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"...used roller shutter blind as tracks. The tracks completely surrounded the body so provided armour where tracks are normally a vulnerability / liability."
— Simon Rafferty[1]

Rotraktor was a competitor robot that attempted to enter Series 4 of Robot Wars. It failed to qualify after losing its qualifier and being deemed 'boring' by one of the producers, compelling the team to build more 'visually interesting' robots for future series. They subsequently built and entered Barber-Ous for Series 5-7, as well as The Office Party, which failed to qualify for Series 5. Both Barber-Ous and Office Party were built using parts from Rotraktor.

Design[]

Roktraktor

A conceptual drawing of Rotraktor

Rotraktor was a white rectangular-shaped invertible tracked robot. The main weaponry consisted of dual retracting spears at the front, with the addition of a removable wedged shovel. As a tracked robot it was intended to use aluminium security shutter blinds as tracks. Although unique in that they completely surrounded the body and so provided armour where tracks were normally a vulnerability, these caused steering problems, so the team chose to remove them for the qualifiers, and used titanium plating as a substitute for body armour.

"These worked quite nicely, but lead to enormous roll resistance. Our motors were capable of delivering 1.6kw of power each, but still lacked the power to move it in a controlled manor without frying speed controllers. For this reason, we attended the trials running on the rollers that were designed to drive the tracks. Not ideal, but it allowed us to compete!"
— The team's website on the shutter blind tracks

Qualification[]

Rotraktor participated in the Robot Mayhem live event on 30 July 2000, initially being chosen as a reserve for robots unable to fulfil places in the original qualifier schedule. In this capacity, it was selected to fight The Steel Avenger in place of Max Damage, which pulled out due to suspected technical issues.[2]

Prior to the match, Rotraktor's steering was badly affected by its wide tracks during practice, and so the robot alternatively ran on the track's rollers. Along with this modification, it entered the arena with 'stainless' top armour along with a 3.25mm titanium front scoop, but still encountered drive and weapon issues throughout the battle. Despite taking multiple axe blows and powerful rams from The Steel Avenger - causing major damage to its armour and scoop - it responded by pushing and jabbing its opponent, making up for a close and evenly-fought encounter. No clear winner emerged by the time 'Cease' was called, and an audience decision was cast. The Steel Avenger received the strongest applause, and was thus declared the winner.[2][3]

"There was no clear winner and it went to a 'clapometer' style audience vote. Steel Avenger were well known at the time. Huge audience response compared to about 2 people clapping us!"
— Simon Rafferty recollects the audience's response to Rotraktor's qualifier[4]

Afterwards, Team Rotraktor were contacted by an unnamed producer about their machine. While Rotraktor itself was praised for its engineering quality, it was deemed 'boring' from an aesthetic point of view, and did not qualify for The Fourth Wars as a result.

"Afterwards the producer (can't remember his name) explained that while from an engineering point of view it was good - it looked boring! They wanted robots which looked exciting or unique - like the Irish robot that always caught fire. It was for TV after all!"
— Simon Rafferty on Rotraktor's failure to qualify[5]

Series Record[]

Rotrakor logo

Rotraktor logo

Main Series Rotraktor Series Record
The First Wars Did not enter
The Second Wars Did not enter
The Third Wars Did not enter
The Fourth Wars Failed to qualify
The Fifth Wars Entered with Barber-Ous
Failed to qualify with The Office Party
The Sixth Wars Entered with Barber-Ous 2
The Seventh Wars Entered with Barber-Ous 2'n a Bit
Series 8 Did not enter
Series 9 Did not enter
Series 10 Did not enter
Robot Wars Extreme Appearances
Series 1 Did not enter
Series 2 Entered with Barber-Ous 2

References[]

  1. Private correspondence with User:Toon Ganondorf
  2. 2.0 2.1 'Robot Wars Series IV', The Steel Avenger website (archived)
  3. Audience member accounts by User:Shuntarunt, 16 February and 11 March 2023
  4. Correspondence between User:SpaceManiac888 and Simon Rafferty, February 2019
  5. Correspondence between User:Toon Ganondorf and Simon Rafferty, April 2012

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