S.M.I.D.S.Y.

"Sorry Mate I Didn't See You. If you're a biker or a cyclist, you know exactly what that means."

- Mik Reed

S.M.I.D.S.Y. (which stood for Sorry Mate I Didn't See You) was a heavyweight robot, which competed from Series 3-7, also competing in both series of Extreme.

The team formed over the internet, built the robot over six weekends and apparently spent six weeks talking about it afterwards. "As 1998 drew to a close, a bunch of about twenty motorcyclists who are among the subscribers of a mailing list for UK bikers called IXION started talking about the Robot Wars series which was airing on BBC TV at the time. Motorcyclists are by nature people who build and modify machines, so it was only a matter of time before a heated discussion about the design shortcomings of the on-screen robots threw up the question-"Why don’t we have a go at Robot Wars ourselves?". Like I said, it all seemed like such a good idea at the time. After a lot of heated email discussions and a meeting in a rather good pub in Oxford, we all threw £20 into the kitty to give ourselves a fighting fund and set to designing our robot."

- Team Ixion website on the origins of S.M.I.D.S.Y.

Although it never escaped the heats of a series, S.M.I.D.S.Y. was one of the most successful robots not to pass the heats, reaching the Heat Final three times in five attempts.

Design
S.M.I.D.S.Y. was a black and red decorated invertible box-shaped robot with aluminium sides (later upgraded to titanium) which ran on go-kart wheels to give it four-wheel drive. Its main weapon was a set of jaws on the front described as "the gnashing jaws of doom", which could either lift, grab, or act as a wedge. The weapon was operated by a luxury car seat actuator, which was later replaced by a windscreen wiper motor. The advantage of these jaws was that they could reset as a wedge even if S.M.I.D.S.Y. was flipped, rather than leaving the wedge set as a gaping ground clearance, which Tornado often suffered from. "When it opens those jaws wide, S.M.I.D.S.Y. looks like a giant, great big black and red... clothes peg, I think"

- Jonathan Pearce in Series 3

S.M.I.D.S.Y. originally featured a set of ramming spikes at the back. After the Extreme 1 weight increase, a 11-12.5 kg horizontal spinning disc replaced these spikes, spinning at 200 mph at its teeth. After this series, S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s jaw was replaced by a simple lifting scoop with steel teeth for Series 6 and Extreme 2. However, the team never really relied on these weapons, preferring to use S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s formidable pushing power and speed to pit their opponents or merely send them into CPZs for the house robots to take care of. "The best weapons in the arena are the house robots, so we just push them all into all the house robots and let them do the big damage"

- Robin Bennett in Series 7

Series 3
"The gnashing jaws of doom will be inflicted on anyone who comes anywhere near S.M.I.D.S.Y. I think"

- Philippa Forrester

S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s first appearance was in the final heat of the Third Wars, where it fought fellow newcomers Rattus Rattus in the first round. No trace of its future skill was evident yet, as it was suffering from radio interference and moving slowly & sporadically. S.M.I.D.S.Y. moved forwards jerkily and was rammed by Rattus Rattus twice, getting lifted up both times. Rattus Rattus drove right over the top of S.M.I.D.S.Y. and then rammed and pushed it towards Dead Metal's CPZ. S.M.I.D.S.Y. was bounced by the floor spike, eventually being pushed into the CPZ. Dead Metal pinned it down, and while it struggled to escape, Rattus Rattus crashed into Dead Metal and crumpled its own shell, but stayed mobile. S.M.I.D.S.Y. meanwhile had escaped from Dead Metal's CPZ only to fly forward and end up in the CPZ again. Dead Metal grabbed hold and sawed S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s armour and tyre while it pushed it towards the pit, and eventually in, getting stuck on top itself. "The Rattus Rattus are really good guys, we wouldn't have even fought today if they hadn't lent us half their tools and a good chunk of their spares!"

