Team HUGE is steamrolling its way to the top on BattleBots, the world's largest, and only professional robot fighting TV series, airing in 150 countries with its newly improved robot HUGE. The six-member team includes two Western New England University College of Engineering alumni: team leader and builder Jonathan Schultz '16, who built his first robot for his Engineering Senior Design Project, and his college roommate Peter Lombardo '16, who handles electronics, share design, and fabrication.
Schultz, Lombardo, and teammates Maddie Thumma, Garrett Santoline, Don Doerfler, and Alex Horne have racked up 64% in career wins and is quickly working its way up the ranks to becoming a Bot fan favorite on the Discovery and Science Channel program.
HUGE, the robot, has two large white wheels, held upright by a seven-foot long connecting center, with blades that spin at more than 200 miles per hour meant to crush its most fierce competitor - Mammoth who returns this year even bigger than last year. The team's first "regular season" fight this year pits the two biggest bots against each other.
TEAM HUGE joined dozens of other competitive teams in Long Beach, California, in October to film the series, where each team had several "regular season" one-on-one fights, where either one bot definitively wins, or judges declare a victor, to narrow down a top 32 for a finals single-elimination bracket.
The Windsor, Connecticut-based team has competed in 11 matches in the program since 2018 with seven wins. They also won the 2018 competition's Best Design Award, which was voted upon by their peers. So, TEAM HUGE might be on its way to becoming a bit more than "a slightly bigger deal" (as its tagline claims) on BattleBots.
When asked what prepared these two WNE alumni for the big time in the world's most-watched combat arena Shultz said this. "The greatest skill we have is the ability to take it slow, break it down, and think critically about every design feature on HUGE. We wouldn't have been able to go from rookies to contenders so quickly without seeing and exploiting common weaknesses in our opponents. Without having learned at WNE how to teach ourselves new skills, think critically, and learn from those around us, we never would have been prepared for the challenges of the BattleBox."
View the BattleBots trailer here. To keep up with Team Huge's progress, visit their website at www.HugeBattleBots.com.
To learn more about Western New England University's College of Engineering, visit the website at https://www1.wne.edu/engineering/index.cfm.
