Dystopia

Dystopia is a heavyweight robot, armed with a unique full-pressure flipper. Though its owner Gareth Anstee never entered the series in its original run, Dystopia was active over the qualification period of the 2016 series. Dystopia started off as a new version of Ripper, built by John Findlay in 2010. Before becoming Dystopia, it was the 2011 UK Champion and had won several other smaller championships (such as the Winter tour). In 2013, it was sold to Gareth Anstee and renamed Dystopia - gaining a futuristic police theme, something that has continued to the team featherweights.

Aside from team captain Gareth Anstee, Team Ablaze also includes Laurie Calvert, builder of Lightning, Mike Onslow of the International Wreck Crew, and Chris Smith.

Robot Wars Live Events
In mid 2013, John Findlay sold Ripper to its current owner, who processed to rename it Dystopia. Since then, Dystopia was repainted and went on to compete in the winter tour - unfortunately having reliability problems along the way. Eventually its age started to show, and after 2014 required extensive modernisation with entirely new electronics and upgraded pneumatics, along with its 2nd new paint job.

At its first returning event in 2015, held at Barnsley, Dystopia went on to win the championship, despite being down on power whereas Ripper went out in the first round. Dystopia was thus seeded 8th for the 2015 World Championships, despite only competing in one event so far that year. At the World Championship, Dystopia reached the final 16 before being flipped out jointly by Manta and Iron-Awe.

Outside Robot Wars
Dystopia regularly competes at live events and has had a great deal of success, throwing robots out frequently at events. Its only championship victory came from Robot Wars, though Dystopia has achieved tens of OOTAs during its campaigns at all live events.

After Dystopia's internal upgrade for 2015, Dystopia is being entirely rebuilt for 2016.

Trivia

 * The Police badge on Dystopia is actually a silhouette of the central area of the Robot Wars logo.