Rating Every Robot Wars Competitor Name Ever

In the sport of robot combat, having an identity is key. Whether you're competing on television or otherwise, you want to stand out from the crowd, and of course the main way to do this is to build an interesting robot. But between the days of old where robots were often as simple as a simple box on wheels, to the days where the British live circuit and its excess of wedge-shaped flippers was our primary source of robotic combat, right up to the modern day where we are still faced with a growing concern of vertical spinners overcrowding the field, having a distinct identity has always been critical. The best place to start is to give your robot a name that truly stands out as your own.

Robot names can be good for any variety of reasons. They can be a clever nod that plays off the visual design of the machine or its weaponry. They can reference pop culture, music, television, mythology, anything you want. They can be succinct and simple, or completely original to the point where you've created a word that never existed previously. The name could form the basis of the robot, or the basis of the robot could form the name, in many cases it's fun to wonder which came first. With minimal restrictions, the naming process is a chance to truly demonstrate your creativity... or lack thereof.

With the names of robots being a bit of an unsubtle passion of mine across the wiki, I've ended up involved with various blogs like this before, including my "Ranking Every Series 9 Competitor by Name" list that I wrote before Series 9 started airing on TV, and later my collaborative efforts with Toon Ganondorf and NJGW to select the best and worst competitor names by every single Robot Wars heat. Now though, I think it's time to cap this off with something definitive - I'm going to rate every single competitor name from the entire televised run of Robot Wars. Let's give it a go!

Criteria

I'll be scoring every competitor's name out of ten, on a range of entirely subjective factors. I don't doubt for one moment that almost every opinion I'll state throughout the list could potentially be argued, because a topic like this can never be objective. Because of this, I also don't want to restrict myself to arbitrary criteria where a robot cannot achieve a perfect score because it didn't fulfil every single requirement. If a name is good, I'll give it a good score, it's as simple as that.

Of course, there will be many robots that score highly or poorly based on similar reasoning to previous entries, so here's an indication of what will generally affect a robot's score. A name certainly doesn't need to achieve them all, but even just meeting one or two can set up a potential superstar.

Positives

• Is the name fitting for the robot's design? Any sort of name that plays into the robot's visual design or weaponry (or both) is a huge plus.
• Does it go above and beyond? It's all well and good calling your robot "The Green Mouse", it certainly was a green mouse, but why not "Squirmin Vermin", which not only tell you that it's a mouse, but it gives you that little bit more. Something like Bee-Capitator could have just as easily been called "Bumblebee", but I appreciate the extra effort.
• Is the name a reference? It could be as blatant as Roobarb referencing Roobarb and Custard, or as obscure as ORAC referencing Blake 7 of all things - if your name is a reference then that is usually a plus point, especially as it gives away a little bit about the team's interests.
• Is the name humorous or a pun? Even the bad jokes still tend to raise a smile when it's given to a robot whose name is going to be uttered countless times. If a robot's name has given me a bit of a smirk, then we're off on the right track.
• Is the name synonymous with the machine? This is a bit of a quirk that allows otherwise relatively simple names like Behemoth and Carbide gain extra points. If a name unmistakably belongs to that robot and no other team would dare to use it for themselves, this will help to give you a small boost.
• Does it set up a theme for other robots? If your robot's name has "the perfect sequel", then the second robot gets a lot of credence for its clever follow-up, while the first robot can often be forgiven for not standing out in its own right. "Lambsy" may be nothing special, but for setting up EWE2 so perfectly, both names benefit.
• Can you tell what the robot will look like from the name alone? If I were to hear that a robot called The Executioner was competing in a heat, I'd expect it to have an axe weapon, so the actual robot with a crusher falls short. Meanwhile if I were to hear of a robot called "Typhoon", I would expect some kind of spinner, ideally a horizontal one, and that's precisely what we got.

Negatives

• Is this a repeat name? - This is essentially the only hard rule in the entire list, where a name that has been previously used by another competitor will lose points as a direct result. There are very few exceptions.
• Is the name simply letters and numbers? - These are always a shame, because a majority of letter-number names do stand for something, and there's generally a reason for shortening them. Two of my favourite machines are M2 and S3, which do stand out in their own right instead of being arbitrarily named Mincer 2 (the team realised they no longer liked the name Mincer) and Sting 3 (reduce confusion with Stinger and create an identity as an entirely new design). However, it remains true that a collection of capital letters and numbers do not inspire a great amount of personality or uniqueness, and they will generally score poorly throughout the list.
• Is the name overly long or difficult to type? - We love the machines on Robot Wars, and we want to talk about them. If a name takes too long to say or type, then it is naturally making those conversations unnecessarily difficult.
• Is the name successive to a machine the audience never saw? - Lovingly dubbed the "random sequentials" by a previous Toon Ganondorf blog, I find it to be a gripe when a robot debuts on Robot Wars with a 2 or a 3 in its name. Nobody would doubt that Leveller 1 and Ironside 2 existed at some point in time, but why not start afresh for TV? The amount of awareness that these televised machines receive is far greater than their untelevised predecessors, so why leave the viewers scratching their heads thinking "why can't I remember Killer Carrot 1" and such questions?
• Is the name simply generic? It's very typical of a fighting robot to have a menacing name like those of a fictional robot, but it grew old very quickly, and a robot with a generic name will fade into obscurity much faster than something creative. Two newcomers from Series 7 with horizontal spinners competed with the names 'Devastator' and 'Mayhem', names so basic and functional that the two teams could swap their robots' names around and it would have no impact on either machine. Being in the earlier series of the show when less names had been used still won't save the likes of Demon and Rampage from being painfully simple.
• Is the name simply a person's name? A common idea from roboteers was to avoid falling into the typical trap of a generic menacing name by doing the complete opposite, using a normal human name for the sake of juxtaposition. Sadly, the likes of Henry, Eric, Derek, and all the others had the exact same idea, and there's no variance in why the team chose those names. These won't score too badly on the list, but there's a ceiling for how high they can go.
• The Robo-bot prefixes and affixes - Does the robot's name begin with "robo" or end in "bot"? If the answer is yes, then you are generally losing points for creativity. There are plenty of exceptions to this, as I can appreciate times where 'robo' or 'bot' are used as part of a pun, but if you're just affixing part of the word robot to something that is already very clearly a robot, then this is simply not needed.

And for a general indication of what the scoreline means:

• 1/10 - Offensively bad. One of the worst names in history.
• 2/10 - Poor. Painfully generic or perhaps taken from another robot entirely.
• 3/10 - Not good. It may at least be unique, but it's riddled with problems.
• 4/10 - Weak. An attempt was clearly made, but it falls a bit flat.
• 5/10 - Decent. Not particularly clever or inspiring, but serviceable enough.
• 6/10 - Good. It's not necessarily noteworthy but it's plenty good enough for a robot.
• 7/10 - Great! Generally a good peak for the best of the simpler names in Robot Wars.
• 8/10 - Awesome! Someone's clearly had a very novel idea with this name, and oftentimes there's only one minor flaw holding it back from a top score.
• 9/10 - Outstanding! One of the best names in the show's history, and a real example for how clever you can be with naming a robot.
• 10/10 - Amazing!! True perfection where the ideal name for that machine has been achieved. Something you would actively regard as one of the best names ever.

Numbers Range

Wan Oh Wan versus King Buckston is one of the greatest Rowbot Wars rihvalries of awl thyme

• 101 - 7/10 - I think it's fantastic that the first competitor in Robot Wars alphabetically was a real mainstay with a great degree of success. The name itself is a nice cheeky hint to 101 Dalmatians but is subtle enough to work without it, leading to the "pound and a penny" theory that we know wasn't necessarily correct, but added charm nonetheless.

It brings me great dismay but I can't hide the team's efforts to damage what is otherwise one of the greatest names ever conceived

• 13BLACK - 9/10 - And another icon of the show is up next! We're only two robots in, but the name 13 Black would perhaps be the first ten out of ten on the list. It's a magnificent ode to the 'unlucky' number 13 in tandem with the roulette theme that plays into the robot's design perfectly. This would be utterly perfect if the team didn't insist upon spelling the name as 13BLACK in all capital letters with no spaces. I am very relieved that the show ignored this and spelled it as 13 Black regardless, but the "13BLACK" spelling is everywhere on the team's website, even the April Fools Day pullback prank! 13 Black would score a 10/10, but 13BLACK is stuck with a nine.

259 is a superbly named machine

• 259 - 9/10 - This one is also just brilliant. At first glance the name 259 may seem meaningless, but knowing that it's the way Adam Clark's young daughter would try to say "3, 2, 1, Activate" adds an adorable element to this otherwise frightening vertical spinner. Rather than the name making us like the robot, 259 is a case where the robot makes us like the numbers! Naturally encountering the number 259 in day-to-day life has had a pleasant extra meaning since 2002 and it's something that doesn't get old.

259 is a poorly named machine

• 259 (Middleweight) - 3/10 - Moving on from giving 259 a nine out of ten, I'm now going to give 259 a three out of ten. Yes, you've read that correctly, 259 is here twice. Adam Clark really went and entered two different weight classes of Robot Wars with separate machines, both called 259. Why?? It's a number! You can so easily just call the middleweight "258" and boom, job done, it's a new name for a robot that maintains the theme of the heavyweight. Numbers are genuinely unlimited and you still chose the exact same one for the scaled down machine? AND the Series 7 horizontal spinner was also going to be called 259 instead of 260? I-I can't...

√3², the only robot to have a new name discovered during the writing process of the blog

• √3² - 6/10 - Well, I'm trying to make this list alphabetical, but √3² could go just about anywhere. Do you put it at the top because √ is a special non-number character? Do you put it at the bottom of the list for the same reason? I'm going to awkwardly place it as though the name were just 3². This name is an obvious violation of the "hard to type" criterion, and goes beyond that with difficult pronunciation. Many would call it the mouthful "Square Root of Three", the official pronunciation used on the show was "Wortel Drie" but then in actual fact the pronunciation was "Wortel Drie Kwadraat" in Dutch and "Square Root Three Squared" in English. Then you have the easy-but-wrong pronunciation that I usually opt for, V3. There's a mountain of issues here which should bury √3² for good but I... love it?? I just find it such an interesting name for a three-part clusterbot, and it's clearly a one-of-a-kind name attached to a likeable robot. I'll go just above halfway and give it a 6.

Full credit to Mark Coucher for the very clever name, despite my grievances about the 2

• 3 Stegs 2 Heaven - 8/10 - If you put the naming process down to a public competition, you're bound to get something good in the end, and "3 Stegs to Heaven" would be another blinder which wonderfully references the song Three Steps to Heaven. Unfortunately however, this is another 13BLACK where a fantastic name is spoiled by the formatting, because the official spelling from the magazine of "3 Stegs 2 Heaven" is just numbers overload and again I'm glad the show overruled the official spelling. But here on this blog, I judge the names as the creator intended them, and 3 Stegs misses out on a very high score as a result. Also, this doesn't affect the score, but it remains very frustrating that the team wanted to use the name Steg 3 for the Sixth Wars. You had something brilliant, why throw it away? What would we do on the wiki, would we have to merge Steg 2 and Steg 3 into an article called "Steg"? Would Steg-O-Saw-Us then get lumped in with it? Just build Steg-O-Four-Us man.

Out of all the Team Monad machines that could still be competing today, I'm glad 4x4 is keeping the spirit alive

• 4x4 - 7/10 - You would think that the Numbers Range would be one of the weakest. It features only a small handful of machines, and numbers will often negatively impact future entries, but this lot have done brilliantly. 4x4 is an understatedly good name which very literally describes the robot's drive system but makes it feel like an off-road car within three wonderfully compact characters.

• 6 Million Dollar Mouse - 6/10 - This is a quirky and fun name which does more than just reference the mouse design of the machine by chucking in an unexpected reference to The Six Million Dollar Man. That said, the extreme length of the name makes it a bit of a headache for typing.

The logo (background) definitely sells the name better than the show could

• 8645T - 5/10 - Right, let's just ask the obvious question, does 8645T look anything like the word BEAST on a car license plate? Not really, but I do think the robot's logo sells it quite well, I can easily read that as 8645T or BEAST, and at least the robot was called Beast most of the time. Naturally though, the utter tragedy of trying to pronounce "Eight Six Four Five T" stunts this at the halfway mark, especially when it became "Eight Six Four Five T Two" for R080T W4R5: TH3 53V3NTH W4R5.

A Range

Of all machines to be first alphabetically (exc. numbers)

• Abaddon - 5/10 - We make it to our first mythology name, and I must admit I'm completely guilty of knowing little about mythology beyond the obvious ones. I learned only while writing this blog that Abaddon is named after the ruler of Hell before Satan, and that's respectable enough but it sure opened itself up to a wealth of "a bad 'un" jokes.

That's a good name to have buried in your arena wall

• Aftershock - 8/10 - Straight back on form, we have the superb name of Aftershock, truly the perfect sequel. It's very sad that its predecessor Shockwave using a repeat name means I can't award a perfect score to Aftershock, but this was the definitive follow-up which still makes plenty of sense in its own right.

• Agent Orange - 6/10 - Sure, why not Agent Orange? It's completely out there and doesn't really have any meaning beyond the robot being coloured orange, but it's a likeable little oddity. (Editor's note: Toast did not know what real agent orange was when writing this score)

Bot Aggro in Series 3

• Aggrobot - 4/10 - Couple of rule breaches with this one, it ends in -bot which is already very straightforward, and the "Aggro" only builds on this to tell you that it's aggressive. Of all things, it gets a slight reprieve in points simply for starting with the letter A, as it's always nice to top the alphabet.

• Ajjay - 4/10 - Wow OK. I can only guess that Ajjay is named after the men's name most popular in India, and generally "person's name" robots are going to struggle on this list, but I guess I respect the cultural diversity? Heaven knows the teams on the show weren't very culturally diverse beyond Series 3.

I have to believe that logo on the wheels is a reference to The A-Team logo

• A-Kill (Middleweight) - 3/10 - I think it's for the best that we don't try and give this an etymology section on the wiki. Looking at the robot's logo in Series 3, it seems to me like it's based on The A-Team, with certainly the same font and "A-" in play. But how do you get from A-Team to A-Kill? That's not even vaguely similar, and if indeed the logo is just a coincidence, then A-Kill is left totally without meaning that I can work out.

• A-Kill - 2/10 - And then, of course, they gave the heavyweight machine the same name as its predecessor. I guess this is a little better than doing it in reverse like 259 did, but you had a chance to escape this name guys.

ALIEN

• Alien - 2/10 - One of the most generic names you could possibly arrive at, on a similarly generic robot.

• Alienator - 4/10 - What exactly is an Alienator? Is it a cross between Alien and Terminator? A few points given for the link to the team's heavyweight machine that wasn't otherwise obvious, but this is an odd one.

• Alien Destructor - 4/10 - This one almost escapes criticism as it's an unusual hybrid of words that by themselves would make very basic names for a robot, but mashed together you at least have something that nobody else would ever attempt to use. Alien Destructor II is really pushing it for length though.

Definitely a series of names that I'll be glad to torque about throughout the list

• All Torque - 8/10 - We'd been on a long run of weak names, so it's nice to break that with All Torque. A cheeky reference to the phrase 'all talk' while also perfectly capturing the essence of the all-torque 4WD pusher. Mr Nasty can shove off for stealing this name in Techno Games.

• Ally Gator - 5/10 - This certainly had a crack at the whole "animal name, then go beyond" mindset by trying to work a reference into their alligator namesake... but is it obvious that the 'Ally' is supposed to represent aluminium? I don't think so, particularly with ally being a separate word with a different pronunciation. Would be funny to see someone read it as Aligh Gator.

• Anvil - 7/10 - I like this a lot more than I should. It's a nice simple name that gets the alphabet bonus by starting with A, and pays homage to the robot's pushing power being enough to pull an anvil in training. Unique and reflects the robot's rock-hard nature.

Top 4 names in the pic: 1) Alpha, 2) Merlin, 3) Blazer, 4) G3

• Alpha - 7/10 - Alpha is a great name which is somewhat wasted on a featherweight. The disparity between the world's most famous robots called Alpha and Beta is almost comical, but I am left to wish we could've had a proper heavyweight Alpha in Robot Wars.

It's no wonder the show didn't bother with its full name

• AM CVn - 3/10 - Oh dear, I know Robot Wars is meant to be a nerdy show, but I think astrophysics references of this nature are a bit beyond us, especially on a diddly featherweight like this. "AM Canum Venaticorium star" continues the already shaky Cataclysmic Variabot line, and whilst I know it was the team captain's field of research at university, you can't tell me AM CVn appeals to people that don't have a science degree.

• Amok - 4/10 - Strange name this, we've all heard the term 'run amok', heck it was even a Robotica champion, but who thinks of the word amok without the word 'run' in front of it? Also this is irrelevant to the name but I love that Amok of all teams would've had its team compete in the reboot thanks to Ysbrand joining the PacifieR squad.

I could be biased and give Anarachnid a high score purely for inspiring my college film character Anna Rachnid but I mustn't let that cloud my judgement

• Anarachnid - 3/10 - I don't get this one. It's "arachnid", but instead, "anarachnid!" What does the Ana mean? Not a clue! You'd think it would be Anna Rachnid if they were trying to make it a girls' name. However, that's exactly what I did in my 2014 short "film" Watch Your Step which focuses on the life of a spider by having me walk around York College in a spider costume. Watch it if you want some serious cringe.

• Anarchy (Featherweight) - 7/10 - When talking about the Robot Wars competitor Anarchy, you really don't think of the Series 2 featherweight, but technically it came first, so they get the 7/10! A perfect word choice that makes for a great robot name, albeit one totally wasted on that tiny grey box thing.

The "true" Anarchy

• Anarchy - 6/10 - Which is why Mike Franklin did it properly with his heavyweight walker! This is technically a repeat name so it does fall behind the featherweight ever so slightly, but even with Mike Franklin being a competitor in the Second Wars, it is completely forgivable that he (and 97% of the Robot Wars fandom) would be unaware of the first Anarchy, a robot so obscure it's barely even been photographed, so I won't dock more than a single point.

Never mind the poster that still says "Andron 4000", I wish I had a good photo of the team's shirts which had an extra E chucked in there with basically marker pen

• Androne 4000 - 4/10 - In a weird way, I think Androne 4000 is one of the most unequivocally liked robots in the reboot. Very few would call it their favourite, but everyone appreciated having another good crusher in Robot Wars, which performed unlikely feats against Tauron and Concussion. The name, however, it a very unsubtle plug to the team's company Andron Handling, with the 'e' haphazardly thrown on last-minute to avoid problems from the BBC. It was so last-minute that the team's bench still read "Andron 4000" and the 'e' didn't even fit on the robot's logo properly. The 4000 is a somewhat unneeded reference to the crusher's psi rating which was probably only thrown in there to differentiate the robot from its sponsor.

Angel of bloomin' Death ahaha

• Angel of Death - 6/10 - Angel of Death is one of the most comically jarring juxtapositions between robot and name, nothing about this purple parallelogram warranted a name like "Angel of Death" but that in and of itself is quite funny.

• Anorakaphobia - 4/10 - A fear of what now? Anoraks? Why is this the second Robot Wars competitor to have the word 'anorak' in it, mere episodes into the Third Wars? Googling the name Anorakaphobia just gives you the Marillion album "Anoraknophobia" but that released in 2001, so I've got no clue here.

I really rate this logo by the way

• Ansgar - 7/10 - Here's an entry where you can clearly tell the blog is down to one guy's personal opinion, and someone with particularly odd opinions at that. Ansgar to us just stands out as a very unique German-sounding name, while in Germany itself... well it either literally means "god spear", or it's the equivalent of the boys name Oscar. There is absolutely no in-between with these two meanings and I love it.

The antweight arena really was poorly lit

• Anto - 2/10 - And so we begin the trend of "antweight robots must have 'ant' somewhere in the name", starting with the most blatant of all, Anto. I think the idea here was to reference the heavyweight robot Tanto (even though it hadn't competed yet?), but it's not obvious and without that connection, you are left simply with the bare minimum joke with the letter O thrown on the end.

• Anty B - 3/10 - Some people give Anty B a bit more lenience as Ant is also the name of the builder, but would you really call him Anty? I'd be confused if he was an auntie to anybody.

Anty Geddon gets its just desserts for entering Robot Wars with such a shoddy name

• Anty Geddon - 1/10 - This is just dreadful, and the first 1/10 on the list. So the thought process here is "let's take the word armageddon", an idea already used by the likes of Armour-Geddon and Robogeddon, and then work in the word 'ant' because it's an antweight haha. The result? "Anty Geddon". What?? That sounds nothing like Armageddon! The ant reference is wholly unnecessary, and the name just leaves me wondering "what's a Geddon"... really, really poor. Even just calling it Armageddon was still an option.

Who needs a gif?

• Apex - 9/10 - I have to put the robot aside for this one, because Apex is a fantastic name, and one that I'm shocked was still available by the time Series 9 rolled around. It's no wonder there's so many companies in the world called Apex, it's short and succinct but very meaningful, with an alphabet boost for good measure. The relatively flat design doesn't really suit the name Apex, but its life as a vertical crusher definitely did.

Only losers sit on tables

• Apocalypse - 6/10 - This is another name which did very well to make it all the way to Series 10 without being taken. Of course Ed Wallace had been using it on the live circuit for years, but it's still a miracle it was never used in the classic series. It doesn't inspire enough personality to go beyond a six though.

A fantastic homage to the Apollo spaceships, just put some blasters on the back panel and the look is complete

• Apollo - 9/10 - El magnifique, another near-perfect name which, like Apex, works well for a robot and other things such as businesses. The mythology of the Greek god Apollo and the pure sound of the name would already make for a good name, but the knowledge that the robot Apollo is in fact named after the spaceship with the colour scheme and weapon to match just makes this name divine. Perfect for a champion.

• Araknia - 4/10 - Well it's certainly based on a spider. It doesn't really have a meaning beyond that, 'araknia' (or indeed 'arachnia') is not a real word but you get what they were going for, which is a little better than playing it as literally as something like Arachnid.

The Arena Cleaner agenda continueeees

• Arena Cleaner - 9/10 - No shame here. Arena Cleaner is my favourite name of the blog so far (unless John Denny were to turn around and say oh it was 13 Black all along). Just like with 3 Stegs 2 Heaven, a great name is bound to be born when you put the general public to the test, and it was a Radio 1 listener who came up with this beauty to replace the planned 'Rampant Robot' name. It flows off the tongue magnificently, the robot genuinely does blow away the dust and bits-of-robot on the arena floor, and even gets a cheeky alphabet boost. Battle of the Stars Episode 1 may well be the worst episode of Robot Wars ever made, but if nothing else, it gave us this masterpiece of a name attached to a very competent robot.

Absolutely Nauseating grabs a 6/10

• Arena Killer - 5/10 - No relation to Arena Cleaner here, they had the right idea but then they fluffed the rhyme. You could say it's more appropriate to kill the arena than clean it, but poor Arena Killer was hardly going to achieve that with its flipping paddle. Absolut Krankhaft, meanwhile, is "loveably German" which made the best out of the initials it was given, and deserves the same score.

