Dystopia

Dystopia
Participation Information
UK Series	8 (not selected)
Robot Wars Live Circuit	2013-16
Team Information
Team	Team. Ablaze
Team Members	Gareth Anstee Laurie Calvert Mike Onslow Chris Smith
From	Hornchurch
Associated Robots	Trolley Rage (Gareth Anstee) Plunderbird (Mike Onslow) Lightning (Laurie Calvert)
Robot Statistics
Weight	100kg
Dimensions	0.40m x 0.85m x 0.80m
Top Speed	15mph
Drive	2x Bosch 750w motors
Weapons	Full pressure flipper
Statistics correct as of its most recent show/competition appearance, or if not applicable, qualification attempt.

Dystopia is a heavyweight robot which attempted to enter Series 8 of Robot Wars. It was not chosen to compete in the series, although it was active at live events around the time Team. Ablaze sent their application for qualification.

Dystopia was originally designed and constructed by John Findlay, competing between 2008 and 2012 as Ripper Evo. Ripper Evo's biggest achievements included outright victory in the 2011 UK Championship and the 2008 Winter Tour. The robot gained its later name and appearance in 2013, upon being sold to Gareth Anstee of Team. Ablaze.

Aside from team captain Gareth Anstee, Team. Ablaze's line-up also included Laurie Calvert, builder of Lightning, Mike Onslow of the International Wreck Crew, and Chris Smith. Anstee would later join The Greenwich Greats to enter Series 9 with Trolley Rage, and did not apply for Series 10 due to clashes with exams.

Design

Front view of Dystopia in 2016

Dystopia is a wedge-shaped robot armed with a full-pressure pneumatic flipper. The flipper features a distinctively wide front plate to increase its surface area, with three smaller panels intended to function as wedgelets for breaching ground clearances. These design characteristics enabled Dystopia to throw other robots over and out of the arena during live events.

The robot is painted black, red, blue and white, and is themed around a futuristic police vehicle. Red and blue LEDs were fitted, and black police badge motifs applied to its flipper and back panel; the motifs bore a resemblance to the centre element of the UK Robot Wars logo.

Series Record

Series	Dystopia Series Record
Series 1-7	Did not enter
Series 8	Not selected
Series 9	Entered with Trolley Rage
Series 10	Did not enter

Outside Robot Wars

Dystopia

Dystopia regularly competes at live events with considerable success, effortlessly capable of throwing other robots out of the arena at some point throughout its appearances.

After receiving an internal upgrade for 2015, Dystopia was entirely rebuilt for 2016, and competed in the 2016 FRA UK Heavyweight Championship as part of the Robots Live! Stevenage event. It reached the quarter-finals after flipping Photon Storm out of the arena, but was flipped out itself by Manta and lost its losers melee after becoming immobilised by Nuts and eventual champion Gabriel. However, it still won the Robots Live! Challenge Nut at the same event.

The retired Dystopia (left) in September 2018 with Immersion

This new version of Dystopia in November 2019

In July 2017, Team. Ablaze officially announced on Facebook that a new version of Dystopia was being worked on, featuring comprehensive 'all-round upgrades' and interchangeable weapons. The original version of Dystopia was fully retired in 2018. In November 2019, Gareth Anstee revealed that work on the new Dystopia (designed in CAD by Adam Hamilton) had started, with an initial plan to compete with it at live events in 2020. By the following September, work on the new build had progressed far enough for it to begin testing ahead of a 2021 debut. In October 2021, the new Dystopia fought for the first time at Robots Live! Crawley.

On 28 June 2024, Dystopia was announced as a heavyweight competitor for the inaugural MechMania tour, run in conjunction with Robots Live! Team. Ablaze confirmed that the updated machine - featuring revisions including a new flipper scoop and batteries - would attend all shows, with Gareth Anstee and David Weston sharing driving roles. It was also announced to attend RoboNerd Lite on 17 August as a static display.

