User:Datovidny

We are Team Datovidny, David and Tony. We are brothers from the South-Western county of Cornwall. We started watching Robot Wars at the beginning of Series 3, and we've videoed the vast majority of episodes that followed. We have bought a huge percentage of the merchandise too, not that any of it is in good shape. We were also lucky enough to watch Robot Wars live to watch the All-Stars Tournament during Extreme Series 2.

We also have our own page on Roaming Robots Wiki, under the name Wikia Veteran, this was issued in the beginning of October 2010, however, expect limited activity from us there. Of the two of us, David is more readily on the Wiki.

David

Footballer

Tony

Student, Rugby Player

Background
Having watched Robot Wars from the beginning (live on occasions) we have learnt a lot. However, we are only just entering the practical side of Robotics, therefore we have only begun building robots very recently.

Our Robots
With being such fans of Robot Wars, we have designed dozens of robots, and built some as featherweights, all of which have been tested and modified for greater efficiency as they can practice on a homemade arena that we built purposely for these robots, below is a list of those robots already built. As even the first of our machines was built and completed only very recently, we have not competed with them in any Robotic fighting events or shows yet.

Hopefully we will have photographs of these machines on this userpage in the near future.

Slightly Blighty

Largely resembling the original Killertron, it's chassis is a rectangular cuboid shape with a domed top. The weaponry is an overhead axe, but that's where the similarities end, the axe has adopted a much smaller shape, and is only able to hit anything at one end of the robot, due to the motor not being powerful enough to swing an axe any bigger. The robot is painted completely in the colours of the Union Flag.

Scraptosaur

A basic box-wedge design, the design on the body-shell is loosely based around Raizer Blade. It's armed with a fierce, 2-bladed spinning disc on the front, spinning at almost 3000rpm, which has been proven to slice fingers (accidentally of course)! Originally designed with a static spike on the back and coned wheels to avoid being flipped, it has since lost these features, and is now very vulnerable to flippers. The robot shows a very large resemblance now to Weld-Dor 3, only without the rear spinning blade and the spinning disc instead of the flipper.

Peril Penguin

A small wedge shape robot with a spherical head towards the back to resemble a penguin's head, it has no proper self-righting mechanism but does have a rear support behind the head and side and rear skirts to make it harder to flip. It's armed with a circular saw blade at the front but its outer shell is made of wood! It's also garbed in miniature Union Jack Flags with an extra Union Jack top hat for the figure head. It was originally inspired by Mighty Mouse, although it shows a bit more of a resemblance to the Series 5 version of Velocirippa.

Wikia Contributions
Our first edit was on The Gauntlet page on 7th September 2010 and since we have made hundreds and hundreds of edits on the main wiki pages in just a number of months and we have made over 1700 edits in total, though the rest are mostly on this page. Our 1000th edit was on Wheely Big Cheese on 29th November 2010. Since 7th September 2010, we have created several pages for the main wiki, this pages include:

Robot Wars Extreme: Series 1/German Melee

Team KaterKiller

Doodlebug

Automatic Jack

Tecumseh

Share+Destroy

Crocodilatron (Series 7)

Death Jester

Judge Mech

G-Man

The Bull

Fire Drill

Also there have been many other pages that we have made contributions to, many are major and cover paragraphs and others are just the addition of some sentences or just a few words.

Favourite Robots
Despite only beginning to watch Robot Wars during Series 3, we videoed the vast majority of them as they were being aired, we can still watch them now (as we are probably one of the only families that have a VCR still working in their house) and we've watched several youtube clips of the previous series that we missed. So we've seen every robot that has qualified for a series and many others that didn't, but even out of every single one we each have our top 10 favourite robots from Robot Wars!

If you can, try to spot some similarities between the two lists of favourites.