- Robin Bennett, gracious in defeat

Series 4
S.M.I.D.S.Y. returned to the wars with a more reliable radio system and titanium replacing the aluminium armour. In its first round melee, S.M.I.D.S.Y. was up against Overkill GTI and the 4th seeds Panic Attack. Both S.M.I.D.S.Y. and Overkill GTI suffered attacks from Panic Attack, but S.M.I.D.S.Y. certainly recovered from them better than Overkill GTI. Soon afterwards, S.M.I.D.S.Y. efficiently teamed up with the Series 2 champions to lift up and eventually overturn the limping Overkill GTI, who could only very slowly right itself. The battle then went to a judges' decision. Here, the judges put S.M.I.D.S.Y. and Panic Attack through to the second round of the heat, where S.M.I.D.S.Y. was placed up against the 20th seeds Aggrobot 2. In this battle, S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s full potential was beginning to show. Effortlessly being able to shove the previous heat finalist, S.M.I.D.S.Y. bulldozed Aggrobot 2 around the arena with ease, slamming it into the arena wall twice until the seeded machine was deemed immobilised, however S.M.I.D.S.Y. did suffer some transmission problems every time it ran past a flame jet. Unfortunately for the team from Cyberspace, the success from S.M.I.D.S.Y. was short-lived as it met the 4th seeds Panic Attack once again, this time in the heat final. During the battle, Panic Attack held off S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s ramming blows with ease, but then Panic Attack got its lifting prongs stuck inside S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s wheels. Panic Attack brought the underdog S.M.I.D.S.Y. over to the flame pit, holding the machine there for a long time before then carrying S.M.I.D.S.Y. effortlessly over to the pit and dropping it down, eliminating S.M.I.D.S.Y. from the competition.

S.M.I.D.S.Y. also took part in the Sumo Basho and Pinball Warrior Tournament in the same series. During the Sumo, S.M.I.D.S.Y. attached salt shakers to its jaws as a reference to real life sumo wrestlers who threw salt into the ring for good luck. S.M.I.D.S.Y. dodged Shunt deftly, and then attempted to push Shunt off the ring, but couldn't move Shunt's weight. When Shunt freed itself, S.M.I.D.S.Y. flew off the platform, lasting 14.11 seconds to take 5th place overall on the leaderboard.

S.M.I.D.S.Y. competed in the Pinball Warrior Tournament, only managing to score 70 points, taking 14th place out of 16. S.M.I.D.S.Y. started well, driving over the bridge and hitting the multi-ball release, but suffered control issues and started smoking. It knocked over some barrels at the second attempt due to control issues, but could not score any more points as the House Robots blocked the targets.

Extreme 1
"This year we have more bite"

- The S.M.I.D.S.Y. team

In the first episode of Extreme, S.M.I.D.S.Y. was involved in the Mayhem up against Sumpthing and Pussycat. It started by pushing the Series 4 runner-up around a little bit, taking a bit of external damage, before pressing the pit release button. S.M.I.D.S.Y. then pushed around Pussycat again, before the house robots came in and attacked. S.M.I.D.S.Y. then lost drive on one side, meaning that it was spinning for a long while whilst the other two battled each other. S.M.I.D.S.Y. eventually lost all drive and was pitted by Pussycat, but only balancing on its side still above the pit floor. Pussycat then used its blade to put S.M.I.D.S.Y. down the pit properly just before 'cease' was called and the battle went to a judges' decision. The judges awarded the win to Pussycat.

S.M.I.D.S.Y was also involved in the Tag Team Terror competition alongside Sumpthing, the two were dubbed 'the grease monkeys' of the competition by Jonathan Pearce. The pair went up against Cerberus and Thermidor 2 in the first round. S.M.I.D.S.Y. and Cerberus started, and S.M.I.D.S.Y. was grabbed almost immediately by Cerberus' unique clamping mechanism. Sparks then came out of S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s disc, it got out of Cerberus' grip, and sliced into the tail of its opponent before S.M.I.D.S.Y. suddenly drove away and collided with its team mate Sumpthing. S.M.I.D.S.Y. could only drive forwards, and then drove to come back on the attack, but drove into the angle grinder at the opposite end of the arena, becoming stuck. S.M.I.D.S.Y. was counted out by Refbot before Sergeant Bash clawed it and Shunt axed it. Sumpthing was then flipped by Thermidor 2 using Cerberus as a chock as they then decided to come out, meaning both robots were counted out, eliminating them from the competition, S.M.I.D.S.Y. was then pitted by Shunt and cease was finally called.

Series 5
"From Cyberspace, S.M.I.D.S.Y."