How long did it take you to build AAAAAAAA

• Argh! - 6/10 - This is certainly a very funny name, hearing Craig Charles say "Let's hear it for AAAAAAAA" gets me every time, and I'd give it a really generous score if I could. The worrying part for me though is that we never saw the robot's name written out on the TV show, leaving me to doubt where the "Argh!" spelling even came from and if it's correct. Even with this spelling settled in, we wiki people have to deal with the "how to end sentences when robot has an exclamation mark in it" problem.

• Armadillo - 3/10 - Well I mean, it is an armadillo, but come on, not even "Armour Dillo" mate?

• Armadrillo - 6/10 - And then we got another armadillo, but this one at least has a crack at making a joke. It's not bad, the robot definitely did have a drill, albeit much less of an armadillo resemblance. I guess that means that the winner is the Series 8 withdrawal Armakillo, for being both a pun and an armadillo?

Arnold, Arnold Terminegger. You can barely fit it on one line. Add in the overly vertical main image hurting wiki formatting, and you have a robot which is great fun to watch but no fun to write about

• Arnold, Arnold Terminegger - 5/10 - What on earth were they going for here? Not just Terminegger, not just Arnold Terminegger, but "Arnold, Arnold Terminegger"...? I have no idea why it has a middle name of Arnold (if you were wondering, Arnold Schwarzenegger's middle name is Alois) but it's quite funny. It's then lost when the robot is shortened to Arnold A. Terminegger for Extreme, at no real saviour to the robot's main problem, daylight murder of the easy-to-type rule.

• Atlas - 5/10 - A good reference to the Greek titan, but like Abaddon before it, the name was very easily portrayed as having a much more mundane meaning on the show. Certainly a road Atlas won't get you very far in the arena, and it's hard to forget that first impression.

• Atomic - 7/10 - I can't really avoid showing bias here as Atomic has always been one of my favourite robots since I started watching the show, and the name has always backed it up since Day 1. I'd have no idea what the general opinion is, but I for one have always thought Atomic was an excellent and impactful name that worked well with the radioactive logo. Short, snappy, sounds good, and puts Atomic in the top billing for most episodes it appears in.

This name doesn't do it for me, but many would disagree. What do you think?

• Attila the Drum - 4/10 - Well the robot name is certainly better than the inherently flawed team name of "Team Battlebot", but I've never been big on the name Attila the Drum. The spelling used to trip me up a lot and I'm still second-guessing it every now and then, but more importantly, the similarities between 'Hun' and 'Drum' boil down to just one letter. Add to that, the reference to Attila's oil drum body becomes dated once a 'drum' becomes more common as a type of weapon, and this name becomes a bit of a relic.

• Automatic Jack - 4/10 - Huh? I don't really get it, perhaps I'd be more attached if I had any idea how you arrive at a name like "Automatic Jack".

This is only the first update to the blog that I've posted, but we've already found the single worst name in Robot Wars. This dreadful name is the reason we can't call Iron-Awe a veteran of five wars. And yet Axe-Awe was fortunate enough to be involved in two legendary Robot Wars fights in its only main series. Life isn't fair.

Iron-Awe 1.5 FLIPPED, OH GOODNESS ME by Wheely Big Cheese! That has to be a Robot Wars record flip!

• Axe-Awe - 1/10 - Oh dear oh dear oh dear. We've not even made it past the A Range and we might have already arrived at the single worst name in Robot Wars history. Axe-Awe is an exceptionally poor name. The robot itself succeeds the Series 4 axebot Iron-Awe, itself a serviceable if slightly flat pun on 'iron ore', and improves upon the design by adding a powerful flipper alongside the existing axe weapon. What better way to highlight the brand-new flipper than by calling the robot... Axe-Awe?? OK, not only are you highlighting the wrong weapon, but also the meaning of the iron ore pun has been completely lost. This then serves to tarnish the rest of the entire Iron-Awe family, as this series of machines would become such a live circuit mainstay that we've now made it all the way up to Iron-Awe 8. As far as TV Robot Wars is concerned, we jumped from Iron-Awe 2.1 straight to Iron-Awe 6 (whilst Iron-Awe 7 had already existed for years), which I suppose was unavoidable, but then you realise that Axe-Awe makes all of these names wrong too! Look at the transition from Axe-Awe to Iron-Awe 2, they are both axe/flipper combos much more alike than Iron-Awe 2 is to Iron-Awe 1. The only thing that truly separates Axe-Awe from Iron-Awe 2 in terms of identity is the red colour scheme, but that returned for the first rendition of Iron-Awe 6 anyway so it just begs the question... why was THIS not Iron-Awe 2? When you see Iron-Awe 2.1 in the Seventh Wars, is this not just Iron-Awe 3.1? Is Iron-Awe 8 not in fact Iron-Awe 9? Why has there never been an Axe-Awe 2 when there's been eight Iron-Awes? This name serves only to separate the one Iron-Awe that got lobbed out of the arena by Wheely Big Cheese from the rest of the Team Iron-Awe heavyweights, and the canon is worse off for it. You'd think I'm done, but I haven't even said the most painful bit yet. I'm not the only one confused by the awkward-sounding Axe-Awe breaking up the Iron-Awe timeline, and this conversation came up with my pals on Discord until someone (I think SFCJack?) finally says "do you think it was meant to be a pun on hacksaw?" Surely this already poor name couldn't possibly get any worst, right? There's no way it could also be a pun that bad. The connection was so loose that we thought to deny it, but the vague possibility of Axe-Awe being a pun on 'hacksaw' bugged us until I just had to quash the possibility. So I spoke with Team Iron-Awe in January 2020 at the Irish Championship, and I asked them directly: was the name Axe-Awe based upon the hacksaw tool? They told me it was. Any sliver of redemption that remained for Axe-Awe was utterly blown to pieces, and there was no room for doubt left in my mind that Axe-Awe has to be the worst fighting robot name to ever grace Robot Wars. A complete travesty.

Axe-C-Dental tragedy, or intentional middle of the road masterpiece?

• Axe-C-Dent - 5/10 - This name was the subject of debate in the collab robot names blog I did with Toon Ganondorf and NJGW, as Nick firmly believes this is one of the worst names of all time. I, on the other hand, think it's an imperfect but quirky little play on 'accident' with reference to its spinning axe weapon. Sure, it could've been done more cleanly like "Axcident", but it's a name I'd wanted to see on the show ever since the Sir Killalot DVD made the same pun in its Shunt backstory, calling it an "axe-ident waiting to happen". What do you think? Have I overrated this by giving it a firmly average 5/10 score, or was Nick right all along?

• Axios - 5/10 - I wish we could've ended on one of the more interesting topics like Axe-Awe and Axe-C-Dent, but this is fine. Axios is Greek for a 'truly deserving and worthy person' which is quite a nice name, let down by the fact Axios is not armed with any sort of axe weapon to work a pun into the mix.

B Range

Huge hit there from Backstabber!

• Backstabber - 8/10 - No joke here, Razer's first combat win randomly assigns us an 8/10 entry in the form of Backstabber. By itself, being stabbed in the back is already a worthy concept for a robot name, but this machine commits to being a physical backstabber via its weapon. This was of course a horribly impractical weapon in combat, but I love the originality and it gives us a way to picture a 'backstabber' which otherwise would be, what, a knife in someone's back?

My rating here equally praises the name and the general visuals of the machine, but I find Bamm Bamm to be an underappreciated gem as far as themes go

• Bamm Bamm - 9/10 - Relentless positivity right out of the gate in the B Range, for I'm extremely keen on the design and name of Bamm Bamm. The entire concept is an homage to The Flintstones, where Barney Rubble's son Bamm-Bamm would repeatedly hit things with his wooden club, always saying "bamm, bamm!" as he did so. This translates perfectly to Robot Wars, where the machine Bamm Bamm would do the exact same thing with its own club in battle, and even without knowledge of the fairly blatant Flintstones reference, Bamm Bamm still makes sense in its own right. Delightful bit of representation, this.

It's the return of Rot Box! Except it's Bang now?

• Bang - 3/10 - While there is some charm in the extreme simplicity of the name Bang, it's a bit of an Axe-Awe in the sense that a separate name never needed to be given. Bang is almost unchanged from its previous identity as Rot Box, and both are still very clearly the same robot. Not only that, but both Bang and Rot Box were entered by the same team. Why give it a new name at all? Tut Tut used the same name under two different teams in two series, and while I can still respect other teams deciding to use a new name for an existing loanerbot (e.g. Vert-I-Go), I can't understand why the Psycho Chicken team would go from Rot Box to Bang here. A bit of continuity helps.

• Banshee - 5/10 - Banshee is a fairly simple name for a robot that was inevitably going to be chosen at some point, and there are certainly other robots named Banshee in the modern day. I don't doubt that this was the first, but it's an uninspiring yet serviceable name.

Barbaric... *flicks through dictionary*... Response! Yes, I shall call it Barbaric Response(!)

• Barbaric Response - 7/10 - Incorporating the family name into a robot's name is a nice touch, and the Barber family have the first instance of this on the list with Barbaric Response. To go from Barber to Barbaric makes a lot of sense, and this would be good enough, but... Barbaric Response?? I have no idea how they arrived at this name, but it's peak Series 6 behaviour and frankly I don't have to know why they named it "Barbaric Response" to enjoy it. Completely out there, but unmistakably unique.

The core name "Barber-Ous" took up less than two thirds of its full name, man. Also pictured: MADE OF PLASTIC

• Barber-Ous - 6/10 - Now for the other Barber entry, we're never short of praise for the innovative design of Barber-Ous which gave us plenty of fun with the well-themed full body drum. In terms of making a fun but competitive design it succeeds, but we're here for the name. Barber-Ous is of course inherently tied to the barber's pole design and it's fairly necessary to play off that with the robot's name. You're hardly going to call it Cut & Blow-Dry. Combining 'barber' with the word barbarous made complete sense, and had they simply entered a machine called Barberous we would perhaps be looking at an 8/10. However, Barber-Ous suffers badly from its formatting. Putting the hyphen in there brings attention to the 'Ous' part of the name, and with it being capitalised, I'm again left thinking "what's an Ous?" like with the Arma-Geddon machines. This would still be forgivable, but the team just kept making things worse every time they returned, constantly adding new addendums until you're left with the nightmare that is Barber-Ous II'n a Bit. That's Barber hyphen Ous Roman Numerals II no-space apostrophe no space N a Bit. What??? Simon Rafferty you are no doubt aware of the KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) adage, it was required here, especially when the... 'n a Bit ...that the Series 7 version describes turned out to be "moving the position of the removable link so it became more likely to fall out". Way to spoil the broth.

• Barry - 6/10 - Well here it is, the first "just a person's name" robot. As it is the first, I'm willing to offer some leniency here, with Barry being one of the more amusing ones.

If you use a telescope, you can see the Anubis logo on the robot's wedge, truly making Basenji a dog-themed robot

• Basenji - 6/10 - Basenji takes its name from an African hunting dog most-used by Egyptian Pharaohs, and it's a nice little history lesson. The visual design of Basenji could have had a much more obvious dog theme, I certainly prefer the way that the featherweight Barghest (for example) takes a mythological dog and plays its visuals around that, but without knowing the theme Basenji still sounds kinda fun and cartoony in a way that it works regardless.

• Bash Gordon - 3/10 - Yikes, this is of course a Flash Gordon reference but it falls completely flat on its face. Poor Gordon, what did he do wrong to deserve a bashing like this?

Sure enough, the BEAST logo is the same one they used all the way back in Series 5, but I appreciate the Windows 8 approach of simplifying things for the reboot

• Beast - 5/10 - This is the second time now I get to talk about the 8645T series, as Series 8 saw the team officially enter under just 'Beast' for simplicity's sake. The 8645T style is still there in the logo, but the more straightforward name for the competent live circuit veteran made sense for its Series 8 campaign. Had the team jumped straight to Beast for the name of their very first robot then it would score poorly, but there's enough backstory with Eight-thousand-six-hundred-and-forty-five T to keep Beast afloat here. I have no idea what they were going for with "Harpy".

• Beast of Bodmin - 6/10 - Well I hardly think the original Beast of Bodmin myth is particularly well-known outside of Bodmin itself, but the design played up to it really nicely. I do think it's a shame that the Roadblock theme was completely left behind, but the winking eyes gave it reason for the overhaul.

Pictured: a beaver??

• Beaverbot - 2/10 - Everything about this is wrong. The robot looks nothing like a beaver, it doesn't play up to the beaver theme in any way, and has a pointless -bot suffix at the end. I'd at least expect some gnawing teeth or something. This one gets the 2/10 score for eternal dam-nation.

Aren't bees supposed to be yellow

• Bee-Capitator - 5/10 - Bee-Capitator was one of my example robots in the intro to the blog, as I do appreciate the effort to go beyond just "Bumblebee" and instead use the bee theme as a basis to start a new joke. Plot twist though, Bee-Capitator itself didn't really work all that well as the word bee can be incorporated into so many words that I don't really understand why 'decapitator' was the one they arrived at, particularly as a decapitator robot should have some kind of overhead weapon like an axe or hatchet. Just call it something daft like Unbeelievable and you'll get a chuckle out of me.

• Beef-Cake - 6/10 - lol, Beef-Cake is hardly a fitting description for this tiny featherweight box, but the contrast is quite funny. It's not like there really are many fitting descriptions for a small grey box anyway.

It's the heavyweight version of Anty B, Heavy B

• Behemoth - 7/10 - Ah yes, Behemoth is one of those robots whose name gets a lot more credit simply for who it's attached to. Call any random Series 3 drop-out Behemoth and you likely wouldn't have a 7/10, but after the name has been attached to a Robot Wars mainstay for over twenty years, you have to appreciate it. At the end of the day, Behemoth does everything it can to fit the name simply by being a big brute of a robot, and I'd certainly pick this over a more literal description like "Bulldozer". Pronunciation woes hold it back though.

Allow me to use this "image of Bernard" to highlight a blog comment which brought to my attention that an 'alienator' is an unpleasant person who causes friends to become hostile. Adapted score: 6/10

• Bernard - 5/10 - Bernard is once again a human name, though I admit it's another fairly amusing one as I couldn't tell you if I've even met a Bernard in real life before. It really is uncommon nowadays, so it's fun to see Bernard in the hands of some young boy scouts.

• Berserk & Berserk 2 - 5/10 - The Berserk series is an odd one because it presents problems that the team couldn't really have foreseen. By itself it's quite a good name to hear from the word choice, but the amount of times I've seen the robot spelled incorrectly means that the name has to be held at least somewhat responsible. From "Beserk 2 with a wedge could beat Carbide" comments on YouTube, to the fiftieth instance of our editor Diotoir spelling it as Berzerk 2 in mainspace wiki articles, it seems more rare to actually see Berserk 2 spelled correctly and that was inevitable when the TV show itself spelled it wrong on the statistics board.

Meanwhile here's Little Brother

• Big Brother - 7/10 - Big Brother gets a solid score as it's a nice double meaning. The more straightforward is that team captain Joe Watts was a big brother to his sisters (and future brother), while the main reference is to the antagonist of the George Orwell book Nineteen Eight-Four. I'm sure we've all heard of "Big Brother is watching you" and many would associate this more with the TV show Big Brother, but it's more accurate to say that the robot Big Brother is based on the thing that TV Big Brother is also based on. Sure enough, the TV show Big Brother started in the year 2000, which may have necessitated the move...

Or if you're Stuart McDonald, "BIGGER brother :)"

• Bigger Brother - 7/10 - ...to Bigger Brother! Maybe the name change was to avoid copyright with the new TV show, maybe it's just a coincidence. It is fun when the whole thing came full circle and Bigger Brother appeared on Big Brother, although you must think that the casual viewers of that show would think something like "what, THAT thing is Bigger Brother? Twelve series of Big Brother manipulating this household and this heap of metal is Bigger Brother??" But of course I'm judging the name purely for Robot Wars and I'm glad we took the leap to Bigger Brother. Joe Watts was getting older just like the machines after all. "Who wouldn't want to have a Bigger Brother like this?"

Big Spinner

• Big Nipper - 4/10 - Well I love the robot Big Nipper but I can't be kind to its name. It made enough sense in the early days, it was a robot with some big nipping claws, but it made for a fairly plain name at best. It then set a trend for the rest of the team's machines, including Little Flipper, Little Hitter, Little Spinner, and of course, Little Nipper (no relation to the antweight). These names are hardly setting the world alight either, and it's all capped off when Big Nipper returns for the reboot and completes seven of its nine main competition fights armed with a vertical spinner, rather than the nippers it's named after. This is one case where I can't let my feelings towards the robot save my feelings towards the name.

Such an unlikely robot to be a victim of the Stolen Name

• Binky - 4/10 - I don't get Binky. It's a decent name for a cat, maybe, but I can't find any sort of origin behind the name, especially now that the Google results are flooded with some Made in Chelsea lass. So why is it then, that the name Binky was not only given to a Series 3 reserve, but also a major featherweight from Team Conker? Someone help me out here...

An expertly named robot, Black

• Black and Blue - 8/10 - This might be another surprisingly high rating like Bamm Bamm from the same battle, but there's a lot of clever simplicity to Black and Blue. It doesn't take a genius to work it out, the robot is a clusterbot made up of a black machine called 'Black', and a blue machine called 'Blue'. If I had to be really arbitrary with my ranking then I'd have to subtract a point due to a robot called Blue already competing in the Dutch series, but I think we can all agree to overlook that. Black and Blue works perfectly for the clusterbot as a whole, because it can easily be broken down into the two competing halves (Blue and Black), while having its own meaning when combined, i.e. 'to beat the opponent black and blue'. Simplicity at its finest.

• Blackdevil Warzone - 6/10 - I think mystrsyko2 summed this up best when he said Blackdevil Warzone sounded like a King of Bots competitor translated directly from Chinese. This really is a hodge-podge of words but it's quite charming in that sense.

Von Dachau im Bavaria, bLAcK hOLeeee

• Black Hole - 8/10 - Thank heavens the name Black Hole wasn't taken before the German series got underway. A name as cool as Black Hole was bound to be used at some point, so it's a relief that the Black Hole we know on Robot Wars belongs to a series champion adored by fans. Really the only detractor I can give is that a name as popular as Black Hole could easily be stolen by other robots in the future, anyone could come up with it, but yet again it's simple brilliance.

Prepare to grow tired of the repeat names criticism

• Black Widow (UK) - 6/10 - It's a black spider, so it's called Black Widow. It is what it is, you can't really do much better. I'm obviously not too keen because of the robot that follows in the blog, but this wasn't the British team's fault.

• Black Widow (Extreme Warriors) - 2/10 - But you can do better when the name has been used before. Sure, there's no reason why the American team would be aware of the British Black Widow that competed only a few months prior, but I judge the names as an outsider and I'll rarely make exceptions for repeat names. Especially when this one forces me to type [[Black Widow (Extreme Warriors)|Black Widow]] on the wiki.

Now don't get me wrong, I quite like Blade, but... Blade??

• Blade - 3/10 - Wow, it's armed with a lawnmower blade, so it's called Blade. Very clever. Did you know the South Korean robot ORBY Blade is in fact also just called "Blade"? There is clearly a reason we've all continued to call it ORBY regardless.

• Bloody Murder Weapon - 8/10 - Oh I love Bloody Murder Weapon, it's absolutely hilarious. You can hardly get more deadly serious than with a name like "Bloody Murder Weapon", it's comically heavy and that makes it a delight to hear in the middle of every Dutch sentence I otherwise don't understand. It's also a neat little coincidence that it abbreviates to BMW as though it has transformed from a blood-red knife to the heat into a fancy sports car.

Blue, Blue and Blue, and their robot Blue

• Blue - 9/10 - Team Blue: Blue, Blue and Blue, and their robot Blue. I've made no secret of how funny I find the idea of Team Blue, made up three identical blue-faced team members, all named Blue, entering the show with a robot called Blue. Of course, the robot itself was completely blue without a shred of any other colour to be seen. This is how you do the joke, Team Bots FC! Entering a Chinese-language show with a pink-but-still-mostly-grey robot called Blue was not as universally funny as you hoped.

Blue, Blue, and Frank van Oorschot, and their robot, Bluemax

• Bluemax - 5/10 - Bluemax, meanwhile, was a combination of the Blue and MaxiMill teams. The issue here being that the robot was now not simply called Blue, and it had at least one team member whose name was not Blue. I preferred the full-commitment of the solo Blue team, the collaborative effort lost a lot of the appeal. It is a relief however that the entire robot was still 100% blue with none of MaxiMill's colours in sight.

• B.O.D - 2/10 - B.O.D, more like, B.A.D - Thank you for that one Craig Charles. When using an acronym for a name that's too long, you still have to hope that the acronym sounds OK in its own right, but B.O.D. just sounds daft. Add to that, "Blades of Destruction" is still shorter than the likes of "Revenge of Trouble & Strife" in the same series, making the abbreviation unneeded. Damning the name to further criticism, Blades of Destruction is also a very dull name which the robot's flimsy blade couldn't hope to represent. And to top it all off, the statistics board writes it as B.O.D with no full stop on the end like you'd expect. Truly the worst sin of the lot.

• Bodyhammer - 5/10 - Functional enough, there definitely was a hammer inside its body, and as soon as it broke the entire robot had to fight as a physical bodyhammer. This is far from the best name Robin Herrick would present to us on Robot Wars, but it's also not the worst.

Well it certainly used to be more blue in the past. Maybe this is "The Blue", and the black version in Series 4 is the "Bolt"?

• Bolt from the Blue - 6/10 - I don't mind this one, it's a little unclear how to capitalise it, but Bolt from the Blue is an expression we're all familiar with that suited the robot well. Except now the robot will forever live on in our hearts as Salt from the Blue thanks to its undignified exit from Robot Wars.

• Bondi Titch - 4/10 - Strange combination this. Bondi and Titch both have different meanings and it's quite possible to separately know neither of them. In fact, with the way we used to spell the robot as Bondi-Titch, I suspect many people didn't know what any part of the name meant (myself included) and assumed that both words would at least be related. And yet there seems to be very little connection between the two halves, with Bondi being a famous beach in Australia, and Titch... well the best we've got is that it's apparently "British and Australian slang for a young person". I consulted Toon Ganondorf for an Australian's perspective and he was no more informed than I, so I'm resigned to take his advice and chalk it up a bad name.

Bonk being hanged so that Mute can compete instead

• Bonk - 5/10 - You've got to feel bad for Team Mute when it comes to the name Bonk. They've been competing with a hammerbot called Bonk since 2013, and now they're not even the first hammerbot that comes to mind when you hear the word 'bonk'... and Nelly the Ellybot isn't even named Bonk! It's still not an especially glamorous name and there's often confusion whether or not to put an exclamation mark on the end of Bonk, so it middles out with a five out of ten. Quite nice that both Team Mute heavyweights were only four letters long.

