User:Datovidny/Lists

I had various lists before, but I thought I'd have them deleted and have another crack at it once I'd sparked a bit of wisdom.

Robot Wars Awards
After reading a lot of the lists from other users, they seem to focus a lot on the negative aspects of Robot Wars history, but I don't think that's right, whilst it's considerably easier to list all the things we wished would happen on Robot Wars that didn't happen, I want to thank the best TV show of my childhood by celebrating its greatest bits. I begin with the Robot Wars awards, where I'll go through the awards individually, listing those robots that were deserving of each award throughout their career.

Most Original Entry
"Our first award is for the most original entry, plenty of imagination and creativity"

The Most Original Entry Award was for those robots that may not have had designs and performances that set the warzone on fire, but they did do one thing that something on a TV Entertainment show always should, they captured our imaginations. We wouldn't forget the moments when we first saw these robots, making them all legends in their own right. There are 12 robots in the shortlist for this one, some near misses for this category include Nemesis and Wizard.

12. Milly-Ann Bug While I'm sure the design was based on an insect, or "bug", it still reminds me of a train, especially since it was originally going to have three domes instead of just two. Whilst Milly-Ann Bug may have been overshadowed by Razer in its first appearance, it was still quite a wacky design for Series 2, with its flammable hair and unique method of hauling around its arse, compare it with the generic designs that dominated the Series 2 line-up. Milly-Ann Bug was rightly awarded with the Most Original Entry trophy in Series 2, and the team managed to make the robot even more distinguishable by giving it the funky green, yellow and brown paint scheme, these days, you look at the colours of camouflage, and then just brighten the texture, you can't help but see Milly-Ann Bug. It could be seen as quite odd to place an actual winner of the award so low on the list, but Series 3-7 would yet see even more original designs...

11. Wowot Even the name of this one was original. Wowot, based on a crane, built looking like a part of an assembly line at a Car Plant, was original in the fact that the weapon pretty much was the robot, it stood out so much, and was an original weapon in itself. When Wowot first entered the arena, the thoughts going through most viewers was probably along the lines of "great design, but I bet it doesn't work". However, we couldn't have been more wrong, Wowot, in its only UK appearance, proved to actually have quite a bit of potential in battle, even though it was faced with Lambsy, a foe that was just the right shape. It was such a shame to see it go out in Round 1, Wowot is a fairly difficult robot to remember amongst the rest of Adam Clark's machines, but only because it wasn't given anywhere near the amount of time on screen it deserved, this the main reason it's given a low ranking on the list. Nonetheless, a great design, a good attempt to have an all-rounder for Robot Wars and various Techno Games events.

10. The Kraken Jayne Middlemiss said that it was "one of" the most scary-looking robots that she had seen "today", I would like to argue that it was "the" most scary-looking robot that I'd seen "throughout" Robot Wars. I'll be honest, after beginning watching Robot Wars in Series 3, and watching pretty much every episode that followed, The Kraken was the only robot that when it entered the arena, I actually gulped and felt nervous. Everything about its design made it look frightening, its svelt sculpted body, finished off in "Dark Forest" balck, with a large "Walk of Terror" wedge, at the end of which stood a large claw that came down so quickly, underneath which was a very sharp and heavy-looking claw, that looked like it would take no prisoners. However, the ironic thing was that the robot never actually looked that potent on screen, so we were expecting a Thermidor 2 victory in the second round anyway. In fairness, the hydraulic claw did cause a scrape on Cobra's tough titanium shell. A rightful place on the list then, the robot that for probably the first time since Razer stepped into the ring, immediately looked as scary as the show tried to be.

9. Crushtacean Now, it's quite obvious why Crushtacean's on the list, I could talk for ages about every aspect of the robot, but the main reason is: "its claws were clever". Joking aside though, the weaponry was designed very intelligently, and from memory I can't think of any other robot that had its weapons controlled in such a manner. The design itself was also fairly original, I think the closest other robot we had to a crab was the lobster Thermidor 2, the other tiny details, like the curved top and bottom, the circular base, and the hugely exposed wheels also helped in making the robot look quite original and quite distinctive. However, the reason it hasn't been placed any higher on the list is that the main thing that stood out for us about the whole robot was the weapon setup, which overshadows every other aspect of the robot, and while that may look good for us, it wouldn't have come clear to the audience in the studio, and everything aside, it's a technical thing, which kind of defeats the object of the award. Full marks for the design of the robot though, potent weaponry and perfect distance between the claws made it a good robot as well as original.

8. 13 Black After watching Hypno-Disc in the arena, causing tremendous damage to everyone, it didn't take many Robot Wars fans long to wonder what it would be like to shove two spinning discs on the same robot, we were first introduced to this "crazy" concept in Series 5, with the appearances of 13 Black and Shredder, Shredder didn't appear that potent, and was off the screen very quickly by driving into the pit, which leaves us with 13 Black, a funky and colourful design, discs aside, and it was unfortunate against Corkscrew, and because of its early departure in this series, it's very easy to forget that 13 Black was even in Series 5. However, Series 6 came around, and 13 Black returned, looking hugely more dangerous with its enormous discs, even though it had pretty much no pedigree at all, and it was going in up against big favourites Thermidor 2 and Stinger, 13 Black was still seen as one to watch, and didn't disappoint, as it sailed through Rounds 1 and 2 without breaking sweat, and then swinging it against Stinger in the Heat Final. It was the large discs that made 13 Black very distinctive, full stop. They may not have done quite as much damage in their battles as we would've thought by looking at it, but it was always one to fear from Series 6 onwards, and in Series 7 made a name for itself as "THE" spinner to watch out for, making it truly an Original Entry.

7. Twn Trwn Perhaps a wee but fortunate to be this high on the list, Twn Trwn was a terrific design, it was far from the Best Design, because the main priorities of the robot were that it had artwork coming out of every orifice, and was as big as its cost in pennies, though at only £200 it was probably bigger.......never mind. Thank goodness that the team chose the artwork over the snowplough, I doubt it would've looked anywhere near as good, and I bet it still would've died after one blow from Tridents' axe. For me, every square inch of Twn Trwn was more aesthetically pleasing and more original than the whole of most robots that ever competed, though it may have just looked better next to a robot with only one shade of colour. Such a shame to see the artwork trashed at the end, but how great it was to see such a mad looking robot, in what probably was quite a dull heat otherwise in terms of robots competing.

