Episode 5 Robot Wars

Fighting robots represent probably one of the biggest challenges

in engineering because there is no perfect design.

40 robot fighting teams are about to take on one of the most

intense engineering challenges in the world.

Advice I'd give to roboteers entering the arena is

don't panic and try not to die.

To design, build and battle heavyweight fighting robots

to compete for the ultimate prize.

Through chaotic group battles and fierce head-to-heads,

new and veteran teams of robot engineers must push their

reinforced war machines to the limits.

Their robots are harder, faster, stronger,

designed for one thing - total destruction in pursuit of victory.

Welcome to Robot Wars,

where teams of brilliant engineers bring their

beautifully-crafted machines

to wage war in search of glory.

From the spinners to the flippers, the clusterbots to the axes,

the goal for all of our teams is to become the new Robot Wars Champion.

The reality for most is that they'll be going home in a bin bag.

And if the competition wasn't enough to contend with,

the bulletproof arena is stacked with hazards and policed by

the world's angriest machines - the House Robots.

CHEERING

This series, the House Robots have gone rogue.

Now hitting the tyre causes the dial to fall left,

dropping the pit, or right,

releasing the House Robots from their corner patrol zones

to inflict indiscriminate damage across the arena for ten seconds.

Over four weeks we've seen carnage,

destruction and roboteers pushed to the very edge as four teams

have secured their place in next week's grand final.

Tonight's competitors feature the reigning champions Apollo

and their archnemesis Carbide.

They and six other teams will fight through two group battles,

six head-to-heads and the heat final.

Only one team can progress for the chance to become the new

Robot Wars Champion.

Taking part in tonight's first group battle are...

The reigning champions can now fire with five tonnes of force.

They've got one last House Robot to flip

and they also have a title to defend.

For some reason it looks chunkier, it looks bigger than it was.

Yeah, we've upgraded the armour on the side,

so it's got a little wider, but only a fraction, really.

Have you kept any of the scars from the last series?

Yeah, we've got still, at the front there,

some of the scars from can't abide...

Sorry, Carbide.

I get that mixed up.

Yeah, so we've got a few scars still from that.

OK. It's Apollo.

APPLAUSE

Rusty's weapon is constructed of hardened steel and titanium.

This local team from Glasgow have never actually driven

the robot before and it's totally untested in the arena.

Let's talk about the weapon. It's a flipper, right?

-It's a flipper weapon.

-Yeah. With a bit of a scoop?

A bit of a scoop so we can get more underneath people.

And how do you all know each other?

-We all go to college together.

-OK. Studying what?

-Engineering systems.

-Right.

So pressure's on?

Just a wee bit.

OK, brilliant. Give it up, please. Good luck.

This unique robot with eight armoured petals

stands at one metre high.

Ms Nightshade is the competition's tallest.

One of the joys of getting to the second series of this is that

the robots are getting weirder looking.

Is it fast? Is it mobile? Is it...?

Well, in all honesty, we haven't tested it with petals on

because we wanted it as a surprise to us.

-OK. That's a wonderful philosophy.

-Yeah.

You're supposed to surprise us,

you're not supposed to surprise yourself.

Yeah, but we just wanted that surprise element for us.

The best of luck. Ladies and gentlemen, Ms Nightshade.

Look at that. It's a beautiful thing.

This dual-weapon robot is capable of 1,000kg of crush

and has a chainsaw tail.

So talk me through Coyote.

So, main weapon on Coyote...this beast here.

It's a clamp and lift weapon.

-Right.

-So you can grab down onto the opponents and lift them up as well.

Sir Killalot-style.

Killalot-style, yes.

Rachel, any weaknesses that you think we might need to be careful of?

I think it could be the chainsaw, actually.

Like, see if we get flipped and it lands on the chainsaw, it's done.

-Can I have a coyote call, please? Go on, Calum.

-Not from me.

I think that's Jamie's job.

ANGELA HOWLS

Everybody, coyote call!

HOWLING

-Is that what a coyote does?

-I don't know.

I have no idea, but let's go with that.

As defending champions, Apollo are the marked men in

a group filled with newcomers with everything to gain.

Can they unseat the current kings of Robot Wars?

To find out it's over to Jonathan Pearce.

Thanks very much, Dara and Angela.

With Apollo in the arena,

our first group battle promises to be flipping awesome.

Battle is fought over three minutes and competitors are out if

they're immobilised for ten seconds, find themselves flipped out of

the arena or are flung into the dreaded pit of doom.

Once cease is called, if both robots are still mobile,

it's up to our judging panel - Dr Lucy Rogers,

Professor Sethu Vijayakumar

and head judge Professor Noel Sharkey - the legend.

They'll judge based on control, damage and aggression.

The teams are entering the arena.

From North Wales - Apollo.

The boyband of Robot Wars are back.

Apollo is upgraded, it now has 1,000 psi high-pressure flipper.

They can launch a 110-kilo robot six foot in the air.

From Glasgow - Rusty.

This team of engineering students hope to get under

the competition with their 5mm-thick hardened steel scoop.

And it's quick too at 14mph.

From Brighton - Ms Nightshade.

Katie and Jodie are new to robot building and their robot is

surrounded with pneumatic hammers to provide them with 360 degree

defence and when the petals are open it's over two metres wide.

From Ayrshire - Coyote.

Coyote's crushing jaws generate up to 1,000 kilos of bite.

It's a brand-new robot for this series,

so this is the first test for the team.