• Bot Out Of Hell - 6/10 - Another confusing one to capitalise which prevents the machine from reaching an otherwise easy 7/10, but the reference to the Meat Loaf song Bat Out Of Hell is very clear from the outset and totally suits the robot's quick and aggressive driving.

This is what Bottweiler looks like, in case you forgot

• Bottweiler - 5/10 - Bottweiler debuted in the same series as Rottweiler so both are equally responsible for having such similar names and I won't hold it against them. Out of the two, Bottweiler appears the more creative, but this surprisingly isn't the case.

• Bot-Ugly - 4/10 - A pun based on the term 'butt-ugly', this is a very American name and one I can't really disassociate from The Butt-Ugly Martians which started airing in the same year as Extreme Warriors. I didn't like The Butt-Ugly Martians.

It's a bot, and it works

• Botwork - 6/10 - Botwork doesn't really have a clear origin and I would typically punish names that start with 'Robo-' or end in '-Bot', but starting with the word Bot ends up giving us a name that flows very nicely for no particular reason.

• Brawler - 5/10 - This one is fine, I'm glad a name that could be applicable to pretty much any robot ever built was at least used on something that has a punching motion, although Brawler's fairly passive strategy ends up adding a tinge of irony.

Is the true name "Get The Point"

• Brimhur - 3/10 - Brimhur has always been a strange name. The way Brimhur has spikes on the sides of its "chariot" wheels suggests it was a reference to the film Ben-Hur, but A) Brimhur hardly sounds like Ben-Hur, and B) What is a Brim? Too many uncertainties here.

• Broadsword - 6/10 - I appreciate the simplicity with this one. If Hypno-Disc called itself Flywheel or Carbide called itself Bar Spinner then yes we would have a problem, but a broadsword weapon was a one-off for the classic series and the rhyming within the word sounds good either way.

Toast this is your reminder to talk about Brute in the T Range!

• Broot - 3/10 - Weird decisions made here, it's like the team knew that 'Brute' was too straightforward and boring of a name, so they changed the spelling to make it more interesting. Why not change... you know, the entire name? Shout-outs to The Brute from Extreme Warriors who I'll inevitably forget to cover because it's written in my list as just Brute.

Gotta love BRVTVS MAXIMVS

• Brutus Maximus - 8/10 - These madmen took not just one, but two figures from Roman history, and combined it with the name of the muscle that forms the shape of your arse. You can't make this up. Combining Brutus, Maximus and Gluteus Maximus gives you a dangerously funny combination that also describes the robot very well: Roman visuals, performs like arse. Such a pity that robots called Brutus and Maximus would both separately enter Robot Wars at a later time (well, the former kinda did), because Brutus Maximus had already set the pinnacle for that etymology.

At least we were spared of the name being full-on #BuckyTheRobot with hashtag and all

• Bucky the Robot - 3/10 - Ah, come on guys. Had you just named it 'Bucky' to personify the buck teeth design then you'd have a very solid name worthy of at least a 6/10. But then, Team Tomco had to do the unnecessary by reminding us that it is a robot. They didn't just call it something like Buckybot, oh no, they went all-in with the painful title of "Bucky the Robot". You realise that all 700+ competing machines in the show were also robots, yes? I understand that this was to differentiate the machine from its mascot - Bucky the Mascot - but could you not just have separate names for each? Or, enter the competition with "Bucky" whilst always affirming that the team member is Bucky the Mascot? Maybe even go the entire way, call them both Bucky, and stress that they are the same entity? The name was so longwinded that it humorously backfired when the team's t-shirt manufacturer sent them shirts with the hashtag #BuckyTheRobert on it. This really could have been avoided!

It's not even two bugs? It's just one?

• Bugs - 3/10 - Wow. This is even more direct than calling it "Ladybird". It's like taking Pitbull and calling it "Dogs". At least it's not just... Bug? I even suspected maybe it was a reference to the school name being something like Uxbridge Grammar School (UGS), but no it was just Chesham School for this team. Confusingly basic.

• Bulldog Breed - 7/10 - I'm keen on this one. A bulldog is one of those core dogs that was bound to be a robot at some point, but Tony Somerfield didn't settle for the bare minimum and gave us the quintessentially British name Bulldog Breed. I have to concede its Techno Games name of British Bulldog was a step beyond, referencing the childrens' playground game (and Series 1 Trial!) while playing up to the Union Flag bulldog theme brilliantly. That name would perhaps breach an 8/10.

Alright it is kinda bumbling in this image

• Bumblebot - 3/10 - This name is utterly devoid of meaning. Take the word bumble and you think of either a bumblebee (which this robot does not resemble), or just bumbling around in a drunken stupor. With a supposed top speed of 15mph you would like to think Bumblebot's pace around the arena would be a bit beyond mere bumbling, even if it turned out to be true. Lazily throw a -bot suffix on the end and call it a day, bringing this disappointment to a close.

• Bunny Attack - 6/10 - Nice little name this, it would've been all to easy to just call it Bunny or Bunnybot, or worst of all Rabbot, but Bunny Attack stands out quite nicely which also adds a layer of irony drawing attention to its utterly useless "attacks".

Ah yes, Buzz, the predecessor to Flippa, just how I remember it

• Buzz - 5/10 - This is the first time on the list where a competitor has "stolen" the name of a robot from a Robot Wars video game, which is generally a much more acceptable thing to do, especially in the USA where I doubt the games shifted many copies at all. Buzz is one of the better video game names to take, but the score is held back by the robot not referencing anything I'd associate with the word buzz, be it a buzzing sound, a buzzsaw, or Buzz Lightyear. Does this mean it loses points for being a person's name?

And today's antweight that I'm tearing to shreds is...

• Buzzant - 2/10 - We close off the B range with an antweight, and it's another stinker. Most antweight robots would feature the word 'ant' somewhere in the name as it's a very easy way to make a joke about the robot being an antweight, while pulling from the vast array of words that naturally have 'ant' in them. We'll see plenty of good examples later on; Buzzant is not one of them. The likes of Pants, CombatANT and Militant are all real words in their own right. Buzzant is not. Well, it's the French word for 'buzzer' but that isn't the origin here. It's simply buzz (from the buzzsaw-like weapon), and ant. That's it. I mean OK, we'd have a bigger problem if they did leave it as just Buzz because then we'd have a repeat name, but throwing "ant" on the end has to be the laziest workaround possible. You could even just call it Buzzsaw?? Utterly uninspiring.

C Range

I've never heard of the company SCOOT but supposedly the entire visual design of Caliban is an homage to their sponsor. I wonder what SCOOT thought of the name Caliban!

• Caliban - 5/10 - Caliban takes its name from Shakespearian literature, even tossing around names like King Lear and Tibalt (I didn't spell it wrong, they did) during the build process. Much as I would initially turn my nose at Shakespeare references based on a desire to learn about anything else at school, I decided to give Caliban a chance and see if he was a worthy namesake for a robot. This research took longer than I care to admit because all Shakespeare readers seem to have a different opinion on whether he's a sympathetic victim or a true villain. I'm not really sure how it's a debate, his main crime is heavy enough that I doubt a name like Caliban would even be permitted by the BBC in the modern run of Robot Wars (I'll let you look that one up yourselves) but I must somehow assign it a score. Certainly I think that what Caliban did in The Tempest is probably too heinous for Robot Wars and could have made the name a straight candidate for a 1/10, but I've also learned so much about Shakespeare and his modern analysts across various defence essays of Caliban that I'm intrigued enough to give it a dangerously average 5/10 rating.

Carbide written horizontally is a worse name than Carbide written vertically, I'm afraid

• Carbide - 6/10 - I, um, really didn't expect to open up this blog with a lengthy analysis of a Shakespearian character, but we're delving into another subject of much dread in my school days, where the realm of chemistry is up next to give us the strongest machine in Robot Wars history, Carbide. There's a lot of positives about Carbide as like Behemoth before it, the name is totally synonymous with the extremely noteworthy robot. It also helped to set up a future naming convention including the likes of BattleBots success story Cobalt and Chinese TV champion Tungsten too, although I prefer Dave Moulds' simpler naming theme of 360, 540, 720 and such. The biting way that the reboot announcer would say Carbide also added a healthy bit of impact, but beyond that... it's a bit uninspiring. Rewatching older series of Robot Wars and seeing the likes of Inverterbrat roll out with a "multi carbide-tipped saw" makes the future champion sound a bit underwhelming. Such is the risk of your robot's chemical compound name being something that can be integral to the foundations of other robots, like a lesser version of naming something "Voltage" or "Lithium".

Not just one, but two legends of Robot Wars

• Cassius - 7/10 - Within this entry and the last we have managed to cover the runners-up of Series 2, 8 and 10, certainly a step up from our opener who got knocked out of the Gauntlet by Piece de Resistance. Cassius is the first robot in the C range that I can wholeheartedly praise, for while the robot's fighting style was hardly like that of a boxer, the 'floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee' mantra became an inseparable part of Cassius and it makes for a great package worthy of a Robot Wars legend like Rex Garrod and his machine.

Spike Tyson would probably be a much better name than Cassius Chrome, although remarkably it has the exact same issue as Caliban...

• Cassius Chrome - 1/10 - Well I didn't say the House Robots wouldn't be joining in, so allow me to cover up the fact that this is a totally spur-of-the-moment decision and say it was planned from the outset...! Unfortunately though our first House Robot is Cassius Chrome, whose name was frankly unacceptable. You can at least understand the Shockwaves and Spin Doctors of this world not knowing about the first competitors to use the same name, but for the producers of the TV show itself to ignore a former runner-up and hugely popular competitor like Cassius from the show's past and affix that name to a widely unpopular House Robot was just poor. Well alright, they couldn't have known how disliked Cassius Chrome would become, but it certainly made the naming 'homage' feel even more offensive than it already was. There is no way the producers didn't know about the robot Cassius, and Rex Garrod's retirement doesn't excuse the blatant reuse. Even the "Chrome" part is nothing like "Clay". Just call it Spike Tyson and have done with it.

Grievances with the name aside, I must admit I would've been tempted to buy CV last year if I weren't already halfway through building heavyweights for the "2020" season of BattleBots

• Cataclysmic Variabot - 3/10 - Blimey, it's not been that long since we had AM CVn and we're already tackling the next one from this team. Cataclysmic Variabot can be summed up in one sentence from its own builder: "The staff at the events complained about the length and unpronounceable name". I really don't need to say much more than that, but there's still more problems. Like with AM CVn, yes I understand that the team was made up of astronomy and astrophysics students, and yes Cataclysmic Variables were the team captain's particular field of research. But sometimes, what may be of interest to you unfortunately just doesn't capture the people you're speaking to in the same way (it's so hard to recommend a good video game these days), and a cataclysmic variable is a stretch too far for your standard Robot Wars viewer. Eight syllables in and you finally get to the pun which is just changing "-ble" to "-bot", which is a lazy pun at best. To be honest I thought "Variabot" was more down to the interchangeable weaponry which the robot did have, but it's wiped out by knowing that the entire "pun" is changing cataclysmic variable to Cataclysmic Variabot. "Thanks for that one!"

• • CV -  6/10 - However I do feel it's fair to rate its shortened name separately with a lot more praise. CV was of course still the name Cataclysmic Variabot so there's a clear ceiling to the score, but it works much better as an acronym especially as even astronomers use "CV" in official works. Entirely by accident, a brand-new pun has also been born, as this team of students entered the University Challenge during Extreme 2 with a robot called "CV", something that a lot of students will need to write over the course of their studies! Naturally this pun (credit to RA2 for first pointing it out) was certainly not intentional which means I shouldn't factor it in, but I have done anyway to help give it a "Most Improved" award.

I may support Arena Cleaner and Cathadh at almost every opportunity, but I can't quite back up Fuzzy's name choice

• Cathadh - 4/10 - Well Cathadh is a mixed bag to say the least. It's certainly a far cry from the 10/10 name of Arena Cleaner, but it does have some positives of its own despite a barrage of flaws. The best aspect of the name Cathadh is its consistency with Fuzzy's longstanding theme of all robot names relating to the cold in some form, all the way from FrostBite in the year 2000 right up to Fuzzy's 2018 robot Hypothermia. Completely personal one here, but I also find Cathadh wonderfully gratifying to type. Something about the way it all fits on the keyboard, I could type it all day. Cathadh Cathadh Cathadh. However the problems outweigh the good, and Cathadh has a huge problem in that the TV presenters, viewing audience, and even the team captain do not know how to correctly say the Gaelic word cathadh! They all universally agreed on the makeshift pronunciation of "cath-ard", and even then Fuzzy was supposedly using a different pronunciation until the TV producers "corrected" him. I say "corrected" because comments from Gaelic viewers still suggest we were off-base, not that I'm any closer to finding out how it was meant to be said. Challenging spelling and a lack of obvious meaning to the everyday audience also put a limit on Cathadh's otherwise fairly generous 4/10 rating.

Here's Cedric, meanwhile about the Slammer...

• Cedric Slammer - 5/10 - It's a little tricky to rate Cedric Slammer. Typically the human name approach holds a robot name back, but here Cedric gets a bit of a pass because it's clearly the monkey mascot on top of the robot who is named Cedric, while the robot itself would be Slammer. It does add a bit of personality to what would otherwise be a boxy vertical spinner, although there's hardly a great amount of logic behind the combination.

• Centurion - 6/10 - I can finally have an easy one?? When I started the C Range, I didn't think I was signing up for two UK runner-ups, the dilemmas of Caliban and Cassius Chrome, and puzzling names like Cataclysmic Variabot and Cathadh all back-to-back! Centurion is finally a straightforward one which everyone can understand but no-one would particularly admire.

Cerberus is known for being a three-headed dog? Here's a no-headed dog!

• Cerberus - 7/10 - Well it must be said that I can never hear Cerberus in the same way again after an elderly Coronation Street character was introduced with a dog called Cerberus but I shall put that aside for the ranking. This is a very good fit, with the distinctive shiny dog look of the machine backed up by the name of the well-known guard dog of the Underworld. It's a very clear link and works well for a menacing dog robot, but falls short of the upper echelons due to Cerberus from Greek mythology being known for having three heads, compared to the robot's one (or none, if you're watching Series 4).

Just in case there are any cynics, the Ceros website does cite Inertia-Labs as a reference, alongside Techno Destructo to my surprise! The only way I could even consider a score lower than the perfect 10/10 would be if the robot was originally known as Rhino and was later forced onto the new name, but as far as I can tell it's been Ceros from the early stages of development

• Ceros - 10/10 - And we have made it to the first 10/10 on the list! Ceros to me is a perfect name as it just checks all the boxes. I must praise it for being a completely unique name, one entirely synonymous with the robot, yet it still has a clear origin and meaning within the space of just five letters. The robot's boxy shape, central flipping arm, subtle animalistic traits and shiny steel design is all a clear reference to BattleBots competitors such as Toro and The Matador, all built by Team Inertia-Labs. The real clincher is that Inertia-Labs were known during the first four seasons of BattleBots as "Team Rhino", with this being the name of their first robot. It makes complete sense then that Francis Smith would pay tribute to Inertia-Labs with a suitably Rhino-themed name, but what exactly to call it? We can't just call it Rhino, that would be too blatant of a reference and much too basic of a name. Case in point, a robot called Rhino had already competed in Extreme 1, and when Ceros turned up to its Series 7 qualifier it fought a brand-new machine from Team Reactor called - you guessed it - Rhino! So that name is off the cards, how else to make this work? Francis Smith's brainwave was to take the word rhinoceros, and use the other half for his robot! I sincerely doubt that a name like "Ceros" had been used for any given purpose up to this point, but sure enough we've all said 'rhinoceros' before, we just needed to notice it! At the end of it all, he'd successfully distinguished Ceros from all the other Rhino robots of the world, while owning a beautifully succinct yet clever name that really clicks when you figure it out. A sure-fire candidate for my favourite name in Robot Wars. I wish that could be the end of the story but... well, I'll continue this in the R Range...

At least Apollo 13 was a success in the end, you can't call a robot Challenger and expect to have any fortune

• Challenger - 3/10 - Challenger is a bit of a doomed prospect for a name, isn't it? While the literal meaning of the word challenger makes good inspiration for a robot name, you can't overlook the importance of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, perhaps the most tragic failure in space flight history. I mean really, you're taking the name of a space shuttle which burned up in 73 seconds and killed all seven of the astronauts on board, and giving it to a fighting robot? Are you asking for your machine to catch fire and fall apart one minute after being plugged in? Talk about a Death Flag...

Did you know that the font on Chaos 2's flipper was later reused by Sabretooth? Have fun unseeing that one

• Chaos & Chaos 2 - 7/10 - Well apparently the key to success in Robot Wars was to have a name starting with C, we've had Cassius, Carbide, and now the two-time champion Chaos 2! This is a name that by itself would probably be closer to a 6/10, but the pure icon status of Chaos 2 itself (especially adorned in the distinctive red logo) gives it enough credence for a seven. Chaos is simply one of those quality words which deserved to be a robot, and boy did it. It's a little unfortunate that like Dominator and Thermidor later into the blog, there was a 2 affixed to its name for an overwhelming majority of its career, but again it played into the logo nicely and you can never really unhear a name like Chaos 2 after how much exposure we've had. Also Chaos 2 is the name of a boss in Sonic Adventure which released in the same year as the Second Wars and that to me is neverendingly funny.

It's very possible that my favourite preboot and reboot names are right here in this blog update. Can Cherub and Ceros be beaten? Who's better out of those two? There's a lot to answer...

• Cherub - 10/10 - It feels like mere moments ago when I awarded Ceros the first 10/10 in the blog so far, but amazingly we have another already! Cherub is another example of a perfect name that couldn't be any better. As the smaller, playful follow-up to the team's robots Saint and Gabriel, the name Cherub is given to this little machine to keep the Christianity theme going while reflecting the size contrast from the other Team Saint robots very well. Of course, if you look deeply into religion then accurately depicted cherubim would be much more frightening creatures, with the Book of Ezekiel describing a cherub as a 'four-faced beast' with the head of a lion, an ox etc. Really though, I think we're all much more likely to go with the accepted public image of a cherub, the tubby lil baby angels. It's very clear that Team Saint wanted to pay homage to these cherubs, and they went to every available length to do so. The robot was built by 50-something year old Craig Colliass, but he didn't even appear on the televised team in order to prioritise his kids who better suited the baby angel name. Cherub was also perfectly capable of running inverted on the live circuit, and would have beaten PP3D by knockout if this were retained for TV, but if Sarah Colliass says "without the wings it wouldn't be Cherub", the decorative wings are going on! Team Saint picked the perfect name from their already excellent Christianity naming convention, and went to every available length to make sure Cherub reflected its namesake perfectly. A wonderfully unique and befitting name that only Team Saint could have done this well.

See the serpent tail (back), lion's head (middle), and goat's body (front??)

• Chimera - 7/10 - The name Chimera was begging to be taken all the way through the original lifespan of Robot Wars and it defies belief that it was never used. It took Colin Scott to finally use the name in 2011, and sure it didn't really play up to the whole lion's head / goat's body / serpent's tail appearance of a chimera, but its new team gave this a go with Chimera2 by representing the "three distinct sections" idea with the robot's axe (serpent tail), body (has a lion graphic on it), and wedge (the goat's body, I guess).

• Chip - 7/10 - Simple and clean this, a nice charming name. The robot's weapon is poker chip-shaped, while the logo in Extreme 2 looks like a computer chip, so there's a few different ways to interpret this very short and chirpy name. Good stuff.

It hurts me to write anything other than praise about Chompalot, I love the robot, but that's not what the names blog is about

• Chompalot - 4/10 - We all give Stuart McDonald grief for the one time he introduced Sir Chromalot as "Sir Chompalot" but the similarities had to be there for the confusion to arise in the first place. After Sir Killalot, Sir Chromalot, Sir Force A Lot and the like, I was pretty much done with Alot of these names and Chompalot was just another for the pile really. The biggest concern here is the similarity with General Chompsalot, which the team were no doubt unaware of but it certainly creates problems for us. This is a shame because Chompalot itself was a very likeable and enjoyable robot to watch, but the name is just OK, bordering on 'taken'.

Well, Chopper came out, I think with one plan in mind... Let's give it an extremely normal name. Let's just meet the absolute standard, let's do our very very alright-est

• Chopper - 5/10 - Pffft, it's time for Toast to talk about Chopper again. I feel like most people reading this blog are already aware that Chopper is in my Top 10 favourite robots purely on the account of its hilariously poor performance in combat, but I'm very sad to say that its name doesn't give me much room for praise. It's decent enough, the robot was definitely armed with a helicopter blade-style weapon, and this made total sense for a team of three pilots to enter on Robot Wars. I just hope they don't fly their aircraft like they drive robots! No matter how much I love Chopper, the name is extremely on the nose and was just a bad idea to have anywhere near Philippa Forrester.

If CombatANT was deemed to be eliminated when it was pitted in Round 1, Chroma would have been the one moving on

• Chroma - 7/10 - I'm actually very keen on this one. Chroma is the Greek word for colour, but developed its own more specific meaning in the English-speaking world, still inherently linked to colour of course. The world would be nothing without colour and I think this is a great thing to celebrate with a robot name. The only downside is that Chroma itself was not very colourful at all, being largely grey with green wheels and a marker pen logo. A wider spectrum of colours could have unlocked an even higher score.

• Clawed Hopper - 6/10 - A bit of thought went into this one. A clodhopper describes a big, heavy shoe, which the walking mechanism of Clawed Hopper certainly feels like. The team certainly did it more accurately in Techno Games when the entire thing was just a big shoe named Clodhopper, but here Clawed Hopper also gets to make a decent nod to its claw weapons. IDK though, it just doesn't quite do it for me? It's a little slow to say out loud, and I certainly didn't know what a clodhopper was until years after I first saw the robot in action.

Was it Close Enough? Honestly not, but you get what you're given

• Close Enough - 8/10 - I think there's a lot of novelty to this one. Both this machine and a future entry in the N Range perfectly sum up how their builders felt about the final product, and they really do feel like they came up with the name only at the very end of the process. Functionally in battle it wasn't anywhere near Close Enough, they had a lot more to do before this posed a serious threat in the arena, but I do love how basic its external appearance is with a name like Close Enough.

• Cobra (UK) - 3/10 - Boring. Calling a robot Cobra was just way too predictable, and this robot does itself no favours by having no resemblance to a snake, relying on a stuffed toy to convey the idea. I guess a pneumatic spike is a good weapon choice for a Cobra, but it's just so default that I can't praise it.