- S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s introduction from Series 5

For finishing in the heat final of Series 4, S.M.I.D.S.Y. was seeded 24 out of 24 for Series 5, and came up against newcomers Obsidian in the first round. Obsidian repeatedly tried attacking with its axe, but did no damage to their opponent. S.M.I.D.S.Y. used its excellent pushing power to push Obsidian around the arena and into Sergeant Bash, also using its new spinning disc to damage the sides, before pushing it against an angle grinder, where Obsidian was immobilised. After being counted out, Obsidian was finished off by Matilda's flywheel and S.M.I.D.S.Y. went through to the next round.

In the heat semi final, S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s opponent was another newcomer in 8645T. 8645T's rear axe weapon left S.M.I.D.S.Y. unaffected, before the 24th seed used its front jaws to turn over the Beast, due to its unique weapon combo, 8645T couldn't self right and it was counted out by Refbot. Sir Killalot then carried the losing machine like a mere toy before pitting it. This put S.M.I.D.S.Y. through to the heat final for the second time.

It went up against Chaos 2, the double reigning UK champions. It was Chaos 2 that dominated this heat final battle, flipping S.M.I.D.S.Y. high into the air a couple of times before flipping it against the arena wall. In the process Chaos 2 damaged the armour on its flipper, and George Francis' machine was unable to self-right having flipped itself over in its haste to flip the black box shaped robot out of the arena. Neither machine could move since S.M.I.D.S.Y. was stuck the arena wall, so cease was called and the judges called for a rematch.

Unseen on television, though, S.M.I.D.S.Y. eventually fell off the arena wall, and proceeded to pit Chaos 2. However, due to the 30 second rule, it didn't count and the rematch went ahead. Chaos 2 finished the job in this battle, as Chaos 2 once again flipped S.M.I.D.S.Y. onto the arena wall. This time S.M.I.D.S.Y. was thrown from the arena. S.M.I.D.S.Y. became the fifth machine that Chaos 2 was able to flip out of the arena.

Series 6
In the Sixth Wars, an unseeded S.M.I.D.S.Y., fighting with newly designed front lifting jaws, fought against newcomers St. Agro and veterans Comengetorix and Warhog in the first round of the heat. S.M.I.D.S.Y. dominated the battle, pushing all three robots around. S.M.I.D.S.Y was able to carry Warhog around on its back after Shunt lifted Warhog up for a "piggy-back", although sustained a few axe blows from Comengetorix. With St. Agro's flippers locked open, S.M.I.D.S.Y. was able to push the defenceless robot into the pit, eliminating it. Later into the battle, S.M.I.D.S.Y. pushed Warhog over the flame pit and into the arena wall, starting to lift it. A slam from Growler put Warhog on top of S.M.I.D.S.Y. for a second piggy-back, this time resulting in S.M.I.D.S.Y. carrying Warhog over to the pit. S.M.I.D.S.Y. dropped Warhog in, and progressed to the second round with Comengetorix. This brought it into a close second round match against the 6th seeds Dominator 2. S.M.I.D.S.Y. was on top at the beginning of the battle, lifting Dominator 2 up repeatedly and avoiding the uni-directional axe well, sustaining only a small number of blows. Many sparks flew when S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s disc collided with Dominator's armour. However, when the pair fought in the CPZ, Growler slammed S.M.I.D.S.Y. into the side wall at a very high speed, after which S.M.I.D.S.Y. was clearly suffering mobility problems. Dominator 2 landed several blows on S.M.I.D.S.Y. with its axe, after which S.M.I.D.S.Y. was defeated by a judges' decision.