David
1. Wheely Big Cheese



I definitely won't force everyone on this wiki to believe that Wheely Big Cheese is their favourite robot, but if you HATE Wheely Big Cheese, then if you ask me you are a little strange. Team Big Cheese always used to make me chuckle in pre and post-match interviews, and whenever Wheely Big Cheese was preparing for a battle I always got excited as I knew I would be in for a good and entertaining battle. I found the design intreging and inspiring as the design at least made Wheely Big Cheese seem invincible. I also felt sorry for the team a lot of the time as they regularly suffered very bad luck in Robot Wars, particularly towards the end of Wheely Big Cheese's Robot Wars career. I knew that Wheely Big Cheese was my favourite robot as soon as I realised that I was more disappointed than usual when they went out of any competition. In addition, what a shame it was that Team Big Cheese had to fall out with the Robot Wars producers, I would've been intrigued to see how Wheely Big Cheese would've fared in the Sixth Wars, or even the Seventh Wars. Thankfully, both models of Wheely Big Cheese have been brought out of retirement and are in fine fighting form, I've recently seen Wheely Big Cheese a few times in certain live events, unfortunately not when he was aloud to use his flipper, and like many other Robot Wars fans around the country, I'm actually quite intrigued by the possibility that both Wheely Big Cheese models could end up fighting each other one day, and I would kill to watch the battle! I also found myself very fond of Wheely Big Cheese's predecessor Big Cheese as they were both very similar in design, but Big Cheese didn't have anywhere near as much charisma as its successor.

2. Pussycat

Why do so many Users on this wiki hate Pussycat so much? Seriously, as I explained above with Wheely Big Cheese, I won't force anyone to adore Pussycat, but for the 50% of users who find Pussycat to be one of their least favourite robots, I would love to hear your reasons for this. I myself often find that most robots that regularly performed extremely well in Robot Wars up until the end of its career (such as Tornado and Storm 2) have little to no charisma at all, but for me, Pussycat is one of very few exceptions. When we went to see Robot Wars live during Extreme Series 2, we had seats to watch both heats and the grand final of the All-Stars Tournament, on our way to our seats for the first heat we walked past the pit area, where we received autographs from Ian Lewis of Team Razer and Ellie Watts of Team Big Brother, but we also ran into the Pussycat team, taking Pussycat back to its bench, just after they were flipped out of the arena by Bulldog Breed in the Tag Team Terror competition. My brother and I chatted for a rather large extent to Alan Gribble, and as the team were about to leave and return to their bench, he gave my brother and I Pussycat posters that he said were unavailable as merchandise, whether he was telling the truth or not I'm not sure, and not surprisingly, we both still have these posters. To save me the trouble of having to describe these posters to you, just for those people who are still bothering to read this far down our userpage, you can see them pinned up at the Pussycat bench during the interview with Ann Gribble in the Iron Maidens competition. Don't ask us why we didn't ask for an autograph from him in the process.

Despite many changes in the team, such as completely different team members and a recent change in the team's name (Team Kat), Team Cold Fusion had been with Robot Wars at Day 1 (as Bodyhammer to begin with) and continued to enter Robot Wars with the moderate success that they deserved, therefore I was solely routing for Pussycat in Series 7, I was disappointed when they lost to M2 but I was elated when they won the All-Stars tournament the same year, as they should've done anyway for technically being the most dedicated Robot Wars team. Even though Pussycat has retired from competitive battles, at least they still fight in demonstration battles, meaning Pussycat has battled on whereas other robots from Robot Wars such as Onslaught, Chaos 2, Mighty Mouse, Sumpthing, the three incarnations of Cassius, Velocirippa, Ripper, 8645T and The Steel Avenger have fallen. When I first set up this section of our user page, I knew it would be difficult to find my Top 10 favourite robots of all time, but I knew that Pussycat would make the Top 2 along with Wheely Big Cheese.

3. Behemoth



Perhaps is wasn't number one, but certainly Behemoth was one of the unluckiest robots in the history of Robot Wars. Behemoth was another robot that I greatly cheered on during the Seventh Wars, but more so than anyone else, except for Pussycat. In my opinion, Behemoth could've beaten Mute and it could've done so much better in Series 7...if reliability was out of the equation. No matter how quickly it went out in any series, Behemoth was rightly always a robot feared by the other robots in its heat. The design was very complete towards the end of Robot Wars, and if the House Robot Rebellion in Series 7 is anything to go by, Behemoth was a very impressive robot when it worked properly, and as I've seen at several live events such as Roaming Robots, it still is. I definitely admire Behemoth for its presistance, as despite the very old design, it still fights in robotic combat battles today, even though Behemoth has undergone 4 new transformations since its first Robot Wars appearance in Series 2. Although the same thing is to be said for Pussycat, Behemoth still competes competitively in tournaments and competitions, whereas Pussycat sadly doesn't anymore.

