T.R.A.C.I.E.

"May have a girl's name, but nothing ladylike about our T.R.A.C.I.E."

- Jonathan Pearce

T.R.A.C.I.E. (which stood for Terrestrial Robotic Artificial Computerised Intelligent Engine) was a flat box-shaped robot that reached the Grand Final of the First Wars of Robot Wars. T.R.A.C.I.E. was constructed of welded steel and had a very low centre of gravity, only twenty centimetres off the ground. T.R.A.C.I.E. was armed with long steel spear weapons, two from the centre of the robot. Whilst these proved cumbersome for manoeuvrability, as seen in the Trial, they were among the most potent of spear weapons, puncturing the tires of Prince of Darkness with simple ramming motion. It was the very first invertible robot to appear on the show, setting a trend for many other teams to follow.

At just 52.9kg, T.R.A.C.I.E. was one of the lightest heavyweights in the competition at the time; by modern weight regulations, it would be classed as a middleweight. It was also the only Grand Finalist from the First Wars whose team didn't qualify for any other series.

It was constructed by students from the KEGS school in Chelmsford, including Joe Thomas who has since starred as Simon Cooper in the British sitcom The Inbetweeners.

The team started to build a similar robot called S.H.A.R.O.N. which was intended to be entered in the Third Wars, but it was rejected by the Robot Wars producers and the robot never competed on the televised show.

The team would go on to create the popular Tectonic Robot Wars website.

Series 1
T.R.A.C.I.E. competed in the final heat (Heat F) of the first series of Robot Wars. In the Gauntlet stage of the heat, T.R.A.C.I.E took the left route. It crawled past house robot Sergeant Bash, only to stop just past halfway and get attacked by the house robots, when cease was called, it had been calculated that T.R.A.C.I.E. had covered a distance of 8.70 metres, finishing 4th on the leaderboard, therefore enough for T.R.A.C.I.E. to progress to the Trial stage of the heat. Here, T.R.A.C.I.E. narrowly avoided elimination from the competition in the Snooker Trial having pocketed the joint least number of balls (0), it became impaled on the side netting almost immediately with its spikes, keeping it there in position until cease was called long afterwards. However, the stock robot for the heat, The Mouse, who knocked also pocketed no balls, was said to have irreparably broken down as it was not allowed to compete in the arena, despite this, The Mouse was moving for longer before stopping than T.R.A.C.I.E. was. In the Arena stage of the heat, T.R.A.C.I.E. defeated heat favourites Prince of Darkness by puncturing both of its large tyres with its front spike weapons. T.R.A.C.I.E. finished the fight on the grille, unable to fight, but Prince of Darkness was already declared immobilised by the judges. T.R.A.C.I.E. was again the far more aggressive in the heat final battle against Skarab, who had its radio contol mast snapped off. T.R.A.C.I.E. then attacked house robot Sergeant Bash as revenge for holding it up in the Gauntlet stage. However it sustained no major damage from the house robot. The battle went to a judges' decision. The judges voted in favour of T.R.A.C.I.E., putting it through to the grand final of the First Wars, which aired later on in the program.

In the Grand Final, T.R.A.C.I.E. was in a six-way melee for the title and was placed up against Bodyhammer, Robot The Bruce, Cunning Plan, Recyclopse and Roadblock. Despite a strong start in the battle, where T.R.A.C.I.E. speared Recyclopse's weak side, it was immobilised not long into the battle when it drove up onto the supposedly out of control Cunning Plan and got wedged there due to its low ground clearance. Its weight, however, was too much for the featherweight Cunning Plan to move either robot, they were both declared immobilised immediately and ruled out of the title.

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 2
 * Losses: 1

Series Record

 * Series 1: Grand Final
 * Series 2: Did not enter
 * Series 3: Failed to qualify with S.H.A.R.O.N.
 * Series 4-7: Did not enter

Trivia

 * T.R.A.C.I.E. was the very first invertible robot to appear on the show.
 * T.R.A.C.I.E. was also the only invertible robot in the First Wars.
 * T.R.A.C.I.E. was the only one of the First War Grand Finalists not to return to the show beyond Series 1.
 * T.R.A.C.I.E. is the only Grand Finalist to have featured spears as a weapon (though this was technically part of Tornado's weaponry arsenal, it wasn't used in the Grand Final).
 * T.R.A.C.I.E. was the only First Wars Grand Finalist not to complete the Gauntlet during the heat stage.
 * Excluding Terrorhurtz, T.R.A.C.I.E. was one of only two robots that didn't return for another series after reaching a Grand Final, the other being Razer.