6. Fat Boy Tin A robot that really stole the scene for a while, Fat Boy Tin certainly came in at a time in the series where we were seeing a few too many generic designs from the middle heats. Fat Boy Tin definitely classes as an Original Entry for the fact that it technically wasn't original at all, it had taken its design from robots that had been fighting decades prior, just not in Robot Wars. Looks aside, it was also quite a size, also making it quite original, it was the tallest competitor that had ever competed at the time, so it certainly stood out, even when it was next to Sir Killalot, and it would go on to be the tallest competitor ever, for a whole.....1 episode. Despite our lack of faith in it, Fat Boy Tin was actually a fairly competent robot, a powerful and fairly quick robot with a wedge, but it looked bad getting outfoxed by Plunderbird 4 in a matter of moments. Despite not staying the tallest ever, we will always remember the not at all original Fat Boy Tin.

5. Wheely Big Cheese Any user on the wiki familiar with me will not be surprised to see me try and sneak Wheely Big Cheese into the list. My all-time favourite, bar none. From the very moment I first saw it in the arena, I knew it would take something very very very special to switch my preferences from this, it never happened. I loved Wheely Big Cheese for its sheer design lunacy, the robot was basically one big weapon, with two huge red wheels bolted onto the side. The wheels themselves were original, bright red, and using sharpened golf shoe studs for grip instead of tyres. However, the weapon was the main attraction, after seeing Chaos 2 monster Series 3 with its flipper, anyone would look at Wheely Big Cheese, with its gigantic flipper, that was technically double-sided, and expect unprecedented anarchy. In fairness, we got a fair spectical in its Series 4 heat, but we were yet to see it at its peak in Series 5. I'm saddened to think that on several occasions, such as the Series 5 Semi-Finals and the All-Star Quarter Finals, when it could've performed really well and maybe caused an upset or two, it suffered one way or another and didn't deliver. Its reliability issues proved that it was far from the perfect robot, and its exposed wheels proved that it was far from the Best Design, but it was a design that definitely made it distinctive and impressive, a shame then that it was a design only ever "kind of" replicated by St. Agro.

4. Razer Three numbers up, I labelled Twn Trwn as being controversially high, but here I find myself looking at the great Razer being controversially low at number 4. First things first, it's certainly deserving of a top 4 slot, the weapon was the robot basically, with some tiny wheels and mediocre armour finishing it all off. There isn't really much to say about the rest of the robot, the sole reason that we even remember Razer was its weapon. As the robot stepped into the arena in Series 2, the claw just looked like a bodybuilder's arm, with strength to match, an original weapon in itself which proved particularly against Inquisitor that it could render anything scrap metal. So for Series 3, we knew what to expect, and it never really lost its damage potential, from Series 2 right to Extreme 2 it just seemed to be able to pierce through absolutely everything. The design really made its mark in Series 3, whilst in Series 2 it was just a wedge with a large "curved bit of metal raised high" (because the claw hadn't been invented yet), in Series 3, when it had those wings, it really did look like part bird, reptile. Razer was clearly an original design, as it would inspire many crushers to enter the later series, but all of them would be dubbed "Razer-clones" or "Razer-esque", Ming 3 and Tiberius 3 in particular facing most of the criticism. This harsh dubbing proved that Razer in fact "WAS" the vertical crusher, meaning it was truly an original robot. However, I can't find it in myself to put Razer any higher up on the list, this may sound a bit odd, but I just don't think it ever really got put in front of me that it was an original robot. I started watching Robot Wars in Series 3, so I was told before its battle with Backstabber that it was a really good robot by Philippa and Jonathan, so I never really got the chance to be amazed by a new robot that electrified the arena with its capabilities. Sorry lads, if I'd just been watching a year earlier, I would've been impressed by Razer even more and it may have even reached number 1.

3. Hypno-Disc Hypno-Disc in many respects is on the list for the same sort of reasons as Razer, it was a design that was defined truly by the weapon, and as it went into its second series, we all knew what to expect, especially after the addition of a srimech, since it lost previously for not having one. However, there are a few things that put Hypno-Disc higher up than Razer. Firstly, something that I stated for Razer, I started watching Robot Wars in Series 3, so I first saw Hypno-Disc when nobody really knew what this robot was, and what the weapon would do, but as I watched it tear Robogeddon limb from limb, I was gob-smacked, and I was almost equally impressed when it tore apart Stealth, disabling the pneumatic rams completely. Another reason that Hypno-Disc goes higher, it did cause a lot more damage, Razer would create fairly big holes, holes about the size of two axe hits from Shunt, which could be seen almost every battle after a robot died, but Hypno-Disc ripped its first two opponents apart nut from bolt, much more theatrical, much more original to see. Hypno-Disc was one of a kind for a very long time, spinners may have come in Series 4 and 5, but until 13 Black in Series 6 it looked like Hypno-Disc was the only one capable to doing any damage to all, destroying many a foe from Series 4-5, including The Predator, V-Max, Raizer Blade twice, Splinter, Ming 3, and not forgetting Atomic, whilst also causing a fair amount of damage to others besides. As a result of its prowess, whilst every spinner that followed wasn't dubbed a "Hypno-clone", it was always the benchmark for new spinners to look up to, and I remember Jonathan Pearce mistakenly calling Disc-O-Inferno "Hypno-Disc" at one point during the Extreme 1 Annihilator. In short, Hypno-Disc: to quote Philippa Forrester; "One of the most original, if not THE most original".....Well, number 3 at least.