4. The Steel Avenger



As I started watching Robot Wars in Series 3, naturally, most of the robots from that series stood out for me, even if there was no particular reason for it. The Steel Avenger was one of them. As the years of Robot Wars went by I always noticed The Steel Avenger was still there fighting where others had either stopped competing or switched to completely different robots. In Series 7, it astonished me how such an old robot with such an old design could still work really well in Robot Wars, it's a big shame that Storm 2 had to knock it out with ease. It saddens me that it eventually retired, after seeing the concept for SA2. It was also a shame that the feather duster was eventually taken off it too. I don't really care what Craig Charles said in Series 7, it doesn't matter if its old, its how good the robot is, and The Steel Avenger was a brilliant robot, that really should've been seeded for a series at least ONCE!!!

5. Cerberus



Another robot for me that stood out for me in Series 3 was Cerberus. It did fairly well in its debut series, reaching the heat final of the main competition and the quarter finals of the World Championship (by default, but that doesn't matter to me), but then very quickly, every other robot caught up with it and overtook it in terms of robot standard. The clamp weapon design was very unique and innovative but sadly it wasn't used to its full potential when it was installed, only in its Extreme Series 1 Tag Team Terror Round 1 battle when it scraped S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s paintwork, and that hardly counts. Admittedly, I really liked the looks of Cerberus, even in Extreme Series 2 when the shiny bodywork and chrome etc. was taken off it I still found Cerberus an appealing robot, it's just a pity that by Extreme 2 when it finally featured on the televised show again that it was so outdated and so old that Crushtacean disposed of it in its last Robot Wars battle in just 49 seconds (don't judge me on that statistic, I watched the battle on Youtube and calculated Cerberus' time of survival).

6. Major Tom



It must be made clear that it is the '1970s Bumper Car' Major Tom that has won it this 6th seed placing. Major Tom was one of few robots that flew the flag, badly, but nevertheless, it may have been a robot that always underachieved and that I always backed due to this, with little much in the way of success in return. If you ask me, the Extreme Series 2 Annihilator was Major Tom's finest hour, and I remember cheering madly as each round passed where they survived, however, in round four, I really knew what was coming. I think Major Tom would've done so much better in Series 7 if the bumper car Major Tom wasn't shredded into millions of pieces at the end of the annihilator by Matilda, this way the team wouldn't have needed to transfer over to Major Tom 3, which was a 4mph box that was very easy to get hold of and flip around. If the bumper car Major Tom would certainly have qualified for the main competition and for various reasons wouldn't have been flipped out of the arena by Tsunami in the opening seconds of the first round battle, nor would it have lost it's head straight away.

7. Bodmin Community College



If you ask me, Beast of Bodmin and Roadblock were pretty much the same robot, with only a few differing details. Also I needed to make my Top 10 robots easier to crack down.

Somewhere in the Top 10, there had to be a Cornish machine, but unlike my brother, I doubt I felt the same way about St. Agro as I do with the two robots from the Bodmin Community College. The designs for the two robots were rather simplistic and not too ambitious, even back in the days of Robot Wars that they were competing in. However, they were designs that were worked well on, the robots never failed to reach a Semi-Final and Roadblock even won Series 1. Despite this great achievement, as explained with Pussycat above, this is an exception for needing to like a really successful robot, but I'm not being stereo-typical about that at all. Before we even saw Robot Wars itself live, I have vivid memories of seeing the Beast of Bodmin on display at a South West Steam Fair only about a year or two after Beast of Bodmin featured on Robot Wars, but for me, that was my first proper Robot Wars experience. I really think the team shouldn't have retired from Robot Wars after Series 3, maybe they had little more to give in terms of a new robot and improvemnets etc. but the team may still have done well, and my brother and I wouldn't have had to wait until Series 6 to see another Cornish robot on Robot Wars (St. Agro), and until Series 7 to see one even nearly as successful as either Roadblock or Beast of Bodmin.