Five seconds, that's how long it takes to type "cobra robot wars" into Google and see that it was taken

• Cobra (Belgian) - 1/10 - It's one thing to call a robot Cobra for the first time, but to use it again is even more annoying. There's no excuses for reusing Robot Wars names in the reboot, the internet is widespread now and you only need to Google "cobra robot wars" to see if it had already been taken. Not only was Cobra taken, it was used by one of the most infamously poor machines of the Seventh Wars, which put Belgian Cobra off on the wrong foot before it even began. The weaponry of Cobra certainly made an effort to meet the snake theme, but there were so many other snakes in the world that hadn't been used for a robot name yet, Python being a good example. I won't try and seriously suggest my "Boo, Hiss" idea from the Series 9 names blog, but even something as silly as that trumps the reused Cobra name. Even the team didn't seem to like it that much, they reverted straight back to Brutus as soon as Series 10 was done...

Wow it actually says "ROT" on top instead of "RIP", I never noticed

• Coffin-Bot - 3/10 - The loanerbots do have an excuse to get away with weak names sometimes, teams often found themselves using them when they had no intention of competing with anything other than their own hand-built machines, and these kind of names have to be decided on the spot really. Some teams still did an excellent job under the conditions, which we'll cover as the blog progresses, but Coffin-Bot isn't one of them. It's a simple violation of the "just put -bot on the end" rule which makes a robot feel more generic than it should be. We know it's a robot, tell us more about the coffin. Or don't, whatever.

Colossus was far from the worst robot in Series 6, haters don't @ me

• Colossus - 7/10 - You know what, Colossus actually does quite well here. The only requirement for a machine to use a good name like Colossus is for it to be at least above average in size, and the Series 7 version was pretty giant. A rare escape from criticism for Colossus.

• CombatANT - 7/10 - Perhaps the best-known "ant" pun in the robot combat world, and likely the best name of the bunch in Robot Wars. Whether you pronounce the name as 'combatant' or 'Combat Ant', both meanings come across clearly. Unfortunately its creator didn't seem to agree and felt the need to capitalise the name as CombatANT, carelessly losing himself a point in the scoring.

Comengetorix is the best name in Robot Wars according to fellow 'name rater' Toon Ganondorf and I certainly think it's up there with the best

• Comengetorix - 10/10 - The C Range is going really, really well, isn't it! Comengetorix was of course the follow-up to Series 2-4 competitor Vercingetorix which we'll be covering in its own right much further into this blog, but we know that to be a modestly good name that was fitting enough for a recurring robot. Comengetorix meanwhile is a genius twist on the same name, combining the emperor Vercingetorix with the phrase 'come and get it' into a wonderfully unique hybrid scarcely seen on Robot Wars. This was then of course hammed up to the max with plenty of "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough" quotes, and equally retained the two aspects of the name. I do wish the name Comengetorix was introduced for Series 4, as the jump from Vercingetorix 2 to Vercingetorix 3 was much more significant than the jump from Vercingetorix 3 to Comengetorix. Still though, even if it may have come a year late, Comengetorix is the perfect follow-up name.

Concussion armed with its new interchangeable weapon, the United Kingdom

• Concussion - 5/10 - I was originally quite keen on the name Concussion, but it's one that's slipped over time. Originally I thought of it as "one of those words that just needed to be a robot", and I don't doubt that Concussion could give me at least a concussion if it whacked me in the head. Nowadays though, I really don't feel the name inspires much of a personality, which it kinda needed to distinguish itself from the other drum spinners, particularly Sabretooth. If you were told a robot called Concussion would be in Series 9, you can't really speculate what it would look like, and the team essentially had to rely on the colour orange to build up the robot's most defining trait (not counting Tim Rackers as part of the robot).

Constrictor is a decent name, but who names their team "UK Robotics"?

• Constrictor - 6/10 - Constrictor is pretty solid on the whole. I do like that they went with just Constrictor over the full 'Boa Constrictor', it leaves some room for the other meanings of the word to weigh in, and the flipper/crusher weapon of the robot was an OK fit for the name. The robot's visual design hardly suited the snake theme beyond this though, and snakes were already a common point of inspiration.

• Conquering Clown - 6/10 - A great robot for personality, and the name backs this up relatively well. It's a bit on the long side, especially when the robot became Conquering Clown 2, but it does more than the unthinkable alternatives like "Roboclown" and was a fun title. However it was often nicknamed Killer Clown on the show by the other presenters and over time I've come to wonder if a straightforward known name like that would have been a better match.

I'm using Corkscrew Two as the image and there's nothing you can do about it

• Corkscrew - 7/10 - Corkscrew was a fairly popular robot despite its limited success, and the name compliments it well. The robot's full-body spinner obviously rotated in a corkscrew fashion, and the spring on top helped enforce it further. A good way to recognise a real-world 'spinner' without going for something all-out destructive like a whirlpool or a hurricane. Random plus points for being the only team to use Corkscrew Two instead of the standard Corkscrew 2.

Imagine the name Corporal Punishment and then affix it to something like The General. Would that not suddenly make the exact same name much more likeable?

• Corporal Punishment - 5/10 - This one's definitely quite dark, which a lot of the Series 2 teams went for. Corporal Punishment does it quite well, but I also feel like there was a lot of missed potential. Why not start a rivalry with Sgt. Bash and design Corporal Punishment with a military theme to play off the 'Corporal' part of the name? Surely there must be a comedy character called Cpl. Punishment somewhere in the realm of fiction. It adds a fun double meaning to the otherwise very heavy name, giving not only the name Corporal Punishment more personality, but also the unpainted grey-box robot itself gains more personality too.

Team Terminal Damage
RogueTwo Robotics
Caley Creations
Team Coyote. Yep, that's the one

• Coyote - 6/10 - At surface level, Coyote is a good name backed up by a very appealing robot design. Really it all deserves a higher score than I've given it, but of course, this blog is written by one of the wiki's most pedantic individuals and thus I'm forced to apply my meaningless restrictions. The name Coyote was certainly eligible for use on TV, this was the first robot on record to be called Coyote. It does however give us a bit of a headache on the wiki due to there already being a Team Coyote on Robot Wars, the team behind Lambsy and friends. On its own this would be a minor flaw at best, but from an editor's perspective I find it to be a shame. This is because Jamie McHarg's team, which usually went by Team RogueTwo Robotics (and nowadays Caley Creations), specifically adopted 'Team Coyote' for Robot Wars and advised that we reflect this on the wiki, also presenting knowledge of the Lambsy team without us even needing to ask. Again this kind of trivial 'problem' means nothing to 99% of Robot Wars viewers, but I really do think the efforts of Jamie McHarg and Calum Jones on the live circuit warrant their own team page, but then we end up with two articles called Team Coyote (Series 5) and Team Coyote (Series 9) for teams that spanned multiple series and... yeah, selfish reasons, but it stops Coyote at a 6/10. Of course, Roadrunner is perhaps the best minibot name to date.

I go to where this VT was filmed bimonthly as it's the venue for Robodojo, the main featherweight event in the UK. If you went to Robonerd then that means you went to Dantomkia's VT location

• Crackers 'n' Smash - 6/10 - And immediately following up Coyote is Crackers 'n' Smash, both known for debuting in the final heat of Series 9 and facing off in the Head-to-Heads. I like Crackers 'n' Smash but I've always been left with questions. The show and even the team themselves could never seem to make their mind up on how to style the 'N' in the name, and we've had countless conflicting reports, but I just trust what's written on the team shirts. Judging the overall package of Crackers 'n' Smash, it's a really charming name that gives both halves their own identity and appears to be a play on "bangers and mash" which is a pretty funny origin for a robot. Still though, how did we arrive at Crackers? I'd already be satisfied with a robot called Bangers 'n' Smash, but somehow we also threw some cheese crackers into the mix and now I'm trying to dip by Jacob's cream crackers into some gravy and mashed potato?? I think we've gone a bit far off-track here lads, but a 6/10 still given for the charm of what I think is the backstory.

Crank-E, the hero of Cranktaro: Crank-Crank Heartbreak

• Crank-E - 3/10 - We're firmly in reboot territory here, but it's not gone too well for Robin Herrick this time with Crank-E perhaps being his weakest name. The robot follows on from Kill-E-Crank-E, itself an awkward name but one that at least had clear etymology. I can get behind the completely redesigned Crank-E having a different but linked name, but simply chopping off the first half of the name isn't really the right way to go about things. Herrick was certainly confident in his decision, describing the change as "evolving the machine while devolving the name" when we asked him, but... well the fact that we needed to ask him at all highlights the problem. It's not really clear if Crank-E was meant to be a true successor to Kill-E-Crank-E or if it was just a forced shortened name from the producers like Cataclysmic Variabot to CV. My last point is entirely a 'just me' thing but I'm also heavily reminded of the Hamtaro games where "puns" like Stead-E, Sesam-E, Fend-D, Libert-T, Thank-Q, were all over the place. And thus I am crutched to think of Crank-E as part of a universe made up of talking hamsters motivated by the power of friendship.

Guys it's Crasha Gnasha

• Crasha Gnasha - 4/10 - I'm not sure what to think of a robot which from head-to-tail is one of the most full-on replications of a shark that you can make, only to then give it a name with absolutely no relevance to a shark at all. It's certainly not a hard rule that animal-themed robots must have animal names, take Snookums as a good example from a fellow shark-building team, but there's so little meaning in Crasha Gnasha that it feels too subverted.

• Crazy Coupe 88 - 4/10 - TV and film references are often a great way to go with robot names, but too many cooks spoil the broth and Crazy Coupe 88 attempts to overachieve. The Creepy Coupe from Wacky Races and the Crazy 88 from Kill Bill are both valid name sources, but the combination is one of the most random I've ever heard. It just didn't gel. Iron Heart 88, meanwhile, is a 10/10 because I was on its application form for Series 9.

• Crippler - 3/10 - Not a fan here. It could eventually cripple you, but so can all robots. There's such a clear executioner design to the robot that I'm stunned the team didn't just go with that.

A true iconic victim, Hypno-Disc had Stealth and Robogeddon, Chaos 2 had Crocodilotron, Wheely Big Cheese had Axe-Awe, and Razer had Matilda(!)

• Crocodilotron - 5/10 - This works better than it ought to. It's your typical concept of animal name + robot suffix, but instead of the obvious Crocobot or Robocroc, we instead borrow from 'mechatron' and end up with Crocodilotron. Genuinely not bad, although the spelling of Mechatron often led this machine to be mistakenly spelled 'Crocodilatron' which is fair enough really.

Genuine question, what comes to your mind first out of Chronos and Cronus for this machine's namesake?

• Cronos - 4/10 - All of a sudden I'm very curious about this one, but not exactly in a good way. This seemed a fairly straightforward link to me at first, the team's first robot was called Zeus, so their second robot was Cronos, named after the personification of time 'Chronos' also from Greek mythology. Of course, this would mean they spelled Chronos wrong, but I'd still give it an OK score on the grounds of being near enough. But upon further research, there is actually another option. Also found in Greek mythology is Cronus, who is - get this - Zeus' father! Certainly at a first glance/listen I would think our robot Cronos was a reference to the more phonetically similar Chronos, but with Cronus having even closer ties to Zeus, could Cronus be the true namesake? I can't tell, but either way they spelled something wrong.

We at least got the classic 101 vs Cruella: Battle of the Dalmatians in the form of judge Martin Smith knocking 101 out of the Third Wars against Hypno-Disc

• Cruella - 8/10 - I think this rating might surprise a few people, but I'm giving pure praise to Cruella. Simply being a name with "Cruel" in it already makes Cruella appropriate for a robot, but of course it was Disney who thought of this much sooner and gave us Cruella de Vil, which the robot lightly references thanks to its black-and-white spotted shell in Series 1. This would give Cruella enough credence for a cheeky 7/10, but there's even a bonus reason to bump it up one more spot, as Cruella also houses the acronym UEL, i.e. University of East London. This is the same reason that the team of students were known as The Duellists, it's UEL again! While simple at first glance, Cruella is a bit of a triple whammy that I've grown to like.

How I wish you could've been in the main competition

• Crusader 2 - 5/10 - I'm fond of the name Crusader, it's a bit inevitable and was always going to be used at some point, but it's a worthy name that warranted a robot flying the flag. Crusader from the Pinball would achieve at least a 6/10, perhaps more if it became a Robot Wars mainstay, but the quick transition to Crusader 2 means it actually falls back a bit. The differences between the two Crusader machines are minimal, yet all of its combat fights now take place under the sequel name before it could ever enter a main series as just Crusader. This is more the fault of the producers not picking Crusader for the Series 3 heats, but I wish we could simply call it Crusader.

• Crusher - 2/10 - Really poor effort guys. It has a crusher, so we called it Crusher. Get in line behind Blade and Spike.

Crushtacean for many is the first robot that comes to mind when you think of good Robot Wars names. Krab-Bot would score no higher than a 4/10 but I can't blame the team for using a different name in the Dutch Wars

• Crushtacean - 10/10 - That's right, we get a fourth 10/10 in the C Range! This probably won't happen again. Crushtacean is perhaps one of two shining examples most commonly cited as a perfect name, with extremely wide appeal. It's a crab with crushing claws, so it's called Crushtacean. It is impossible to find a better fit than that. The only possible criticism that could even threaten to dock a point is Craig Charles and Jonathan Pearce constantly butchering the name in interviews, but that is no fault of the Vissers. It helps so much that the machine's visuals compliment the name marvellously; Crushtacean is very much a form-over-function design and yet it ended up being extremely functional regardless! All this means Crushtacean is not just a candidate for the best name in Robot Wars, but perhaps a candidate for one of the most likeable robots altogether.

Cunning Plan with the "Christmas present" on top

• Cunning Plan - 7/10 - Excellent name for Series 1 standards. A very recognisable Blackadder reference that also works in everyday speech, and indeed it would be a perfectly fine robot name even if Blackadder never existed. All that holds Cunning Plan back from the top bunks is a lack of reference to its namesake in the robot's design, or indeed a reference to anything. Fun fact, as a kid I used to think the University of Reading logo on top of Cunning Plan was, in fact, a picture of a Christmas present with a ribbon around it.

Oh hey it has a wolf logo just like Lambsy, never noticed

• Cutlet - 7/10 - Team Coyote (Series 6) does it again, with another entry in their line of lamb and sheep-themed robots. This one takes a much darker approach, being derived from a slice of meat often made from sheep or lamb, but this also plays up to the featherweight's cutting disc nicely. We all know I'm building up a an even higher score for a future entry in the Lambsy line, but Cutlet is good by itself.

Cyclone, a simultaneously excellent and uninspired name

Cyclone, a simultaneously uninspired and excellent name

• Cyclone (US) - 6/10 - It's extremely difficult to rate Cyclone because the namesake is spot on for a big spinner like this. What is a cyclone if not a big spinner in the real world? Of course, a name like Cyclone is too good to be true, and it's been used on tons of robots now. The Cyclone in question here was the first to compete on Robot Wars, and maaaaybe the first robot ever named Cyclone, but it did debut in exactly the same year as a fellow Cyclone in BattleBots before it was copied by a plethora of other Cyclone fighting robots and robotic vacuum cleaners. I am at least glad that the most important Cyclone in robotic combat was potentially the first, but I can't completely praise the Pitzers for being the first to use Cyclone, in the same way you can't give full credit to the first boy named Thomas or the first dog named Rover.

• Cyclone (Dutch) - 3/10 - Meanwhile here's one of those other Cyclones. This one was built only one year after the American Cyclone, and it's completely understandable that Dutch roboteers wouldn't know about it (hence the 3/10 rather than a two or one), but it's one in a long line. Not having John Findlay in the reboot was a crime but it would've been even worse if his Cyclone actually appeared in Series 10.

No relation to Cygnus X3...

• Cygnus X-1 - 5/10 - Cygnus is a good namesake. It's Latin for swan, but is most commonly known for the constellation, followed by the spaceship. The X-1 is the clue to the real origin, with a Cygnus X-1 being a galactic X-ray source within the Cygnus constellation. However, this isn't obvious to those of us who aren't scientists, a problem shared by...

I mean surely it was obvious that Sickness Cygnus X3 was from the CV team, right? They're both incredibly boxy...! Maybe Cygnus X3 has a hint of purple to give the game away but you really can't tell

• Cygnus X3 - 3/10 - ...these guys again!! We're still in the early days of the blog, but the Cataclysmic Variabot team have had four entries already, each more difficult than the last. It's absolutely remarkable that two unrelated teams tried to enter the Seventh Wars with a robot called Cygnus X-Something, and much like the legendary coincidence that is Dennis the Menace (look this up if you don't know about it), neither party could have known about the other robot being built. And hey, it's not like the names are exactly the same, with Cygnus X3 this time being named after a slightly different X-ray star system. However, I will be giving Cygnus X3 a lower score than Cygnus X-1 on a couple of accounts. One, I'm a bit fed up of highly scientific astrophysics names from Team Variabot. Two, Cygnus X-1 was correct to have a hyphen in the name, which Cygnus X3 should also have. Three, the show didn't even bother with the X3, simply calling it Cygnus which led us to believe both Cygnus machines were from the same team when we couldn't verify the team members. Aaaand finally, number four: everyone thought the robot's name was Sickness! Again this is the show's fault more than the team's, but thanks to Cygnus X-1 being a thing, we end up in an odd position where the fake name Sickness is much better than the real name Cygnus X3! Right, that's enough of the Catastrophic Variaboys, geddem outta here before I have to rate their next names V404 Cygni Microquasar and NGC 6826 Planetary Nebula...

Finish him!

• Cyrax - 7/10 - Phew, we get to close this overall extremely strong range not with an astrophysics lesson, but with something that didn't get enough opportunities on Robot Wars, video game references! Very few competitors took their names from a game, barring the obvious Sonic examples, but Cyrax is a particularly nice reference to Mortal Kombat that sounds good even if you don't know the first thing about the series. It's somewhat of a crying shame we never got a robot called Fatality in that sense. Heaven knows Cyrax is better than the team's previous attempt at naming a robot! You would expect SubZero to be the first Mortal Kombat character used as a robot name, but Cyrax pipped it to the post by two years.

D Range

The robot's successor could have been called Freigepäck, which is German for "baggage allowance"

• Das Gepäck - 5/10 - We're feeling deranged as we head into the D Range, and Das Gepäck is another bit of a √3 where I do rather like the name, but it's impossible for us to type without copy+paste. Alright if you really want to get into the nitty-gritty, Das Gepäck is at least pretty doable on mobile devices, but that's not what I'm using right now is it! Das Gepäck is a Dutch machine but its very German name (and more importantly, in something that gets strangely overlooked, its German-speaking team) allowed it to compete in the UK vs Germany Special with great success, so clearly the name was much to its benefit. It was German for "The Luggage" which is just pretty funny, even with the robot's design playing up to this with baggage tags and such painted on - much more pleasing than the Alien Destructor visuals! I like this name, but for the amount of times I've just pressed Ctrl+V, I have to award a 5/10 at most.

• Daisy - 5/10 - Hi, I'm Daisy! I'll grant that Daisy is one of those amusing, gentle-sounding names that would have worked quite well in isolation. It's a shame then that a robot called "Daisy Chopper" entered the same series, and the issue only got worse from there. Neither team were at fault, but when Daisy didn't even enter the arena it's hard to rate it generously.

I do feel bad for Ceros' predecessor Tiny which spent over a decade labelled as "Daisy Chopper 2", I wouldn't want to be associated with these sore losers

• Daisy Chopper - 4/10 - Hi, I'm Daisy! I'm actually going to give Daisy Chopper a slightly lower score than the previous Daisy. There's no great meaning to the title other than the robot being capable of chopping up daisies, and it feels like the team were going for the idea that the next entry in the list used, but just messed it up. It's also really strange that Team TFOSICA, after building robots called Tibalt, King Lear and Caliban, would then call their robot Daisy Chopper. So that's it, you're just done with Shakespeare names now when there's so many still out there?

• Daisy-Cutter - 5/10 - Hi, I'm Daisy! To complete the trilogy, Daisy-Cutter is the most unfortunate of the bunch. This robot has by far the most meaning to its name, derived from the non-nuclear bomb of the same name. A very reasonable namesake, but by now it was the third "Daisy" on Robot Wars, and not even the final "Daisy-Cutter" on televised robot combat! I was also persistently confused by Daisy-Cutter being adorned by a purple flower, I know now that some daisies can be purple, but it's hardly the way most would envision a daisy.

Go on, which one is Damacles?

• Damacles - 4/10 - It's a little hard to rate these barely-televised Series 2 robots accurately, but really all I have to do is state my thoughts on the name irrespective of the robot's relevance. Yet I still find it hard to feign any sort of interest in Damacles. I'm no expert on Greek mythology, far from it, but a quick Google search suggests that the accepted spelling was Damocles? Although, the name Damacles was never written on the show to begin with and we only got it from Oliver Steeples or whoever, so it could be another Roter Ochse where our wiki had it wrong the entire time. I give up, and Damacles is having a 4/10 because I said so.

If you were expecting an individual breakdown on the quality of the names Daniel, Thomas and Kiara then let's just say Kiara wins by a wide margin

• Dantomkia - 8/10 - Now we're talking! I do sometimes wonder what we'd think of the name Dantomkia if it just lost in the Series S4 heats as a wedgebot and never came back. Certainly it's the importance of Dantomkia as a competitor that sparks the "what does that name mean? Well I'll tell you..." conversations. Still though, this is a really loving way to pay tribute to your first three kids and create an absolutely unique name that doesn't mean anything in the world other than your robot. It is very awkward how Dantomkia would later be entered into Robot Wars by a team who did not father Daniel, Thomas or Kiara, and you have to imagine there were various cut interviews on this, but due credit to one of the most widely discussed names in the show. The likes of Stuart McDonald flubbing the name won't hold it back today.

Hey up Darkness, my old mate

• Darkness - 6/10 - Next on my alphabetical list is Darke Destroyer but I'm going to push it back to the T section and see who gets forgotten out of The Brute and The Darke Destroyer. Our actual entry Darkness is a very simple name, and one that had sort of been on Robot Wars before thanks to Prince of Darkness, but this is one that really works as-is. Mick Foley's "hello Darkness my old friend" joke always makes me laugh and that pushes it up to a slightly above-average 6/10.

Or as it's known in the Dutch Wars, DEATH METALLL

• Dead Metal - 6/10 - You know, with the way Dead Metal has always somewhat resembled a scorpion, I'm really surprised this didn't factor into the House Robot's name. Rather it's the recycled scrap parts that set up Dead Metal's name and it works cleanly enough. There's never been anything else called "Dead Metal" before which helped a lot with merchandising, and you can still work out the meaning pretty quickly.

• Death Jester - 4/10 - Back to the realms of unknown Series 2 robots and I'm not convinced of this name's origin. Googling Death jester brings up pages and pages of Warhammer results, but was that around before or after the robot was built? I'm not too sure. Without that link, Death Jester feels a bit over the top when simply "The Jester" would have given a much more colourful vision of the robot's personality instead of Death [OTHER_WORD].

Watch out lads, it's got a detachable wedge, and you don't wanna see Death Trak when it takes the wedge off

• Death Trak - 3/10 - And on that note, what is a Death Trak? It is something to do with the 1989 video game Deathtrack? I sincerely doubt it. Beyond just that, what is a Trak? Surely it just means "track" but then that returns us to the original question of "what is a deathtrack". I give up. Again.

