House Robots

The house robots are a set of robots on Robot Wars which act as obstacles to the competitor robots in the arena. They take part in most battles and they are restricted to staying in their corner patrol zones (CPZs) until a robot has been immobilised. If a competitor robot enters a CPZ, the house robots are free to attack that robot until it escapes. In the first series there were four house robots (Dead Metal, Matilda, Sergeant Bash and Shunt) with further house robots added over time. Sir Killalot was introduced in the second series, the sixth series saw the introduction of Growler and Mr Psycho, before the final house robot, Cassius Chrome, was added in Series 7.

In addition to the main house robots, there were two others with different roles in the show. The Sentinel was only featured in the second series and was used as an obstacle in the gauntlet, and Refbot was introduced in the fourth series to ensure fair play in the arena.

Main House Robots

Dead Metal

Dead Metal was one of the four original House Robots alongside Matilda, Sergeant Bash and Shunt. Designed to resemble a scorpion, it had a pair of horizontal pincers to hold onto robots and a circular saw. In Series 1 and 2, the saw was mounted on a moving arm, but for Series 3, it was redesigned so that it came out in a more sophisticated way. Dead Metal was one of the fastest House Robots and its metre-width body made it very difficult to flip over.

Matilda

Matilda was one of the original four House Robots. Designed with a dinosaur-like appearance, Matilda's main weapons were its front lifting tusks and chainsaw tail. In Series 5, Matilda's chainsaw was removed and replaced with a much more effective flywheel weapon, making Matilda considerably more dangerous.

Mr Psycho

Debuting in Series 6, Mr Psycho was by far the largest of the House Robots, weighing in at over 600 kg, and the largest robot ever to appear in Robot Wars history. Its design was very similar to that of Sir Killalot, featuring caterpillar tracks and a powerful claw weapon. The design differed from Killalot in that Mr Psycho had a swinging hammer weapon instead of the lance that Killalot wields, the head of the hammer alone weighing 30 kg.

Sergeant Bash

One of the original four House Robots. Sergeant Bash was designed to look like a military tank with its green army colours and flamethrower turret weapon. The original design for Sergeant Bash had steel armour with a battering ram weapon at the front of the robot and a saw at the rear. In Series 3 the steel armour was changed for fibreglass armour, and the battering ram was removed in place of a hydraulic claw similar to the claw used by Sir Killalot.

Shunt

One of the original four House Robots, Shunt is the lightest of all the House Robots at 105 kg, albeit still over the contestant weight limit of 100 kg. Shunt is able to pull a fully-loaded Land Rover, and with its snowplough and scoop weapons it excelled at pushing contestant robots around the arena, and featured heavily in the Sumo Basho Trials event thanks to its incredible power. Shunt also has a hydraulic diamond-edged axe to damage other robots.

Sir Killalot

Debuting in Series 2 of Robot Wars, Sir Killalot weighed in at over 200 kg, making him over twice as heavy as all the contestant robots and considerably larger than any of the other House Robots. Sir Killalot had the appearance of an armoured knight, complete with a lance weapon and a hydraulic claw which could slice through other robots and lift them into the air. Sir Killalot also sported caterpillar tracks instead of wheels.