8. Ming Dienasty



I don't care how many people on this earth say anybody else would've been better suited to the Series 7 15th Seed placing, if your Series 5 chances were ruined by foul play by the house robots, you at least deserve something as an apology! It must also be made clear that it is Ming Dienasty only out of the Ming robots that has won this 8th seed placing. I personally felt that the originality of Ming Dienasty deserved credit, things like the drill coupled with the lifting arm to act as a weapon/self-righting mechanism. I believe that the judges decision involving Ming Dienasty could've gone either way and that they could've gone through to the next round, as Ceros stayed out of the action towards the end of the battle and Scraptosaur had only minor flips on Ming Dienasty that were greatly limited in quantity. Ming Dienasty had the potential, and I was heavily disheartened when they lost their only battle. If losing in Round 1 of the main competition was the only reason for leaving Ming Dienasty out of the Series 7 All-Stars Tournament, then I'm disgraced!

9. Stinger

Certainly, Stinger is up there for one of the best designs of all time, despite being fairly simplistic is comparison. Despite doing extremely well in Series 4, it's a big shame that Stinger didn't truly do very well anytime else. I would've liked to have to seen Stinger try its luck in Series 7, so naturally, I find it baffling that a new regulation for the Seventh Wars was brought in that meant all robots required a moving weapon to compete, the Stinger team intended to at least attempt to qualify for Series 7 but wasn't allowed due to this new rule. If the Robot Wars producers were so worried about boring robots qualifying for the main competition, they needn't bother banning them from trying because every single one of them wouldn't even qualify for the main series anyway! If they can qualify they can't be boring can they? This is what qualifiers are for!

The case with Stinger is that it was always out for a laugh in the arena, as was the team, I still remember chuckling away as I watched Stinger on TV sail through the Fourth Wars by acting like a complete looney, mind you I was only about 4 years old and I probably would've laughed at anything at that time. Additionally, it's fair to be said that Stinger only really lost to the very best of opponents, robots like Chaos 2, Pussycat and S3, but try to forget about the Series 4 Northern Annihilator.

10. Onslaught



My final seed in the Top 10 is Onslaught. Onslaught was one of very few robots along with the likes of Chaos 2 and Mute that proved that size isn't everything and was always a robot that couldn't perform and show for its efficiency as a robot. All Onslaught really has to show is a second place in the Southern Annihilator when they only truly lost on its own accord by driving into Matilda's CPZ. Onslaught in many ways was a complete machine. I enjoyed watching the Southern Annihilator and was quite disappointed when Tetanus beat it in Series 5 via bad luck for Onslaught. Since its time on Robot Wars and a brief spell in Roaming Robots, Onslaught has been retired and replaced by the team's new robot Ka Pow! This robot, was coincidently named after the new team name. How disappointing that this is so.

Narrow Misses



Some may call this section Honourable Mentions. Choosing a Top 10 shortlist of your favourite robots isn't at all easy when you adore Robot Wars and you've seen every robot that has competed, and several others that didn't. These are some robots that were considered for the Top 10 but were discarded right at the end, of course there were much more robots than just these robots listed here considered for the final Top 10.

As well as the Top 10 robots, these robots also are in order of favourite to least favourite, they list from 11-20.

11. Sumpthing

12. Plunderbird 5

13. Chaos 2

14. Hypno-Disc

15. Velocirippa

16. Six Pac

17. Fat Boy Tin

18. Thermidor 2

19. Mighty Mouse

20. Pitbull

This list could go on...

Favourite House Robot

Shove

You can't be that surprised that it's Shove looking at my Top 20 competitors.



Shove had a very simplistic design, but it was still awesome. If I'm honest, before I even knew of Shove, I bet I speak for everyone when I say I thought Shunt did all of the cleaning and sweeping before Refbot came onto the scene. Shove was easily the greatest house robot of them all, for being the only house robot that didn't lose anything of its dignity, the only Series 1 robot to go unmodified to the very end of Robot Wars and for being the only robot with only charismatic characteristics. Never being shown on TV and being replaced by Refbot were obviously bad things but they also made Shove just who he was: an inexalted legend!

