The Pits

The Pits was the area in the Robot Wars Studio for the roboteers/teams to prepare their robots for the arena itself, for combat or an otherwise event. The Pits were adjacent to the Robot Wars Arena itself, and contained the entry gates for both competitor robots and the house robots to enter the arena. Most of the behind the scenes action of the entire show (even the un-televised action) took place in the Pits, such as Interviews, repairs, testing etc.

An area for the Pits was always installed to every incarnation of the Robot Wars Arena. There were also specific areas within the Pits itself each used to serve their own purposes.

Workbenches
The Pits was mostly made up of a large area for workbenches. Each roboteering team had their own workbench assigned to them, even those that failed to qualify for the main competition and those only competing in side competitions. The workbenches were used to put the robots on, as well as the team's tools etc. so that the robots could be worked on by their teams etc.

These workbenches proved ideal for the teams to have their pre-first round interviews, to describe their robot, or have the Pit Reporter at the time interview the team and survey the robot themselves.

There were also small work areas for the house robots too, these were at the end of the Pits closest to the arena itself.

Walkways
Alongside the main workbenches, along the perimeter of the Pits, were walkways for members of the audience to walk by to reach their seats. The railings that seperated these walkways from the workbenches were low, so the audience had an ideal opportunity to see some of the robots being prepared for battle close up.

Entry Gates
The openings of the entry gates to the arena were within the Pits. These again were seperated from the walkways for the audience to walk through to reach their seats. The entry gates lead either straight into the arena or to the roboteering team's workbenches. For the first three series, there was just one large entry gates, for all robots, and the house robots to enter. From Series 4 onwards, there were three different entry gates, with the left-most gate (named Gate A) and the right-most gate (named Gate C) used for the competitors to go through to enter and exit the arena, and the middle gate (named Gate B) used exclusively for the house robots. This was until the Seventh Wars, when Gates A and B were used for the competitors, and Gate C was used exclusively for the house robots.

Testing Area
The back of the Pits contained a small testing area, for roboteers to test to see that their robots were working properly. This was mostly used by those teams that were struggling to get their robots to run, such as Raizer Blade prior to their Series 4 Heat Final and The Parthian Shot prior to its due Gauntlet run, but were still used by other competitors. The testing area was essentially a large square area sectioned off by railing, it was kept at the far back of the Pits incase of any potential disaster.