Other Robots

2014-2017

Featherweight robot Defector

Alongside Dystopia, Gareth Anstee also competes in other weight category events with a variety of robots. Among the first of these to compete was the featherweight Defector, armed with a longer and narrower flipper, which finished fourth at the 2014 FRA UK Championships.

The 2017 rebuild of Utopia, partially-completed

Utopia at the FRA Featherweight International Championships

Dystopia also has a featherweight counterpart, Utopia, which was initially a scaled-down replica of Dystopia, before Gareth Anstee worked with Andy Russell to create a new design for Utopia which Gareth Anstee built in time for the FRA Featherweight International Championships 2017. The newest version used an intentionally basic open-plan design to inspire new builders, as well as a front-mounted pneumatic flipper. After a long undefeated run, Utopia encountered a gas leak, and settled for fourth place when defeated by 722 in the semi-final, and Amnesia in the play-off.

R.P.M. under its appearance with Team. Ablaze

The following week at the European Beetleweight Championship, Team. Ablaze competed with R.P.M. (alternatively formatted RPM in later years), a past success which had been re-branded under the team uniform. Armed with a vertical spinner, R.P.M. finished fifth, when it was knocked out by the eventual champion.

Anstee also competed in antweight events with DystopiAnt and DefectAnt, miniature replicas of Dystopia and Defector built by Alex Shakespeare. DystopiAnt won the Ant Freeze 4 event in January 2017, with DefectAnt finishing fourth at the same event.

For more information on Gareth Anstee's work as part of the Greenwich Greats, including a newer heavyweight robot named General d'Meaner, see Trolley Rage.

2018-2019

In the early part of 2018, Gareth Anstee competed in the Chinese show This is Fighting Robots, as a part of Team Immersion and their heavyweight entry Bonfire. For more information, see here.

The version of Utopia which intended to enter the King of Bots UK featherweight championship, prior to its withdrawal

In August the same year, Utopia competed in the inaugural King of Bots UK featherweight championship, sporting a new 'exoskeleton' design after its newest version was not ready to compete. It performed strongly in its first battle against Barróg and Bane, only to be grabbed and pitted by the former, which also fell in the pit at the same time. However, the judges ruled that Barróg had hit the bottom of the pit first, leaving Utopia victorious. However, it was less successful in its following two matches, taking severe damage in its final loss to Get Shrekt, relegating Utopia to the eight-way battle to qualify for the Top 20. Utopia was one of only three robots active at the end of the time limit, but ultimately lost the Judges' decision to Barróg. However, after Tempest withdrew, Utopia replaced it within the Top 20 and fought the fellow substitute Calabash Bros, but it was quickly overturned and defeated, and was finally eliminated by DB12 during its losers' melee.

By October, another pneumatic flipper - Ascension - was being built and tested for the 1.5kg beetleweight class. Alongside RPM, it attended the February 2019 UWE Bot Brawl championship in Bristol as a 'backup' robot, while RPM fought a 2V2 whiteboard match alongside Let's Dance. The following month, both robots finished second and fourth respectively at Loughborough Robot Riot, losing their final competition fights to X-301 and Mini Spinny.

2020-present

In early 2020, Team. Ablaze debuted a brand-new beetleweight - Resistance - emphasising pushing power along with a simpler and easy-to-service design. An invertible four-wheel drive machine with RC car wheels, brushless gearmotors for each wheel and interchangeable front-end configurations, Resistance was designed in collaboration with Team Immersion and Cosmin Gorgovan, builder of X-301. A debut at Loughborough Robot Riot in January was followed by an impromptu appearance at the Imperial College London Sumobots event, where Resistance finished first in the "Remote" class and won the "People's Choice" award.

Alongside Resistance, new builds of Ascension and RPM were also designed in collaboration with Team Immersion; CAD renders of all three being revealed on Christmas Day 2019. The following week, on New Year's Day 2020, similar renders were revealed for new builds of Defector and Utopia, intended for middleweight and featherweight events respectively. The latter two adopted a unique four-wheel drive flipper design, combining elements found on European, American and Chinese robots of this type. Delays and a lack of events resulting from COVID-19 restrictions stalled build progress, with the beetleweight builds being the first to be completed.