With his clamping jaws and vertical saws, in the arena, it's Dead Metal.

Three new robots, always good to see that,

but they're against the champions.

Roboteers, standby.

Three, two, one. Activate.

The start of Apollo's defence.

Who will they send into orbit?

Ms Nightshade there with the four petals and spikes and hammers.

And Apollo's first drive is on the old Rusty bucket.

And in underneath again.

Yes!

And look at the celebrations already for Apollo. And why not?

And in underneath the ground clearance of Rusty. The big flip.

"The most powerful flipper in the UK," they say.

And the unique Ms Nightshade takes off.

Apollo on the drive.

This is to end the Coyote bark.

Apollo looks again to be a leading contender.

Oh, Ms Nightshade, they're in a bit of flap.

Are they waving goodbye?

There's the pit release.

Rogue House Robots.

Get out the way! Get out of the way, everybody!

They know, the House Robots know.

Rogue! Out comes Dead Metal

to peel away the petals of Ms Nightshade.

Now what are they going to do here - Apollo? It's all about destruction.

He loved it! He loved it!

That's brilliant to see.

Great attack on Rusty.

Well, well, well.

The champions here are in devastating early form.

Dead Metal still tussling with Ms Nightshade.

Apollo and Coyote through.

Cease.

Mate, well done.

The first attack from Apollo smashing Rusty down.

Ms Nightshade -

that's a huge machine to lift up and over like that.

You can sense the power out there of Apollo again.

All over the floor the rusty nails.

If you were going to go out,

best to go out against the reigning champions.

-Yeah, absolutely.

-And they're so relentless. That's their style.

They go and they kind of tended to pick on you

a little bit more than you might have liked.

Is there anything that you could have done where you just...?

It was the first time actually driving the robot,

so it was as good as it can go.

Well, listen, hard luck, guys. The crowd loved you, and well done.

Coyote, through to the head-to-heads.

Maybe... That is the reaction, I think, that I would have gone with

-because it wasn't spectacular.

-It wasn't, no.

There's a few things to improve on, work on,

but just massive relief to get through that, yeah.

Well, good luck and well done.

Mixed responses, I think, we're going to get for this.

Let's start with yourselves.

That was, I would say, that was impressive.

That was a fairly awesome display. You happy with the form you're in?

Yeah, it's great to finish a fight with both wheels working and we

didn't have that much luck last year with that, so it's good to be back.

Tempted to have a little kind of leisure time go at the House Robot?

-No, we've already had Dead Metal, so...

-Yeah, been there, done that.

Passe to you, passe. Whereas, let me turn to yourselves.

-How have you enjoyed your journey so far?

-I loved it.

-Really?

-It was the first time we tested the pneumatics and the petals

coming out, and they work really well.

My commiserations, Ms Nightshade, we won't see you again.

We will see Apollo, though.

So round of applause for Apollo, ladies and gentlemen.

Thanks. Well done, guys.

The teams head back to the pits to assess the damage and prepare for

the head-to-heads.

Apollo have proved they're still the ones to beat.

-I'm happy days, aren't we?

-I'm happy. It's really cold as well,

so that means the flipper's probably only working at half-power.

That's only cos he wore two layers, he thinks it's cold.

Four layers, four layers. Look at that.

Apollo works a lot better in the warm,

so that was probably about half-power.

-Same as you.

-We launched him... Will you shut up?

We were launching them a fair height.

Coyote are also through, but they face a long list of repairs.

We need to repair the chainsaw.

It's taken a bit of a battering there from when Apollo flipped us.

A massive relief to get through the first round.

It's so many hours of time and commitment

to get these things running.

For it to be potentially over in the first three minutes

could be quite rough.

Considering we're up against the reigning champions as well, like...

Yeah, it could have been a lot worse.

In our second fight of the night it's...

Crackers lifts and Smash spins.

A clever distribution of weight means opponents have to

destroy both robots to get the team out.

The rules about this are if more than 55% of your robot

-is immobilised.

-That's correct.

But you've played it very, very tight with this,

so you really have to kill both your robots...

Alex is the clever one that did the maths.

Smash weighs 54% of the weight limit,

Crackers weighs 46% of the weight limit, so we're just inside.

It means we have a massive weapon on,

or large weapon on one machine, and then more armour on the other.

I'm genuinely very, very excited.

I think you've done a really interesting thing.

Fantastic. Ladies and gentlemen, Crackers 'N' Smash.

Thanks very much.

Last series' runners up have upgraded their feared machine

and are determined to go the distance this time.

The deadly blade weights 25kg and is capable of spinning

at 2,300 revs per minute.

It seems that Apollo in the previous group battle are kind of

marked men as the champions.

You guys, runners up. Do you feel there's a lot of eyes out for you?

Yeah, we've put in a lot of work this series,

just to iron out all the problems that we had,

and hopefully we've fixed all those.

So we've got a new weapon motor, a new drive.

It spins up faster to a higher top speed now as well.

So what's the top speed now?

250mph in three seconds.

And it's about 20% more powerful now.

It would be good to have another pop at Apollo, definitely.

Please, Carbide, everybody. Good luck.

Meggamouse boasts a powerful hardened steel flipper,

as well as four-wheel drive and support from

a small but deadly wedge of cheese.

See, on some level I have a problem with this.

The attempt to make a killing robot look cute.

It looks cute, but it can pack a punch.

How big a punch? It's a flipper, isn't it?

