Greetings Havok Rundown listeners and readers, I am Brenton of Team ForceOFWill Robotics, and I will be providing coverage for MRCA events this year starting with the February Robot Smashing League
Robot combat season (RSL) is in full swing in the Midwest with Robot Smashing League hosting its first of many planned events for 2026 at their usual venue at the armory located in Hastings, Minnesota. 66 robots across 34 teams braved the cold and the snow to attend this early season show hoping to start their season off strong and with RSL providing competitors with ample opportunities to fight. From those 66 robots and 34 teams there were over 130 fights run with a large majority of them being from the tried and true modified swiss and their new matchmaking format which was taken advantage of by 13 antweights and 5 beetleweights for a total of 12 fights but what are these formats they used. Let’s dive into them as most MRCA events use mod swiss and RSL looks to also be using matchmaking alongside it for their future events
Modified Swiss is best compared to the Fight Night format from Battlebots or a simplified version of the bracket qualification format that NHRL uses. RSL runs 3 rounds of matches that start with a round of randomized matches that then lead into a second and third round that pair robots with an opponent with a like record. After those three rounds any robot with a record of 2-1 or better will qualify for the single elimination bracket after the swiss rounds conclude. From that point it's win or die and the survivors of the swiss rounds duke it out until a single champion in each weight class remains. Matchmaking is a bit simpler. This format allows for a bot who’s most likely out of the bracket to continue fighting towards their MRCA ELO ranking. It uses your MRCA ELO rankings to match your robot up with other robots in the matchmaking queue to provide a match that on paper should be pretty even by having two robots with similar rankings but enough of this format stuff lets get into the meat and potatoes of this event and look at the results and some other notable moments of the event
Starting off with the plastic ants, Team Fireball showed up and won with the plastic ant version of their very successful antweight SLAM (Slightly Larger Awesome Machine) called PAM (Plastic Awesome Machine). Also keep Team Fireball in mind for the antweight bracket. Curl Took second place in the Plastic Bracket and represented lifter bot nation with a modified super scooper kit with a notable upgrade being large Lego tires which I’m sure was a huge help in their performance at this event. The top three were rounded out by a vertical spinner with a pink and purple frame and spinner. These plastic ants showed some serious power while still being a very approachable class that has so much to teach builders new and old.
Now we move on to the Antweight class, and this is where we show why we say the Midwest has the best antweights in the world. Starting off with our bronze finisher SuicidalThoughts and its classic tried and true 4-wheel drive vertical spinner setup. Second place was taken by Free Bird which was driven by a builder who could best be described as the Midwest Lars Elliot. Free Bird from team No Experience Required with its asymmetrical horizontal spinner that's eerily similar to a scalar kit was tearing robots apart left and right all day with some of the most destructive fights I’ve seen in the antweight class. Team Fireball once again takes the full combat antweight bracket with their 2 wheel drive hubmotor vertical spinner Belladona and this very experienced robot had the combination of durability and great driving all day long and showed why they are a contender at just about any event they go to.
The last weight class that competed at RSL was the beetleweight class and oh boy there was a lot of destruction with this class. The beetleweight class has exploded in popularity and power over the last few years and it shows with robots having dished out more damage than ever to their opponents and the arenas they fight in. As in the last two classes we will begin with the 3rd place finisher and this team came all the way from Nebraska to attend this event with a custom hubmotor vertical spinner and some very wide forks as well to corral his opponents. Second place went to the experienced team behind GRIMM and its wicked hubmotor horizontal spinner weapon. It's also a very squishy brick as just about the entire robot has some very stylish and thick TPU around it. It hits very hard and on a personal note this team (along with Ataxia in the beetle rumble) bent one of the steel shafts that I use for my weapon support and also split one of my pulleys apart. IT HITS HARD. Lastly, we have the first-place finisher and the only member of the podium that I didn’t fight at this event Pacific Punch. This robot is best described as what if Pipeline Punch used a hubmotor rather than a belted weapon system and it hits as hard as you would expect with a description like that. This bot is built like a tank and with multiple different configs based on who it's fighting its very adaptable and well driven. This is a bot to watch but what do you expect from the guy who built Blight.
With our podium finishers out of the way, let's look at some memorable moments from this event. We will look at Chaotic Storm vs Ice Breaker. Chaotic storm runs a very large hubmotor vertical spinner on a 2wd frame and after one massive engagement Ice Breaker was DOA and the horizontal spinner on it was toast. It was bent at the end and a huge group of builders gathered by the cage to see just how extreme it was. Next, we have two moments from Team Experimental Designs, and the first one is Unstable Isotope being dusted off after MRCA Finals for one match in the matchmaking bracket where he “Jump Scared” Sash from team scrapper in what was a short yet brutal fight that ended with Sash in pieces and its battery exposed causing an instant TKO. The other moment from this team was their first ever beetleweight called Blacksite Specimen featuring a custom machined beater that was made of “mystery steel” and after 4 fights the beater was in a very interesting geometric shape that was not how it was designed. The last Beetle fight I want to cover was Something vs Ataxia and man does something hit hard. By the end of the fight Something has torn apart the metal frame that supports Ataxia’s horizontal spinner weapon.