In December 2020, a revised line-up of new combat robots was unveiled by Team. Ablaze for prospective events in 2021. Once again designed in collaboration with Team Immersion, these were to include alternative versions of Defector (middleweight) and Utopia (featherweight); a direct successor to RPM (Revolution); along with two brand-new featherweights with a pneumatic flipper and an electric axe. Named Enforcer and Oppressor respectively, the latter two shared a 'modular' chassis design and were intended primarily for sportsman-type events (e.g. Robodojo). Team. Ablaze also planned to use Enforcer and Oppressor to teach new roboteers on the basics of operating a combat robot.

Upon the resumption of live events in summer 2021, Resistance enjoyed a highly competitive spell at beetleweight competitions across the UK. A quarter-final finish at BBB Summer Showdown in August was followed by an especially strong run at the November BBB Beetle Champs. Despite taking major damage to its side pods from End Boss - preventing them from being able to be removed and repaired - Resistance reached the overall final, finishing runner-up to Inferno.

A hobbyweight version of Resistance, Revolt, was completed in December 2021 for the FightFest Winter Challenge. Incorporating a 6S battery and drive motors of the same type used in Oppressor and Utopia, it finished the main Hobbyweight Championships third overall.

The 2023 Labman FightFest competition marked Enforcer's debut in the featherweight class; Gareth Anstee and Peter Seaward's team represented a student entry by the University of Chichester. Despite losing three of its five fights, it demonstrated glimpses of its weapon power by throwing Aloha out of the arena at one point, and ultimately finished eighth overall.

On 9 July 2024, Enforcer was one of the featherweights announced to participate in the inaugural MechMania tour. The robot was also confirmed to make a return appearance at FightFest (24-26 August), as one of two competitors representing the University of Chichester.

Chatham Challenge Belt/Robot Rebellion

Following the easing of lockdown restrictions in mid-2021, Team. Ablaze and Gareth Anstee helped organise the first of multiple beetleweight competitions at the Rapture Gaming Festival, held annually at Chatham Historic Dockyard. The initial event, named Chatham Challenge Belt, took place on 3-4 July the same year, with Revolution and Resistance among the competing machines. Revolution itself collected a 2-1 match record in the initial group stages - including wins against Volta and Attitude Adjuster - but suffered recurring weapon malfunctions. This issue proved especially costly in its heat decider battle, after Attitude Adjuster rammed and flipped it over. Unable to self-right, Revolution was denied a place in the overall top 16.

From 2022 onwards, Chatham Challenge Belt was rebranded to its current name Robot Rebellion, with subsequent events again making a regular fixture at Rapture/Medway Gaming Festival. The 2023 iteration received its own 18-episode web series of the same name, which would be distributed by the Robot Rebellion YouTube channel and - from 2024 - the streaming service Mech+.

Robot Wars Live Events

After competing in live events as Ripper with considerable success, the robot was sold by John Findlay to Team. Ablaze in 2013, who proceeded to repaint it and rename it Dystopia. Dystopia first fought in the 2013 Winter Tour, but suffered from reliability problems that prevented it from achieving any particular success. Eventually, its age started to show, and Dystopia was extensively rebuilt in 2014 with new electronics, upgraded pneumatics and a revised paint scheme.

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

Utopia, Dystopia's featherweight counterpart

Dystopia closed off 2016 successfully, placing second in the last Robot Wars live event in Maidstone, falling to Ripper in the final, having progressed through the opening melee with Ka-Pow!, before immobilising both Thor and Rattler to face Weird mAlice in the Semi-Final (which was won in less than five seconds).

Gareth Anstee also competed in featherweight battles with a scaled-down version of Dystopia, also named Utopia, which at the time was an extensively rebuilt version of Rip Evo.

External Links

• Team. Ablaze's Facebook page