Yeah, it's a flipper. It can launch them about four foot in the air.

And, of course, you're not even on your own

cos it's a two-robot system.

Yeah, we've got a clusterbot. And this one is called Charles.

Charles because he's a piece of cheese.

-Yeah, Charles the cheese.

-I know all cheese is called Charles.

So what can Charles do?

Because of the wedge at the front, he can get under the other robots,

so Meggamouse can easily get under them and flip them.

Ladies and gentlemen, Meggamouse.

APPLAUSE

Made from an upturned shopping trolley,

this robot also features two front-mounted spikes.

The robot is a brain child of a university department

of engineering.

What is Trolley Rage made out of?

Everything that's on here is basically reclaimed.

So the motors are about 20, 30 years old.

They came out of a very old wheelchair.

The drive motors for the axe, similar age,

so it's pretty much whatever we had lying around the workshops.

And part of this for you, I mean,

you're both in the department of engineering in the

University of Greenwich, is to show people that anyone can do this.

Well, exactly.

I mean, what we're trying to persuade is actually young engineers

-to move on, so it's future engineers.

-Fantastic.

And stuff that we have a tendency to dispose things in this culture

far too quickly when actually it can be reused and parts still work.

-Absolutely.

-It's an important lesson.

Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Trolley Rage.

Carbide is the favourite to make the next round.

The other three teams will need to survive one of the most

powerful spinners in the competition.

Carbide may well be the one to watch in this match,

but two robots will win a place in the head-to-heads.

The teams are in the arena.

From Ripon - Crackers 'N' Smash.

Each half of the clusterbot weighs around 54 kilos.

The boys plan to pick opponents with Crackers

and then smash them with the spinner of Smash.

From the Midlands - Carbide.

Dave and Sam are full-time engineers, although they

found time to fully upgrade Carbide with its 25-kilo spinning bar.

They've also upgraded the drive to give them nine horsepower, a push.

From Derby - Meggamouse.

Meggamouse has aluminium armour and four-wheel drive.

At 100 kilos, the team worry its weight might factor against

them in a fight.

From Medway in Kent - Trolley Rage.

Trolley Rage built from an upturned shopping trolley.

It's a rarity in this competition,

with its electric axe which they can use to self-right.

750 kilos of Sir Killalot in the arena for this bout.

Roboteers, standby.

Three, two, one. Activate.

Carbide will start as the favourites, I would imagine.

With the drive they can get up to 12mph, let's not forget.

Watch out for Meggamouse.

Great flipping machine.

And I'm fascinated to see how the clusterbot

Crackers 'N' Smash do here.

There's a bash off Carbide.

And that could have done enough damage there to end

the dream of Trolley Rage very early on.

You can see here the effect of Carbide.

Any impact from that

mighty spinning blade will cause so much damage.

Ah! Running away! Running away! Ah!

Always worthwhile tactics in Robot Wars.

The old run away, run away.

But meanwhile the Carbide boys will want to come in

and cause more damage.

The pit release has been activated.

CROWD CHANT: In the pit! In the pit!

They want machines down in the pit.

Poor old Trolley Rage, it never really got going.

But this is a mightily impressive Carbide machine.

Oh, look at that!

Goodness me!

The Meggamouse wheel was simply lifted into space.

Go on, back into your hole, Meggamouse.

Retreat.

Oh, Carbide.

Wow!

Trolley Rage...

Back to the old supermarket for that trolley.

-Cease.

-Oh, dear.

We survived.

We cleared up there, mate.

Carbide's weight, thickness, speed of the blade so important.

Crackers was around the floor

moving quite neatly.

The damage all caused by Carbide.

Well, well, well. Right, let's go to the University of Greenwich first.

What grade would you give yourself for that?

An A for effort.

To be honest, I don't think it went too badly overall.

It certainly moved, it certainly fired.

Hopefully, it inspires some people to say,

"Yeah, we can build a robot out of scrap metal that's laying in

"the scrapyards or wheelchair motors that no-one's going to be using any more.

-"And we can actually go and build something."

-Listen, well done. Congratulations to you.

My commiserations, though.

What I give to you I take it away, you're out.

Whereas you, that's a very interesting set of tactics

you have here.

Which is - make the little one run away really quickly.

They're both really little.

They're very, very quick. We've got 7kW of power in there

to zip around and leave our opponents behind,

which is what we did. Carbide couldn't chase us

-until we drove into it.

-Yes.

Can you repair them for the next one?

-I may have a little bit of machining to do.

-Really?

-Yeah.

You're through. That's the most important thing.

I can't believe it.

Fantastic. Ladies and gentlemen, Crackers 'N' Smash.

Meggamouse, not just a pretty face.

It took some beating.

Yeah. It took a few hits to get it to die, but...

Could you have done anything differently, do you think?

Try and stay out of these guys' way.

I mean, I think that's going to be a problem for everybody

moving forward.

OK. Well done, Meggamouse, we love you.

Carbide, a dusting of destruction.

It was like you were gliding around...

Robots everywhere. I didn't know what to do with it.

We didn't want to cause too much damage.

That was you not causing damage?

-Yeah.

-Right. OK.

There was definitely, as you mentioned before,

it fires up quicker, it's fiercer than it's ever been before.

-Louder now as well.

-Yeah.

-It seems pretty scary, doesn't it?

-Yeah, I mean,

you're on the right side of it, so you shouldn't be scared.

I imagine other people are not entirely happy in

the pits right now.