2. Stinger Most of the robots in this list have been listed because of their weapon making up the robot, with Stinger, its the wheels making up the robot. As it made its mark in Series 3, Stinger certainly set the series off to a good start by performing as maniacally as possible. Stinger was original for so many reasons, that it required just the wheels and the body to go, the fact that it had everything mechanical hidden in its wheels, that its wheels were extremely huge, and that despite not being powered by anything but torque-reaction, it had one of the most punishing axes in the warzone. Even the small details, like the axe head being an odd and intriguing shape, and the tyres appeared different from the norm, they made Stinger even more different from the rest. Of course Stinger was going to be a revolution, even in Series 4 Jonathan Pearce made a meal of how insane the robot was, and it wasn't even its debut series. Admittedly, quite a few robots with a similar design entered Series 3, but Stinger was the most interesting, and would be the only one to continue afterwards, to adopt the basic concept as its own. There were many robots that had a particular type of weapon making them original, but it's difficult to find a robot more original than Stinger, which will always be remembered by Robot Wars fans.

So...the winner is...

1. Psychosprout You may argue, or you may just plain disagree, but for me, you can't get more original than the only robot that looked at the wheel as a concept and thought: "........No". Psychosprout had no weapons, it was made with layers upon layers of paper mache, it was the only robot to literally read the child's guide to robot-building by having a shell on top of an un-tampered RC car, and it had no wheels touching the arena floor. Psychosprout was fantastic, and a great concept to see, though whilst most robots were designed for Robot Wars, Psychosprout was designed really for something in Techno Games, can't think what though. It was certainly original next to pretty much everything else in Series 1, like Uglybot, Full Metal Anorak, Shogun, Scrapper and Leighbot...the list could go on. For that alone, Psychosprout is probably deserving of the number 1 slot, that it REALLY stood out amongst the generic stuff from the time. However, Psychosprout didn't really inspire any other roboteers to copy the basic concept, which is unsurprising, I doubt it was at all competent in the Arena, but it did inspire one person....me. I'm in the process of creating a robot with a paper mache sphere for a body, with a wire mesh and basic controls inside, which shall be named Rollerbot, named as such as when finished it will resemble this guy from the Guildhall Leisure game. There isn't really much more to say about this one, it hardly defined Robot Wars' history like Hypno-Disc and Razer, but I feel it came from the best ingenuity.

Best Design
"Next up, an award for Best Design, fiercely fought..."

Robots entered the arena in all shapes and sizes, some colourful, some scary, some enormous, some comical, but some gave off the impression that they were going to perform well just by entering the arena, because their design appeared to have been very well thought out and very complete, without real obvious weaknesses, until you watch the drivers do something daft with them! Some of these robots came from previous series, with an improved design developed after past mistakes and mishaps, others entered the arena for the first time, already looking measured, suggesting that the team were really tight on making the best robot in every mathematical sense. Again, there are 12 in the shortlist, among the near misses were Hodaf The Bad, Shredder Evolution and Hypno-Disc.

12. Ming Dienasty While it didn't exactly have the best of luck in Robot Wars, many of the regular users here will know that I insist that Ming Dienasty was a good robot, its speed and agility were good, but mostly I feel this is down to its design. A completely different robot from Ming 3, which while it was a good robot itself, it had several shortcomings that Ming Dienasty didn't have, chief among which being the exposed wheels, whilst Ming 3 had huge wheels which were very susceptible to spinners and ramming blades, Ming Dienasty had very tiny wheels, that not only were protected by the main body, but they were also protected by large girders designed to absorb shocks, this meant all spinners, even the best of the bunch: Hypno-Disc, Typhoon 2, Disc-O-Inferno, they'd all struggle to cause damage. Also on the defence side of things, Ming Dienasty had its drill weapon mounted on its standard lifting arm mechanism, to create a unique weapon-come-srimech device, which I thought was a nifty idea.

However, whilst Ming Dienasty was pretty solid on the defence side of fighting, there wasn't much in its favour in terms of offense. Even though the drill was quite powerful at 3000rpm, and was capable of doing damage, it was still just a drill in the Seventh Wars, which meant damage potential was fairly low, as was its attack zone. Another problem was the self-righting, whilst the arm could right it, the robot would have to be perfectly on its back for it to work, as the mechanism stood above the body, so it may flop to one side and be unable to self-right, this was evident in its melee. In short, it would survive to the end of a fight, but not really rack up many points against the competent robots of the period, but I feel, still worthy of a place on the list.

11. Beast of Bodmin Roadblock was a very good robot, not just for Series 1, I bet it would've done half-decent in the later series, depending on its line-up. Roadblock had the low ground clearance coupled with its simplicity, it was a simple (but large) wedge shape with a low scoop at the front and a circular saw at the back, so it could rack up points in all criteria fairly comfortably if it needed to. But why isn't Roadblock on the list, because the Bodmin Community College were able to improve the design even more with the Beast of Bodmin. The biggest and best change was the addition of the tusk weapon, whilst only a small lifter, it was sufficient to lift and even topple other robots, to save fitting an enormous flipper which in later years would just be a liability against spinners when raised. The saw was also improved from Series 2 as well, as it was sticking out quite a bit on Roadblock in Series 2, but only exposed enough on the Beast of Bodmin to carry out the needed damage without the possiblity of it getting buckled.

Then again, whilst the machines from the Bodmin Community College were truly something in the early series, they were still simple wedges. Whilst drawbacks in the design never really hit them in the show, they did have flaws, such as vulnerable sides and tops, the ineffectiveness of the circular saw weapon etc. But there was one design fault that did catch out Roadblock that would've caught them both out quite regularly in later series: inability to self-right. The simple answer would be to do what Aggrobot did and have wheels on the top of the robot as well so that it would be invertible, or just make the robot lower. An inability to self-right certainly makes it a flawed design, but as this wasn't really a huge factor back in those days, it'll only go as far down as number 11.

10. Plunderbird This placing really goes to all of the Plunderbirds. Again, like Roadblock and Beast of Bodmin, the Plunderbird robots were simple wedges, though these were box-wedges. I'm a fan of the Plunderbird robots because they took a bland design and made it quite interesting. In the first series, enabling Plunderbird 1 to have multiple weapons was a genius idea, for it to suit different opponents. Plunderbird 1 would've been really good in the arena, but the reason we didn't see it there was because it was side-swiped by a house robot, and its ground clearance was too low for it to get away from the grille, so it was beaten by its own good design. Plunderbird 2 was even better, a simple wedge with a huge bulldozer blade that went to the floor, ensuring no robot would get underneath, AND IT WORKED!! From then on, the front base plate idea remained, with the Plunderbird series being improved year after year with better and better weaponry.

