Lightning

Lightning was a wedge-shaped robot that was first seen in Extreme 2. It had 2 side flippers which opened from both sides of the robot, but in Series 7 they were merged into 1 large side-flipper and two large spikes at the back. This set-up was unique among flippers, which usually opened straight up or fired outwards. It used its wedge shape to drive under robots and then flip them onto their sides with one of the flippers. The Series 7 model featured interchangeable panels and flipper so that the configuration could change to suit its opponent, but the rules of Series 7 made this against the rules. The team ultimately chose the single panel flipper as it was twice as powerful as the small flippers but they lacked experience in the warzone. "The robot's design philosophy is to combine ramming motion with flipping action for maximum devastation."

- Team Lightning on their robot

Lightning was the brainchild of Laurie Calvert, who came up with the idea after seeing Cassius self-right in Series 2. It took the team several years to assemble the sufficient funds (Lightning as a project cost £4000 and the robot has £2500 of parts). After failing to qualify for Series 5 and 6 - being defeated by Razer and Barbaric Response in each - Lightning qualified for Series 7, and reached the Heat Final, losing to Gravity. Calvert also stated that he felt it possible to defeat a robot by flipping it out of the arena, which at that time had not been done.

"I mentioned this to Mat Irvine during filming of the first Techno Games and he said 'keep watching'. The next year was series 3 and the first OOTA by Chaos 2 against Firestorm."

- Laurie Calvert to TG

Like many Robot Wars teams, the Lightning team entered Robot Wars' sister show Techno Games with a modified version of Lightning called Thunder. It entered the football tournament and teamed up with its Tag-Team Terror partner The Steel Avenger (called Tin Tackler in Techno Games). Together, the two robots were called Team Flash.

Lightning, despite being fully operational, is now retired and appears as a static robot at live events. However, Laurie Calvert has stated on the Robot Wars Facebook page that should ever a series 8 be made, he would strongly consider returning.

Lightning also competed on the independent circuit for a time, which included battles against several famous robots such as 2-time UK champion Chaos 2 and series 6 grand champion Tornado, the latter of whom Lightning defeated at a live event.

Alien Drivers
When Lightning was built, Nigel Booth from the Alien films (and a friend of Calvert's) commissioned four small foam aliens to be added to Lightning, in the hope that they would fall off during the fight for extra interest. The idea was that Lightning was the remnants of a crashed alien spaceship.

One particular alien, named Lappal, derived from the names of Laurie, Phil and Albert (Phil Denyer was the first engineer, replaced by Richard DeSmedt) was given the task of "driving" the robot. Lappal sat in a special triangular section on top, next to the flipper. "The real idea of this section was to act as a 'hook' to trap any robots on top of us so they could not drive off, and we could take them places, such as the pit or House Robots (see Nasty Humphrey in our first Tag Team fight). It worked well!"

- Laurie Calvert

Extreme 2
"Will it strike twice? It has two flippers."

- Jonathan Pearce

Lightning's first appearance was in a Tag Team partnership with The Steel Avenger. Its first round was in a battle against returning robots Nasty Humphrey and Stinger. Lightning tussled with Nasty Humphrey in the opening seconds, before attacking Stinger once. The Steel Avenger tagged out and put up a fight against Stinger, but ended up pitting Stinger and itself. Lightning was left to fight Nasty Humphrey alone, and it managed to get Nasty Humphrey tipped against the side wall where it took damage from Mr Psycho. The time ran out, and Lightning had scored enough points to progress through to the next round. "In the semi-final round we knew it would be tough and that the chances were high we'd get flipped by Bulldog Breed as I prophesied in the pre-fight interview"

- Laurie Calvert

Lightning was thrown onto its back by Bulldog Breed almost instantly. The impact, however, knocked out a receiver battery and rendered Lightning immobile. Bulldog Breed tried to flip Lightning out of the arena, but the large flat shape of Lightning made it very hard to get out. Lightning was left on its back with its wheels spinning, and was eliminated from the Tag Team Terror when The Steel Avenger finally succumbed to Robochicken's flipper.

Series 7
"Lightning...fought previously in a Tag Team, now enters the arena alone"

- Jonathan Pearce

Lightning shot off from the start and quickly pinned fellow newcomers Herbinator against the side wall. Lightning took damage from veterans The Alien, but when the spinning hammer robot broke down, Lightning was assured a place in the next round. However, 13 Black continued to attack, as John Denny wished to score more aggression points, so Lightning pinned the seeded robot against the side wall, but in the end they both went through. Lightning went on to fight New Blood Third Place Thor. "This was very close with Lightning managing to avoid many of the hammer blows but Thor being very fast and aggressive"

- Laurie Calvert

Lightning avoided Thor's axe, before opening the pit. However, Lightning then reversed onto Thor's wedge, which was quite weak. Both robots were immobile, so the House Robots and Refbot pushed both robots free. With battle recommenced, Lightning slid beneath Thor and flipped it sideways into the open pit. This put Lightning against the formidable Dutch machine, Gravity. Already at a disadvantage in terms of flipper power, Lightning was further damaged by a flat tyre. Gravity threw Lightning into the air, with Lightning swiftly self-righting and sliding beneath Gravity, but failing to bring its own flipper into effect. The two robots then rammed into each other in a pushing match, before Gravity flipped Lightning into the air once more, causing something to break inside Lightning, and the valiant machine fell. Its motionless form was joined by Shunt and Dead Metal, who Gravity quickly dispatched as well.

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 3
 * Losses: 2

Series Record

 * Series 1-4: Did not enter
 * Series 5-6: Failed to qualify
 * Series 7: Heat Final