• Death Warmed Up - 6/10 - The "Death" trilogy ends on a higher note with the second machine from Team Death. You'd be forgiven for thinking Death Warmed Up was the namesake of Team Death, but I feel like the team name was mentioned in Series 2? Not sure now. This is a nod to the saying "I feel like death warmed up" and this proved entirely accurate when the robot was set on fire in its only loss. It's a little bit too awkward in isolation to bridge a green score, but I was definitely tempted.

Or as Reddit and Discord like to call it, "John Reid's Big Pink Dee"

• Dee - 2/10 - Ah. So we've made it to Dee. We all knew it was coming but damn, it really is time to rate the robot named after a... well, you know. I'm fairly sure the planned name was "The D" and this is how we knew it in the run-up to the broadcast, which perhaps makes the name a little more obvious and it's hardly surprising that the Rizzle Kicks lad couldn't get away with it. A usual moment of praise in critiquing a name is when a robot resembles its namesake, but here it's even more awkward that Dee was painted bright pink to further resemble its namesake, with Jordan Stephens even asking for the robot to be armed with a "waterpistol". Basically... you either find this funny or you don't. My reaction from the start has always been a bit of a "seriously lads?" and it certainly made me fear that Jordan Stephens himself would be a bit of a nob on Robot Wars. Thankfully I was wrong about that, and both Jordan and Dee were a pleasure to watch in the episode.

• Delldog - 5/10 - I do find Delldog quite charming for no good reason. It certainly doesn't look like a dog, nor do I know how you could resemble the computer brand Dell, but I am writing this on a Dell laptop right now so I am forced to award this German machine a perfect score!! Well alright, I'll meet halfway with a 5/10.

Quick! Throw some Union Flags on it so they don't think we're Belgian!

• Demolition Demon - 4/10 - This is no mere demolition worker, it's a demolition demon! I mean sure, OK, it'll do. Bit too deprived of meaning for a high score though. I looked up Demolition Demon online and apparently it's the "least-used player title in Rocket League". Well now I know what name to go with if I replaced my current football gaming series for Rocket League!

• Demolition Man - 4/10 - This is no mere demolition worker, it's... well, OK, it's just a demolition worker this time. There's certainly far more to say about the builder design of Demolition Man compared to the "I'm not Belgian" Demolition Demon, but unfortunately the names are just too similar for me to praise this, even if it's a double-reference to film and building industry. Knowing me I would've called it something like Builder's Breakfast lol.

Dave Clutterbuck was the captain before Nick Adams, remember the name

• Demon - 2/10 - Everything's coming in trilogies here, we had the Daisy Triplets, the Death Brigade, and now the Demolition Demons. Understandably the one just called "Demon" is open to scathing criticism for being terribly unimaginative with its name and visual design, and just for being a lesser version of the same-series debutant Demolition Demon. You can make good satanic names very easily, whether you use something serious like Hellfire or something jokey like Deal with the Devil, but simply "Demon" is flat-out weak.

• Demon Duck - 6/10 - Oh yeah, there was also another demon in Series 2, creating another trilogy! Demon Duck however gets full credit for the utter disparity between the two words, it shows they weren't serious and the robot was game for a laugh. Pity the House Robots were also game for a laugh and barely gave it a chance to breathe.

Quick! Throw our surnames in the name so they know we're Belgian!

• Depoppesaurus Rex - 3/10 - I'm still trying to get my head around this one. You could easily give the explanation of "it's the builders' surname Poppe combined with tyrannosaurus rex", but then where do the first two letters come from? This sets me up to think it's not named after a T-Rex, but some other dinosaur starting with 'De'. It would then help if the robot's visual design gave us some clues, but knowing of Philipper just makes you think of Depoppesaurus Rex as some big fish. I guess the curved body and long lifting "neck" is most reminiscent of a brontosaurus or an ancient fish, but how would that explain the "Rex" part? The robot certainly looks nothing like a tyrannosaurus rex! Why is this name so hideously long and hard to spell anyway? Sorry guys but this one just doesn't "pop".

4/10 is an averaged out score, the original Derek! is worth a 5/10 because it is one of the best choices available for a mundane name (held back by the !) but Derek 2 in isolation is perhaps a 3 or a 2/10

• Derek! & Derek 2 - 4/10 - I have to be harsh on Derek here. It's another step in the line of "human name for contrast" jokes, with the team taking Derek one step further by adding an exclamation mark. This isn't just Derek, it's Derek! ...! This is always bad for writing, and again I would at least give points for Derek being a fairly amusing name choice, but the team committed a real sin with the Series 6 entry Derek 2. You called it... Derek 2. Your entire theme is "lol mundane human name", and you couldn't even pick a different one for your second robot? Sure, the two robots are quite visually similar outside of their new weapon choices, and you're now carrying the Best Engineered Award on your shoulders, so this is reason enough to keep the Derek name going. But just call it Derek then?? Nobody in real life is called "Paul 2", you would be Paul Jr, Paul the Second etc., so Derek 2 is now totally dehumanised. Either just call it Derek again, or pick any other random name like Hilbert or Brian, just not this.

Can I use the fact that the show spelled it as "Distruct-A-Bubble" in my agenda

• Destruct-A-Bubble - 4/10 - A good fun robot, but I'm not too keen on the name. You're generally off on the wrong foot when you have more than one hyphen in the name, and the unfortunate abbreviation of DAB is a coincidence that couldn't have been anticipated, but even just taking a look at the full name Destruct-A-Bubble... what do you take from this other than the robot being bubble-shaped? The "Destruct-A" serves to do nothing other than kick off the "Destruct" trilogy that we are covering now. This is a pity because the team had originally planned the name Millennium Doom, which would have caused some conflict with Millennium Bug but is quite clever in a cheeky way.

• Destructive Criticism - 6/10 - This US finalist is the best of the Destruct trilogy by a long way, as it's a genuinely purposeful pun. Turning "constructive criticism" into Destructive Criticism really flips the origin on its head and I like it for that. It is the somewhat overwhelming length that keeps it out of the green scores, but a 6/10 is still above average! I hope I was able to offer some constructive criticism myself, here...

Depoppesaurus Rex already didn't resemble a dinosaur, but Destructosaur is even further removed

• Destructosaur - 1/10 - And here we might have the worst name in the D Range. Destructosaur achieves absolutely nothing. It's the word "destruct" for the third time now, crossed with "saur" from dinosaur. Briefly ignoring the fact Destructosaur looks nothing like a dinosaur, the -saur suffix was incredibly dated by Series 6 (the only one I've covered so far is Depoppesaurus Rex but there's plenty to come), and there's no pun achieved in blending the two. What's even the closest dinosaur to a "Destructosaur"? The datousaurus? The team's mascot is from Digimon, is Destructosaur a pun on a fictional dinosaur? No love or thought went into naming this beer-barrel machine, it's like the team didn't even care.

I never get used to seeing Detonator in the Series 4 arena

• Detonator - 6/10 - This is another name where I'm willing to offer a points boost on the grounds of complete disparity between the name and robot, which will prove to be a common theme for the Dartford team. This robot will detonate absolutely nothing, but it's an entertainingly dangerous name for something so feeble that I can't help but laugh. But maybe playing through Shadow the Hedgehog is why I laugh so much at the word 'detonate'. That edgelord villain "Black Doom" really did just want to detonate everything.

Remarkably Devastator is not the worst name this robot ever had, with its working name being the long-taken cliche of The Executioner

• Devastator - 2/10 - Uh oh. We've reached another one of the "example" names outlined in the blog on how to not name a robot. You could get away with the "pick a dangerous word and make it a noun" back in the Series 2-3 days, but by the Seventh Wars a name like Devastator is just painful. Anyone could come up with this on the spot, and it's exactly the type of name that TV sitcoms use to stress "this is a fighting robot" in their robot combat one-offs. Looking at the robot's intended name (see caption), I do get the feeling the team just came up with Devastator in ten seconds after they were informed that their planned name was already in use.

"Well, Diabolus... diabolical!" ...Funny as this was, Diabolus really could've done well in a different heat, it's perhaps in one of the unluckiest heat draws in history

• Diabolus - 5/10 - In another update of "Toast knows nothing about mythology", I have genuinely just learned what Diabolus actually means, seventeen years after I first saw the robot on TV. This has several layers of failure on my part. First of all, I thought Diabolus was simply a play on 'Diablo', with a suffix added to make it sound more robotic. As it turns out, Diabolus is also a word in its own right, with both 'diabolus' and 'diablo' meaning Devil in some religions. But it doesn't stop there, because I didn't just think the name was a play on 'diablo', I also thought that diablo meant "the hourglass-shaped juggling prop and toy that you balance on a string and throw in the air". Yes, if you've worked out the connection by now, this is a diabolo, which puts my error in black and white. From Diabolus, to the BattleBots entry El Diablo (which itself is named after a DC Comics character right under my nose), and even the video game series Diablo, I never even questioned their origins other than some sort of connection to the common toy. I don't know man, you spin a diabolo, so Diabolus has spinning blades? The video game Diablo was probably about 'restoring balance' to the world, like the delicate balance required to use a diabolo? It gets worse and worse the more I think about it and I am clearly unqualified to run this blog.

Veyr unfortunate that there's no appropriate way to blend "Diotoir" with "Kadeena Machina"

• Diotoir - 5/10 - A proper icon of the show is very welcome in this section of the blog where very few of this update's robots have even won a battle, but Diotoir is a true legend. Although that should be Díotoír if you're speaking in native Irish, and "Díotóir, Son of Nemesis" if you really want to push the boat out. Yeah, we'll just give the rating on purely Diotoir, even the team went along with it gladly enough. Diotoir is the Irish word for Annihilator which would be a fairly suitable name for a robot back in Series 3, albeit one with a bit of Devastator syndrome, and I'm glad the word ended up being reserved for an episode structure rather than a competitor robot. A name like "Diotoir" is much more open to interpretation, and can basically mean whatever you want it to mean. The boggle-eyed fur-brained Diotoir really wouldn't suit a name like Annihilator, but instead the name Diotoir is developed to suit the robot. I give it some praise for that, but I have to cap the score in the middle of the road because with such a major robot comes a lot of responsibility with the name, and Diotoir was persistently spelled wrong or mispronounced on the show, and it's no wonder why. And so, we were left with the following years of the casual fandom calling it "the one that caught fire" (or in a unique one-off I genuinely heard once, "the ladybird robot").

Bringing the news... *Iwata pose* directly to you!

• Direct Action - 5/10 - I feel like we have the clues here to find some kind of origin to the name Direct Action. It could be as simple as "the spinner operates with direct action", but searching for direct action on Google brings up a few things, largely political activism movements and military tactics. I'd like to look at the robot's chequerboard design or the team's Mad Hatter costumes for hints, but I can't quite work this one out. The number of themes going on here doesn't feel like an accident, so I'd be keen to have this mystery solved.

Jonathan, this is where you're meant to say "Burn, baby burn!"

• Disc-O-Inferno - 10/10 - Now that's better! The only score to go beyond a 6/10 in this region so far was Dantomkia, but after twenty-eight robots we finally get Disc-O-Inferno, the hero of the D Range. This is a very clear reference to the 70's hit song Disco Inferno which we've all heard at some point, and combined with the huge spinning disc of the robot, it's a perfect reference. The team also threw the door open for Craig Charles and Jonathan Pearce to make jokes here, as "Burn, Baby Burn" is a massive part of the song's catch, and Disc-O-Inferno was bound to go over the flame pit at some point. Annoyingly as we'll see later on with Major Tom, the presenters just didn't quite catch onto this and missed obvious jokes, but this was out of the team's hands. Also out of the team's hands is Jason Bardis building "The Disk O'Inferno" for BattleBots but that ended up being still my favourite robot from the ABC reboot so this can have a pass too.

DisConstructor mate, your logo's upside-down

• DisConstructor - 3/10 - Second in the Disc Trio is my guy DisConstructor, and with how much undeserved love I give to this machine, this blog really should've been another avenue to mercilessly praise DisConstructor but instead I'm forced to be quite harsh. The name attempts to be a pun inserting 'disc' into a word or phrase like Disc-O-Inferno before it, but totally fails to do so. I had thought for many years that the name was based on the method of 'disconstructing' something until I was later informed that the word here is exclusively 'deconstructing'. Could this be another case of the common mistake 'deconfirm vs disconfirm' where the roboteers simply had it wrong? Or is it just a Disc... Constructor? Let this be the last time I ever have to criticise DisConstructor please.

Can you feel the rhythm in ny heart, the beat's going Dis Ko Tek

• Diskotek - 7/10 - Back on form, our third disc/disk is Diskotek. This has scored a 7/10 because I really do like it, but I also think it could have been done better. The obvious pun here is from discotheque (the dancefloor) combined with cutting disk. This is a novel plan, but the excess of the letter K is a bit strange. Not only did "Disco" have no real need to become "Disko", the team also missed their chance to incorporate "Tech" from technology into the latter half. Diskotek plays only off disk and discotheque, but a name like "Discotech" (Diskotech, Disco-Tech, whatever you prefer) would roll three jokes into one and really push for a score that rivals Disc-O-Inferno.

• Disruptor - 6/10 - I think this one's pretty good. Nobody would ever bring up Disruptor as an example of anything really (other than why removable links became a necessity) but Disruptor is a good "this is what I'm gonna do" name without being as severe as Devastator & Friends. I expect this won't be the last time Devastator is used as an example.

The true modern scapegoat of Robot Wars, but if I were a producer I would've given it another shot

• Doctor Fist - 3/10 - I'm gonna start off the Doctor Fist entry in a totally unexpected manner. I don't quite see why it's seemingly the most hated machine in all of Robot Wars these days. Now that people have grown more forgiving of robots like the Typhoons and T-Wrecks, it seems like Doctor Fist has settled into the role of people's least-favourite competitor, and while it's certainly a poor competitor with little in the way of redeeming qualities, the main one that gets me is "why accept it into the series". Whether the disc spins the wrong way or not (this could be fixed in five minutes if required), Doctor Fist at least appears to be a competent robot on first glance, and I don't blame the producers for giving it a second chance. Imagine if something like St. Agro or Tauron never got a second chance! I think it's less egregious than the likes of Spin Doctor who performed poorly on three separate occasions. tl;dr Doctor Fist is bad but it at least looked like it had potential, but the name is a stinker with RA2 summing it up best when he said it "sounds like an adult film".

• Dome - 4/10 - It's a dome. Called Dome. It... could be worse??

Needless to say, the name Dominator suited the second machine more than the first

• Dominator & Dominator II - 5/10 - Honestly, with Dominator II being such a well-known success story, it's very easy to overlook how average-at-best the name Dominator really was. At its core, it is just another one of those "Somethingator" names (I am trying my best not to name Devastator as an example on every single occasion), with 'dominate' being the word they went with. It's a lot easier to appreciate on this machine because it genuinely did dominate its battles with a plethora of strong wins under its belt. Indeed it's because the name proved so apt while being attached to a very iconic machine that I'm able to give Dominator II a 5/10 in the first place. But imagine if a name like Dominator was planted on any other random machine - we really would have nothing to say about it then. Like with Crusader 2, I also think it's a minor annoyance when the number two has to be affixed to all of its televised battles, with the original Dominator and Crusader machines just being Pinball entries. At least Dominator's Pinball run was a notable fixture of Series 3, admittedly.

James Davies made perhaps the biggest turnaround of all time, taking his robot with the stolen name "Terror-Bull" and giving it the last-minute transformation to the brilliant Donald Thump

• Donald Thump - 8/10 - Let's be real, when trying to rate Donald Thump in this blog, it was always going to come down to the overall visual theme than it was the name itself. I doubt you're sitting here expecting me to say "Thump is a bit of a quaint adjective for a Donald Trump pun", obviously I'm going to rate it on James Davies making a hilarious Donald Trump parody which to me remains one of the highlights of Series 10. It is a shame for James Davies that the real-world Donald Trump has only become more heinous as time's gone on, and even the team's planned BattleBots entry Winston Churchkill would now be under fire with recent news, but the original sentiment of a comedy Donald Trump robot remains entertaining and I really can't think of a better name it could be given.

Doodlebug "bombs" in battle

• Doodlebug - 6/10 - This one has caught me by surprise. Despite it being written on the wiki for years, I'd never really considered the idea of Doodlebug being named after anything other than an insect, but looking more closely at the robot's design, I agree with our article that the V-1 flying bomb (the "doodlebug") was the true inspiration. I like this because viewers are quite welcome to interpret the name Doodlebug to whichever definition they see fit. Well, they would, if Doodlebug had received more than three seconds on TV.

You ever think about how Doom was originally made of metal and changed to wooden armour?

• Doom & Doom Too - 6/10 - Another name that's amusingly serious for the robot it's attached too, particularly when Doom Too returned made out of wood. Call Typhoon the Doomslayer because this machine hardly threatened to pose even remote "doom" to opponents. The "Too" in the second version is a bit strange, but it perhaps helps to avoid any crossed wires with the video game Doom II so I won't reprimand it for that.

• Double Trouble - 7/10 - Simplicity was key with this one. It's another name that was bound to happen, but I'm happier it went to a robot with two weapons rather than a clusterbot with two robots called "Double" and "Trouble". Let's face it, that was the alternative.

Dragbot exercising its camouflage abilities

• Dragbot - 2/10 - What the heck happened here?? Dragbot's working name in development was "Carnivour" which didn't really need to change the word carnivore, but I'd still rate it fairly well. How do you then move away from a name with good inspiration like this, and end up with Dragbot? Wow, it moves quickly so that it creates drag (so does everything else), and it's a robot (so is everything else), so we'll call it Dragbot! What a drag.

There's visibly a Chinese white dragon on there, so I'd call it Bailong. This wasn't hard.

• Dragon - 1/10 - Destructosaur lives to fight another day, because this is the true ultimate loser of the D Range. Dragon is pitifully unoriginal. You know how many different types of dragon there are? Thousands! We already saw robots like Red Dragon and Scrap Dragon come close to settling upon the most obvious name possible, but this Extreme 2 featherweight just walked straight out and did it with no remorse. The world of dragons is so vast that you could genuinely pick anything and it's probably available. The fact that we never had a Wyvern on Robot Wars is absurd, and that's just picking from the most famous dragons. Genuinely choose anything other than Dragon. It's like Ruf Ruf Dougal being called "Dog" for Christ's sake.

Official photos are supposed to include the full robot lads

• Draven - 6/10 - Before we get to Draven, I think it's fair that first we discuss Anthrax. This really did seem like a reasonable, dare I say good name at the time, but it's no wonder it had to be changed. Practical example, a friend of mine built a robot called Virus last year and somehow I don't think that name is going to be used anymore. Is Draven better or worse? I'm going to say better. I haven't seen The Crow and it definitely doesn't look like my kind of film, but Eric Draven made for a nice unexpected bit of inspiration in a robot name, and one that works well even without knowledge of the character. Perhaps too well, given the producers' efforts to dub the robot Lord Draven for Series 9.

I don't know if people agree with me, but Dreadnaut was a real contender for Best Name of Series 1 (and therefore Best Name in Robot Wars briefly)

• Dreadnaut - 7/10 - I'm not kidding here, if they simply spelled the robot as "Dreadnought" like everyone else does then I would award this at least an 8/10 with the temptation to go higher. I think the HMS Dreadnought is a fantastic source of inspiration that it's no wonder "dreadnought" sees use as a word for anything large and imposing like this robot certainly was. Heck, even Super Mario Galaxy had to borrow it. I don't understand the reasoning behind spelling the name as "Dreadnaut" but it's only bringing the score down to a 7. I also don't mind the XP-1 addition to the Series 4 entry, meaning "Experimental Project 1" which is far better than calling it Dreadnaut 2.

• Drillzilla - 7/10 - Drillzilla is really quite a good name, and one that worked well for its logo too. I'd never think to combine 'drill' with 'Godzilla' but it created perfect equilibrium. Drillzilla is only held back from an 8/10 and above because the drill weapon really wasn't a prominent feature of the robot in battle.

One day I'd love to see the Featherweight Final uncut to understand why Craig thought Whipper was going to win

• DTK - 6/10 - You can't really shorten Dantomkia in any other fashion, so I think DTK was the best compromise when working with the Dantomkia name. I don't think it was the only option though. I might be wrong about this because my source is an off-memory YouTube comment from a decade-old upload of Mike Lambert on Harry Hill's TV Burp, but I think Mike had another daughter? If that's true and she was born before 2003 then she - or perhaps the children of DTK's captain Steven Gadsby if he has any - could also have set up different names. But like I say, DTK is still good regardless. If you overlook John Findlay overwriting history while renaming the Series 7 heavyweight Dantomkia "DTK" and giving it that nasty green paint job.

• Dundee - 7/10 - A nice clear reference to the Crocodile Dundee films which I'd like the think is obvious to the majority of viewers (unless you're a Scotsman who's really confused by the intro "From Bristol, Dundee...") and can't really be asked to do much else for the crocodile robot.

I'd love to find more details on the original Dynamite, but it's hardly the only German withdrawal we lack info on

• Dynamite - 7/10 - It's a real shame we don't know what the planned machine from Team Dynamite was going to look like, because whilst the name proved unfitting for the loanerbot that fell apart after being pushed by Delldog of all things, I'm willing to offer the benefit of the doubt that the German team's real machine was a tad more deserving. Whether that be because of explosive weaponry, or because it may have blown up before getting in the shipping crate to the German series. Robot aside, Dynamite is just a very solid name that puts Bang to shame.

E Range

Minus points for the team being called "Team Cykillone"

• Eddy Evolution - 4/10 - Let's not start off the E Range strongly then! I couldn't tell you a single thing about why this featherweight is called Eddy Evolution but there's certainly nothing else like it. I guess it must be the successor to a previous robot called Eddy? Or has this Eddy guy truly reached the next stage of human evolution? I doubt we'll ever know.

• Edge Hog - 5/10 - Edge Hog is a good pun let down by the fact it was already following on from previous competitors Wedgehog and Kronic the Wedgehog. While Edge Hog clearly has a different joke in mind, it was perhaps a little tired by this stage.

They're here to learn, but we could learn a lot from Eleven

• Eleven - 8/10 - This is a really bright bit of inspiration. The clear defining trait of this robot was its legs, being a 200kg walkerbot and all, so these features formed the identity. Then borrow the bingo call "legs eleven", but take the 'legs' away to leave behind the suitably more mysterious 'Eleven'. It was a little more intriguing like this, and makes you feel clever for realising the connection. They really dialled the creativity up to eleven here, it's a full house!

"Untested" is putting it lightly

• Ellie's Little Pink-Bot - 6/10 - Guilty pleasure this one. Ellie's Little Pink-Bot finishes with a reasonable 6/10 despite violating many of my guidelines in one go. It centres around a human name, ends with the -Bot suffix, features an unnecessary hyphen, is particularly long, it doesn't get an identity boost from being a successful robot, and it only meets the "visual match" criteria by virtue of being a small robot painted pink. But man, something about a robot named "Ellie's Little Pink-Bot" getting ripped to shreds by Growler and Typhoon Thunder is tragically funny and I love the utterly pathetic nature of this name.