Reliability problems aside, the Plunderbirds did still have a few design problems, most of which similar to those shared by the Bodmin Community College robots, in particular the inability to self-right. However it does rank above Beast of Bodmin for its base plate, as this did stop several robots with flippers from being able to flip it over, even after fighting robots like Sir Chromalot, Mega Morg and even Firestorm 2, Plunderbird was only ever KO'd by flipping once. Another design fault with the early Plunderbirds was its tracks, I know they could give good grip, but they did make it more susceptible to flipping. Fortunately, this was rectified on the 5th model.

9. St. Agro Whilst Wheely Big Cheese is a good favourite of mine, there are two reasons why I've chosen St. Agro for this list instead of Wheely Big Cheese: 1) I wanted another Cornish robot in a list, 2) I felt that St. Agro had basically perfected the design (a bit more). There isn't much to say why the basic design is a good one, as it forms the basis of a potentially very powerful flipper, both St. Agro and Wheely Big Cheese scored OotA's, and were able to KO many others besides. St. Agro however picked up on a couple of Wheely Big Cheese's design faults. St. Agro was more compact and shorter than Wheely Big Cheese, so it was probably a little bit less of an easy target against things like spinners, and this also made it more maneouvrable. The large wheels of Wheely Big Cheese meant they could buckle easily, or be torn easier, but St. Agro's were smaller and didn't have an exposed axle, so they were less susceptible to buckling and ripping. Another innovative idea was the "double-sided double flipper", as it technically meant St. Agro's design had the potential so send a robot even higher than Axe Awe, which would've been impressive and fun to watch. Whilst that didn't happen, new and improved pneumatics in St. Agro today (Maelstrom) certainly show that the double flipper idea can make for a much better spectacle than the average flipper.

Whilst these points had been picked up on, there was still one big drawback for St. Agro, and that was that the wheels were still exposed, and that in Series 7 the wheels just seemed quite weak. This meant that St. Agro would still be quite vulnerable against spinners, need I mention X-Terminator, and spinners were quite common by the time it started competing, so for that reason St. Agro still ranks fairly low here.

8. Gemini I'm not sure I was all for letting Gemini win just about every other award in Series 4, but it was a very good idea to have a design where one end of the robot wasn't even connected by anything to the other end. The clusterbot never really took off as a trend, the odd babyweight clusterbot here and there, and then Black and Blue getting finished off early on, but Gemini certainly made a good case for such a trend, as it really livened up its Series 4 heat, apart from Tornado giving Berserk 2 a pummelling, the main attraction was Gemini, performing maniacally in its opening battle, and then proving it was an extremely good design by working very well together in ripping the shell off The Creature, and then becoming the first robot other than Chaos 2 to get an OotA. Gemini's design may not have won it a domestic title, but it was almost as if it was designed for Pinball, making the most of only needing half the points each, and topping the board without too much sweat, probably a bit unfair to put it in that tournament though. Everytime Gemini entered a head to head, it was always two against one, meaning it had an advantage (in that respect) all the time, which is the whole point of a good design.

Gemini would've been ranked higher on the list, before it shot itself in the foot in Series 5/Extreme 1. The anti-wheelie bars in theory was a good idea, but that was without considering that the flippers were still so powerful they could still flip themselves over. The anti-wheelie bars meant that Gemini would often flip itself backwards still, but then be unable to find the momentum to get back onto its wheels. This would've been fine, because its a clusterbot it could've just called upon the other twin to come and right it, but the other twin would just beach itself in the process of trying to right the other, so you're left with both twins unable to self-right. This meant that Gemini would suffer losses to Reactor 2 and Napalm 2, good robots, but robots that Gemini really should've humiliated in battle. The other main drawback of the clusterbot is that they are in essence middleweights, so the innards and armour would never be up to scratch, Razer proved the armour could be broken through, the motors didn't exactly make them lightning speed, and the weight meant they would be easy to flip and shunt, Tornado proving the latter. Clusterbots may have been good design ideas for the lower weight classes, where the opposing robots could be much weaker anyway, but against the heavyweights, no chance.

7. King B Powerworks Well, we're getting into the real mist of the list, so probably about time for the first controversial choice (probably). King B was frequently regarded as a bit of a problem child throughout its Robot Wars career, even by its team, but it was still also seen as a competent veteran capable of doing alright whenever it fought. Part of this goes down to its design, designed to be a low but fast runner that would just run about and ram opponents, hoping to push them if it could. Motor power was a priority, as then it would be able to dart around the arena quickly, and when it would ram other opponents, it would have the power to push them, the pushing aspect was helped by the front forks, as they would pierce/grapple the other robot, so King B would have a basis on which to push. This simple battle plan was effective on a fair few occasions, notably against Kronic 2. The forks could also lift, meaning if it wanted it could always apply the patented Panic Attack maneouvre, or just try and flip something over. The disc was a nice touch too, not that it did much, from memory, I think the sum total of damage caused by it was on the Ninja Sheep. The wheels may have given the robot a large ground clearance, but this did mean if it was scooped up by a wedge-shaped robot it could easily escape, something not readily considered by later entrants.

The wheels may have benefitted it in that sense, but at the end of the day they did mean King B Powerworks had a high ground clearance, so it could be easily flipped about and pushed from the side. The exposed wheels were also a problem, and while it wasn't caught out in this sense by IG-88, a hit just a few inches to the side would've done. Aside from these factors though, King B had a fairly decent design that did well by the robot, so I feel a fair ranking is right.