Extreme 2
S.M.I.D.S.Y. competed in the Tag-Team Terror again, with Sumpthing as its partner as in Extreme 1. It was the first out of the two to come out and fight in Round 1 against X-Terminator, but after S.M.I.D.S.Y. was hit by X-Terminator's axe once, it tagged Sumpthing to take its place. After X-Terminator tagged Mini Morg, S.M.I.D.S.Y. came out and pushed Mini Morg back into its corner with X-Terminator while S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s own team-mate Sumpthing was getting chased around by the house robots. S.M.I.D.S.Y. then found itself against the arena wall getting axed by X-Terminator many times before ending up in the CPZ along with Sumpthing where both were counted out in the last 10 seconds allowing X-Terminator and Mini Morg to go through. S.M.I.D.S.Y. also fought in the Challenge Belt. It started off well, pushing Dantomkia and Hypno-Disc into the CPZ where Dantomkia managed to toss Hypno-Disc over the arena wall. S.M.I.D.S.Y. was then flipped twice by Dantomkia but was unharmed as it could run inverted. It was then flipped against the arena side-wall were it looked to be in trouble but got away as Mr. Psycho tried a failed attempt in getting S.M.I.D.S.Y. out. S.M.I.D.S.Y. was then attacked by Mr. Psycho and Dantomkia again but went through to the next round as Sir Chromalot had been spun out the arena by Matilda's flywheel, even though Dantomkia managed to flip the cyberspace machine out of the arena (this was not shown in the televised version). S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s round 2 match was against Terrorhurtz. S.M.I.D.S.Y., after taking one blow from Terrorhurtz, dashed for the pit release button. Terrorhurtz then came in, landing a lot of axe-blows in on the top of S.M.I.D.S.Y., which couldn't use its lifter or disc into any great effect on Terrorhurtz who kept hammering away at it. S.M.I.D.S.Y. was then trapped near the wall and eventually after a few more axe blows, S.M.I.D.S.Y. broke down. After S.M.I.D.S.Y. was counted out by Refbot, Sir Killalot disposed of S.M.I.D.S.Y. by putting it on the floor flipper and then dumping it in the pit.

Series 7
"Number 13 seeds, unlucky for some"

- Jonathan Pearce

S.M.I.D.S.Y. reached yet another Heat Final in the Seventh Wars, but failed to progress into the Series Semi-Finals for a fifth consecutive time. S.M.I.D.S.Y. was granted the number 13 seed placing for the Seventh Wars, for reaching two previous heat finals. However, it put on a shaky performance in its first round battle of the heat, where it was placed up against Atomic, Terror Turtle and Cygnus X-1. In the battle, S.M.I.D.S.Y. tried to dodge its opponents before trying to slam them against the arena side wall as they took on each other. But after Cygnus X-1 was flipped over and Terror Turtle was flipped out of the arena (by Atomic each time), S.M.I.D.S.Y. then swooped in and shoved the overturned Cygnus X-1 machine all of the way into Shunt's CPZ, but Atomic came in and flipped S.M.I.D.S.Y. up onto the arena side wall, where it couldn't move away. "What's happened to S.M.I.D.S.Y.?!"

- Jonathan Pearce, as S.M.I.D.S.Y. is stranded

Eventually, S.M.I.D.S.Y. was brought off the arena wall, but then suffered some axe blows from Shunt before it could hurry away. Cygnus X-1 was then eventually counted out by the Refbot, and just in time, because just as the count was up, Atomic flipped S.M.I.D.S.Y. up into the air, causing the seeded machine to become immobilised. S.M.I.D.S.Y. was then pitted by Atomic, but was put through to the next round regardless.

In the second round of the Heat, S.M.I.D.S.Y. was drawn up against newcomers Mean Streak. S.M.I.D.S.Y. proved much more dominant in this battle, slamming straight into its opponent on 'Activate!' S.M.I.D.S.Y. dominated the battle throughout, relentlessly pushing Mean Streak across the arena floor into CPZs, first into Sergeant Bash's, and then into Mr. Psycho's. Eventually, Mean Streak seemed to lose drive down one side, this made pushing it an even easier task for the seeded robot. Eventually, S.M.I.D.S.Y. pinned Mean Streak up against the arena wall, and, albeit with a lot of effort, it managed to use its jaws to tip the box-shaped robot onto its side. Mean Streak couldn't move, so it was counted out by the Refbot, and then finished off by the house robots.

This put S.M.I.D.S.Y. through to the Heat Final, however, it had to fight Atomic again. In this battle, S.M.I.D.S.Y. was effortlessly flipped around the arena by Atomic, but it did manage to use its agility to push Atomic around the arena a few times, even when the former was running inverted, but it was mostly using its speed to outmanouevre Atomic, to avoid many more flips from it. Eventually though, Atomic got in underneath the seeded S.M.I.D.S.Y. and charged towards the arena wall and flipped it out of the arena, with S.M.I.D.S.Y. clipping the arena wall in the process. This subsequently meant that S.M.I.D.S.Y. was eliminated from the competition.