Thank you, guys. Thank you, Meggamouse. Well done.

-Through to the head-to-heads, Carbide.

-Thank you.

Carbide are through and have enhanced their already

fearsome reputation.

Too many robots in there. I was spoilt for choice, really.

Yeah, we're pretty happy with how it kept spinning up.

It seems to be all running nicely again,

so it's definitely a good start for it.

Underdogs Crackers 'N' Smash are also through,

but received some major blows from Carbide.

That's not going back.

This was the front wedge on Smash.

5 mil stainless steel.

-And it's bent like a banana.

-Yeah, this is before and after.

That's what it should look like and what it's ended up looking like.

Crackers' weapon is destroyed and Smash's is seriously damaged.

-This is fixable.

-This is fixable.

-Right.

-Let's get cracking.

-Yeah.

It may be fixable,

but can they do it in the two-hour repair time allowed?

So rivals Carbide and Apollo are both through to the next round.

They're joined by Coyote and Crackers 'N' Smash.

Our first head-to-head is between Carbide and archnemesis Apollo.

I'm feeling confident and Dave isn't,

so that's quite a good average.

It is. I'm not unconfident. I'm just a bit nervous about it, really,

cos we know what Carbide's capable of.

We've just got to literally drive straight into him,

right at the start of the fight, try and stop its spinning disc

getting up to full speed and just do that for the whole fight.

Just keep constantly going into them,

stopping that spinning disc as much as we can.

This is the most anticipated fight of the competition.

Do Apollo have what it takes to defend their Robot Wars crown?

I'm Dave Young.

I'm the team captain and we've also got the team engineer

Mark Dermott of Team Apollo -

the defending Robot Wars Champions.

So we're here at Pontin's Prestatyn

where we met many years ago as Bluecoats.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, there, old Darla.

-CROWD:

-It's behind you!

Oh, no, it isn't.

-CROWD:

-Oh, yes, it is.

HE SCREAMS

Apollo is upgraded for the next series of Robot Wars.

We've got new upgraded armour,

new electronics to make the robot faster and more agile.

And this year we're going to make it two-times Robot Wars Champions.

Standing in their way are Carbide, with a point to prove.

I'm Dave, I'm the driver,

and Sam's the weapon operator.

Me and Sam are both qualified engineers working for

the nation's biggest companies.

Carbide is the combination of both of our efforts.

We got quite well known for this death hum that Carbide produces.

It is terrifying. It scared us.

I can see why other people are terrified of it as well.

On the inside, Carbide has been completely re-engineered.

It's now more powerful, more reliable and more precise.

So we went back to the drawing board with the motor that powers the weapon.

We decided we needed to make our own.

The new one is absolutely micron precision,

completely to our own design.

Carbide has a reputation for being the meanest machine around,

and we want to keep that reputation.

Our first head-to-head. Apollo against Carbide.

Two robots at the top of their game and a repeat of last series' final.

And in the arena, the only House Robot the Apollo boys

haven't managed to flip - Sir Killalot.

Roboteers, standby.

Three, two, one. Activate.

Now all about the death hum. All about the weaponry.

And the first attack on Apollo.

But look at the self-righting mechanism.

And they're off and running again.

The champions Apollo, to the left there, Carbide spinning.

You can hear the death hum whining up to full power.

Smash it.

What's happened here? Apollo isn't moving.

Come on! Leave us alone! Stop it!

-He's going for the wheels.

-That's nasty, that.

Look. He's going for that wheel.

The champions are in trouble.

And that death hum is a glorious noise for Carbide now.

How come you got control there?

Don't know. I didn't do that.

Good work, man.

I just had that, hell flat out, turn it off.

What a win for Carbide.

The champions are beaten in the first head-to-head.

And now what damage will be sustained by Killalot?

That crushing claw of Killalot is merciless.

Houston, we have a problem with Apollo.

Good early flip by Apollo,

but the power of the flip turned itself over, then it self-righted.

But wham, bam, took a slam. How much damage was sustained by that?

And there, look at the top panel flying off!

The Carbide weaponry is astonishing.

Feels tense in here.

OK, so, you went for it. It did look like you went,

you almost got in there on the first one.

I think when we went head-to-head, and we messed up our flip,

got ourselves caught upside down,

they came in with a really big hit, stopped our drive.

And I think it is a 50/50 between us.

They got the better end of it.

And Dave again goes for his little tactics while we're dead

and tries to take our wheels, same as you did last year.

Sly.

LAUGHTER

Now, you, lads. They're saying that was dirty play.

Yeah, they're going to say that.

People want to see stuff getting smashed, so that's why we're here.

OK.

You guys had been immobilised for more than ten seconds,

so the three points goes to Carbide.

It proved to be a brutal fight for Apollo,

who now know what the improved Carbide is capable of.

I'd say Apollo was our biggest threat in the competition

so far that we know about.

To take them out is brilliant, really.

I couldn't ask for more. That was the perfect fight for us.

Apollo now just have two hours to repair what they can,

but the damage is extensive.

Our whole robot is basically twisted now,

so the arm in front, the flipper itself was actually bent,

so when it dropped down it was actually catching on the side

of Apollo and not fitting into the slot.

If they can't smooth out the ripped edges from Carbide's blade,

their flipper won't work.

I think we've made it worse.

-ANGELA:

-Next into the arena is clusterbot Crackers 'N' Smash

versus crusher Coyote.

Both teams sustained major damage in the group battles

and have been fighting to get their machines ready.