6. X-Terminator On the whole, X-Terminator was underrated I feel, until Series 7, but its design meant that it was always a force to be reckoned with, a force that even managed to reach the Semi-Finals after passing the mighty Behemoth. X-Terminator's low, wide scoop underneath the axe would make for a good arsenal, scoop 'em up and then slam down with the axe, a technique that actually managed to take out Robochicken in Series 6, which by then was becoming a seriously good contender itself. The axe itself was designed carefully, with it being specially tipped and sharpened, and still causing damage in an era when armour was really getting strong. The main feature that made X-Terminator such a good design was the side srimech arms, I don't know what it was about them, but it was certainly the first time where a robot had...an unconventional srimech, it was notable, and created the idea that a robot didn't need a huge apparatus to self-right. By Series 6, these arms were redesigned to make it almost effortless for the robot to self-right from its side, which would help and against fast flippers. By Series 4, the biggest problem with the design was that the broad back meant X-Terminator could've been beached on its back, but this was a fault fixed in Series 5 as the rear was slanted.

Looking for drawbacks, it's probably a tad harsh to only rank X-Terminator 6th, but there was one problem with it: the axe. Despite being a long improvement from its Series 3 axe, the axe still lacked much power and weight, the fact that there was little weight in the tip of the axe, it struggled to puncture through most armours in later series, and the fact that there was little power in the pneumatics, the axe was never strong enough to self-right it when upside down, which cost it a fair number of battles. The axe was always the biggest failing of the robot, so it was replaced with a spinning disc in Series 7. The disc does mean we rarely picture the axe weapon when we think of X-Terminator, but it did deal with the damage problem that the axe had. However, X-Terminator still suffered from not self-righting, which very nearly made it go out in yet another Heat Final, and if it went out there, it may have been able to fight in the All-Stars, and go on and win, but would we respect it as much now?

5. 259 The last robot to receive the award, 259 raised a lot of eyebrows as it first entered the arena, and made a lot of knees shake as it came out. After its very first battle, 259 was immediately dubbed the favourite for the heat and a hot contender for the title, even though the ever consistent Semi-Final-finisher Wild Thing was still yet to flex its muscles. The difference between this and the rest of Adam Clark's robots was that it focused on damage potential only, it wasn't designed for defence, agility, speed or power behind the drive, just to cause as much damage as possible by simply moving towards any robot. 259's devastative ability came from a large vertical flywheel mounted on a large support with a huge motor to power it, simple, but as it proved, very effective. The robot wasn't completely defenceless, 259 was quite low and the wheels were protected by side skirts that helped prevent flippers getting underneath around the sides, so it wasn't a complete glass cannon.

That said, it was. As the top priority for the robot was weapon power, it was never going to be well-equipped in other areas. The chief problem being that there was no srimech, the side skirts may have been there to prevent that, but all it would take would be just one flipper that was just a little bit lower, and there were plenty, there was also the possibility of another weapon sending it over from the front, like a horizontal flywheel or a flipper, Typhoon proved this against the middleweight, and Judge Shred nearly managed it in the UK vs Germany Special. The other big problem, which actually probably cost it the heat, was the exposed belt to the flywheel, so easy to disable the flywheel to stop it doing damage, and Wild Thing found that weakness, Wild Thing itself armed with only a small saw. 259 then is a true glass cannon, so it can't really go any higher up than this in the list, though originally it was ahead of my next nomination...

4. Firestorm Throughout Series 3 it was described as a "complete robot" by Jonathan Pearce, and rightly so. Firestorm is arguably the most successful robot to ever fight in UK Robot Wars, a lot of this came down to Graham Bone's driving, but could he could done as well driving a lesser robot? I think not. Firestorm's design was complete in its own right, it was sleek and low, the wheels were neatly hidden and the flipper was the same height as the wedge, so robots would effortlessly glide onto the wedge to be flipped clean over. The wedge made Firestorm very resistant to some of the harshest weaponry, like vertical spinners and such, and the fact that it was so low meant it could easily get under just about anyone. Firestorm adapted just a little bit every time it returned, and for the better, the best change was after its loss to Tornado, the idea of the steel strip meant it definitely wouldn't let Tornado under it again. I imagine this really helped it in Series 7, when ground clearance began to matter. I have to say ditching the rear spike after Series 3 was a good call, to focus solely on the flipper's potential. Despite being a front-hinged flipper, Firestorm's was one of the best in the business, getting 7 OotA's, as the robot was designed to lift up its front without its wheels leaving the floor, and as it was front-hinged, it didn't have the vulnerability the rear-hinged flippers had when open. Another good design feature on Firestorm was its way of making one motor cover forwards/backwards, the other left/right, this made the robot more maneouvrable, and certainly enabled it to secure third place in Series 6.

As Robot Wars evolved, teams would build their robots with greater push, bigger motors at a higher voltage and critically more of them. Firestorm relied on its wedge being lower than everything, but was always helpless when faced with a robot it couldn't get under, countless fights with Razer without a win proved this. Firestorm never really had a back-up plan in terms of pushing power, in Series 7, it had 3 HP, not bad, but only in 2 wheels, so it was never going to be an effective pusher. Aside from that, the flipper may have been "positioned the wrong way", but that isn't the problem, because there was another time when Firestorm was vulnerable, and that was when it was self-righting, it was slow to self-right, its flipper had the power, but the fact that it was quite small meant it was like pushing a door open by the hinge, it's just more difficult.

3. Pussycat Without a doubt, this is one of the most ingenious names to befall a robot on Robot Wars. Pussycat was designed so that it would always land on its wheels, and it did. But what about the shape that was produced? Ground clearance aside, that's an awkward thing to try and flip about. The ground clearance did actually mean that it could wriggle out of a lot of things...it would wriggle away from them on its side, but no matter. The design did have a couple of faults in Series 3, the biggest being just the shear size of the thing, but by Series 7, the design had been pretty much perfected, it was compact so it could very quickly turn and attack, and the twin-blades were powerful, punishing enough to just about make "the circular saw" a fierce weapon still. The fact that it had four wheels instead of two meant that there was a slightly bigger margin for error in terms of reliability, not that reliability was ever an issue anyway.

