BattleBots is an American robot combat television series and company. The show is an adaptation of the American Robot Wars competitions hosted in the mid–late 1990s by Marc Thorpe, in which competitors design and operate remote-controlled armed and armored machines designed to fight in an arena combat elimination tournament. The same competitions inspired the British TV program Robot Wars, which acquired the name in 1995.
Robot Wars is a robot combat competition that was broadcast on British television from 1998 to 2004 and from 2016 to 2018. Each series involves teams of amateur and professional roboteers operating their own constructed remote controlled robots to fight against each other in an arena formed of steel and bullet proof glass fitted with arena hazards and containing areas occupied by hostile and heavier "House Robots". Earlier series included assault and trial courses for competing robots.
Robot combat is a type of robot competition in which custom-built machines fight using various methods to incapacitate each other. The machines have generally been remote-controlled vehicles rather than autonomous robots.
Hypno-Disc was a contestant entry in the Robot Wars TV series, and was one of the first robots permitted to use the kinetic flywheel weapon. Hypno-Disc's design, however, was somewhat basic, and its high ground clearance made it an easy target for robots armed with flipping weapons, such as Chaos 2. Hypno-Disc was the creation of the Rose family — twin brothers Derek and David, and their father Ken. It was the first competitor robot recreated in toy form when the Robot Wars pullback toys were released.
Robotica is a robot combat show produced for the American television cable channel TLC, a subsidiary of the Discovery Channel, from April 4, 2001, to November 16, 2002. Ahmet Zappa and Tanya Memme hosted all three seasons while Tanika Ray only hosted the first season with Dan Danknick replacing her for the second and third seasons.
Roadblock was a combat robot that competed on the British television series Robot Wars. Constructed in 1997 by A-level students from Bodmin Community College, the robot was initially called "Road Rage" but was renamed in response to a request from the programme's producers. Both names were derived from the robot's distinctive construction from metal roadsigns. Roadblock was champion of the first series of Robot Wars and finished in third place for the second series. Although Roadblock was armed with a circular saw weapon, its success was primarily due to its wedge-shaped body—Roadblock could drive underneath opponent robots and invert them, rendering many immobile.
Razer is a combat robot that competes on the British television series Robot Wars. It was constructed by Simon Scott and Ian Lewis from Bournemouth; the team later expanded to include webmaster Vincent Blood. Razer was designed and constructed in 1998 to participate in the second series of Robot Wars, but subsequent modifications and improvements enabled it to remain competitive until its retirement after the second series of Robot Wars Extreme. Despite gaining a reputation for being unreliable, it was champion of the fifth series of Robot Wars, runner-up in the sixth, and won the first two Robot Wars World Championships.
Panic Attack was a robot that competed in the British television show Robot Wars. In Series 2, it was just a box, with a set of electrically powered lifting forks, powered by a homemade system. It was emblazoned with the image of a spider. The spider was the result of a school competition to come up with a design of something that made you panic. A 12-year-old girl designed the spider. With his prize money from Series 2, Kim built a newer machine. This one had a srimech, a new body shape, and more effective forks, which were capable of completely overturning opposing machines. The top-mounted self-righting mechanism proved to be unreliable, and was eventually removed. Added in Series 4 were a set of side "skirts" to prevent all but the lowest of robots from getting underneath it, as well as sloping sides. The fourth model had improved skirts, and the srimech was updated to a top flipper, which was the favourite with the driver Kim Davies, who stated it was, in his opinion, the best version.
Tornado was a competitor on the UK TV series Robot Wars, noteworthy as the champion of the sixth series. It was built by Andrew Marchant, Bryan Moss and David Gamble, from Sawtry, near Huntingdon.
Typhoon 2 was a robot in the UK television series Robot Wars, noteworthy for being the final champion of the show before it was cancelled. It was a full-body spinner with cutting claws. In two battles in series 7, in which it competed, it knocked out the arena wall, causing the match to restart. It was created by the 870 Dreghorn Squadron's Air Cadets from the Air Training Corps and was painted to resemble the RAF crest. It was named after the Eurofighter Typhoon. The team also had a three-time middleweight champion called Typhoon, a lightweight called Typhoon Thunder which also made Typhoon Twins with Typhoon Lightning, and a featherweight called Typhoon Cadet. Gary Cairns, the team captain, later ran a three-dimensional printing business and fought in the 2016 Robot Wars with PP3D, which reached the second round group stage in its heat. Then, it lost, ironically, to Storm 2 in the decisive battle, before losing at the same stage a year later due to control problems in its battles.
Nickelodeon Robot Wars is a game show that aired on Nickelodeon from August 25, 2002, to October 6, 2002. Hosted by Dave Aizer and Vivianne Collins, the show was Nickelodeon's take on Robot Wars, the popular and long-running robot-fighting game show. The show was canceled after one season, and subsequently aired on Nick GAS.
The following is a list of notable contestants that have reached the semi-finals or grand final in Robot Wars.
Rex Garrod was an inventor and roboteer notable for building the radio controlled car that starred in Brum, and co-presenting The Secret Life of Machines. He also entered several successful robots into the early series of British TV series Robot Wars.
Robot Wars: Arenas Of Destruction is a 2001 action game published by BBC Multimedia and released for the PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows, based on the BBC television series, Robot Wars. It was the first of the company's titles to be released under the "Gamezlab" core brand.
Storm 2 is a robot that competed in the British television game show Robot Wars. It was a small invertible box-shaped robot with a wedge on the front. The robot was originally built with no weapons but the team was asked to add an active weapon in order to take part in the seventh series, so the team came up with a built-in lifting arm, very similar to the American robot BioHazard. However, it was not the weapon but the immense speed and power of the robot that did the most damage to its opponents, managing to throw The Steel Avenger out of the Arena in its Series 7 heat final. The robot competed in the seventh series of Robot Wars, winning The Third World Championship at the end of the series, having won the 16th seed into the competition by being victorious in the New Blood Championship of Extreme 2.
K*bots are moving models made from K'Nex Construction kits, built to participate in specific events run by the K*bot World Championships (USA) and K*bots UK (UK). Events are open to children aged 7–16 years and focus on competitive design and engineering challenges. The K*bot World Championships are an annual event in which students from around the World compete to be crowned World Champion across four distinct categories, called divisions, which are explained in detail below.
Robot Wars: Extreme Destruction is an action game developed by Climax Development and published by BBC Multimedia under their game development label Gamezlab in 2002 for the Game Boy Advance, Microsoft Windows and Xbox. It was given a release in the run-up to Christmas to build on the success of the three previous games, which had sold over 250,000 copies.
In robot combat, a self-righting mechanism or srimech is a device used to re-right a robot should it get flipped. Biohazard of BattleBots was the first robot to self-right.
Robot Wars: Advanced Destruction is the third video game based on the British game show Robot Wars. It was the third of four games based on the show, with the first three selling over 250,000 copies. It was developed by Crawfish Interactive and published by BBC Multimedia and was released exclusively for the Game Boy Advance in 2001. It was also released in the US by Vivendi Universal Games. The game is based on Series 4 of Robot Wars.
Robot Wars: Metal Mayhem is the first video game based on the British game show Robot Wars. It was released exclusively for Game Boy Color on 7 December 2000. It was the first of four games based on the show, with the first three selling over 250,000 copies. The game was based on the third series of the show, and competitors such as its champion Chaos 2 feature in the game.