As a veteran of five wars, S.M.I.D.S.Y. should have been eligible to enter the All-Stars tournament at the end of Series 7, but did not compete for currently unknown reasons.

Results

 * }

Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 8
 * Losses: 9

Robot Wars Live Events
The recently restored S.M.I.D.S.Y. made an appearance at the Robot Wars Live Event at Guildford in 2016 but due to the speed controller being on full current and burning out the drive, S.M.I.D.S.Y. never managed to fight.

Outside Robot Wars
S.M.I.D.S.Y. was renamed Sprocket for Techno Games, where it fought alongside Storm Chaser in the Football Team, winning 5-0 in the final against Kat's Whiskers and Snowstorm. It also competed in the Tug-of-War where it finished as runner-up, ironically losing to Storm Chaser. Sprocket also competed in the Sumo event, but performed badly in both series, being eliminated in the first round of its first series by eventual champion Big Bro and being disqualified from the second series after using its weapon to throw Bruiser off the platform.

After Robot Wars ended, Team Cylon bought S.M.I.D.S.Y. and completely rebuilt the robot in 2008 and fought with it in many live events, including the Roaming Robots tournament, however Team Cylon then sold S.M.I.D.S.Y. to Team Roaming Robots in late 2010. In 2011, Team Roaming Robots sold S.M.I.D.S.Y. to Team Troublesome. Later that year, S.M.I.D.S.Y. was sold onto Matthew Pearman of "Team Avenger", who rebuilt it back into its former condition. To acquire S.M.I.D.S.Y., he had sold The Grim Reaper. He then sold S.M.I.D.S.Y. to Gary Cairns of Team Typhoon, albeit without the rear disc weapon and motor, so he could buy Bulldog Breed. However, due to a lack of time Cairns couldn't take S.M.I.D.S.Y. on as a project so in 2016, it was sold once more to Team ACE who are currently rebuilding it and looking to restore it to fighting condition. Aside from working on the heavyweight robot, Team ACE also produce antweight versions of S.M.I.D.S.Y., five of which will be given away at a charity raffle in Bristol, in September 2016, to raise money for Cancer Research UK.

Trivia

 * The original team was formed over the internet. Indeed, in Series 5 and Extreme Series 1, the announcer would state that S.M.I.D.S.Y. came from Cyberspace. Every other war, however, stated it came from Kent.
 * The team is credited as being from Kent, Sussex and Yorkshire in Robot Wars: The Official Robot Guide.
 * S.M.I.D.S.Y. has the most losses out of all of the robots from Kent.
 * Three of S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s four first round losses were in battles that also contained Sumpthing, including two tag team partnerships.
 * In the Series 4 Sumo Basho, the S.M.I.D.S.Y. team put salt in their robots jaws so that they could spread it like real sumo wrestlers.
 * S.M.I.D.S.Y. was profiled in Robot Wars: The Ultimate Guide.
 * S.M.I.D.S.Y. is the only robot to reach three Heat Finals without winning any of them.
 * All four robots that beat S.M.I.D.S.Y. in the main competition from Series 4-7 lost in the second round of the Semi-finals.
 * S.M.I.D.S.Y. is one of 11 robots to have fought in 5 or more series of Robot Wars, having fought in Series 3 through 7. It shares this pattern with X-Terminator, Bulldog Breed, Team KaterKiller, Team Big Brother, Team Ming, Team Scutterbots, and Thermidor 2.
 * This should have made it eligible for the All-Stars tournament of Series 7, but like a number of others, it was absent, leaving Dantomkia to fill its place. Many believe that S.M.I.D.S.Y. was badly damaged by clipping the wall during its defeat in its Series 7 Heat Final.
 * Team Ixion are one of three teams to be flipped out of the arena three times, the others are Team Vader and Team Iron-Awe. However, the second instance of S.M.I.D.S.Y. being thrown out of the arena was untelevised.
 * S.M.I.D.S.Y. and Rick are the only two robots to be flipped out in a side competition and not be eliminated. S.M.I.D.S.Y. is the only one of the two to be sent out in round 1 of said side competition by a competitor, not in the final after a unfair House Robot attack.
 * Both televised instances of S.M.I.D.S.Y. being flipped out of the arena resulted in the record for most consecutive Out of the Arena flips being set or matched (by Chaos 2 and Atomic respectively).