Crackers 'N' Smash have had to pull their robots apart

after taking a number of direct hits from Carbide.

It's now a race against time to put it all back together again.

I'm actually going to remove the weapon speed...

Coyote have serious problems with their chainsaw.

The chainsaw is a bit of a write-off at the moment, sadly.

It's quite bent and quite broken, so we'll sacrifice that.

Time's up for Crackers 'N' Smash and their machines are still in pieces.

-We're being called into the arena?

-Yes.

No, it will not go together in time, we're going to be weaponless.

We were very close to having the weapons spinning,

but there's just fractionally not enough time.

Coyote no longer has a working chainsaw tail.

Only the front crushing jaw is active.

My name's Jamie and I'm the team captain of Coyote.

We're from Ayrshire.

With me on the team we've got Rachel Gibson who is responsible for

the electronics and welding.

And Calum Jones who does our CNC machining.

My day job is a domestic gas engineer.

Coyote is a mean menacing dog from hell.

It kind of says a lot of strange things about Jamie.

He's usually a kind of very calm, collected guy,

but then he comes up with a monster like that.

The front weapon jaws are a hefty piece of kit.

They weigh around 45 kilos which is a good percentage of

the robot's weight.

So we've got to make sure we've got enough weight left for armour

to make sure that we can stand up to attacks from the other robots.

With Coyote, we're not just here to destroy, we're here to scare.

Rivals Crackers 'N' Smash are facing a battle

with both weapons out of action.

A danger they knew they were taking with a clusterbot.

My name's Alex. I'm a product design engineer.

I design things for theme parks,

visitor centres, rollercoasters, things like that.

The team's made up of myself - I was the lead designer -

my father Ian and my friend Dave

who is our second driver.

And Keith who has become our CNC expert.

A clusterbot is a machine that's made of two or more parts which

gives our opponent not just one problem to deal with,

but multiple issues

about how you fight something that's in two places at once.

Having a cluster does present another problem.

If both robots take a lot of damage we don't just have one robot

to repair, but two, which could potentially be twice the work.

Entering Robot Wars was a childhood dream

and now I'm about to become your worst nightmare.

In the arena, it's Dead Metal and Matilda,

with one tonne a flip in those hardened steel tusks.

Makes me shiver.

This could well be very, very painful.

Three, two, one. Activate.

Crackers 'N' Smash,

are they to pay the price of twice as much work to be done?

They didn't have enough time to get the weaponry working.

And already they're on the defensive and they're in trouble here now.

Dead Metal slicing in. We love a slice.

That's nice.

On to Smash there.

Smash and Crackers. Pin and smash...

Well, great tactics, only if the weaponry is working.

And once again, Smash very nearly in the grips of the House Robots.

They tried to activate the pit release there.

They have done.

Rogue House Robot.

It's rogue robots.

Out comes Dead Metal.

Very low machines, you can see the way they're slipping away at times,

but he's got him here now.

On the flame pit.

Smash absolutely crackers. Hitting his team-mate there.

It's not just the House Robots that have gone rogue,

it's the competitors as well. And here comes Matilda

with a flywheel tail to have a go at Coyote.

Come on, Matilda.

And they will stay in that sort of punishment.

They're trying there to take off the gnarling jaws rated from

between 750 and 1,000 kilos of punishment.

We've seen plenty and heard plenty of growls from Coyote.

And Crackers 'N' Smash are still fighting

and still proving problematic here.

Go on! That's it! Oh!

The tough little nut

with the wrecked weapons, have used other tactics,

great driving to stay in here.

But now they're on the flame pit.

That wasn't good driving.

Oh, dear! Now I'm stuck.

Coyote looks immobile.

And an immobilisation count has started.

I can't see any movement out there

beyond little Crackers.

Cease.

Dead Metal gripping Smash in there.

I thought that was the end of Smash with the damage caused.

But it wasn't the case, I don't think.

Held on the flame pit.

Coyote immobilised.

A great result. Three points for Crackers 'N' Smash.

But they still have to get their weapons working again

and Dead Metal caused even more damage.

Hitting the tyre, not getting the pit twice.

A House Robot coming out...

Get the House Robot coming out at you.

It's... I'm sorry...

-It's terrifying.

-It's terrifying.

-"Oh, dear! There goes my robot."

-Yeah.

Coyote's only weapon sustained damage

courtesy of Matilda's rear end,

and they're still to face the reigning champions.

You can see this rear plate steel's been bent out at an angle and

broken the weld, so it's not sitting flush on the ground.

We've found in the group battle with Apollo that the jaws were

actually really good at getting under their front flipper blade,

so that was going to be our main tactic,

but Matilda's kind of put paid to that slightly,

so we need to a big hammer out, give it a bash

and get the grinder out and make sure it's nice and razor sharp.

After the first two head-to-heads,

the leaderboard looks like this.

Carbide and Crackers 'N' Smash

both have three points.

Apollo and Coyote are both on zero,

but now go head-to-head

in the arena.

Apollo have been working flat out to hammer, bend and angle grind

their machine back into shape after its tussle with Carbide.

Coyote are still struggling to manipulate the 10mm steel

of their crushing jaw.

Well, we've sustained quite a lot of damage on the flipper itself.

It's bent, meaning the flipper won't actually fall back into place

and even the top part of the front has a bend on it.

So with it being kinked it won't fit flush into Apollo.

So, yeah, basically it's stuffed at the moment.