Tony
1.St. Agro

2.Gemini

3.Firestorm

4.Bigger Brother

5.Roadblock/Beast of Bodmin

6.Dantomkia

7.Stinger

8.13 Black

9.Thermidor 2

10.Pitbull

Top 5 Least Favourite Robots
Along with favourites, we had our least favourites, robots that annoyed us for every victory they took and the robots that they often defeated. Like the favourites above, try to spot some similarities between our two lists.

David
1. Tornado



Let's face it, Tornado is one of those robots like Razer and Storm 2 that's either at the very top or the very bottom of everybody's favourites list.

Team Tornado were the most boastful team ever to compete, except for maybe Random Violence Technologies. The boring red box on wheels defeated Wheely Big Cheese, Pussycat, Behemoth, Stinger, to be honest, nearly all of my favourites, except for The Steel Avenger and King B who gave it what it deserved in the Extreme 1 mayhem. It won the majority of tournaments like they were pieces of cake, the competitions were no longer open to anyone else. Although I dislike the Series 7 regulation that every robot had to have a moving weapon, at least it largely stopped the invasion of boring little boxes on wheels like Tornado, it was only Storm 2 that slipped through the net. Since Robot Wars ended in 2004, the team has seperated and the robot is now retired from combat...good.

2. Mortis



"This is the most impressive weapon here, I don't think you'll see anything else here this impressive"

- Arthur Chillcot on the axe in Series 2

That one quote alone almost somes up everything wrong with Mortis and the team. Their big heads and extremely expensive equipment made them think they could win everything, thankfully, they didn't as they only reached one semi-final, and even then, they got further than they shouldv'e done because they were sore-losers. I applauded Gravedigger when Mortis went down the pit in Series 3 and I also applauded Steg 2 when Mortis went down the pit again in Series 4. Mortis could've been so much more, after spending £100,000 on it, luckily...they weren't.

3. Dantomkia



Praise Pussycat for beating Dantomkia in the All-Stars final, I know by my polls that most people disagree with me when I say Dantomkia shouldn't have been in the tournament, but I believe this for two reasons: It ruined the tournament by being such a better robot than everyone else, it flipped out Behemoth and King B in Round 1, that alone was enough to sicken me. But also I hate Dantomkia for proving Chaos 2 had had its day, and Hypno-Disc too.
 * It wasn't in Robot Wars for anywhere near five series
 * It ruined the chances of more deserving robots

4. Storm 2



Despite beating Tornado twice, Storm 2 never stopped there. Storm 2 won every one of their battles, excluding the very conversial grand final with Typhoon 2, which they were very sore-losers about, especially when typhoon couldn't enter The Third World Championship. If you can't beat it, what's the point in trying to do so. Additionally, Storm 2 beat The Steel Avenger, this makes things worse. Nobody can actually tell me that they liked Storm 2 whilst watching Robot Wars, unless they just supported the best to not be disappointed. There was also no sense of drama, it was Tornado with more power. Next time team, build a robot with a proper weapon and an interesting theme, then I may be intrigued.

5. Dominator 2



Watching Dominator 2 on TV, I always thought that the axe, when it stood proudly in the air, represented the smirking face of Dominator as it always did really well. Dominator 2 was another robot that consistently did very well in the main competition, this meant that Dominator had little charisma anyway. Dominator was actually quite a show-off itself as it humiliated several amateur robots like Eye of Newt and Inquisitor, Dominator 2 was no better. Plus, losing to Tornado so stupidly is one thing but beating robots like Wheely Big Cheese and Sumpthing without really doing the crucial damage really sumed up my hatred for Dominator 2. However, if I'm honest, I'm a little intrigued into how Dominator 2 may have done in Series 7 if it hadn't had the mechanical problems, but then how would've Ming Dienasty been given the 15th seed?

Tony
1.Tornado

2.Gravity

3.Typhoon 2

4.Dominator 2

5.Mortis

Dream Competitions
Admittedly, there are some competitions that I believe Robot Wars could've put into their shows as side competitions or even create as specials. Here are a few competitions that I've made up that I would've enjoyed to watch during Robot Wars' time on air.

