To fill up spaces in various Robot Wars competitions, loanerbots were sometimes included in the line-up alongside regular competitor entries. A vast majority of these robots were built by technical crews working on the show, in most cases to provide a replacement robot for teams experiencing a shipping mishap or other circumstances preventing their originally-entered machine from taking part (e.g. technical malfunctions or extensive combat damage).[1] The Robot Wars staff originally named these robots as House Loanerbots.
Loanerbots were mainly used in Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors and Nickelodeon Robot Wars, but were also seen in other series. The most recent examples of these were the set of eight robots built by Robo Challenge for Robot Wars: Battle of the Stars, which were created with design input from the participating celebrity teams. A handful of Robo Challenge loanerbots would also serve to represent international teams in Robot Wars: World Series with different identities and visual/mechanical changes.
A specific subset of loanerbot is the stock robot. These robots, unlike loanerbots, were either built exclusively to battle each other, or were entered to make up numbers and were actively encouraged to lose. They were often driven by established roboteers, guest competitors such as celebrities and international representatives, or members of the production team themselves. The three most well-known stock robots were all featured in Robot Wars: The First Wars because only thirty-three robots entered the thirty-six robot bracket.
Role in Robot Wars[]
In the US and Nickelodeon series, loanerbots were primarily used in side events and were generally not allowed to compete in the main US Championship. Typically, they would replace an existing team's robot if it was in a position where it could not fulfil its intended appearance in additional competitions. For example, in Extreme Warriors: Season 1, several entries such as Team Cyclone and Team Katana were given loanerbots (in their cases, Tut Tut and The Green Mouse) to ensure that they could still participate in these after their original machines were irreparably damaged in the US Championship, or were lost while being transported for filming.[1][2]
Conversely, two loanerbots appeared in the Season 1 US Championship to fill up places left by withdrawn competitors. Coffin-Bot would be loaned to Team Sylvan Lake Robot Warriors for the second heat after Skullmania faced technical difficulties. Similar issues affecting Conquering Clown also resulted in Tiger Cat being brought in as a reserve during the same event, though in both cases the original robots would eventually be repaired for the Annihilator side competition.
In Dutch Series 2, loanerbots were used in the main competition due to a lack of competitors or, in the case of Hard, to replace an identically-named competitor which the team withdrew before the series began.
Loanerbots featured basic drive systems, fragile armour and generally less effective weapons than regular competitor robots. As a result, they rarely enjoyed success when fighting against them, held up less sentimental value amongst roboteers and often became targets for the House Robots to deal extra damage wherever possible. The sole exception was Tut Tut, which was reworked by Team Raptor's Chris Harriman to feature a more powerful pneumatics system for its axe.[2] With these modifications, it won multiple side competitions across Extreme Warriors and the Nickelodeon series, ultimately going undefeated.
- "Grunt was a late addition due to a lack of robots (something that I guess won't happen in series 2), and Matthew [Dickinson] stepped in as a driver. Grunt was expertly made as a robot for the preview video of Robot Wars which the BBC people were shown as an introduction (with Dominic Diamond). Grunt sadly had to throw it being unfair."
- — Oliver Steeples summarises Grunt's entry into The First Wars[3]
Three UK Stock Robots (Grunt, WYSIWYG and Eubank the Mouse) were required to compete in The First Wars alongside the 33 genuine competitors, owing to a shortage of available machines for the series. According to accounts from Oliver Steeples and Tectonic Robot Wars, they were reportedly prohibited from reaching the Arena stage during their Heats, resulting in them being eliminated in their Trials after clearing The Gauntlet without much difficulty.[3][4][5] These Stock Robots had originally competed in the 1995 UK Open Competition - the pilot/proof-of-concept for the TV show - or in international events such as the 1996 US Robot Wars competition.
The modern stock robots were built by Robo Challenge, and used similar components across all eight models, including the same wheels (with one exception) and motors. Robo Challenge's stock robots were initially intended to fight only each other in a side event, and did not necessarily comply with the Robot Wars weight limit, with The Cat in particular weighing in excess of 140kg. Three of Robo Challenge's stock robots were later required to represent international countries in Robot Wars: World Series, and were rebranded as new entries, compliant with the weight limit.
List of Loanerbots[]
Loanerbots were often given specific identities depending on the wishes of the team in possession. They could also have their colours and even weapons changed. To avoid the arbitrary distinction between two interchangeable names, loanerbots are listed by their generic description and then by the name(s) given to them.