El-Mower was captained by Jeroen Wolf, I guess if you're a Dutchman called Jeroen then it's your destiny to build robots

• El-Mower - 8/10 - This is another case like Donald Thump where the visual design of the robot almost certainly came first, and then the team picked the best name available to match it. While none would bring up the likes of Donald Thump or El-Mower as some of the best robot names in their own right, no name could be any better for these robots' designs and El-Mower deserves a lot of praise for this. It's hardly complicated stuff, mix Elmo from Sesame Street with lawnmower (its weapon type) and you get El-Mower. Spot on.

Elvis has re-entered the building

• Elvis - 7/10 - The idea of an Elvis Presley-themed robot is a fun concept and I'm glad there were Series 1 competitors willing to have a laugh like this straight out of the gate. Just looking at it is amusing enough, but blatantly calling it Elvis also opens the floodgates to a world of music jokes from the presenters, most obviously 'Elvis has left the building'. I wondered if there was some kind of joke you could draw out of 'Presley' to work in an extra layer, but I'm drawing blanks which only leaves me with more confidence that simply 'Elvis' was the way to go.

It can't just be me who assumed Enderbot was a thwackbot at first, right?

• Enderbot - 4/10 - The E Range has a really strong average overall, but Enderbot definitely falls below it. I don't want to use the Robot Wars video games as reason to dock many points from competitors as it's generally considered fair game to use names from this realm, but even now I still mix up Enderbot with the fictional robot "The Ender" from Robot Wars: Arenas of Destruction every now and again. They're not the same name, but they're similar enough to make you wonder which is which - the words "The" and "Bot" aren't great ways to distinguish each other. Even putting the video game coincidence aside, I have very little to say about the name Enderbot as a full package, it's just a bit unremarkable.

Enzyme could've done decently in the Second Wars you know, swap it with Haardvark and I bet it gets the same result

• Enzyme - 6/10 - This is a really unexpected name for Series 2 and still unusual even today. I'm pretty bad when it comes to science but I can still roughly tell you what an enzyme is, so I think it's fair to assume at least the mid-teenage audience and upwards will generally get the idea. I did discover the robot Enzyme before learning about protein enzymes, but even as a young lad with no understanding of the name's meaning, I still thought it was cool (although I would spell it as Enzymine and pronounce it as Enzie-min). I don't think a lifter is a particularly fitting weapon here, with even a typical Second Wars "we've also got a saw at the back" weapon being a bit closer to the source, but on the whole Enzyme scores decently.

Eric. That's the joke, please laugh

• Eric - 5/10 - ...Ah. It's time to talk about Eric. Oh no. Where to even begin with Eric? Well certainly, to tens if not hundreds of Shuntposting users, this is the one; the epitome, the true 10/10, the best name in Robot Wars. Eric took off as the community meme because it's the most memorable "mundane human name" robot, ahead of Barry, Derek and all of those. Through just its "funny" name and the persistence of its former owner, Eric became a widespread phenomenon in the Robot Wars fandom, and that makes Eric tremendously difficult to rate. From the outset I've never liked Eric memes because they were a very low-effort way to collect laughs and likes when I'd prefer something with any degree of thought behind it. Essentially, I now cannot rate the name Eric without associating low-effort memes with it, and that makes me want to rate it low. But then, other people love Eric so much, and none of this is the original team's fault! Balancing my views equally with that of the general public, I have no real choice but to split straight down the middle and give it a 5/10.

Eruption was a fantastic name, but the logos sure got worse as time went on

• Eruption - 9/10 - Now then, it's time to finish covering the reboot champions in this blog, as we tackle the incumbent Robot Wars champion Eruption. I really believe this is a fantastic name and it's frankly unbelievable that nothing in the original run of Robot Wars, the early UK live circuit, or even BattleBots and Robotica, had never used this name before. I think the name Eruption is a ideal for a flipper robot. It's a dramatised but still fairly accurate way to describe what's happening with the flipper when it fires, and you know that when this pneumatic ram 'erupts', the other robot is probably sailing out of the arena. A name like Eruption not only describes the weaponry, but it's simply a good strong name that everyone can picture and associate with something dangerous like a fighting robot should be. Understandably a "just-a-word" name like Eruption would score differently depending on who wielded it: it would be a 7/10 at best for most non-flippers, which stretches to an 8/10 for a more standard-to-good flipper. But for a Robot Wars champion and symbol of UK robotics that was also accompanied by the featherweights Explosion and Combustion? Yeah, I'm willing to stretch to a nine for that. You could perhaps criticise that the colour-scheme of Eruption doesn't really tie in with its name, with a vaguely volcano-like logo being the closest resemblance, but honestly the jet black and hazard stripe look of Eruption is iconic enough in its own right that the individual creative successes of the name and visuals shouldn't mutually drag each other down.

Eubank the Human

• Eubank the Mouse - 6/10 - I bet that when this stock robot was dubbed "Eubank the Mouse" by the production team, they never expected that Chris Eubank himself would later compete in an episode of Robot Wars! I do wonder if this machine was the reason behind inviting him to the Celebrity Special. Before we had Eubank the Killertron, we had this comedy pyramid mouse with boxing gloves, named in reference to the super-middleweight boxer Chris Eubank. This is amusing enough by itself to get around the lack of wordplay in the name. I admit though, I never knew there was a "super-middleweight" class, when are we gonna get the Super-Middleweight Championship between Granny's Revenge and Ghetto-bot?

I do strongly prefer the Series 3 colours to the all-bronze successor, but I love the name no matter what

• Evil Weevil - 9/10 - The E Range is our smallest section since the Numbers Range, but it's jam-packed with quality! Evil Weevil - or should that be the Eeeeevil Weeeevil - is another excellent name here. It shines on multiple levels, being a fun rhyme that set up the robot's entire visual design and lifting fork weaponry while also being very similar to Evel Knievel, surely an intentional reference. From head-to-shell, this looks like a weevil, lifts like a weevil, is 'evil' like a robot should be, charges in fearlessly like Evel Knievel, and it's just bloomin' fun to say out loud. Philippa Forrester will tell you that any day. Is the name Evil Weevil unique to Robot Wars? Not exactly, it's understandably been a common nickname for weevils in a lot of entomology articles (that means the study of insects, thank you Danganronpa for teaching me that one), and was apparently a Hot Wheels car in the 1970's. Still, for me at least, our wiki is still the top result in a Google search for 'evil weevil', beating out a Courage the Cowardly Dog episode that came two years later, so I'm happy to call it 'mostly unique'.

I'm definitely pressing the B button on this Evolution

• Evolution - 3/10 - A name like Evolution should generally score well, being a good word with plenty of meaning and is one that could easily suit a fighting robot, albeit one better used for sequel robots like Shredder Evolution and the aforementioned Eddy Evolution. However, this particular robot was very wide of the mark with its name choice. How do you manage to build a robot where every facet of its design is an homage to a wartime Army tank, and then call it something totally unrelated like Evolution? It's like building a robot that's meant to look like a cute mouse accompanied by a wedge of cheese, and calling it "Horizon"! I thought that surely there has to be a tank named Evolution out there somewhere, but I've searched around the web and it brings up 'Evolution tank tops' before anything to do with the Army, and even through more specific searches it seems to me that there simply is not a known tank named Evolution in the world. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of well-known tanks that you could use as a namesake! Ones like Rhino and Panzer were the names of choice for previous Robot Wars competitors, while historic tanks like the Sherman, Tiger and Cromwell remained available. Perhaps you choose to avoid the direct tank references, and go for something related to military tactics or soldiers? You don't just go the other way entirely and abandon your whole identity for something so wildly different.

I had no doubts from the beginning that EWE2 would steal a 10/10, so all I need to know now is... do you agree?

• EWE2 - 10/10 - And so we have reached it! First we had Ceros, and now we have the other candidate for my favourite competitor name in Robot Wars. EWE2 was a stroke of genius which couldn't possibly score lower than a 10/10. Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way first, "Toast why are you spelling it as EWE2 when the show and wiki use Ewe 2?" Well this spelling was the team's clear preference across their website, and while this is a handicap for robots like 13BLACK where the more widely accepted spelling is much better than the team's preference, I do actually think EWE2 ties in with the homage a little better. EWE2 is of course the successor to Lambsy, and the third machine overall in Team Coyote's series of sheep-themed names, which also starred the featherweight Cutlet. While the name Lambsy in isolation was average-at-best, EWE2 is the perfect sequel, growing the lamb into a full-grown Ewe, rounded off by the '2' which makes the link back to Lambsy clear and adds the necessary second syllable to build a short but sweet name. But as we're all aware, EWE2 was more than just "Lambsy 2 except now it's a full-grown sheep", because the main joke comes from saying the name out loud. EWE2 is unmistakably a reference to the Irish rock band U2, a group well-known across the world which creates a beautifully unique combination between Irish rock music and... sheep. It is of course the all-caps-no-space band name of U2 that makes the spelling 'EWE2' a little closer to its source material than Ewe 2, clearing up said 'elephant in the room'. While the double-reference to the band/sheep is already enough, sometimes it's worth remembering why the band was called U2 in the first place, and the best official quotation we ever got was that it's "open to interpretation", with guesses varying from the U2 spy plane to simple things like the phrase "you too", but it all works and indirectly helps EWE2. Now the presenters can not only make "you too" jokes, but a plethora of music references which Jonathan Pearce joyously listed off in battle. I think this has to be the frontrunner for my favourite Robot Wars name, and one day I really must get that wiki article renamed.

Excalibur locks swords axes with Centurion

• Excalibur - 6/10 - The fabled sword of King Arthur was prime to be a robot name, and it's no surprise at all that it was snatched up in the Series 3 era. While you'd ideally want Excalibur to be armed with some kind of sword, an axe was the next-best thing so this robot was definitely suitable enough to take it. It's a shame that the show misspelled it as Excaliber and that the robot couldn't win a battle to back up its mighty namesake, but at least its battle was one of the most memorable first-round fights from Series 3. I think it is just the obviousness of the name that restricts it, for Excalibur was bound to be used by another robot later on. Sure enough, that claim went to Team Saint's Clash Bots entry, with even Team MAD's King of Bots competitor almost using the name before a late switch to Vulcan ahead of its opening career loss to Saber, which in turn was entered by... Team Excalibur!

I do appreciate a naming theme wherever possible but it sure sounds odd to say there's a series of robots themed around the school disciplinary system

• Expulsion - 6/10 - Expulsion is fine when you understand the theme. It's the word for being expelled from school, so it's a completely logical name for a school entry to Robot Wars. I don't think people were really familiar with the word 'expulsion' beforehand though, I certainly wasn't. We all know 'expelled', but probably not 'expulsion', just as we all know 'paradise' but wouldn't think to say 'paradisiacal'. I distinctly remember Expulsion accidentally being called "Explosion" by fans once or twice, with even a slight bit of confusion next to the similar-ish Eruption in the same series. Expulsion also entered Series 10 with a minibot named Detention which is much more understandable and straight to the point, and I mean sure, I could give the minibot a decent individual ranking... but with how different the first two Expulsion machines are from each other, I wish they were just separate entries called Expulsion and Detention. After all, the team built a robot called Suspension in-between Series 9 and 10, and even after both Expulsion and Suspension both debuted, I still hadn't cottoned onto the naming theme at that point. I thought Suspension was just a reference to its lifting mechanism! Still though, the naming theme is good and Expulsion is a nice choice with context given.

OK fair they DID make the newt's eyes light up

• Eye of Newt - 5/10 - We end the E Range on a somewhat less notable robot, but Eye of Newt is still a decent enough name. A reference to the famous "double double, toil and trouble" sequence from Shakespeare's Macbeth, Eye of Newt is an interesting link to this without taking one of the more obvious lines. The team also dressed as wizards to try and enforce the theme (not that we got to see them speak), but there isn't much you can do with the robot's appearance to make you think 'eye of newt'. Yeah, the robot did have a picture of a newt on it, but I think you'd want to go the whole way with a scaly design, or perhaps something entirely different with a cauldron-shaped robot.

F Range

I haven't even listed all the potential meanings of the word Facet, it has uses in bone/tooth structure, and the addition to a debate that moves things away from science and into ideology. I don't know man

• Facet - 7/10 - Facet is such an odd name choice that you simply have to respect it. We really have no visual clues to the origin of the name. To me, facet is basically a word for any particular aspect of something. It is a word I used in the previous update in more of an "every facet of the design" kind of way, but I bet that I wouldn't toss around the word facet so easily if not for the Robot Wars competitor. There's also geometry meanings for the word facet, and seemingly its main purpose is to refer to a flat face on a multi-sided shape, such as a gemstone. Is Facet supposed to be one side of a sapphire gem? Is the robot just one "facet" of Robot Wars, one of over 100 competitors in the Third Wars? Whether it has a relevant meaning to the robot or not, I'll give a 7/10 simply for being so unprecedented.

The one that actually looks like a Falcon, unlike The Falcon Mark II

• Falcon - 6/10 - Falcon is another one of those names which is clearly a good choice for a robot, but one at risk of being stolen as it's a tad obvious. Sure enough, the Whyachi team snapped it up only two years later and ran with it. As far as I can tell this is the first robot called Falcon so on that it deserves perhaps a seven, but we slip backwards because of the awkward steps forward for the sequel. It was not just Falcon 2, not just Falcon Mk II, but they went the whole hog and called it "The Falcon Mark II"! This is a massive jump from one word to four, and the 'Mark' being an homage to a team member called Mark is a bit awkwardly thrown in. Imagine if we did this with a UK robot and went from Dominator to The Dominator Mark II, it's a bit unnecessary.

I was way too young to understand the bunny boiler joke when I first saw this robot

• Fatal Traction - 5/10 - Right. I generally do appreciate film and TV references in robot names, with the Fatal Attraction reference being easily understood and backed up by the bunny boiler mascot. It's a fun tribute, but as a name in its own right it just doesn't work. What could possibly be fatal about the robot's traction? Is it going to KO you by staying still in the arena when it's being pushed? Or will Fatal Traction itself die because it's too slippery? This was the only logical pun you could make out of Fatal Attraction (unless you go with something terrible like Fatal Attacktion) but it hardly makes much sense.

If not Fat Bot Tin, how about Bot Selecta or Robo Selecta?

• Fat Boy Tin - 5/10 - This is another tribute to a really fun source, being a play on Fat Boy Slim which you'd just never expect to see in a Robot Wars context. Sadly though 'Tin' wasn't as close to 'Slim' as you'd hope, and I thought the obvious joke would be Fat Bot Slim.

• Fighting Torque - 8/10 - The pre-Hippobotomus version of Fighting Torque really closed out the Team Torque trilogy extremely well. All Torque was the best opener, Small Torque made for a great derivative used for the smaller successor, and then the heaviest and best (or so we expected) third entry would take the most violent name of the three, Fighting Torque. While the novelty pyramid Fighting Torque wasn't what we expected from the third entry in the All Torque series and perhaps didn't deserve the name, the pun is still a great one.

The FireStorm logo on the original machine...

...and the FireStorm logo on later versions of the machine

This is, erm, irrefutable to say the least

• FireStorm - 8/10 - Let me open this up by saying that this machine has a fantastic name. One truly befitting a Robot Wars superstar, and it easily warrants an 8/10 if not potentially higher. It's great. Despite that, I unfortunately have to make this entry all moody and sad because there's a huge elephant in the room that I'm sure you've already noticed. The official spelling... is not Firestorm. It never has been, either. Even Fire-gap-Storm from Series 3 was just an error on the TV show's part. You only need to go on the team's website for a couple of seconds to quickly realise that Graham Bone has a strong preference for the spelling of "FireStorm". It's not just the website either, it's right there in the logo of every single FireStorm machine on our TV screens and it has been since the very, very beginning. Even on the 1999 GroundHog website written by Alex Mordue, the name was written as FireStorm before the robot was even built, which just utterly puts everything beyond doubt; the spelling is FireStorm. So why have we always used the simpler Firestorm for the best part of twenty years? Easily answered, it was the strong preference of the TV show. From the Fourth Wars right up to the Seventh Wars (while the falsehood of Fire Storm threw us off in Series 3), across all of its video game appearances and its pullback toys, maybe even Snowstorm in Techno Games, televised media utterly vetoes the team's spelling. And for this, I do not blame them. Firestorm is a real word in the English language which is already the clear origin of the name, so why randomly capitalise the S? This really wasn't necessary, it's not a Fire and a Storm, it's a Firestorm and that's all you would've needed for a potential 9/10. I also don't think it was needed to number the robots 2 through 5 when the final three were so visually similar. But the real reason FireStorm presents such a problem to me is that the wiki is supposed to put team preference ahead of the TV show, whether it's an obvious typo fix like Excalibur or frankly ruining the name like 3 Stegs 2 Heaven. So can you imagine if we had to change every single Firestorm to FireStorm across our wiki? There must be hundreds of mentions! Even when the job is done, so many readers would think "lol why are they spelling it as FireStorm, that's not right". It all just feels too late now. If ever the mammoth task of renaming it across the wiki was started then I'd be inclined to support it, but the whole thing would take months for an unsatisfying pay-off. Concerning.

Top tip of logo design, don't write your text in faint red on top of a bright green background

• Flensburger Power - 6/10 - There's an important distinction to be made here, as it really does affect what my final score would be. "Flensburg" is the area of Germany that the team lived in while working for their company Stadtwerk Flensburg. Meanwhile, "Flensburger" is a brewery found within the same region, producing various beers under the Flensburger brand. So which inspired the name? We know the robot as Flensburger Power, and this is written on top of the robot and on its website, so there's no doubting that this is the robot's name. I do find it interesting though that Stuart McDonald introduced the robot as "Flensburg Power" on three occasions. Was this perhaps the original name of the robot? Maybe this is another Androne 4000 where the team made a last-minute name change to avoid directly naming their sponsor... but then Flensburger is just another brand anyway! Is this shameless company promo, is it purely a tribute to your home region, or are you naming the robot after bottles beer? All seem equally feasible but it's definitely the latter that would unlock a higher score - good job the name is Flensburger Power then, regardless of origins or speculative name changes. The "Power" meanwhile is a bit pitiful because not one facet aspect of this robot was in any way powerful.

Should Flepser ever be added to the dictionary, this is our only visual to go off

• Flepser - 5/10 - I just... can't figure this one out! It looked like we were going from a very German name to a very Dutch one, but Flepser has no meaning in Dutch or indeed any language. Stick Flepser into Google and all three of the top results are Robot Wars related. After that you get a minor NPC in World of Warcraft called Flepser (presumably post-Dutch Robot Wars), and the rest are filled by an eSports gamer called FlePser. Although said gamer is Dutch, at least!! Clearly, Flepser is not a word but it's something only a Dutch speaker could hope to explain. I can see that there's some kind of beast painted on the flipper which might be a clue, but I wouldn't know where to start. With the robot being a front-hinged flipper, I'm sure many of us thought the name was "Flipser" at first glance, I certainly did. I'll give it some points for pure mystery value and for being completely unique, but no further than a 5/10.

• Flip Flop Fly - 6/10 - Interesting. This is clearly a reference to the 1955 song Flip, Flop and Fly by Big Joe Turner (what a name), but by taking away the "and", it gives the implication that the robot itself is meant to be a fly, which it hardly resembled. It did, however, flip and flop good and plenty, and that nets it a 6/10.

Here comes Flippa...

• Flippa - 2/10 - Terrible on multiple accounts. For one, it's basically a stolen name, as the robot underneath will tell you - "thank you" alphabetical order for making me talk about the second one first. It's also super, super literal, and is just the name of the robot's weapon with a slight spelling change. It's a flipper, so we called it Flippa. No different to Crusher having a crusher or Pinser having a pincer. American reader RA2 in the comments even reveals that "Flippa" doesn't match up with the Oregon accent, where people always pronounce their r's. The only thing saving this from being a 1/10 is that an extremely bad name like Flippa is at least appropriate for the equally ineffective robot. Jonathan Pearce twice saying "here comes Flippa" to the visual of absolutely nothing in the entry gate is something that still gets a giggle out of me on Robot Wars, so I'll at least spare one point for that.

Here comes Flipper... oh, red-carded!

• Flipper - 1/10 - Meanwhile the original "Flipper"... is even worse than the robot that took its name! Now before I come across as unaware, this competitor is named Flipper not in reference to its weaponry, but to the movie dolphin Flipper. This is why there's a fin on top of the robot. Being a film reference would typically give robots a big boost in this blog. However. The robot looks nothing like a dolphin?? It's painted brown!! Some dolphins can occasionally be vaguely this colour, but Flipper the Dolphin was as blue as can be. You can't just give something a face (which here looks more like a Japanese daruma doll than anything else) then put a fin on top and call it a dolphin. What's with the coloured spikes on the side, are these also more "fins"? Why have you proudly written the awful Flipper name on the robot not once, but twice, in massive logos as though it's something you want to show off? The dolphin homage is so poor that it simply wasn't noticed for years, and even after the connection is made, that cannot fix the biggest issue of all. The flipper weapon has been a part of Robot Wars since the very beginning. Recyclopse and Cassius made the flipper well-known and it was clearly going to be a staple of the show. So what on earth possessed you to call a robot "Flipper" when it does not even have a flipper? Even Joe Murawski's Flippa got that part right! And because of this shambolic title, typing "Flipper" into the Robot Wars Wiki will always lead you to a Series 3 first-round dropout and not the weapon that you were most likely looking for. A total farce.

This being from the same team as Police Force Shockwave still catches me out

• Flirty Skirty - 7/10 - Simply bizarre. When thinking of ways to describe a fighting robot, "flirty" is perhaps one of the very last words you'd arrive at. Something about this hazard-striped fighting box supposedly being flirtatious is weird enough that I have to admire the confidence in going for it. The main basis of course is the 'skirty' part referencing the robot's actuated skirt weapons, creating a kind of "curtsy attack" which I guess can be perceived as flirty in the right situation? I'm definitely overthinking this though, the team made a skirt weapon, picked a word that rhymed with it, and the end result was Flirty Skirty. Purely for being so unusual and injecting personality into a robot that otherwise wouldn't have any, I'll award a 7/10.

It wasn't until 2020 that I was informed the flat end of Fluffy's bar does the hitting, and the big triangles are just counterweights

• Fluffy - 9/10 - The quintessential contrast name, Fluffy is a name that's very easy to understand and an overwhelming improvement from its predecessor "Charybdis". You hardly need me to explain the joke, it's an extremely threatening and uniform-looking robot armed with a giant bar spinner and little in the way of visuals, but it's named Fluffy to create total dissonance between appearance and name. It's the same kind of principle that the human name robots like Eric and Derek were going for, but Fluffy is so masterful because the robot is a genuinely frightening machine in combat, while the name Fluffy is completely and utterly harmless. They couldn't be any further apart, making for an easy 9/10. It falls short of a 10/10 because the name was sadly too good to be true, and a total of seven American robots named Fluffy in various weight classes can be found on BuildersDatabase (plus John Findlay's actually-fur-coated featherweight called Fluffy), so while the Robot Wars competitor was the first robot to be named Fluffy, it was far from the last which unfortunately shows it's not quite unique enough to stand at the top.