Of course, Pussycat's design wasn't perfect, if it was, at the hands of one of the best drivers in Robot Wars and probably the best reliability record, it would've won the UK title, though it did win a lot. There were a few problems, and Jonathan Pearce got both the main ones reading the stats in Series 7. The first of them was the exposed wheels; Pussycat didn't suffer too much with this, until it met Tornado, and then it was knocke out of the All-Stars in the Quarters, lower than expectations, and it was defeated in quite humilating style, truly highlighting the big problem, a problem that was never rectified, and could of been costly in Series 7, with all of those spinners around. The other big problem was then highlighted in the next series of Extreme, the high ground clearance, Bulldog Breed made Pussycat look the fool in the Tag Team Terror, Chompalot was able to grab it with ease to dump it in the pit in the Iron Maidens, and M2 proved too much and sent it out in just the second round, low for a seed, very low for Pussycat. Pussycat was truly built for the earlier series, but was only much good by Robot Wars' end against select competition, and I regret to say I doubt it could've gone much further in Series 7, even with a different line-up, but then, it proved it was still a good performer, winning the All-Stars and coming second in the Iron Maidens, proving it was still an alright robot with a good design.

2. Behemoth Behemoth, not exactly a big favourite among many Robot Wars fans, which is a surprise to me, mind you, I'd probably be a bit biased, it appeared in my first episode of Robot Wars, and I was routing for it. Behemoth was always seen as a big favourite to either win its heat or at least be second best, and I feel this is partly down to its design as well as its pedigree. In fairness, Behemoth's pedigree wasn't exactly that of Chaos 2 or Razer, one Semi-Final always came up as the highlight that people remember, so really its presence in the arena must have done a lot to make people fear the robot. What makes the design good for me was that it was nothing special, but slightly developed year after year, until in Series 7 it was a very tidy robot that was only let down by reliability and bad luck. "Tidy" is probably the right word to describe its design, there was a lot going on, but it was all neatly packaged in/on a big box-shaped robot. Behemoth Evo V encompassed all necessary design features for a good robot; offensive weaponry for flipping, offensive weaponry for causing damage, and a srimech and roll bars for self-righting, but the final appearance had been a long line of evolution, always improving after a particular loss. In Series 2, it was a good design, being a simple robot with a lifter at the front, it was beaen by Killertron for being too small and weak, how was it improved for Series 3? It was made huge with a bigger and more powerful bucket scoop, but it was beaten by the arena spike by being flipped, how was it improved? It was fitted with side srimechs, but was beaten by X-Terminator by the judges because it wasn't causing proper damage, how was it improved? It was fitted with an axe at the front, that fitted neatly above the bucket and it was low enough so that the roll-bars still worked, the axe and scoop working well in Series 5 and Extreme, but Behemoth still suffered in Extreme and Series 5 for being quite cumbersome, how was it improved? It was given six-wheel drive that made it a respectable 12mph, aside from its unfortunate loss to Bigger Brother, it lost in Extreme due to faulty wiring, but was it improved for Series 7? Yes, with a new link and reinforced fittings. Now that's what I call "Evolution by Design".

I originally put Behemoth at number 1 in the list, as its clearly a strong contender for this one, I mean just look at how much I've typed for it! But, there was one small problem in the design in my opinion, its nothing that was ever really picked up on much, but I feel it would've made a difference someday, it certainly would've won it a few more Roaming Robots battles and it also would've won it a few more Arena tournament matches on this Wiki. Although Behemoth was fitted with side-srimechs in Series 4, they never once worked smoothly, always making the robot judder quite a bit, before being able to self-right, that's if it even managed to self-right in the end. The problem was the way they were fitted, they were fixed on a pivot forcing them upwards, so they would only ever self-right the robot if it was perfectly still and not being touched by anything else. However, if they were fitted with the pivot at the bottom, like that on the Series 6 X-Terminator, then it would've been able to self-right much easier and much quicker. Would that have won it any more battles, well, probably not, knowing its luck.

So...the winner is...

1. Stinger Well, it's looking quite good so far in terms of awards for Stinger at the moment, will it keep this up?...well you're going to have to read the other lists to find out. After reconsidering, it was obvious that Stinger could be the only winner of the Best Design, throughout Series 4, it was regarded as invincible, despite the potential things that could've possibly gone wrong with Stinger, such as driver error or reliability issues, so its invincibility had to come from its design. There was nothing to grab, so unless you were Sir Killalot you wouldn't be able to trap it to even get a good try and grabbing it. There was nothing to get in the way of the maneouvrability factor, so it would effortlessly spin around at top whack, pummelling any foolhardy robot approaching. There was no weapon motor to disable, so the axe would keep swinging for the full length of the battle, and there would be no damage points for the opponent for disabling it. There wasn't a body to use to flip it, a flipping robot would be forced to merely flip one of the wheels, which would only make it flail away and come back again, only the very elite flippers of the time were able to get anything like a controlled flip on it. If you ask me, Chaos 2 was extremely lucky in the Grand Final. There was no vulnerable area to Stinger's design at all, as there was little to the robot and the axe could swing any which way. There were no conventional tyres to shred, this is why so many big spinners like S3, Fluffy and 13 Black weren't able to cause proper damage, because the stitching was so tight it would take a much smaller weapon to be able to nag away at it. In short, the fact that there was little to Stinger at all, it meant that there was little to nothing to even go wrong, hence, strong design.

Yet even Stinger had drawbacks to its design, as no design can be truly perfect, well, Behemoth's probably could've been. As with most of the designs on this list, Stinger had two problems with its design, the first being the fact that when the axe was facing the other way, the space between the wheels was ideal for a ramming blade like that of The Steel Avenger, conveniently which the latter took advantage of in Stinger's final appearance, shoving it down the pit almost effortlessly. The other problem again was the tyres, whilst big spinners couldn't break through, Pussycat still had no problem at all with its little saw blade, which could finely nag away at the individual stitches. But despite these things, Stinger still ranks number 1 for a very good reason, it was vulnerable to weaponry that after a little while became obsolete, there wasn't another ramming blade like The Steel Avenger or a saw like that on Pussycat, so after getting through Series 1-3, Stinger could only really be defeated (in terms of design) by these two, and that must make it a better design over the other designs in this list that were vulnerable to flippers and spinners which were hardly niche or select. Stinger may have very quickly lost its touch after Series 4, but I'd put that down to other things, reliability never seemed perfect on Stinger, going near the arena wall didn't help against Thermidor 2, and it did always seem like it wasn't under much control, I definitely won't say Kevin Scott was a bad driver, but I bet someone like a heavy gamer with twitchy fingers and having a lot of practice could control Stinger and look good. So again, when it comes down to design, was there any robot more tidy than the messiest robot in the field?

