The Rise of BotRank
Created in the early 2000s, BotRank.com functioned as a comprehensive ranking database for every weight class in combat robotics—from the 150-gram "Fairyweights" to the 250-pound "Heavyweights."
Its power lay in its mathematical approach. Rather than relying on subjective "power rankings," it used a modified Elo rating system (similar to chess) where:
Quality over Quantity: Defeating a high-ranked opponent yielded more points than crushing a newcomer.
Historic Depth: It pulled results from sanctioned events across the United States, providing a continuous narrative of a robot's career.
The "Gold Standard": For builders, seeing your robot at the top of the BotRank "All-Time" list was the ultimate badge of honor. Legends like Original Sin and Algos solidified their reputations primarily through their staggering BotRank scores.
The 2020 Crash: A Digital Dark Age
In 2020, the site went offline. While websites go down all the time, BotRank was different. It wasn’t just a site; it was a custom-coded database maintained by a single pillar of the community, Mike NCR (and later hosted under the SPARC tools umbrella).
The "crash" wasn't just a server error; it was an obsolescence of the backend code and a loss of active maintenance. Because the site relied on a complex script to scrape tournament results and calculate rolling 18-month rankings, once the underlying infrastructure broke, the site became a "ghost."
The "Lost" Data
While some snapshots exist on the Wayback Machine, the interactive nature of the database was lost. You can see the rankings for a specific day in 2016, but the ability to track a robot’s specific fight-by-fight history across twenty years of minor tournaments effectively vanished.
The Resurrection: The Havoc Rundown and the Modern Database
The loss of BotRank.com was a heavy blow, but it didn't mark the end of the story. In a massive undertaking of digital archaeology, the team behind The Havoc Rundown—a prominent media and analytics hub within the community—has successfully resurrected the lost archives.
By scraping legacy data from cached snapshots and integrating it with modern tournament results, they have built a spiritual and literal successor: a comprehensive, unified database that bridges the "Dark Ages" with the modern era.
A Unified History
This new database doesn't just show a snapshot of the past; it creates a continuous timeline. Builders and fans can now:
View Full Match Histories: Access the fight-by-fight record of every bot originally stored in BotRank’s database, dating back to the early 2000s.
Track Modern Successors: See how legendary teams have transitioned from old-school regional events to modern powerhouses like NHRL or the Robot Combat League.
Why This Matters
For the first time since 2020, the community has a "Single Source of Truth." This integration ensures that the wins of a 2005 Lightweight champion are weighted with the same historical significance as a 2024 Beetleweight finalist. By saving this data, The Havoc Rundown hasn't just restored a website; they have preserved the competitive lineage of the entire sport.