Stock robots are listed in bold. Robots listed in italics were neither a loanerbot nor a stock robot.
| General Description | First Identity | Second Identity | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| A two-wheel driven robot with a horizontal bar spinner. | Arena Cleaner (Scott Mills and Chris Stark and Dave Moulds, Battle of the Stars) |
Cathadh (Team Toad, World Series) |
Battle of the Stars Episode 1 winner as Arena Cleaner. 'Rest of the World' captain and USA representative as Cathadh, which featured revisions to the robot's chassis and armour as well as new tyres and electronics provided by Michael Mauldin.[6] |
| A green box wedge-shaped robot with a hammer. | Bondi Titch (Matthew Jennings and Linda Jennings, Extreme Series 2) |
Built specifically to represent Australia in the Commonwealth Carnage, to be driven as a prize for a contest. Not acknowledged by the show, it was later confirmed to be a stock robot by John Heatlie of Team Corkscrew. | |
| A robot resembling a coffin, with a horizontal flywheel. | Coffin-Bot (Team Sylvan Lake Robot Warriors, US Season 1) |
Competed in the main US Championship after Skullmania withdrew. | |
| An invertible thwackbot with a bladed arm. | Dee (Jordan Stephens and John Reid, Battle of the Stars) |
Rabid M8 (Team REC, World Series) |
Technically violates the active weaponry rule established by Robot Wars. Represented Portugal as Rabid M8. |
| A box-shaped robot with a lifting scoop. | Dynamite (Team Dynamite, German Series/UK Series 6) |
||
| A pyramid-shaped grey robot with a mouse's head and boxing gloves. | Eubank the Mouse (Steve Dove, Series 1) |
Originally built by Derek Foxwell for the 1995 UK Open Competition, then named The Mouse. Its alleged breakdown in Heat F allowed eventual Grand Finalist T.R.A.C.I.E. through to the arena stage. | |
| A long wedge with barbs. | Grunt (Matthew Dickinson, Series 1) |
Built by Judge Eric Dickinson to compete in the 1995 UK Open Competition and driven by his son Matthew. Drove off the sumo ring deliberately in under five seconds, much to the displeasure of the Barry team, who had been eliminated in the Gauntlet and felt their machine would have done far better in the Trial. | |
| A round shell robot utilising weapons from other loanerbots. | Hard (Team Compactory, Dutch Series 2) |
Utilised the axe from Tut Tut and the flipping arm from Vert-I-Go; the latter weapon was used as a static ram/wedge. | |
| A round robot with an overhead spinning mechanism. | Hoot (Robotics Club Kinderdijk, Dutch Series 2) |
Hoot Team Piecemaker, Nickelodeon) |
|
| A flat cylinder with a full body spinner. | Joker (Sylvan Lake Robot Warriors, US Season 1) |
Humdrum (Team Robot Dojo, Nickelodeon) |
|
| A two-wheel driven wedge with a front-hinged flipper. | Interstellar: MML (Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Shane Swan, Battle of the Stars) |
||
| A box-wedge robot with a hammer. | JAR (Jonathan and Alistair Brownlee and Gabriel Stroud, Battle of the Stars) |
Stroud incorporated his own robot's armoured front wedge onto the loanerbot. | |
| An invertible axlebot with a vertical spinner. | Kadeena Machina (Kadeena Cox and Ellis Ware, Battle of the Stars) |
Diotoir (Team Nemesis, World Series) |
Kadeena Machina won the second episode of Battle of the Stars, and was the only robot to go undefeated in the rebooted series of Robot Wars. Diotoir represented the Republic of Ireland in this form, featuring additional modifications designed with input from Peter Redmond.[7] |
| A cylindrical pushing robot with raised ridges and front spikes. | Nemesis (Team Nemesis, Series 1-2) |
Terror Australis (Peter Aigner, Mike Stone and Rodney Gullickson, Series 3) |
Unlike most instances, Nemesis was an established UK competitor robot, built by the Irish Team Nemesis. However, when the Terror Australis team's original robot broke down in the International League Championship, Nemesis was repainted, renamed and entered in its place. |
| A roughly box-shaped robot with an axe. | Rigby (Team Basenji, Nickelodeon) |
Similarities have been drawn between Rigby and Stanoscloir, a robot used by Team Nemesis in Techno Games. | |
| A humanoid machine. | Ramrombit (George Francis, Series 2) | Specifically designed for the Inferno Insurrection by the Robot Wars crew. Flammable. | |
| An box-shaped robot with a flipping arm, inspired by the dragon of the Welsh flag. | Robo Savage (Robbie Savage and Jason Marston, Battle of the Stars) |