Best Engineered
"Our third award is for the Best Engineered robot..."

The earlier series saw several quite flamboyent designs, but these were the robots that often didn't move, or moved a foot before conking out. We subsequently got quite excited as we would finally see a well drawn-out fight between two robots that would keep bashing the hell out of each other, even if the designs were fairly restrained, so it was these, the Best Engineered robots, that often provided the greatest spectacle. This award celebrates those that could often perform the greatest stunts, but mainly those that just wouldn't die, and kept coming back for more! Only 10 shortlisted here, among the near misses are Roadblock, Panic Attack and 101.

10. The Mule It's only right that a winner of the award makes the list, and a deserved placing it is too. Whilst the bucking legs was a good design idea, they actually proved very effective, and the power behind the drive of the locomotion was very good too, powerful enough to stop two house robots from pushing it anywhere, at the same time too. The forklift was able to lift quite a bit too, not that it really came into play. There isn't really much to say about this one, as The Mule pretty much makes the list for basically "doing a good job" of everything it needed to do, and this rubbed off in it reaching the Heat Final. The ground clearance let it down a bit I suppose, but then it was against Plunderbird 2, and it's not technically an engineering fault is it?

9. Wheely Big Cheese The next placing goes to another robot from Team Big Cheese. It might be a bit bias of me to put Wheely Big Cheese in the list, especially as it broke down enough times to be deemed "unreliable". However, to argue its case, I'll say that it never actually broke down in Series 4, the first model was a very reliable robot. Also, the axles buckling caused a lot of problems for it, and that's really a design issue. The main reason of course that Wheely Big Cheese is in this list, is that flipper, which had such power behind it, particularly in its Series 5 heat, where it flipped out 2 robots at great height, and created flips so powerful that its third opponent konked out. The Series 4 model didn't have quite the propulsion of the Series 5 model, but it still provided great enough flips against Killertron and Tornado in particular to show the engineering behind the flipper was leaps and bounds above the norm from flippers in that series. So yes, this placing goes to a robot, purely for its very powerful weapon system, but lets face it, with the line-up of nominations for this award in Series 5, I bet most of you had that thought in the back of your heads saying "Where's Wheely Big Cheese?"

8. Gravity To be honest, I'm giving the 8th spot to Gravity for the same reason, I thought it would be a bit more acceptable to put it above Wheely Big Cheese. Gravity was also all-flipper, I could ramble on about the higher levels of agility than the cheese etc. but the rams were very carefully mapped out to ensure that when fitted they would deliver the quickest and most effective response, and that is exactly what it did. I'm undecided as to whether or not Gravity's flipper was more powerful than Wheely Big Cheese's, but it was certainly quicker to respond to the receiver crystal and its flips were more consistent in terms of how far the robots flew. Admittedly, the robot suffered from punctured tyres and Mr. Psycho's hammer, but it proved it was the king of the flippers in the series that was already dominated by flippers. If the Robot Wars awards were held in Series 7, I'm certain that Gravity would've been a hot contender for this award.

7. The Big Cheese Barely into the list, and I've already covered all of the robots from Team Big Cheese, but I would argue that Roger Plant was good at putting his robots together. This placing really goes to The Big Cheese because of how well engineered it was compared to other robots in Series 3. The lifting arm had power, but The Big Cheese showed it was well put together first by hoisting another robot right on the end of its little arm, carrying it across the arena and then pitting it, and then by not only surviving a brutal encounter from 4 house robots (which most didn't), but then still having enough strength to get right underneath Sergeant Bash and lift it up in the air and then over, pretty much destroying it. Let's be honest, Sergeant Bash was hardly the lightest of the house robots, and let's not forget that this was Series 3, a series where most of the Round 1 drop-outs barely moved, and a fair few Semi-Final battles were still one-sided. The Big Cheese proved it was well put together and I will always wonder how far it could've gone if it was in another heat, I suppose our Series 3 Audited was a good indicator. The Big Cheese was rightfully nominated for this award in Series 3, but I guess rightfully beaten by Chaos 2.

6. Robot The Bruce Robot The Bruce has been listed for much the same reason. It was very well built, the armour was strong and absorbed all knocks, the motors did their job brilliantly, showing that you really can push around a few dozen kilos with ease without watching your speed drop. George Francis admired the robot for making a very good seat, so we know that it could support an adult with ease, and that it required very little work in between fights. This is a robot from the very first series, a series where half the robots were just RC cars with a small aluminium shell on it, and the other half kept breaking down and needed a lot of work being done to them after every fight. The more and more I think about it, the more and more I feel it was wrong that Robot The Bruce wasn't given this award for Series 1. A lot of components for Robot The Bruce were transferred into Chaos, and much of Chaos was put into Chaos 2, showing how well the setup could hold up.

5. Chaos 2 Which brings me onto Chaos 2. When you think of Chaos 2, the first thing that springs to mind isn't "Well-Engineered", but it really was. Chaos 2 was hardly changed from when it first stepped into the arena in Series 3, to when it got flipped right back out again in Series 6, ignore how it left Extreme 2. The "improvements" included a bigger base plate for the flipper, some new panels in the front and back, a tiny fiddle here and there, and that's about it, showing there was little to improve the already very sound and beautifully constructed machine. Like Chaos and Robot The Bruce before it, Chaos 2 rarely needed a lot of repairing and maintenance, and rarely broke down during a bout, this was clear by a lot of Francis' quite relaxed pre and post-battle interviews. Chaos 2 did suffer in battle a few times, but it survived a lot of flipping about itself, and still still survived Razer burying its claw right into the back. Little more to say really, but with the agility and flipper power as it was, you hardly need to argue its case.