But Dave's on the job. Dave, you OK, mate?

Yeah, I'm getting there.

Not a clue. Not a clue.

Coyote have failed to get the jaw flush to the floor,

but its teeth are razor sharp.

It's the moment of truth for Apollo.

Will their flipper fit back into the robot?

-Please fit.

-No.

That's better.

It's not bad.

Apollo will have to fight with a damaged flipper.

Will Coyote be able to take advantage and write

the champions out of the competition altogether?

It's over to you, Jonathan.

Three, two, one. Activate.

So has clueless Dave solved the Apollo problem?

It didn't look like it really did it.

With those tactics in mind from the group battle...

The flipper is working.

And that is bad news for Coyote. Can they self-right

using the jaws, the crushing jaws?

And they go again.

Another surprise here.

It looked as if Apollo were down and out. They're far from that.

And Coyote is whimpering.

Tossed through the air.

Don't think Apollo can launch robots six foot in to the air.

And the Bluecoats here are enjoying a little bit of light entertainment

against Coyote.

Killalot does not like us.

Can they throw them out of the arena?

Can they get them out?

They're out.

Well done. Well done, mate. Well done. Well done.

Great win for Apollo.

Champions back in business.

Oh! What are they doing here?

They're trying to take on Sir Killalot.

He's the only House Robot they've never flipped.

The House Robots want revenge now. In comes Dead Metal.

You are being daft here, boys. Get out! Get out!

Run away!

They're chasing you!

-Run away!

-Yes!

Run away or you're going to be crushed. Whoa!

Brilliant win for Apollo, this.

That's a mighty, mighty flip.

They tried to flip Killalot.

Not going to get away with that.

That was almost suicidal if Killalot's got a long memory.

But this was the end of Coyote.

Now, that's what I'm talking about.

-Woohoo! Did you like it?

-Yeah.

-Did you guys like it?

CHEERING

Yes! I'll come back to you.

Lads, I'm sorry. Not such a happy story.

It's fine.

We got a flip in and the top jaw broke away,

so the jaw was just dangling.

So just a bit disastrous, really.

OK, so what's the plan now?

Are we going to be able to patch it back together and come out...?

I hope so because we're fighting Carbide next.

-It might be its final farewell, but...

-This is horrendous.

Fine. But you know what? You've got nothing to lose next fight

against Carbide,

and sometimes that's when you dig deep and you get something.

Yeah.

Keep telling yourself that.

-This was the old Apollo.

-Yeah.

I mean, Apollo looks a bit damaged,

there's gaffer tape holding him together. It's, you know...

The arm on the flipper, because it is a bit off,

I think that has affected it flipping higher.

And do you think you can get that sorted before the next battle?

Yeah, I think so.

He says no. His face is like, "Absolutely not.

"We are as good as we're going to be."

Of course we can. Maybe not.

Right, OK. Three points for you guys.

-Well done. Well done. And commiserations.

-Thank you.

-Cheers, guys.

-Get in there.

Team Coyote took a beating, but there's no way they're giving up.

I think the main thing we need to do is get another bolt up

for this actuator.

They've already lost their chainsaw, and after being thrown around by

the reigning champions,

their primary weapon is now in serious danger.

Apollo flipped us a couple of times and then this jaw here,

this is the actuator that powers it, and there's supposed to be

a bolt that goes through there

into that arm to hold it in place. And that's obviously disappeared,

so it just went downhill from there, really.

While the teams are busy with last-minute repairs,

I've caught up with one of our judges,

Professor of Robotics Sethu Vijayakumar.

This is part of a very famous robot.

What's so significant about this robot here?

It's part of a new collaboration with the Nasa Johnson Space Center.

We are involved with a project about sending a humanoid robot to Mars.

The critical issue surely is what it sees around it,

so for it to navigate the landscape.

You and me take it for granted that when we look around

we can actually make a sense of what's around us,

figure out where there's empty space, where there's a doorway.

You can figure out what to open, what to manipulate, what to grasp.

But for a robot to do that is quite hard.

And this equipment that you see here is an attempt at doing that

in a very clever way.

It's got a spinning laser, which is basically figuring out

the depth information about what is in front of it.

It's essentially recognising faces,

it's essentially recognising texture, it's fusing depth

information with texture and colour and it's creating a whole percept.

Before the astronaut arrives,

makes the whole problem of exploration much more easier.

That's incredible. Thank you very much, Dr Sethu.

The next battle is Carbide versus Crackers 'N' Smash.

Both teams are in the pits,

and Dave and Sam are making final tweaks to Carbide.

Crackers 'N' Smash could be quite an awkward one

cos they're just too low for us to damage.

Probably just skim across the top.

But if we do get a bite on it, it will go flying.

In the group battle, Crackers 'N' Smash's weapons took a beating.

So the team are trying to amend their machine to make them as

low as possible by going into the arena with no weapons at all.

We're going in without the weapons.

We know they're going to get torn off,

so it's a pure three-minute survival match.

The team are taking a monumental risk.

Are they about to be completely destroyed by the most

powerful machine in the competition?

Three...

As long as you can, don't take any hits.

-As long as you can.

-Activate.

Very sly tactics here from Crackers 'N' Smash -

just stay away from that punishing blade.

Well, they haven't managed it there.

And, actually, they used the angle, Carbide there,

rode up on Crackers and smashed into Smash.

That's interesting.

Can Crackers 'N' Smash get away?

I'm giving it all I've got and it's not driving.

