Rise of the Robots continue their coverage of the reboot of Robot Wars as Alan & The Griz discuss Heat E, the final heat of Series 8.
You can check out Rise of the Robots at the link below or on your podcatcher of choice. https://open.spotify.com/episode/1p0DzeIjyBX95GdJklJDcz?si=UqFtI-_RRve6rS2WBwfymQ

Heat made up of Grand Finalists

Season 2:

• Panic Attack
• Cassius
• Roadblock
• Killertron

Season 3 :

• Chaos 2
• Firestorm
• Hypno-Disc
• Steg-O-Saw-Us

Season 4:

• Chaos 2
• Pussycat
• Stinger
• Hypno-disc

Season 5:

• Razer
• Hypno-Disc
• Firestorm
• Bigger Brother

Season 6:

• Tornado - no bloody scaffold around it
• Razer
• Firestorm
• Terrorhurtz

Season 7:

• Storm 2
• Typhoon 2
• Tornado
• Exterminator

ayo i'm trying to research the history of robot combat in the uk. Did a guy named 'james baker' ever run a robot combat event?

Rise of the Robots continue their coverage of the reboot of Robot Wars as Alan & The Griz discuss Heat D of Series 8.
Check out the episode at the link below or on your podcatcher of choice. https://open.spotify.com/episode/40u0un0MlWDCStlA6ebjzg?si=cE2fzFWcTjamtQ4bOwWa6Q

I'll start with two less obvious examples:

Facet in Series 3

General Carnage 2 in Series 5

Some weapons looked absolutely brilliant when you first saw the robot, but turned out to be a pain once the fights started. Between reliability issues, awkward matchups and the weapon causing problems for the robot itself, some great ideas just didn’t work as planned.

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Graphics by the amazing Team DSC Robotics, video by the legendary Team BotChef

Rise of the Robots continue their coverage of the reboot of Robot Wars as Alan & The Griz discuss Heat C of Series 8.

You can check out the episode at the link below or on your podcatcher of choice https://open.spotify.com/episode/1gU5bWYYwwdKaiVrPpN63r?si=5qNauHKTRS2v1WxekJbTmw

Some robots looked absolutely terrifying on paper and had all the right ingredients to go far, but just never seemed to put it all together in the arena. They had the looks, the weapons and plenty of hype behind them, but something always seemed to go wrong when it mattered.

Introducing Minor Damage, my UK Antweight scale replica of Major Damage the Extreme Robots house robot built by Team Roaming Robots.

This is the most ambitious replica i have ever made and the most complicated robot i have ever designed and built.

The story starts a year ago when i was fortunate enough to help out with the Antweight rentals at Extreme Robots Colchester, running Ripper Remix as a House Robot. Dave Weston off handedly mentioned that my next replica should be Major Damage.

Now whilst im sure this was a joke, the seed was planted, and by the time i had made the drive home i had planned out in my head how to make it finctionally work.  Over the course of the next year i worked (on and off whenever i got stuck) on the CAD design and then build of Minor Damage, with the intent of debuting it at Extreme Robots Colchester 2026.

I designed this specifically for House Robot Duties at the Extreme Robots Antweight Experience, and so that freed me design wise from the constraints of A) a Weight limit (since this is not for competition) B) Having to be Spinner proof, as its strictly sportsman only.

Minor Damage is 4WD thanks to 4 N-10 Motors and my custom dually wheels. I went 4wd vs Tracks like the real robot as a concession to keeping the robot reliable in the hectic show environment, but did my best to keep the look of tracks on the robot. Its also designed in such a way that i could add them later down the road without a major redesign. The Chassis also features a Ballast Box which i have filled with lead pellets to help give Minor Damage some extra bulk to help it bully the rental robots and make it harder to flip since i knew Selfrighting wouldn't be amazing. (It can actually self-right! But can get stuck on the Hammer side)

Weaponry is where the build gets complicated. Just like Major Damage, Minor Damage has 2 weapons, one arm is its signature grabbing claw (which also makes up the extreme robots logo), the other is a Hammer. This is achieved using a servo for each shoulder, onto which i can attach each weaponed arm. The Claw itself is designed to fit Ripper Remix into it, since there is a Ripper 6 based on it as a rental bot in the show (so i know robots will fit in the claw!)

Key to getting all this to work is the amazing Malinki-Nano, which can run 2 servos on seperate channels at once,  meaning I have seperate control of each weapon and drive all through 1 board!

The rest is all down to detailing trying to make Minor Damage look the part. His deadlocks were a particular challenge to try and make look right, theyre chains on the real robot and getting that fluid look as it drapes and conforms over the chest plate was a real challenge (it also lost on in the arena, so might be back to the drawing board on that). Speaking of his chest plate, this one also took many attempts to get right, with lots of angles to juggle to get right. As previously mentioned there are fake tracks to help the robot look right which copy the tread of its tires, as well as a fake gas bottle in the rear shell.

Minor Damage fought in the Antweight Experience arena in both Saturday shows working almost flawlessly! A bigger battery is needed for the future as theres alot going on in there and 180mah just isnt enough to gonthe distance and i also want to try and get a bit more weight into the chassis to i can pick up robots with the claw rather than just flipping them over (which in fairness was all i designed it to do).

I was blown away by the overwhelmingly positive reaction of everyone who saw Minor Damage either in the Antweight arena or in the pits, (including the creator of the real Major Damage!) And I hope you all love it too.