4. The Steel Avenger It wouldn't be the Best Engineered Award without hearing from the one robot we never stopped hearing about in this category: The Steel Avenger. Mind you, there was a good reason for that: it was extremely well engineered. It did suffer quite a few KO's in its time, but that was mainly down to a small Co2 bottle, and a high ground clearance. The robot was well engineered as it was very quick across the arena floor, and fairly agile if you consider the wheel base, and that it had one of the best axes in the business, in fact, I'd argue THE best axe in the Seventh Wars. The solid construction and strong armour meant that it really was Tough as Old Boots, and always survived being flipped about by Behemoth and Chaos 2, and being bashed about by Storm 2, it was still working after that. The Steel Avenger defines the robot that just keeps coming back for more, everytime it's flipped, it dusts itself off and charges in again, only to get flipped again. You could carry on listing the good points for The Steel Avenger all day, but it was let down by one thing: those side srimechs. The srimechs sometimes didn't even have the strength to flip itself back onto its wheels, which not only cost it a couple of times back then, but even today as it fights on, it leaves itself side-stranded. "Who did that?" says the underside. Well, in a way, you did.

3. Wild Thing We're nearing the end, and the bronze goes to a robot that went through 24 battles, 50% of which ended in judges' decisions, is that a record? Maybe. Wild Thing showed it was resiliant by this statistic alone, also that it's number 2 for robots that had the most wins without OFFICIALLY suffering a defeat via break down, this honour merely emphasising the fact that Wild Thing was a very reliable, and therefore, very well engineered machine. The amount of times it was flipped about but kept coming back for more, during its Series 5 campaign especially, and let's not forget its encounter with the deadly 259. It did break down against Razer in Series 6, but given where the claw went, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for that one. Wild Thing was also pretty solid when it came to maneouvrability, you only have to watch Series 4 to get the idea that whilst the arm didn't KO anyone, no other design of robot was going to get round the back. However, Wild Thing's ability to hang on was let down by the effectiveness of its arsenal, the disc didn't really have much wack behind it, and the arm's slow delivery made the self-righting process make them a little vulnerable. Nevertheless, a well deserved podium finish for Wild Thing.

2. Diotoir This list seemed to be lacking a lot of controversy, so I've balanced that out now by giving the Silver medal to the one and only Diotoir, a robot with car springs for a weapon that couldn't self-right it, and a top speed of 6mph. Well, if you ask me, the build quality of Diotoir progressed and progressed so much that it actually became a very battle-hardened machine. Underneath the fur, the armour was so strong that not robot properly got to tear it open, only the odd slice or small hole from the house robots. The robot wasn't fast, but it made for it with plentiful maneouvrability and a lot of pushing power, enough to cause an upset and ultimately win a pushing battle against the dreaded Tornado. But the main reason I put Diotoir in 2nd place is that it was very, very reliable. Think of how many times Diotoir caught fire, pretty much every battle it was in, but it never once electronically overcooked from the heat or the flames, which is certainly respectable. Diotoir also managed to survive a lot of being bashed about in its time, especially from Tornado and Gemini from memory, and even after it had been flipped in a lot of its battles, it would still carry on moving when it was eventually righted after the house robots had tried mullering it. Say what you want about this one, Diotoir showed a greatly high level of engineering, high enough to almost cause an ultimate upset.

So...the winner is...

1. Pussycat If you ask me, there could be only one winner, before drawing up nominations for this list, I knew who the winner was going to be, and it has to be the robot that always lands on its feet, the robot that beats Wild Thing as being the robot that has the most wins without suffering defeat via a break down. Pussycat is easily the most reliable robot in Robot Wars history, it just never died, not once, even though it has been faced with robots like Tornado, Chaos 2, Razer, Stinger, Hypno-Disc, Dantomkia, all robots that would eat every other bot alive. Even after Robot Wars, Pussycat didn't even suffer a break down in other FRA events, despite the sudden rapid improvements in robots. Maybe it really did enter each battle with 9 lives. Aside from the "Never Say Die" attitude of the innards, the body was strong, very strong, only Razer could break through. The crafting of the body was incredible as well, it takes good craftmanship to create a chassis and body like that, that will always land on its wheels. The saw packed a mean punch too, causing a slice in many a robot, George Francis even said that he had never had to repair as much damage as what Pussycat had caused to Chaos 2, though that was before Extreme 2 he said that. Even in Series 7, when circular saws seemed so obsolete and old-fashioned, Pussycat was still able to cause enough carnage to ensure it did alright in the war, and the All-Stars. Today, Pussycat is retired, resting in John Findlay's garage, knowing that it needn't even prove that it is the Best Engineered Robot that the sport ever saw, and ever will see.

Sportsmanship
"...an award for those teams who go that little bit extra to make Robot Wars the fun and the huge spectacle it's become..."

As I said, this list of awards were to celebrate the great moments of Robot Wars. However, I feel it would be unfair to compile a proper list for the Sportsmanship award, as I'd have at least a few dozens nominees anyway, and a lot of things happened off-screen. We heard several times about the exploits of the Diotoir, Sir Chromalot and Plunderbird teams in particular, both comical for the camera and helpful behind the scenes, but there were other teams that fulfilled these roles too. Those such as the Mega Morg and Shredder also played a good part in livening up the pre and post match interviews, several defeated foes of Hypno-Disc sportingly gave the "Spin-to-Win" boys trophies for their victories, and the pits were littered with generally good characters, such as Kim Davies of Panic Attack, Alan Gribble of Pussycat, George Francis of Chaos 2, and many many more, who would not only help out other teams but maintain a very friendly and calm atmosphere to an otherwise quite stressful scene. In particular, one quite understated team, the Ultor team, very kindly granting their place in the Semi-Finals to their defeated Big Brother opponents, this act was barely recognised, but is Sportsmanship knowing no bounds.

In short, there's no point conducting a list, I'd be constantly changing it, and I'd be argued by users for a long time to come, so just well done to a lot of teams.

More awards to come later.