The first antweight fight I want to call out was Windfury vs Roly-Poly Bot. This fight was short and sweet with only two engagements. The first hit Windfury was inverted by the PRINTED DRUM of Roly-Poly bot and then they go weapon on weapon while windfury was upside down and Roly-Poly bot’s drum exploded. Another fight in the antweight bracket with some crazy things happening was Lawnmower of Chaos vs Zoltraak and it was your classic big vert vs overhead spinner fight. Lawnmower of chaos being a very unique overhead spinner that has the blade bent downwards once it clears the chassis and Zoltraak being a big vert version of Blight from the same team. Both bots traded blows, but Zoltraak ended up removing the overhead blade off of Lawnmower of Chaos providing a truly chaotic ending to a very chaotic fight. The last antweight match we will discuss is hot tea vs line dance which may be one of the weirdest fights I have ever witnessed. Hot tea is a big wheel bot with a vertical spinner but rather than your traditional huge style weapon its got a hub motor on the end of an arm and a tail on the opposite side that can also thwack you around and to top it all off the wheels are cut out of foam yoga mats. This is a truly bazaar robot and its actually quite effective as well. Facing off with Line Dance which is one of the largest antweight robots in MRCA and possibly the country by way of volume. This robot is practically impossible to hit as its several feet long and has 6 forks of varying length that work upright and upside down. Many have tried to beat this bot but it's nearly impossible to do so. Hot Tea was actually able to land a few impressive hits before ejecting its weapon from the arm leaving it a thwack bot for the rest of the match though drive issues from Line Dance prevented them from being able to take advantage of the damage on Hot Tea and Hot Tea won the fight by JD
To wrap things up we will talk about the rumbles and also how the team behind RSL thinks the event went and their plans for the future as well as preview Michigan Mashup which is this weekend on March 7th and they have over 80 robots registered!!!! RSL did two rumbles, one which combined both antweight classes and had 11 robots in it as well as a few dozen golf balls and the beetle rumble with 3 robots in it. The antweight rumble went the full three minutes and only three robots survived. It was nonstop chaos. The beetle rumble lasted about 2 minutes before my robot thought it would be funny for its top plate to almost come off, and the match had to end early. I’M SORRY I RUINED EVERYTHING
Uh let's get a grip here for a second and preview Michigan Mashup which will be MRCA Ranked. Nicole wrote a much more in-depth preview of this event, and I highly recommend giving it a read. As stated, before there's over 80 robots registered and I talked with the host of Mashup to talk about the format and also some bots that are on his radar to do well. First, we have Titus which is a very compact drum spinner bot that hits hard and is even harder to kill. One of the top seeds in MRCA at this time and will no doubt strike fear in everyone who matches up against him. Cuttlefish is also attending and after a good performance at RSL making the elimination bracket they are looking to keep up the momentum with their 4-1 record from this event. We even have a Canadian team coming with Smirking Cat Sawbot and if the gif on their RCE page happens to your bot, you're going to have a hefty rebuild. The last antweight we are previewing is the Reigning, Defending, MRCA Antweight CHAMPION… Poison. They had a very successful 2025 with a whopping 81%-win rate and are ready to start 2026 on a high note.
As for some beetles to watch out for we have Queso, which is a new bot from Team Nacho Robotics which are known for bots like Chip, Marg, and Mini Marg. MRCA’s only Omnidrive beetleweight Crazy Horse Girl from team Dark Horse Robotics is registered and it's a very tough and well-designed machine. The last bot being previewed here is the single most deadly beetleweight in the MRCA. Our two-time MRCA beetleweight season champion Pipeline Punch will be in attendance and oh boy is there a target on his back. He’s 4-0 on the season so far and across 80 official MRCA fights only 10 losses leading to a win percentage of almost 92% this robot has dominated the MRCA and around the country leaving dead bots and empty monster cans in its wake (that last part about monster cans was a joke. The bots named after a monster flavor)
Overall RSL was a great start to the season for many teams and with the team behind RSL being very pleased with how the event went they are sure to be hosting many more awesome shows this year and, in the years, to come. I want to thank the entire RSL team for running an amazing event and especially Casey for some of the statistics that were collected for use here. I also want to thank Jair for answering some questions about the upcoming Michigan Mashup event. There's plenty of amazing robot combat to see in the Midwest and around the country so stay tuned to the Havoc Rundown and other creators to keep up with everything happening in robot combat