Future Flybot machines didn't even retain the "fly" removing the flipper

• Flybot - 3/10 - This has always been one of my favourite featherweights long before I realised the connections to Team MAD and their future live event/Robot Wars successes, but the name has never been a contributing factor. It's just the word "fly", presumably because of the flipper weapon, and the unoriginal -bot suffix. Honestly, I think a name like Flybot is best left outside the realms of Robot Wars, and left more for real-world flying robots. This featherweight didn't really produce enough flight from its opponents or itself to get past the bland nature of the name in isolation.

• Forklift - 4/10 - We've had the flipper called Flippa and the crusher called Crusher, but a forklift called Forklift? Alright, I didn't see that coming. With this being the only true forklift weapon in Robot Wars, it's just about good enough to stand as the robot's name, but a lot more could have been done.

We forklifts have long been mistreated by our human captors, but I, the leader of the forklifts, will take our revenge!

• Forklift's Revenge - 3/10 - The sequel meanwhile, falls further behind in terms of name. It's bad enough to name your robot as the successor to a competitor we hardly saw or remembered in the Second Wars, but we lose a ton of meaning by virtue of Forklift's Revenge... not being a forklift! Rather it's armed with a series of bladed conveyor belts, and I guess the vertical lift concept is still there, but it really isn't what you'd call a forklift. Without knowledge of its predecessor, you're merely left to wonder why exactly a forklift is taking its revenge in the form of this random Robot Wars competitor. This definitely warranted a new name separate from Forklift.

Utterly baffling that we've gone into the realm of Sonic OC's on Robot Wars, and for it to be an idea even that fandom would reject is worse. Where's Blades the Echidna and Coldsteel the Hedgehog?

• Foxic - 3/10 - Craig Danby's Foxic is a weak name that somehow manages to get worse when its origins are explained. When I first discovered Foxic, I thought the idea was a combination of "fox" and "toxic", a reasonable if slightly awkward pun which would've been at least passable, although I found it a bit too similar to Toxic 2. Bear in mind I'm calling back to a time where Foxic and Toxic 2 had both applied for Series 8 but neither had been selected for the series yet, we didn't know which one would prove more significant to Robot Wars. So this toxic fox was already on the back foot, but then we learn from Craig Danby that this was never the meaning of the name. Rather, Foxic is based on an original character that Danby designed when he was younger, combining Sonic the Hedgehog with a fox. Oh gee, if only there were some kind of notable fox in the Sonic series. I get it, kids can't be expected to know everything about the series they're talking or drawing about, but Tails is the second-most important character in the entire Sonic franchise? And he is already a fox?? We certainly don't need both Sonic and Tails to be foxes (unless you're in a "certain fandom"), and Foxic is a cringy name even for the Sonic OC, never mind a fighting robot. Gotta go fast to get the heck away from this name.

The original name TerMinal frenZy is perhaps weaker, but it's still got that "Barbaric Response" essence to it

Honestly I can never get my head around how Mortis beat this so comfortably

• frenZy - 7/10 - I'll never get used to talking about frenZy in a Robot Wars context, it's always been so universally a BattleBots competitor that I never expect it to come up in these things. I do get to discuss frenZy here today though, and I think it's a brilliant name. It is a "just-a-word" name without great meaning beyond the frenzy of hammer blows it can land, so a 7/10 is the peak, but I think this is just one of those names that had to be a robot at some point, and I'm glad it was someone notable like frenZy who took it, to avoid a legion of other roboteers taking the name for themselves. To use Fluffy as an example, I guess it's to be expected that a bunch of American teams would be unaware of our bar spinner pioneer and use it for themselves, but frenZy is significant to audiences all around the world and you'd be met with scathing criticism if you tried to take this name. The other discussion point is the capitalisation, I've certainly seen wiki people show disdain towards the lowercase-f-capital-Z spelling, but I think it looks great. I've never been against messing with capitalisation rules if it helps express the name (e.g. I'm not much of a Billie Eilish listener but I've always thought that her lowercase song titles better suit the modern low-energy style that she goes for), and frenZy doesn't look out of place thanks to there being a capital letter elsewhere. I genuinely can't look at the word Frenzy without wanting to see it in the style of the robot. Just a shame then that the Series 4 version of the machine had the allcaps "FRENZY" name written on the armour.

"I don't think there's ever been a PLASTIC robot, costing less than £500 to build, to win Robot Wars!" Yeah nice one Sherlock, there'd only been seven robots to win Robot Wars then, and Chaos 2 still incorporated plastic while costing £250, get on my level

• Frostbite - 5/10 - It's challenging to rate Frostbite fairly. I scored it very highly in my Ranking All Series 9 Names blog because I really do think it's a fantastic word choice for a robot. The 'frosted' panels and 'biting' bar spinner of Frostbite help complete the look, making the name worthy of at least a 7/10. What I didn't know at the time though was just how important a machine called "FrostBite" was to BattleBots history. Generally it's fair game to have one robot of each name in both Robot Wars and BattleBots, and I'd totally forgive Derek Farr's team if Frostbite was some run-of-the-mill BattleBots entry noone remembered, but FrostBite was really quite notable. This was the very first robot built by the long-standing roboteers of Team Toad, and it reached the Quarter-Finals of Season 2.0 before appearing in every subsequent series of classic BattleBots under the controls of Michael Mauldin. Of course, Fuzzy himself would then become a Robot Wars competitor himself with Cathadh, so I think it becomes necessary to quantify Frostbite as a stolen name. It's original for the UK scene, but with Team Toad being so important to robot combat around the world, the sign of respect would be to leave Frostbite alone.

I can't say I really noticed the wartime aesthetics before, but there they are. Now tie this back to an anorak

• Full Metal Anorak - 5/10 - To start with, I was hopelessly lost with this one. The first thing that comes to my mind when thinking of "Full Metal" would be the anime series Fullmetal Alchemist, but this came a few years after the robot Full Metal Anorak, so that's off the table. This left us with only one feasible origin for the Full Metal side of the name, that being the "full metal jacket", a type of bullet which also became the name of a Stanley Kubrick war film in 1987. The mouth of Full Metal Anorak does have that plane/missile/torpedo nose art theme going on that you see with other war-themed robots like Bombshell, so I'm convinced by now that it's a reference to the bullet and possibly the film by extension. But why Anorak? Embarrassingly I thought an anorak was some kind of animal, but this was an error on my part. It's actually a kind of coat, like a hoodie or a... jacket. Suddenly it all comes together. The joke is to take the literal interpretation of "jacket" from full metal jacket, then swap it for an alternative. I get the idea now, but it was quite a long path to get here. I was scrambling to find some kind of wordplay pun when really it's just "merge two different meanings of jacket, without actually including jacket in the name anywhere". Perhaps this would be more obvious if the visuals of the robot complimented the name more? Maybe this was obvious to other readers but I certainly didn't expect to type any of what I just did.

G Range

GABRIEL2 GABRIEL2 GABRIEL2 GABRIEL2 GABRIEL2 GABRIEL2

• Gabriel - 8/10 - The G Range starts very strongly with Gabriel, the more well-known Robot Wars entry from Team Saint who earned a 10/10 score with Cherub earlier in the blog. Gabriel is another excellent name, and one that truly solidified the team's Christian naming convention after first debuting on the live circuit with The Saint. Named after the angel Gabriel, this heavenly name is very appropriate for the pure-white robot which showed true pacifism in its victory over Beast, refusing to harm the beaten machine. The largest machine in Robot Wars truly "rains down blows from above" like divine punishment, and its friendly team make this whole package a true delight. I can't score this quite as highly as Cherub because "Gabriel" in the reboot referred to the Sabretooth team captain Gabriel Stroud almost as much as it was used to describe the robot, which certainly made the World Series a bit pesky when both Gabriels appeared in the same episode. The whole Gabriel 2 name for Series 10 also sticks out like a sore thumb, although I have to admit it was a necessary evil to make sure Gabriel was selected to compete in Series 10 after it didn't qualify for Series 9. Got to demonstrate those between-series improvements in a way the producers can understand!

They even got it right on the surface of the robot, no full stops in that GBH logo, but it's all over the website

Many have claimed GBH 2 was robbed of a spot in the second round of Series 6, but more importantly it was robbed of a spot in the first round of Series 5

• G.B.H. - 5/10 - I'm going to be a little unexpected here and rank two very similar names from the same lineage separately. Talking about the original machine first, G.B.H. is another one of those surprisingly heavy names for a Series 2 machine, with "grievous bodily harm" being on the darker side of name origins, although oddly it was never confirmed what G.B.H. truly stood for. It's going to be something to do with grievous bodily harm of course, but I wouldn't be surprised if it stood for a slight diversion like "Grievous Bot Harm". I do hope that's the case, although G.B.H. is held back from a 6/10 because the full stops aren't needed. "GBH" has always been sufficient as the abbreviation for grievous bodily harm, no punctuation necessary. I did check the team website as well as the stat boards, and make no mistake, the team put them there on purpose.
  • GBH 2 - 6/10 - Meanwhile, GBH 2 is a lot more respectful to the English language and does away with the full stops to give us an easier acronym. Of course, simply removing a bit of punctuation isn't enough to earn a separate listing on the blog, but the improved score behind GBH 2 is a sign of respect for why it needed to happen - and spoilers, it's another Gabriel 2 situation. This machine was originally never going to be part of the G.B.H. lineage, and like Scrapper and Facet on either side of the G.B.H. heat win in Series 2, we were going to have a fourth completely separate machine from this team called "Mulsanne Monster". With the robot's racecar design, this is much more of a visual match than GBH 2, one with clear origin at the cost of being a mouthful. Given that the robot was competing in 2001 live events featuring the likes of Wheely Big Cheese and Arnold A. Terminegger, one has to assume Mulsanne Monster made an unsuccessful qualification attempt for the Fifth Wars. You don't need me to tell you this was a mistake on the producers' part, Mulsanne Monster would've really livened up the Fifth Wars and it totally warranted a place on the show, but for one reason or another, the slot wasn't given. Clearly the team's original vision for this machine was to compete on Robot Wars with their LeMans style machine called Mulsanne Monster, but it wasn't meant to be, so I really respect the team for abandoning their plans and switching to GBH 2. This tied things back to their better-known Series 2 heat winner to ensure GBH 2 was given a spot in the Sixth Wars. After all, we even know that GBH 2 had radio issues in its Series 6 qualifier and no robot won outright - the name GBH 2 might have made all the difference. We wouldn't want another Haardervark situation, and if GBH 2 didn't qualify then we would've missed out on one of the show's greatest melees. I think we owe it in part to the GBH 2 name that we were given the opportunity to see this machine at all.

I'm thinking about other Zodiac signs that could make good robot names, and what I arrived at was... Zodiac itself!

• Gemini - 9/10 - Squeaking into the golden ranks is Gemini, something which I've always appreciated as a person born in mid-June. Gemini was the first clusterbot to grace the TV heavyweight world (fun fact: Grunt got there first), so it had basically free access to the perfect name. With the Gemini zodiac sign famously being identical twins, this was inevitably going to be used by plenty of clusterbots if the idea caught on (it did) and I'm pleased the name Gemini went to the most significant clusterbot Robot Wars ever saw. It's a shame that there's now another prominent Gemini clusterbot in televised combat and I wish the American team were more respectful to the founder of their own robot archetype, but I will still deduct that singular point as the blatant obviousness of the name Gemini made this a likely scenario, and a way to name the individual twins would be nice.

General Carnage is always represented by its Series 5 version, so here's the original to remind you what it looks like

• General Carnage - 4/10 - Very basic stuff. When rolling with the military theme, I'd prefer a joke angle like camouflaged robot called General Knowledge, but this is mainly an approach of picking a dangerous word then giving it a title. It scrapes a 4/10 because it's at least the only General Carnage in the world, and like both Gabriel 2 and GBH 2, the naming callback may have been required to get General Carnage 2 into the Fifth Wars. We know they turned away a lot of good flippers like M2, Mute, Roobarb and Barbaric Response, I'm honestly surprised that General Carnage 2 did get in!

The robot's third and final identity was Nasty Overbite on BattleBots, not great but better than this

• General Chompsalot - 3/10 - I take even more issue with General Chompsalot's name. Robot Wars by this point had already seen two different Generals, various names ending in -alot, with "Chomp" being the only unique part of the name, and even that was retroactively killed off by Chompalot. There's no flair to an unwieldy name like General Chompsalot and it's just too long, especially when it evolved into General Chompsalot 2. This is particularly sad because its name when competing in Robotica was Jawbreaker and this was a much better name, one that they of course couldn't use on another TV show, but I wish we got something more along those lines.

Clearly there must not have been any other middleweights active in 2001 in order for this to reach the TV screens

• Genesis - 7/10 - A good name like Genesis is completely and utterly wasted on a robot like this. With its origins in the first book of the Old Testament, essentially telling the story of how the world was created from a Christian point of view, this was a fantastic word that could add a lot of weight to anything it was applied to. This included, but is not limited to: the rock band Phil Collins was part of, a Marvel villain and a DC comic, a SEGA video game console, novels, journals, a book publisher, plenty of music albums, songs, software, TV episodes, films, companies, cameras, tournaments, cars, motorcycles, spacecrafts... clearly, it was also going to become a fighting robot at some point. So why did it have to be this thing?? Nothing about this middleweight robot with no weapon, wedge, paintwork, power, performance, or personality of any kind, warranted the name Genesis. It might honestly be one of the blandest and most forgettable robots to ever appear on television. But it does have a good name, even if it's one that should've been reserved for something better.

Loving the V▴V face

• G-Force - 7/10 - Another simple bit of quality, G-Force didn't take a genius to come up with but it helps convey the machine's top speed and space-black colours nicely. The world deserved better than G-Force being the name given to a movie about CGI hamsters in space, and this team were on the right track.

One of many conflicting sources on how to spell Ghetto-bot

• Ghetto-bot - 4/10 - I'll lead in with a positive, as the name Ghetto-bot does help to inspire a little more personality onto this machine that would otherwise be Genesis levels of plain. Yes, that was the positive, apparently. I do like to imagine that this grey wedge is 'in da ghetto' and it's gonna hit you with its 2000's grime music, but I really can't pretend this is a good name. It not only falls into the big detracting point of a needless "-bot" suffix, it can't even stay consistent with its own name. The team's build progress photo labels it as GhettoBot, the TV statistics board says Ghetto-bot, and the surface of the machine says GHETTO-BOT. Not a single one of those manages to read as "Ghetto-Bot" either, which is what you'd want the name to be. Instead on the wiki we're stuck with this out-of-place lowercase 'b' in the title, and that hurts its street cred bruv.

Another slight problem, the Extreme 2 version of Gi-Ant-O was absolutely tiny!

• Gi-Ant-O - 3/10 - This blog has already covered a number of robots that try to sandwich "ant" into the name of an antweight, but now we arrive at the unique one-off where "ant" has instead been forced into the name of a featherweight. There's something not quite right about that. The meaning here is that it takes Craig Danby's antweight "Anto" and scales it up to become 'giant'. This should give us the name Gianto, an OK name let down by its connections to the the previously-bad name Anto. But Danby didn't just settle for Gianto, he really wanted us to notice the ant pun in his not-antweight robot by styling the name as Gi-Ant-O. Even if it were just an antweight slightly above average in size, then Gianto still would have sufficed. It really wasn't important to highlight the "pun" here, particularly when the Series 7 version of Gi-Ant-O looked nothing like Anto. And with that, I've rated all four of Team Danby's televised Robot Wars competitors, with one exceptional name in Apex and three stinkers. The almost-televised TX-108 doesn't get a blog entry but let's just say it would do extremely badly. Yet even after all this, we still haven't covered the worst name that Craig Danby was associated with on the show...

Gladiator, ready to kickstart Team MAD's Robot Wars career

G2, ready to get yeeted out of the arena by the floor flipper while being mislabelled as a block of cheese

• Gladiator - 6/10 - We've just covered Gi-Ant-O, the classic series representation of Team Danby in the Extreme 2 featherweights long before their heavyweight debut in the reboot, so let's move straight to the other team who did the same thing, Dave Young and Gladiator! This is perhaps the most humble origin for a Robot Wars champion ever, with Dave Young reaching the Featherweight Final of Extreme 2 when his older brother fell in the same fight, years before Dave Young himself would take to the controls of Apollo while lead builder Alan could only join in later. Gladiator is an effective but hardly noteworthy name, which really is ideal for a featherweight. Something that doesn't sound bad, but doesn't steal the glory from the more important heavyweight machines.
  • G2 - 2/10 - So why the team decided to scale down to just G2 for the Seventh Wars is beyond me. With so little spotlight given to individual featherweights and their teams on Robot Wars, you should aim to hold onto any sort of longevity you can get. With Gladiator being a returning finalist, it deserved to extend its legacy a little and represent the name in another series. G2 could mean anything, you'd need to be eagle-eyed or armed with an internet browser to know it was connected to Gladiator from Extreme 2. It's no wonder then that the producers didn't notice, and doomed it to the fake name of "Cheese 2" for the rest of time. Why distance yourself from something that did quite well? It's not like Gladiator II sounds bad, on the contrary, it's the perfect excuse to use Roman numerals and reference the time period while also sounding like a movie title (it is now going to be, but was only announced in late 2018). It gets worse when we advance to G3 for the live circuit, because then you're one away from The X Factor Season 1 runners-up G4. Remarkably, Cheese 2 is probably a little better than the real name G2. Just... Gladiator was fine, man!

Edge Hog's axe on a HARDOX wedge body? The Dutch Robot Games would be cowering in fear

• Glitterbomb - 6/10 - This was never going to get a proper rating from me. If you're going to enter an incredibly girly pink robot then it needs a suitably feminine name, and something like Glitterbomb is both happy and playful, while being subtly threatening enough for a fighting robot when developing upon the 'bomb' aspect. However, it's also the name of a gay bar in my home city and that makes me wholly incapable of taking the name seriously in its intended context.

The robot that tarnishend the No Judges' Decisions record for Evil Weevil, The General AND Velocirippa

• Gnasher - 4/10 - Ooh, is this my chance to talk about the amazing coincidence of Dennis the Menace again? I feel like Gnasher is the best opportunity I'm gonna get... but it's not really relevant enough. Look it up if you're interested. I'm not sure if the robot Gnasher is a Beano reference or if it's yet another total coincidence tied to Dennis the Menace, but your choices are an homage to a comic strip dog that the robot in no way resembles, or otherwise just a generic vicious name. I'd prefer the former, but I'm thinking the latter.
• Golem - 6/10 - Whilst this would be a terrible name for a Pokémon, it's quite a good name for a robot with its origins in the historic titans. Frustratingly it is that poorly named Pokémon that stops me from truly appreciating this robot's name, but I'll look past it for today and award a 6/10.

"Oh, who's gone in there with her? The Refbot's gone in! Granny's got a hold of the Refbot, what a dreadful thought!" Lines like this are only made funnier by the dummy on top simply being called Granny

• Granny's Revenge - 8/10 - It sounds daft to give a name like Granny's Revenge a score this high, but I really don't think they could've picked anything better. The flaming chainsaw-wielding granny on a motorised wheelchair is something that appealed to thousands of Robot Wars fans and she's still fondly remembered to this day. Without a name like Granny's Revenge, it might not have the same impact. Say the team played this normally and just gave her an old lady's name like Barbara or Margaret... would we find the robot as entertaining then? We'd still love it I'm sure, but a lot of the iconic quotes wouldn't be so funny if her name wasn't just "Granny". It makes her oddly relatable and makes you wish your own gran could kick Axe-Awe's shins in. Plenty of entries are going to be held back by the "Revenge" part of the name, but while I've no interest in seeing the revenge of a forklift, it's barmy fun to watch this evil gran take revenge on the world of robots. But bless her, she's denied of a gold score because there was no need for the name Granny's Revenge II, now you're just boosting the length and trying to sound all serious with your Roman numerals and stuff.

The closest we got to Tombstone on Robot Wars, the lower artwork of Gravedigger

• Gravedigger - 7/10 - Oddly I think Gravedigger turned out to be quite clever in a number of ways, but never all at once. It's suitably morbid for a successful robot, and I liked the visual resemblance to a coffin to signify what your robot would be in after it had dug your grave. A shovel is also commonly used by gravediggers, and so an axe made for a very suitable weapon for the robot to have. The trouble here is that these two positives never coincided. Gravedigger was either a coffin in Series 3 but had a flipper weapon instead of an axe, or it was in Series 5 with a grave-digging axe, but sacrificed its coffin look for some lurid artwork you can hardly make out. Or it could be the Series 4 version where it had neither the coffin look nor the axe. Still, even if it never combined both points, just the one is still enough to make Gravedigger a highly appropriate name on two occasions out of three.

Mate, £2000 for Gravity is a bargain, hit me up WJ

• Gravity - 8/10 - I'm so pleased a name like Gravity went to this machine. The word by itself is cool enough to justify being the name of any robot, but it's most at home on a flipper who would make its opponents "defy gravity" by launching them into the air and causing them to land with forces that would make Isaac Newton cringe. Good job then that Gravity was one of the three strongest flippers in the whole classic era of Robot Wars, and set the benchmark for future flippers to come. A very good name on an appropriately great robot. Well, eventually, the Dutch Wars version of Gravity wasn't inspiring in that sense.

I don't want to criticise Griffon for having no visual connections to the mythical beast, as the robot is so beautiful... but I'm not wrong

• Griffon - 5/10 - The origins for this name are good, the execution not so much. The intended meaning is the mythological creature with the body of a lion and the head/wings of an eagle, and contrary to my belief for many years, it can be spelled as Griffon... but I think we all know the creature better as 'Griffin'. I find this spelling to be more culturally accepted, especially with Griffon also being a category for various dog breeds. Hey, at least it's not the Japanese anime that I cover on my YouTube channel where they go with the spelling "Gryphon". This name is fine with or without the more accepted spelling, but is a definite step down from Cunning Plan.

I think this image alone explains the problem with the name better than my words could

• Grinder - 2/10 - Well this backfired, didn't it! Frankly, this middleweight deserves the misfortune that befell its name. It's one of the worst cases of "crusher called Crusher" yet, because at least something like Crusher and Forklift had relatively unique weapons for their time! Every competitor and their dog had a grinding disc in Series 1-3, so to adopt "Grinder" as your entire identity makes you one of the least memorable Robot Wars competitors in history. And then we all came to associate "Grinder" with the blokes-only dating app and welp, what little hope this name had is completely gone. Can you imagine if a Series 3 competitor called itself "Tinder" after the fire-lighting equipment?

