Draven

"So, they think they can topple the king with the 4-tonne hydraulic jaw on a raisable arm?"

- Jonathan Pearce in the Wild Card Warriors

Draven was a competitor robot from Cranbrook in Kent that featured in the first series of Robot Wars Extreme, and later, the 2016 series of Robot Wars. It is a box-shaped robot, with a hydraulic crushing jaw with 4 tonnes of pressure, mounted on a lifting arm, allowing it to lift approximately 200kg and self-right.

At the time of Extreme, Draven used blue LED's to illuminate its eyes, though this didn't show up on-screen as well as the team had hoped, so red LEDs replaced them.

In 2016, Draven's armour is made of carbon-fibre and kevlar composite shell, with bonded-on titanium plates. The team was formed by a group of friends who met at the University of York, where they were studying Electronic Engineering.

Due to poor reliability, it failed to qualify for Series 4, 5 and 6. In its Series 5 qualifier, Draven broke down, and was reportedly dumped out of the arena by Shunt. At the Series 6 qualifiers, Draven lost to S.M.I.D.S.Y..

Draven was originally given the name Anthrax and this name was used during the original airing of its Robot Wars Extreme appearance on BBC Choice. By the time the episode reached BBC Two, however, the name had to be changed due to an anthrax scare in the USA at the time. All usage of the original Anthrax name was removed and all subsequent airings of the episode stayed this way, although the robot is still referred to by its original name in Robot Wars: The Ultimate Guide. This case was very similar to Roadblock years before, who had also required a name-change due to problems with its original name, Road Rage. The replacement name originated from the main character of the 1994 film "The Crow", Eric Draven.

Extreme 1
"It actually looks quite nasty, it's little bit of a worry really 'cause we're just the sort of robot he'd like to take on, a nice low flat one that he can get his jaw around and crush it up"

- Simon Harrison of the King B team before the fight

Draven was given its first chance to compete in the Wild Card Warriors, drawn against former Semi-Finalist and Tag Team Terror winner King B Powerworks. Draven and King B Powerworks collided, making only tentative attacks on each other afterwards. Draven had a slight advantage as King B's circular saw was not working, but the only chance it received to clamp onto King B was missed, after which King B then slid beneath Draven in a Panic Attack-style manoeuvre. King B then steered Draven into the pit release button and dumped the newcomers down; another Wild Card Warrior had failed.

2016 Series
Draven will compete in Episode 2, facing M.R. Speed Squared in the first round.

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 0
 * Losses: 1

Series Record

 * Series 1-3: Did not enter
 * Series 4-6: Failed to qualify
 * Series 7: Did not enter
 * 2016 Series: Entered

Outside Robot Wars
Following its appearance in Extreme, Draven was rebuilt, and made two appearances the ESAT/BT young scientist exhibition in Dublin, where it appeared alongside King B, Bigger Brother, Razer, Panic Attack and Chaos 2.