Savage Toaster was a robot built by Team Toaster to compete in Series 4, Series 5 and Series 6 of Robot Wars. Despite having three attempts to qualify for Robot Wars, Savage Toaster withdrew from all three Series it attempted to qualify for.
Design[]
- "We dont weld, but fortunately we know a man who does! Michael (Mick) Pearson has charged us very little for some superb work on the chassis. Often at short notice and at awkward times, hes never failed to come up with the goods and has proved to be very patient with our often rather loose descriptions of what we wanted. A gentleman and a craftsman. The material used is 1mm wall thickness 1 square-section steel tubing."
- — Team on the design
Savage Toaster was a rounded box-shaped robot, designed in a way to resemble a toaster. Initially, Savage Toaster was made out of glass fibre armour, with the yellow sides of the robot being more thicker. The robot was armed with a lifter that was powered by two CO2 bottles. For the Sixth Wars, Savage Toaster's armour was replaced with titanium and kevlar for the sides. The robot was two-wheel drive with the batteries powering the drive of Savage Toaster being micro kiels.
The Team[]
The team was captained by John Wilkinson who served as the designer and builder of the robot. He was joined by Stuart Moore, the electronics builder, and Richard Williams, who served as the robot's driver. The team were also helped by family and friends as well as other roboteers such as Ian Inglis and Alan Wood who served as mentors and assistant builders.
Qualification[]
- "We applied in 2000 for Series 4, but apart from some misplaced optimism about our ability to put The Toaster together in the time, we also ran into serious problems with sourcing components."
- — Team Toaster on Series 4
The Savage Toaster, initially called The Toaster, first applied to compete in The Fourth Wars. However, due to being in the building stages, the team struggled to get parts where it could not compete in the qualifiers and the show itself, subsequently withdrawing from the competition.
Savage Toaster then attempted to qualify for Series 5 but due to the small amount of time between the announcement and the qualifier dates, Savage Toaster withdrew due to "last-minute snags".
Savage Toaster's third and final attempt to qualify was for Series 6, where they were helped by Ian Inglis to get things working. However, it is unknown why the team withdrew from qualification.
Series Record[]
Series | Savage Toaster Series Record |
---|---|
The First Wars | Did not enter |
The Second Wars | Did not enter |
The Third Wars | Did not enter |
The Fourth Wars | Withdrew from qualifiers |
The Fifth Wars | Withdrew from qualifiers |
The Sixth Wars | Withdrew from qualifiers |
The Seventh Wars | Unknown |
Series 8 | Pilot only with Ka-Pow! |
Series 9 | Not selected with Ka-Pow! |
Series 10 | Did not enter |
NOTE: David and Alan Wood of Onslaught would later join Team Toaster with Ka-Pow!
Outside Robot Wars[]
Savage Toaster competed in the football events of Techno Games 2002 and Techno Games 2003. Savage Toaster teamed up with A.A.T. for the Football event in 2002, beating Celestial Terror and Smash and Grab in the first round, but lost to Team Snow Cat in the second round. The Savage Toaster! and AAT won the playoff for third place and the bronze medal. In 2003, The Savage Toaster entered the same event with Ickle Toaster, as Team Toast. However, the team was disqualified, off camera, after a part added to the Ickle Toaster for the competition, broke off and went over the safety screen. The team were already behind on points against the Air Cadet's Rovers, so an edited version of the game was shown, officially announced as a loss for Team Toaster.
An anweight version of Savage Toaster called VileAnt Toaster was built for the Antweight World Series, appearing in AWS 5 and 7 with mixed success.
Savage Toaster would later be converted into Ka-Pow!, for more information visit here.
In December 2019, it was announced by Team Onslaught that a new version of Savage Toaster would be in the works, with most of the internals and pneumatic fitted in and had planned to make its debut during 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, construction was halted but the team hoped the robot would be ready for 2021. The new Savage Toaster would make an unexpected appearance as a static display at RoboNerd in September 2022. Its shell and internals were displayed alongside each other.