The Stag

The Stag was a robot that competed in Series 6 and 7 of Robot Wars. It was invertible, two-wheel driven and designed to resemble a stag beetle and had hydraulic pincers as weapons that could crush with 7 tonnes of pressure and a rear spike. It had an aluminium shell and home-made speed controllers but the wheels were exposed.

The Stag qualified for Series 6, after Shell Shock and Scrap Dragon and Gyrobot became immobile, but didn't make it out of the first round in either war it fought in.

The Stag had previously failed to qualify in the Fifth Wars. At the Series 5 qualifiers, it fought and beat Mega Hurts after scratching and denting, but not piercing, Mega Hurts' sides. Mr Hyde then fought and drew against Lambsy, and also defeated Mute. Despite this performance, The Stag failed to qualify.

The robot's working name was Mr Hyde, but this was changed shortly before the Series 5 qualifiers.

Series 6
"Now this one can beetle about!"

- Jonathan Pearce as The Stag enters the Arena

The Stag started moderately well in its first and only battle of Series 6. It grabbed hold of the seeded Wild Thing 2 and managed to peel away some of its armour until Vader began to hit The Stag with its flywheel. The strikes caused The Stag to lose a tyre, immobilise it on one side and bend its pincers out of shape. It reversed into Sir Killalot's CPZ where it was picked up by the House Robot and thrown around. Sir Killalot let go after tilting forwards. Because The Stag had stopped on one side, the Refbot came in to count it out. The defeated machine spun around in circles before being pitted by UFO moments before the battle ended.

Series 7
The Stag didn't perform much better in Series 7, going up against Scorpion, IG-88 and Tomahawk in the first round. The Stag started the battle by grabbing Scorpion and pushing it around, but then got hit by IG-88 and flew through the air with the pincers bent out of shape and armour falling off. The Stag then pushed the pit release button and grabbed Scorpion again before IG-88 managed to flip it again with its spinning double-headed axe. The Stag started to push IG-88 but drove away and into the pit by accident, eliminating itself from the Seventh Wars.

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 0
 * Losses: 2

Series Record

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

Outside Robot Wars
The Stag also competed in Robot Wars' sister show Techno-Games 2003 as BeetleBot, working with Brutal Beetle (The Alien) in the football competition.

After Robot Wars ended, The Stag continued to fight in live events for a while, but over time Dave Martin lost interest in robot combat, and in 2011, the empty shell of The Stag, without electronics, was sold on eBay.

"It's not really something i'm interested in anymore but I thought it was shame to let it go to the skip. So I thought I would let it go to someone that could use it."

- David Martin on selling The Stag.

It is unknown who bought The Stag or who currently owns it, but since then, it has been seen on static display at ComicCon in Wales, alongside several other robots.

Trivia

 * In both of The Stag's battles, one of its opponents that defeated it was from Team Vader.
 * In Series 6, a rubber chicken was displayed on the back of the robot.