There's control problems here with Crackers 'N' Smash.

Down goes the pit release.

Well, the Carbide spinning blade is capable of thrashing these

two little bots.

Whoa! How about that?

They caused massive problems to the arena wall as well, look.

-Cease.

-It smashed a panel.

As it's potentially dangerous to continue when

the arena sustains any damage, the match is paused.

The judges discuss the team's performance

while the arena is repaired.

So far it's been another outstanding performance of awesome power

from Carbide.

Stay out of trouble, Crackers 'N' Smash. You didn't manage it.

And again. Whoa!

Away goes Smash.

Crumples into the arena sidewall with such power and destroyed it.

Nice.

The arena is almost repaired, but the match will not be

continuing as Crackers 'N' Smash have some news.

So we're going to formally forfeit the fight to Carbide.

And then will the weapons come back for Apollo?

They're working. Both the weapons work.

But if we put them on now, well, you saw what happened.

They would be gone.

It's another tactical decision from Crackers 'N' Smash

who decide to forfeit the three points instead of risking

even further damage from Carbide.

They will, though, have to repair both their robots in time for

their next head-to-head against Apollo.

The good news is the 5mm hardened steel armour

has saved the internal mechanisms.

-One brick of a robot.

-Sorry?

The drive system's fine.

Mechanically, the entire robot is fine,

which also means we can fight Apollo

and we can fight Apollo properly.

So, I mean,

they're probably going to get under us really easily,

but at least we can give it a good shot.

Coyote have fixed their crushing jaw

and are preparing their tactics to face Carbide.

We can get round the back of him maybe,

lift him up and dig the blade into the floor.

-Perhaps that can be a tactic.

-If we do get a hold of him,

we could potentially do anything we want with it.

-That's the thing.

-Yeah.

Coyote is battle ready once again.

They may be facing a ruthless machine,

but they're brave enough to take them on.

Carbide against Coyote.

Coyote's heavily armoured front may tackle Carbide's front blade.

If they can stop the blade spinning they might be in for a chance.

They have to win.

Oh!

You needn't have bottle when you've got a machine that can flick away

the current heat favourites like that.

Not just about bottle, about durability, about tactics.

You got your tactics wrong there, though.

Oh, no! Right into Killalot!

In the CPZ.

Killalot's area.

Oh, dear. They started so well.

That will cause damage - flame pit.

The jaw's dangling one moment, now gone.

No chainsaw. And Carbide will slam.

A few perilous moments,

I guess, part caused by Carbide's own front flip tactics, really.

And they go in with that death hum and slam.

They can also spin themselves away.

Cease.

-Is it dead now?

-Yeah.

A scare for Carbide, but no more than that.

Good work by Coyote.

But then in there...

Is that where the damage was caused?

Problems for the electronics after the flame pit.

Coyote are eliminated,

but these worthy competitors are happy to go out in a blaze of glory.

HE PRETENDS TO SOB, SHE LAUGHS

Total annihilation would be the best way to describe

-what's happened here.

-Modern art now.

Yeah, I'll sell it for a fortune to fund the next robot.

That last battle means the leaderboard looks like this.

At the top and through to tonight's final are Carbide.

But who will they face?

Both Apollo and Crackers 'N' Smash are on three points,

which means their fate rests on this final head-to-head.

Will it be the underdogs Crackers 'N' Smash,

or can champions Apollo go through?

It's crunch time for Apollo,

who are still struggling to recover from their fight with Carbide.

They're trying to smooth out the flipper as best they can

so that it fires on full power.

Thankfully, Carbide has done as much damage to Apollo as he's done

to us, so we have a chance.

The team have got both weapons working for the first time

since the group battle.

But they can't test them properly until they're in the arena.

You need to win this, both of you.

So whoever wins this is through to the final.

Yeah, I think it's one of those where they may feel that they're

the underdogs, but we've gone through a lot of work on our robot.

There are two of them. They're quite low to the ground.

They can probably get under us as well,

so we're not that confident, to be honest with you.

As reigning champions, is there added pressure?

Yes, massively. And we're a big target for everybody.

Everybody wants to have a go at Apollo.

Right, give it up for Apollo.

CHEERING

You could get into the final with this.

You could get a rematch with Carbide.

You're low, you can't get under it,

or Apollo could flip you out of the building.

That's the other thing cos you're tiny

and it's very powerful.

So we're either in for the high jump or we could potentially bring

about the biggest upset by knocking out the current champions.

That would be insane. Good luck. It's all to play for.

You could be in the final as well.

Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for both Crackers 'N' Smash.

CHEERING

-Three...

-Here we go.

Let's get into the final. Let's have fun.

Activate.

Can Crackers 'N' Smash compound the tipsters against Apollo?

Or could these bitesize robots be launched into space?

I've got my crash helmet on, that's for sure.

The weaponry of Crackers ineffective,

so Smash comes in as well.

Smash with the high spinning weapon, very fast spinner.

Pit released.

I'm not too sure they're strong enough to push Apollo in there.

I don't think they are.

Apollo with very experienced championship-winning drivers.

Smash is in the clutches of Dead Metal. Gets away.

And Crackers smashed by the lift, straight into Dead Metal.

Good flip. The flipper is working.

Maybe not perfectly, but it is working.

And Crackers, I think, is over and out.

Oh!

And they toss him through the air like a little leaf.

And in comes Dead Metal.

Look at the power of this.

Huge, huge lift across the arena floor.

-We think that Crackers is gone.