||
| A wooden box-shaped robot with an axe. | Rot Box (TeamBoltz, US Season 1) |
Bang (TeamBoltz, US Season 2) |
The only instance of a single team renaming a loanerbot across two appearances. |
| A silver box-shaped robot with a cutting disc. | Silver Box (Team Vicious, US Season 1) |
Zanzara (Team Creative Steel, Nickelodeon) |
Covered in purple fur when competing as Zanzara. Silver Box suffered no combat losses. |
| A two-wheel driven robot armed with a vertical crusher. | Soldier Ant (Neil Oliver and Will Thomas, Battle of the Stars) |
||
| A robot featuring an axe and porcupine spikes. | Spike (Sinclair Robotics, US Season 1) |
||
| A two-wheeled, box-shaped robot with exposed electronics in Series 4. A two-wheeled, box-shaped robot covered in fur in Series 5. | Teddybot (No team, Series 4, Series 5) | Designed and built by producer Bill Rudgard and Derek Foxwell, Teddybot was built specifically for demonstration battles with Sir Killalot held during Robot Mayhem and the 2001 Live Event tour. In most instances, it would be destroyed and/or pitted, though it would always be repaired in between shows. George Francis of Team Chaos is known to have been among the roboteers involved in repairing Teddybot throughout its career. | |
| Invertible robot based upon a cat, armed with horizontal flywheel. | The Cat (Suzi Perry and Craig Danby, Battle of the Stars) |
Significantly overweight at around 140kg, with its weapon alone weighing roughly 45kg. | |
| A box-wedge robot with clear polycarbonate armour. | The Green House (Team Bot-Head, US Season 1) |
Vert-I-Go (Team In-Theory, Nickelodeon) |
Reached the Ultimate Mayhem in Nickelodeon Robot Wars. |
| A two-wheeled mouse-designed robot armed with a flipping shell. | The Green Mouse (Team Katana, US Season 1) |
Squirmin Vermin (Team Basenji, Nickelodeon) |
Replaced Shuriken in US Season 1 after the latter was severely damaged in the main US Championship.[1] Changed fur colours from green to yellow between appearances. |
| A box wedge with an axe, covered in fur. | Tiger Cat (Dynamic Duo, US Season 1) |
Competed in the main US Championship after the team's original entry The Wife had issues with its failsafe.[8]
Was doused in WD-40 by the team owing to their dissatisfaction with the robot. | |
| A pyramid-shaped robot with an axe. | Tut Tut, (Team Raptor, US Season 1) | Tut Tut, (Team Juggerbot, Nickelodeon) | Original working name was King Tut. US Season 1 Tag Team Terror co-champion (along with Drillzilla), Nickelodeon Challenge Belt winner. |
| White double-wedge shaped featherweight. | WYSIWYG (Michelle Wheeley, Series 1) | Originally competed in the 1996 US Robot Wars competitions. The driver for Series 1, Michelle Wheeley, joined the Cruella team in Series 2. |
Teddybot
As there were many loanerbots built, some of them may not be known, as many were not chosen to replace another robot. One example was a robot which resembled a rusty version of The Green House, minus the plexiglass, and with the addition of a scoop similar to Dynamite. However, this bot has been identified as Teddybot.
Other examples[]
Stanoscloir
- Stanoscloir was a robot entered by Team Nemesis in Robot Wars' sister show, Techno Games. Stanoscloir was, itself, a loanerbot, with an extremely similar shape and design to Rigby. Stanoscloir however was lacking a weapon, and instead used a wooden pole used for battering.
- Kan-Opener was also lent to the original team during Series 8, as it was actually owned by Jason Marston of Thor. However, this loan was handled away from the production of the show, and was a private exchange between the two teams.
Trivia[]
- Team Nemesis have both loaned a robot to another team, and later competed with a loanerbot themselves.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 'Combat Robot Teams and Stories - The Ask Aaron Archives', Team Run Amok website
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 'Combat Robot Tournaments and Events - The Ask Aaron Archives', Team Run Amok website
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 'Cunning Robots: Grunt', Cunning Plan/Griffon Web Page (archived)
- ↑ 'Cunning Robots: WYSIWYG', Cunning Plan/Griffon Web Page (archived)
- ↑ 'Series 1 Show 3', Tectonic Robot Wars (archived)
- ↑ https://www.facebook.com/fuzzymauldin/posts/10156065021246663
- ↑ https://www.facebook.com/MechatronsIM/videos/1800793396618944/
- ↑ 'Robot Wars Journal - Team Run Amok', Team Run Amok website