name, relating to an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force.

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An alternative angle of Triple Crown, showing the forks.

Triple Crown looked largely similar in 2021 to its previous CAD photo, but with visual differences. Aesthetically, the ring had been ditched and each third of the robot was now painted a different color, rather than all three modules being painted brown. The chassis was welded together and the white third contains "computers" according to Todd Mendenhall, which require bespoke software to make work. In the official image for Triple Crown, the horizontal spinner attachment is red, the attachment housing hinged forks made from 1½" 4130 steel is white, and the blue module was left without a weapon. Todd Mendenhall explained that due to time restraints and the fact the spinner modules are too heavy to sport multiple kinetic weapons, Triple Crown was unable to utilize three modules at once and remain within the 250lb limit. Triple Crown retained its unique swerve drive, which offers greater friction to the BattleBox compared to omni-drive as seen in the likes of Shatter!.

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Todd Mendenhall holds a wheel pod of Triple Crown.

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Triple Crown's anti-vert attachment, sat on its end.

In December 2021, Todd Mendenhall posted a build diary of Triple Crown which showed many of the steps taken to prepare it ahead of the 2020 season, prior to its postponement. Triple Crown's wire rope isolators come in three different weights, and are used as shock absorbers for each weapon as well as within the three pods containing the wheels. As well as each wheel being powered by a brushless motor, another motor serves to rotate the wheel inside its respective pod, connected via chain. The three pods all twist in unison to face the same way and allow for Triple Crown to drive forwards and backwards in any direction . Each drive pod weighs approximately 31lbs, and the welded chassis makes up just over 10% of Triple Crown's overall weight.

The robot is defined by its locomotion, so it has the capability of moving in any direction and rotating at any time during translation.

Todd Mendenhall previews Triple Crown ahead of its BattleBots debut.

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Though unconfirmed, the name "Triple Crown" likely refers to Todd Mendenhall's Robotica and two Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors championships. Alternatively, it could refer to championships won in two major televised robot combat shows, and winning the Giant Nut in BattleBots would be the third part of the triple crown.

Over a year since its initial CAD reveal, Triple Crown's first fight came against Valkyrie in a YouTube-exclusive battle. An unfortunate matchup for Todd Mendenhall, Valkyrie's undercutter was able to deliver blows to the wheels, tear off its wedge and immobilize the bot without much issue. In YouTube videos released in the days surrounding the release of the fight, Todd Mendenhall alluded to this being Triple Crown's only battle of the 2021 season due to his initial reserve status.

On August 1, 2022, Triple Crown was confirmed to appear in the first Sin City Slugfest bracket of BattleBots: Champions.

Robot History

Discovery Season 6
Triple Crown vs. Valkyrie File:Triple Crown 2021 entry.jpg Todd Mendenhall returns to the BattleBox. File:Valkyrie triple crown.png Valkyrie leaves Triple Crown for dead. Triple Crown's BattleBots debut came against the returning Valkyrie. For this fight, Team Irresistible Force opted for a spinning bar attached to its red pod, and a hinged wedge attached to its white pod. Triple Crown was quick out of its square, showing off its unique drive and evading Valkyrie in the opening seconds. However, Valkyrie quickly spun up its undercutter and shredded the underside of Triple Crown’s red pod before delivering a devastating second hit. The entire wedge module flew across the arena and the remainder of the bot had spun into the center of the BattleBox. Its horizontal spinner was still active, though Triple Crown was not mobile, and a count began on Todd Mendenhall’s machine. Triple Crown lost by knockout and was 0-1 for the season. As it was initially a reserve, this proved to be Triple Crown's only fight of the main 2021 season and thus it was eliminated from the competition.
BattleBots: Champions
Triple Crown vs. MadCatter Triple Crown made a surprise return to action in BattleBots: Champions, competing in the Gigabyte Sin City Slugfest bracket. In the first round, Team Revelation faced Martin Mason's MadCatter.

Results

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Wins/Losses

• Wins: 1
• Losses: 2

Competition	Wins	Losses
Discovery Season 6	None	Valkyrie (Untelevised Undercard Match)
BattleBots: Champions	MadCatter	Defender

Faruq Tauheed Introductions

"From Rancho Palos Verdes, California, the bot from RPV that's here to make you bleed. It's TRIPLE CROWN!"

“The bot will shout and crap from it Florida, it’s TRIPLE CROWN!”

“That is not a toy, it’s TRIPLE CROWN”

Trivia

• Todd Mendenhall becomes part of only a very small group of builders to have competed in the three major UK and US televised shows: BattleBots, Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors and Robotica, alongside Sharko's Edward Robinson.
  • Like Edward Robinson, Todd Mendenhall has also competed in both the classic and reboot eras of BattleBots.
• Todd Mendenhall flew to the UK to fight in an unaired MTV Pilot for Robot Wars, officially called American Robot Wars 2000, with Mjollnir, but was not selected to compete.
  • He would, however, end up competing with his Panzer Mk series of heavyweight robots in Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors as it was commissioned for TNN.
• Despite Discovery Season 6 being Todd Mendenhall's first year in modern BattleBots, he enters the competition as one of the most decorated roboteers in the classic era.
  • Panzer Mk 2 won the first season of Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors and Panzer Mk 4 defended Todd's Robot Wars championship a season later.
  • Panzer Mk 3 won Season 3 of TLC's Robotica.
  • Panzer Mk 4.5 won the Heavyweight division at RoboJoust 4 in November 2002.
  • Doom of Babylon made the Top 16 of the Superheavyweight competition in Comedy Central BattleBots Season 2.0.
  • Wrath Jr. made the Top 8 of the Middleweight bracket in Comedy Central BattleBots Season 5.0, and its heavyweight counterpart Wrath made the Top 16.
• According to the team, Triple Crown functions as a testbed for mechanisms used in NASA/DOD prototype robots.

References

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