-Rogue House Robots.

They've set the House Robots rogue.

Oh! The sparks fly.

Look, Killalot's running away from Apollo.

Go, go, go, go!

Oh, they tried to flip Sir Killalot.

Now, all this is good and fun and joyous for you, boys -

remember that the House Robots never forget.

Now they're in on the better business.

Getting Smash almost out of the arena.

-Cease.

-Cease is called.

Well done, man. Well done.

We survived three minutes with Apollo.

They've been brilliant competitors, Crackers 'N' Smash.

That was the end of Crackers, on to Dead Metal.

But the other machine was still alive,

so they're allowed to continue.

They became a plaything.

Unsurprisingly, the judges have awarded two points to Apollo.

Here we go again. Carbide.

# We're in the final

# We're in the final. #

But it doesn't look good.

Apollo are triumphant,

meaning that Crackers 'N' Smash leave the competition,

but have proved that clever tactics and two tough little robots

will get you far.

-Had a great fight there. Fantastic fun.

-That was...

Surviving three minutes with Apollo was...

frankly surprising.

I'm quite glad in some ways cos I don't have to fight Carbide again.

We've managed to get in there and mix it with the best.

The final leaderboard sees Coyote on zero points.

Crackers 'N' Smash leave with three.

Apollo finished with five points,

which means they will get another chance to fight their rivals

Carbide who topped the table with nine points.

The annals of history are lined with fearsome rivals in titanic battles.

This is no less. A repeat of last year's grand finale.

Ladies and gentlemen, the brilliant reigning champions Apollo

versus the robot feared by all - Carbide.

The road to the final has proved deadly for all

but these two robot fighting teams.

The relentless power of last series' runners up Carbide

left their group battle opponents in a state of shock.

Too many robots in there. Spoilt for choice, really.

There was no mercy shown against their old foe Apollo.

Carbide has taken no prisoners.

Smash it.

They've left a trail of mangled metal in their wake

on their march to the heat final.

It smashed the panel.

Standing in their way to a place in the series final is Apollo.

The reigning champions left a trail of destruction

-in their group battle.

-Yes!

In their first head-to-head,

Carbide took the upper hand and Apollo were badly beaten.

Come on! Leave us alone! Stop it!

That's nasty, that, isn't it?

Apollo made a fearsome return to form against competitors...

Well done, man. Well done.

..but they still failed to flip Sir Killalot.

Run away! Run away!

Do they still have what it takes to overcome Carbide?

Apollo took the trophy in the last series.

Can Carbide get their revenge?

They look the more improved machine here.

Roboteers, standby.

The Bluecoats are making a song and dance of getting into the final.

But Carbide say everything's going to plan.

Three, two, one. Activate.

Apollo, they're attacking Carbide.

This is a great final building up here right now to this heat.

Two mighty machines.

Two of the most powerful machines we've seen in this series of

Robot Wars, that's for sure.

Sparks flying.

They're trying to dent and bash and buckle that front flipper certainly.

Oh, listen. Listen.

Can you hear it? There's that death hum of Carbide.

Is the flipper working now for Apollo?

Oh, look at the disc, now up to speed!

The banshee hum.

Flip! We need to.

I think they're in trouble here, the defending champions.

You can see the sparks flying from that onslaught from Carbide.

And Apollo took mighty, mighty punishment.

Apollo limited now certainly in weaponry and immobile.

Oh!

-We didn't get any flips at all.

-No.

-Cease.

-Apollo gone.

That's some big hits in there. Good driving, man. Good driving.

What a win for Carbide.

Revenge is sweet, not just for Carbide, but for Killalot.

I'm afraid, Apollo, everything you get now you deserve.

On to the flame pit.

Naughty boy.

No! No!

That was a good attack from Apollo.

Getting in underneath and denying any power from the Carbide blade,

but there we saw damage sustained.

Again, a good drive by Apollo, so Carbide up and over

and not really causing any problems at that stage.

A little bit of spark there.

But this is where the major damage was caused.

And from that moment on, no way back for Apollo, no way back at all.

Great final. Two brilliant teams.

It feels like it was only yesterday that we were in this very

same spot presenting you with the trophy for winning the first series.

You're not getting past this episode. What happened out there?

I mean, we've got to the end of this episode, and fighting Carbide again

in the final is just epic and we just didn't get the flipper working.

I mean, you took the blows.

And you were underneath him a few times and were waiting for

the button to be pressed, and just nothing happened.

No. The flipper just didn't want to go.

We tested it as we put in the arena, it worked absolutely fine.

And it just got a bit of stage fright

once it went out in the arena.

-Well done to Carbide as well.

-Absolutely.

Indeed. Very different story from last time.

I mean, the remnants there, it's a bit pathetic when you look at it.

What a monster of a robot you've built.

Yes, it's pretty relentless now.

I think we've tinkered away and seem to have got it right.

-Can you go all the way this time?

-I don't know. It gets hard now.

Stop it. This is same old, "Oh, I don't know. We'll see what happens."

-Give it up for Carbide.

-Well done, Carbide.

So, the king is dead. Long live the king.

Yes, it's a new era here. Our champions are already gone.

Congratulations to Carbide. Farewell to Apollo.

-And farewell from all of us here on Robot Wars.

-Goodnight.

-Goodnight.

Next time on Robot Wars...

Winning Robot Wars will be a dream come true.

The robot re-joining the competition is...

OK, that is a first. We've never seen that before.