Football League



A selection of robots are entered into a competition where two robots go into the arena at one time to play a one on one game of football, both robots aiming for the golden goal. The robot to score the goal would get 3 points, the loser would get no points, and each would get 1 point if neither robot had scored. Each robot would play a number of games against different robots in the competition until everybody has played the maximum amount of games. In goal would be Dead Metal with either Matilda or Sergeant Bash defending outfield. The number of robots competing could vary but obviously would need to be a multiple of two and at least four for the system to even work.

Second Flipper Frenzy



This would be formatted the same as the Extreme Series 2 Challenge Belt competition. 8 robots armed with flippers would fight against each other in a Robot Wars special, beginning with two four-way melees where two robots would go through in each, followed by two head to head semi-finals and one final head to head battle. The last surviving robot of the original 8 competitor robots would then fight the reigning Flipper Frenzy champion Thermidor 2 at the end of the program, the winner of that would be the new champion.

No robots with mere lifting shovels such as Behemoth or Piece De Resistance or robots with thin lifting arms such as Chaos or the original Diotoir would be allowed to compete in the competition for not having proper flippers, however those robots like Mute and Firestorm with front hinged flippers would of course be allowed into the competition. Also, robots with flippers that also have any additional weapons would be allowed to take part in the competition but wouldn't be allowed to use their additional weapons in any of the battles.

Creativity Special



Give all joke robots like Granny's Revenge and Fat Boy Tin a purpose and something to fight for (no team that enters Robot Wars with a joke robot can possibly believe that they could win or even get past Round 1!). Enter a number of joke robots into their own competition in a quest to find the best of the worst! House robot Sergeant Bash would require to be in the arena at all times in the event of it being time for a flammable robot to enter the arena. No robot would be able to enter this competition if they'd ever at least reached the heat final of the main competition, for they would then be serious or successful robots (therefore not joke robots), whether they targeted to get that far in the competition or not.

Old vs New



An entire special could be created for this dream competition but I believe that after Round 1 of certain heats, organise a head to head battle between a brand new robot/team for the series in question up against a legend of a much earlier series. These legends would have to be unchanged from the state in the earlier series to participate. There could be robots like Chaos 2, Steg-O-Saw-Us, Mortis or even Cassius against robots like Hydra, Dantomkia, Tough As Nails or even Typhoon 2. There will be a score running through the series to see which is best: Old or New. These battles would've had to take place during a later series such as Series 6 or 7 for the system to work properly.

Annual Reserve Rumbles



At the end of Series 2, during the grudge match Special, there was a Reserve Rumble for those robots who were used as reserve robots for the series to battle it out between them. If you ask me, they shouldv'e had a Reserve Rumble for each and every series, this way we could've seen many robots such as Share+Destroy, Dantomkia 1.0, the Series 3/4 Xenomorph, the original Major Tom and also other robots that we did see before that just failed to qualify for another series like Agent Orange or King B Powerworks.

For the Series 3 competition, there would be no need to include the robots that failed to qualify for the main series but did enter either the Robotic Soccer Tournament or the Pinball Warrior Tournament already during that series, as they'd have already appeared on the televised show that series.

Thoughts of The Month
All previous results are below.

Which robot would've been better suited to be the filler robot for the Series 7 All Stars instead of Dantomkia?

36% voted - Steel Avenger

Was the new Series 7 regulation that all robots required a moving weapon a good idea?

100% voted - No

If they were all in a battle together, which robot would break down first?

54% voted - Flippa

Who was your favourite clusterbot?

50% voted - Gemini

Which was the best format of heat?

78% voted - 8 Robots; 2 4-Way Melees; 2 Heat Semis; Heat Final

Which seed from Series 4 shouldn't have been seeded?

42% voted - Centurion (31)

The End
If you are reading this then you have read the whole of this userpage, this proves that you have the patience of a Saint. Unfortunately, your patience cannot be rewarded and the time that you have spent reading the contents this userpage could've been used to contribute a lot to the main wiki. So, if you're reading this after just finishing reading the whole of the userpage, shame on you! If you've just used the arrows just to see how big the userpage is and you've reached the bottom now and you're now just curious about what this section of the page has to say, even more shame on you!