Robo Challenge

"We are a creative company that brings ideas to life for our clients ambitious PR campaigns and exciting TV shows. For the last decade our teams unique expertise have helped pull in some serious global media attention while achieving amazing results for our clients."

- Robo Challenge website

Robo Challenge are a Birmingham-based creative engineering company, producing ambitious projects for clients, including televised appearances. Owned by brothers James and Grant and father Nick Cooper, Robo Challenge are directly linked to the reboot of Robot Wars.

Robot Wars
Robo Challenge were heavily involved with both the pre-production and operation of each rebooted series of Robot Wars. Prior to Series 8 being filmed, it was the responsibility of Robo Challenge to design the tournament's format, set the build rules, and the health and safety rules. Changes made to the Robot Wars ruleset decided by Robo Challenge include the increase of a robot's maximum weight from 100kg to 110kg.

During this time, Robo Challenge built all four House Robots used in the reboot, and were responsible for their repairs and maintenance throughout filming. Three different members of Robo Challenge decided upon their favourite House Robot and took on that project for themselves, resulting in the creation of Shunt, Matilda, and Dead Metal. The collective group then built Sir Killalot. The new Robot Wars Arena was also designed by Robo Challenge, including the idea of restricted trenches for throwing robots out of the arena, based upon the group's knowledge of robotic combat.

Basher, a competitor in the pilot episode for Series 8, was built by Grant Cooper and John Reid. However, it lost in the first round to Ka-Pow! and Turbulence when it pitted itself in an attempt to push Tanto into the pit.

In preparation for Robot Wars: Battle of the Stars, Robo Challenge were also commissioned to build eight heavyweight robots using similar components in each, to the design specifications of the celebrities involved with the show, and these robots would then be presented to viewers as the creations of the celebrities. For this purpose, Robo Challenge built Arena Cleaner, Dee, Interstellar: MML, JAR, Kadeena Machina, Robo Savage, Soldier Ant, and The Cat, and entrusted their repairs to the eight selected mentors.

James Cooper took on a presenting role for How to Build a Robot, a five-part series released on Facebook, where Cooper would explain the safety precautions relevant to each weapon type in short videos. James Cooper also personally appeared in an episode of Series 9, discussing health and safety while the arena floor was being repaired.

The official Haynes manual Robot Wars: Build Your Own Robot was also written by the Cooper brothers, offering their advice on how to build a 'challenger', and contains all information relevant to the creation of a functioning combat robot. The limited edition release of the book, sold through the Robo Challenge website, was signed by the Cooper brothers, and contained extra blueprints.

Outside Robot Wars
Robo Challenge are known for hosting the UK Featherweight Championships each year, at the Insomnia convention. Robo Challenge designed the combat arena, and oversee the tournament process.

As individual roboteers, Grant Cooper is listed as the primary builder of Beta, having rebuilt the robot from John Reid's original design over a decade prior. and competed with it alongside John Reid in ABC's second season of BattleBots, where they reached the top eight of the competition by defeating Lucky, Overhaul and Nightmare before falling to the eventual champion Tombstone. In the same season, James Cooper joined Team Carbide to compete with Cobalt, defeating Overhaul before losing to the eventual runner-up Bombshell. Grant Cooper only missed out on entering Season 1 due to the delay of his son's birth. "John built the very first Beta alone, but when B.B. came back he wanted to enter THz as there was a huge amount of work to do on Beta. He offered it to me if I wanted to get it running and enter it. THz didn’t make it into B.B. so he joined my team with Beta again. We worked together and did a major redesign and build to get it ready. Then our baby was late so I couldn’t make it!"

- Grant Cooper on his involvement with Beta

James and Grant Cooper, alongside their father Nick, and Henry Imbert emerged as champions of the Chinese TV competition King of Bots with an original robot, Spectre. Their robot was equipped with a crushing beak weapon, with two large teeth, on top of a sleek four-wheel driven wedge-shaped chassis. The robot was highly maneuverable, and could control other robots or crush them. Spectre was dominant in its first battle, crushing into, ramming and eventually causing Red from the Flames to catch fire for an immediate knockout win. It then achieved a second dominant knockout against the overhead spinner of Whirlwind by trapping it behind the arena Grinder. In the third round, Team Robo Challenge were fearful of the drum spinner used by Spectre's opponent, Wild Beast, but while Spectre's jaw was severely damaged by the spinning weapon, Spectre proceeded to dominate its opponent around the arena. Towards the end of the battle, both robots became immobile simultaneously, but Spectre won the battle on a Judges' decision based on the battle up to that point. In the fourth round, Spectre fought another vertical spinner, Two BBQ, negating and damaging the latter's anti-crusher armour by continuously clamping and ramming it into the spikes, walls and Grinders. It eventually won via knockout, after its attacks caused Two BBQ to lose mobility within the closing seconds. In the semi-final, Spectre defeated the clusterbot Thunder and Lightning by ramming one half into the wall to remove its wheel, before flipping it over. In the Grand Final, Spectre defeated the Chinese drum spinner Chiyung Jinlun by biting through its armour to pierce a lithium polymer battery, causing the robot to catch fire dramatically. Spectre was declared the champion once Chiyung Jinlun's wheels no longer made contact with the floor.

A rebuilt Spectre competed in This is Fighting Robots, a Chinese show heavily associated with King of Bots. Spectre was considered visually impressive by the female presenter of the show, who selected it to join her team of robots, which included several other British machines, and Spectre advanced to the main bracket.

Robo Challenge have also built two featherweights directly replicating heavyweight designs made by Team Razer, Venom (a miniature Razer), and Predator (a miniature Warhead).

Grant and James Cooper made a one-off appearance on Inside the Bot, robotics podcast hosted by Will Sedgwick and Gabriel Stroud. They used the show to publicly reveal the changes to the rules they had implemented into Series 10 of Robot Wars, and state the types of design they wanted to see from competitors, including 'Complete Control-style control bots' and pneumatic spikes, directly referencing Point Blank.

Robo Challenge have created robots for various television programmes, including The Gadget Show, Dick & Dom's Absolute Genius, Reverse Engineers, and Blue Peter. Their consultancy and engineering skills were also required for sales promotions connected to video games, including Skylanders Superchargers, Titanfall 2 and ReCore.