Wow, it's got a little hedgehog logo, what an animalistic robot

• GroundHog - 2/10 - Graham Bone, you need to stop with the capital letters, howay man! At least FireStorm could reasonably be a combination of two words that just so happens to be a noun in its own right anyway, who on earth spells Groundhog as GroundHog? What's the point? Phwoar, this isn't just a mere groundhog, this is a Ground... Hog! The name choice was already mundane enough, being a very ordinary animal with no connections to the robot's visual design. Then we see Team RFM (I just wanted to call Team FireStorm by their Series 2 name lol) try to make things "more interesting" with the GroundHog spelling and it backfires so stupendously that it makes the name several times worse. Wey aye, this was a geet massive blunder, why not gan down the toon and start again, pet?

Day 1075 of not having the diecast Growler keychain

• Growler - 7/10 - Like I mentioned in the Dead Metal segment, House Robots are under extra pressure with their names as they present a near-guaranteed merchandise opportunity and so they need to be unique enough to be trademarked. Growler is very clearly a dog, with Chris Reynolds citing a pitbull as the reference, but just naming it directly after dog breeds wouldn't cut it for something where branding is key. Growler is not particularly extraordinary, but it gets the point across nice and simply while still being unique enough for the BBC's requirements. Something I really like about Growler is that while fans very rarely cite it as their favourite House Robot, many modern roboteers cite Growler as their favourite, with its all-Etek drive system paving the way for future competitors.

The Master vs (Annoyed Grunt)

• Grunt - 5/10 - Straight middle-of-the-road name here, it's nice and short, pretty memorable and unique-ish, but really nothing special or descriptive of the design. Grunt does however get minus points whenever it's in an episode title for The Simpsons, which for some reason write the classic D'oh! as (Annoyed Grunt) in episode listings. This gives us nightmare episode titles like "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-bot" instead of "I, D'ohbot" for reasons unknown.

Needs to get back on the rails... no chance!

• Guzunderbot - 3/10 - Well I have an almighty challenge here in trying to decipher what a "Guzunderbot" is supposed to be. Right, so we've already got the -bot suffix, bad start, but then what is a guzunder? Apparently, a "guzunder pot" is a type of chamber pot used to store urine and defecation. Surely this can't be the origin, right? But apparently the guzunder term was founded in Birmingham, describing it as a pot that "goes under" the bed. Guzunderbot is from a Birmingham team... does this mean they seriously named their robot after a human pee container? I think the implication here is that the robot "goes under" other machines with its double-wedge, but the actual weapon (the mace) is something that "goes over" other robots anyway! There's one word I could use to describe the name Guzunderbot, and you'd probably find it in a guzunder pot.

Gutted I couldn't go to Extreme Robots in Guildford last year

• Gyrobot - 7/10 - For once, we actually have a good use of the -bot suffix, because it seamlessly integrates the entire word 'robot' into somewhere it fits very naturally. It's got a gyroscopic spinning weapon, and it's a robot, so the name will be Gyrobot. You can't really ask for more than that. For years I've had a soft spot for Gyrobot and I'm not forced to turn against one of my favourites today. Not... today...

H Range

I'll always maintain that Haardervark should've been selected for Series 5, but otherwise we're left with little to say about this Top 8 finisher

• Haardvark - 7/10 - You know something, I'd be really interested to read some kind of blog or opinion related to Haardvark itself. After winning a heat and reaching the top eight of Series 2 (creating either a joint fifth place finish or a sixth place ranking by virtue of losing to runner-up Cassius), Haardvark was an objectively successful machine and did get to sneak in a second series despite its Third Wars campaign never getting off the ground. Despite this, Haardvark is just not discussed, despite having a greater peak than the most commonly cited examples of forgotten heat winners like Blade and Trident. It's not exactly hard to figure out, Haardvark's design in Series 2 was hardly eye-catching and after winning one of the weakest heat line-ups of the Second Wars, it didn't impress in any stage of its semi-final despite reaching the Arena stage - but I'd love to hear someone stick up for poor old Haardvark. I'll at least praise the name, anyone can figure out the joke and it works pretty well.

Maybe you guys don't see it as an issue, but I can't get behind something the size of your hand using up the name Hades on Robot Wars

• Hades - 4/10 - Hades is perhaps one of the most infamous figures from Greek mythology, it doesn't really get more severe than being the guardian of the underworld, so Hades needed to be a robot at some point. It was Team MAD who stepped up to the plate, but unfortunately I think it's far too fearsome for an antweight. The Hades from the mythology is the son of Cronus (represented in Robot Wars by Cronos) and uses the beastly dog Cerberus (represented by, well, Cerberus) to guard the Underworld, meaning it doesn't feel right to see an antweight take the name of something superior to its heavyweight relatives. A name like Hades should be given to something truly terrifying, and I feel like you at least needed a heavyweight robot to suit that. There's a reason that most antweight roboteers (and often beetleweight builders) in the United Kingdom tend to use more silly names for their machines, while the upper weight classes have the freedom to pick from more serious sources like Greek mythology. I'm not out here to discredit antweight robots, they're a fantastic entry-level class for roboteers and even the experienced heavyweight builders of the world still have a lot of fun in this more accessible and affordable division, but you only need to see an antweight in somebody's hand to see that serious names don't really resonate with them.

Hammerhead the Builder, can we fix it?

• Hammerhead (Series 3) - 5/10 - We had two competitors named Hammerhead in Robot Wars, and the first was the British competitor Hammerhead from Series 3. Of the two, this robot played more to the actual-hammer side of things, with an obvious hammer weapon and a general construction theme going on with its visuals. It works quite well as an overall package, but I do feel like the word hammerhead makes you think of a shark before the literal head of a hammer. When you think about it, this name really was just describing their weapon and little beyond that, but it's at least a slight diversion from calling it, um, Hammer. I do think it's a shame this particular Hammerhead came first, the construction industry offered a lot of alternative names (although I can't help with this because for some reason I'm fixated on the name Builder's Breakfast) whereas there were a lot more limitations placed on...

Hammerhead the Builder Shark, yes we can! (Err, I think so)

• Hammerhead (Dutch) - 4/10 - ...the actual hammerhead shark robot from The Dutch Battles. I am forced to give the second Hammerhead in Robot Wars a lower score because it was a duplicate name, but if for example the Dutch robot Hammerhead came first while the British robot Hammerhead came second, we'd suddenly be looking at scores like 6/10 or more for the Dutch and 2/10 for the British. I can offer a lot more leeway to Dutch Hammerhead because it plays up to the hammerhead shark theme very blatantly, and there wasn't really an alternative for these guys. Sure, the first version of Hammerhead didn't really resemble a shark beyond using the colour blue, but it at least had two parallel spinning hammers (like the head of a hammerhead shark). The second variant Hammerhead 2 then went all-in with the hammerhead shark look from head to tail. Honestly, I really am keen on the design of Hammerhead 2 and if Dutch Hammerhead 1 didn't settle on this name, the second version probably wouldn't exist in the form we know it as. We're essentially stuck in a position where one machine is clearly more deserving of the name, but the other gets the credit for coming first, which I'm forced to prioritise. At least there wasn't too much crossover in their UK appearances, where each were known as Hammerhead and Hammerhead 2 respectively.

Hammer & Tong, I'm glad it came along, but it wasn't all that strong, you can't tell me I'm wrong

• Hammer & Tong - 5/10 - To go at something "hammer and tongs" means to give it your all, often with some intent of causing harm. This is certainly fitting for a combat robot, especially one armed with a hammer weapon like this is. Why they shortened tongs to tong, I'm not sure, but this definitely threw me off when I was younger. Thank you to my Gran pronouncing 'tongue' as 'tong', making me think that the dual-acting weapon of Hammer & Tong included the overhead "hammer" and the long lifting "tong". I was definitely off-base, but I wouldn't exactly say Hammer & Tong gave its all in battle or caused any harm either.

• Hammertron - 3/10 - A machine like Hammertron has often tempted me to throw around the word "underrated" which I generally try not to say in this fandom after all the misuse it's seen, but I really don't feel like Hammertron is as bad of a machine as people make out. The name, however, is rubbish. Serving only to combine the "hammer" weapon with something robotic like "tron", you complete a disappointingly generic package not befitting the kinda-pioneer of the bar spinner.

Carrot not included

• Hannibal - 7/10 - This is really quite a well-chosen name just for being multi-purpose while sounding good in the process. There's all kinds of potential origins for the name Hannibal, starting with the general who fought the Romans in war back in the year 247 BC, to more modern interpretations like the character Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs. I won't attempt to guess which inspiration gave the robot its name, if indeed it's either of the two, because both would work. No matter what though, Hannibal creates a good name for one of the undefeated machines in Robot Wars.

"This... is... HARD!!!" Thank you Jayne for bigging it up

• Hard - 7/10 - Guilty pleasure alert!! I've seen Hard often cited as one of the worst names of its series, or at least nothing worthy of a 7/10, but I... have just always really liked it! I think it completely encapsulates not just the robot but also the team in such a compact package. The robot is a small but feisty contender made out of some really strong metals with a focus on defence, and the team themselves were men of few words who'd probably do alright in a fight themselves. I think a short but straight-to-the-point name like Hard embodies the structurally solid robot and the blokey team quite well, and its brutal simplicity is something I want to compliment.

I doubt anybody expected Hard Cheese to win a "best-in-region" award, but it takes joint first for the H Range and might be my favourite of the group

• Hard Cheese - 8/10 - Before we had Just-Hard, we had the best name of the H range so far, an unlikely candidate in Hard Cheese. I think this also makes Hard Cheese the best name so far out of the lower weight classes, but it's ideal for a cheese-themed robot. I'm not sure if this is just British slang or if it's known worldwide, so to cover all audiences, "hard cheese" (alternatively "hard cheddar") is slang for "tough, get over it". Essentially it's used in situations where something unlucky happened to someone, but there's no need be sympathetic over it. I'd like to imagine people said this to Doodlebug and Wharthog when they lost the championship to Hard Cheese. Of course, Hard Cheese can literally refer to hard cheeses like Parmesan, and both definitions are firmly covered with the first middleweight champion of Robot Wars.

Today we stan random Series 2 machines

• Havoc - 7/10 - Another fairly generous rating perhaps, but as far as dangerous one-word names go, Havoc is one of the best. It's impactful and sounds great, the type of name that would be adored if the robot itself was more well-known. At least it made a Heat Final, eh!

• Heavy Metal - 6/10 - For something relatively simple, Heavy Metal does carry a nice double-meaning. The main intention is to reference heavy metal music, but a 110kg fighting robot made out of metal is itself, of course, quite a heavy lump of metal. It would be a great name deserving at least a 7/10, but I'll dock just one point because the Robot Wars video games had a Heavy Metal over a decade prior - with how much John Denny Jr has covered robot video games on his YouTube channel, I think it's very likely he had played Arenas of Destruction enough to know this.

Always crazy seeing the insides of Hefty

• Hefty - 5/10 - Well to say the least, I vastly prefer the name Hefty to its working name of "Tank Slapper". Not even Evolution would benefit from having that name. Hefty at least describes the size pretty accurately even if it does little else. I know it occasionally got confused with Henry from the same series too. We'll get to that in a moment...

Come on guys, why no bent logo on the back of the robot like you did with the team shirts

• Hellbent - 6/10 - I'm quietly keen on the name Hellbent. We first knew it on Techno Games as Hell Bound, but I think the plan was to save the name Hellbent for Robot Wars which is how we ended up with the back of the robot saying "Hellbent II". Said logo on the team's shirts is quite nice, with the way it starts to bend right around the word Bent. The name itself works nicely to suggest the robot is hellbent on destruction, and gives an identity to build around.

• Hell's Teeth - 4/10 - Since when did Hell have teeth? I don't think Hell is supposed to be a living entity. Is the robot meant to be tooth-shaped? Wouldn't that just make it Hell's Tooth then? Could you not at least call it Hellfang? We still never got a Robot Wars competitor called Hellfire... this is all what I wrote before Googling the term Hell's Teeth and apparently it's a Geordie expression of frustration like "for Heaven's sake". Well I live in Newcastle and I've never heard anyone here say Hell's Teeth.

Name it after Henry VIII then I'll offer my respect, name it just Henry and there's not much to praise

• Henry - 4/10 - We've now had Haardvark, Havoc and Henry, all we needed was Vercingetorix (Hercingetorix?) and that would be Haardvark's entire career covered in the H Range alone! This is another case like Derek where the first robot has a reasonably amusing human name (although Henry is decidedly less funny than Derek, Barry etc), and then its sequel instead of picking a new name out of a hat, just goes with Henry 2. Couldn't you at least jump to Henry 8 to make it a reference to something? Once again the human name has been totally dehumanised by the successor and both names suffer as a consequence.

Or as they'd pronounce it in America, Erbinator

• Herbinator - 5/10 - Now the score I've given to Herbinator isn't particularly great because it is just a simple corruption of Herbie (after the iconic car from The Love Bug) and Terminator, the latter of which we've heard plenty of times already. However I really do want to praise the machine visually for paying tribute to Herbie, it's a lovely touch. The white paint with coloured stripes and number 53 is instantly recognisable as a reference to the famous car, and the jump from a fictional car to a robot is quite a logical one. I can't praise the name too well, but I can praise the design concept. Maybe turn it into a double-meaning and call it Herbivore?

I wish HIGH-5 could've at least redeemed itself on the live circuit, but it did just as badly

• HIGH-5 - 6/10 - Our wiki is completely barren for praise of HIGH-5 which makes sense given how fleeting its role in Robot Wars was, and I think I would've preferred it if HIGH-5 could've been entered as S.M.I.D.S.Y. like the team probably intended to do. Then it could have at least been a disappointing but stat-padding veteran like Crushtacean in the same heat, rather than a one-off failure. To give the name some credit, I think that there's some lovely meaning behind HIGH-5. The story given is that Dave Smith's kids give each other a high-five very often and this set up a nice team dynamic that could've been a good victory celebration if the robot managed to win a fight. The hand-shaped weapon and the handprints on top of the robot are a nice touch too. What wasn't a nice touch was Dave Smith's insistence on capitalising the robot as HIGH-5. Seriously, a high five is supposed to be a fun, playful gesture, you don't yell HIGH FIVE!!! and then smack someone's hand off! Had the name simply been High-Five or High 5 then I would score it very well, but the double whammy of the poor capitalisation and the robot's only battle being an utter tragedy means I can't attach myself to HIGH-5.

The only robot to be an 8/10 and a 4/10 depending on the battle it was in

• Hippobotomus - 4/10 - Before we rate the name properly, let me just clarify that the hippo's participation in the Annihilator as "Fighting Torque" isn't going to hold Hippobotomus back. This was a necessary move made by production to retain continuity from the Mayhem and I imagine there were probably a few cut interviews where the team did address the machine as Hippobotomus. The name itself kinda falls on its face though. The intention is to swap the 'pot' from hippopotamus with 'bot', the standard robot joke. However when rolled into an overall package as Hippobotomus, I hear "bottom" before I just hear "bot" and while the robot was pretty bottom-tier for Series 5 standards, I really don't think this was planned. Additionally, the TV show used the spelling "Hippobotomus" rather than what would be the accurate spelling of "Hippobotamus" which only made the whole 'bottom' thing even more noticeable. I imagine this may have been an error on the show's part, but we can't prove that Richie McBride simply didn't know how to spell hippopotamus either, so the blame can't be entirely relieved.

HOBGUBLIN

• Hobgoblin - 6/10 - A name like Hobgoblin does its job well, it's one of those fantasy creatures that probably needed to become a robot somewhere down the line, and it was a worthy enough name for Harry Hills' machine. I can't say I've ever really been into fantasy works though, so Hobgoblin lacked the personal appeal from a naming perspective. It's also a pity that the robot didn't really work in Series 10 because I maintain it deserved a second chance and I was pleased to hear it would be participating again. It's just unfortunate that it couldn't make use of the platform.

Hodaf the Good :)

• Hodaf the Bad - 6/10 - Another name that wouldn't sound out of place in the realms of fantasy, this strange-on-reflection collaboration between the Bee-Capitator and Crazy Coupe 88 teams made for a nice little addition to Series 7. As far as I can tell, Hodaf is a totally made-up name for which a Google search only returns the Chinese beauty company HODAF, or indeed, Hodaf the Bad itself. I opened this segment with "wouldn't sound out of place in the realms of fantasy" so to say that I can't actually link it back to anything in particular means the team did a good job of creating a name from scratch which gives off a fantasy vibe they may or may not have intended. Of course I could be missing something that gives us a real origin, I'd love to hear an explanation on this one.

If you haven't seen the front cover to the novel Hoot, I suggest Googling it with this robot's face in mind

• Hoot - 7/10 - From taking one look at the robot's design, the whole thing is very clearly a nod to the 2002 novel Hoot which basically has the robot's owl face as its front cover. What confuses me is how this managed to happen - for a book to be released in 2002 and then independently turned into a fighting robot later that same year is kind of incredible. Clearly this must've been a very good book because it was also adapted into a movie in 2006 (although apparently the film sucked). The book itself is aimed at 9-12 year olds which helped with the robot competing in the child-friendly Nickelodeon Robot Wars, and it's also fantastic that Hoot retained its name for Dutch Series 2 instead of inheriting a new name from its adoptive team. I almost want to read the novel now...

I would prefer the name "Pants on Fire"

• Hot Pants - 4/10 - Mmm, I'm not keen really. The switch to Hot Pants was an improvement from Big Pants, the original name which more literally said "this is a scaled up version of our antweight Pants". We'll cover Pants itself much deeper into the blog and that machine definitely has its own etymology, but here we have the core concept of Pants except it's now Hot Pants because of the disco theme, I guess. I definitely prefer the follow-up to Hot Pants, as far as names are concerned.

So they took the Joker logos off the loanerbot to give it a new identity as Humdrum, replacing the jokers with... clowns. Real big diversion.

• Humdrum - 6/10 - It's a good job Humdrum was a competitor in the US series of Robot Wars, I'm not sure Jonathan Pearce would cope if he couldn't describe every spinner ever as a humdrum whirring thing. It's definitely a name you don't want to think too deeply about, the actual meaning of 'humdrum' is that something is boringly monotonous and that's definitely not how you'd want your robot to come across, but the "death hum" of the spinning "drum" gives it extra meaning in the robot world. Humdrum of course was not armed with a drum spinner, rather a shell spinner, but the term 'drum' hadn't really been popularised yet. Only Tornado regularly used the term in the classic series, to describe a vertical disc that we probably wouldn't even consider a drum spinner anymore. I can't speak for the likes of Barber-Ous and Mad Cow Bot, but I know the show specifically never labelled Tetanus Booster as a drum spinner so I feel the term hadn't quite caught on yet. Yes, forgiving Humdrum means there's a contradiction in my Attila the Drum entry, but enough people have already told me I'm wrong about that one so I may as well accept it.

The main reason Humphrey is still remembered

• Humphrey - 5/10 - Another entry, another human name robot. I do at least appreciate that the show's human names were comically dated ones like Eric and Bernard, rather than truly commonplace names like Mike and Dave, but Humphrey is another in the line. I do appreciate that unlike Derek and Henry, the Humphrey team created a new name around their existing basis for the second robot, with Nasty Humphrey being much better than just Humphrey 2, but this trend can only carry a name to the halfway mark at best.

Later versions of Hydra didn't resemble the dragon at all, but if these snakes were the team's effort to look like a Hydra then yeah I can live without the homage

• Hydra - 7/10 - There's ups and downs to Hydra. Typically when you call something Hydra there is an expectation that you need to have multiple 'heads', and the robot somewhat achieves this with its two equally important weapons, although the same can't be said for the Series 5 version which had only the lifter. The Series 5 Hydra instead attempted to tie into the theme with some decorative "snakes" on top of the robot, which looked crap and they frankly shouldn't have bothered. The Series 6-7 versions have no visual connections to a Hydra beyond arguably the two weapons (you'd still ideally want at least three), but it's still an elegantly powerful name that people can understand and appreciate. I don't feel the need to discredit the name on the grounds of another well-known machine later using the name for itself, this is only important for potential 10/10 candidates like Gemini and Fluffy where the reuse of the name shows it wasn't quite unique enough to achieve perfection. Hydra wasn't really in the ballpark of a perfect score so Team Whyachi's lack of Googling doesn't need to hold it back.

This update would not be possible without the support of Hydro-Tec Ltd

• Hydrotec - 6/10 - I have a sneaking suspicion that this may have been named after a sponsor. It sounded way more relevant to the water industry than it did to a fighting robot. I did my snooping around online and sure enough there is a company called Hydro-Tec in Aargau, Switzerland; the same region Hydrotec and Snake Bite were based in. I doubt this is a coincidence. It still sounds good though, there's no real water theme going on with Hydrotec which holds it back, but it's still quite powerful and futuristic so I'm OK with the decision.

It's Red Devil!

• Hyperactive - 8/10 - Bit of a funny story this one, Hyperactive's builder Jerome Miles also wanted to give the same name to his 2016 BattleBots entry, but the name was rejected by production, likely because it was too similar to returning competitor HyperShock. That's how we ended up with the robot we all know and love as Red Devil. Little did they know, Hyperactive had been kicking about since 2002! While I agree it wasn't really suitable for BattleBots, this was a fantastic name for Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors which describes the weapon extremely well, and if you've seen the Hyperactive from 2014 in lower weight classes, man that thing really was Hyperactive. There may not be any great meaning behind the name choice but I think it sounds brilliant.

omg its technodisk

• Hypno-Disc - 8/10 - What a robot to end the range on! It makes a change of pace from closing out entries on Buzzant, Eye of Newt and Full Metal Anorak. Hypno-Disc was a truly legendary machine, and out of "the big three", I think it had the best name. For the first big flywheel in Robot Wars and a runaway success, it wasn't especially necessary to give the robot much of a theme at all, we all know Chaos 2 didn't really have any defining quirks with its visuals or name, but the hypnotic spiral was a nice touch which set up the name pretty naturally. From talking to people in daily life who hardly remember Robot Wars, I have found that Hypno-Disc is the one people can remember the name of most often (followed by Razer, while Chaos 2 struggles a bit) and it is the subtle but distinctive theme of the Hypno-Disc package that makes this possible. Spin to win!

I Range

The only distinguishable parts of "IBOT" are Alpha and Beta, both of which are used by other British robots anyway

• I Bot One Beta - 2/10 - What a mess. You only need to look at the number of working names this robot had before its televised debut to see why this is a failure. The first version of the robot went through three names alone, starting with I Bot Ita and Ita Bot Alpha in no particular order, before advancing to I Bot One Alpha at the Dutch Robot Games, and finally I Bot One Beta for Series 7. I... what?? How do you go through this many names when they're all awful? I can't even decipher it. Why does a robot need to be "One" and "Alpha" when they both suggest they're the first in line? Surely the "Bot" is included as some kind of pun or reference, but on what? How am I even supposed to research the meaning of "Ita" when this just brings up Italian content on a web search? Why is the second robot now called I Bot One Beta, and not I Bot Two Beta? Who came up with this!?

I'm even more keen on the name ICU knowing it spared us of the awful working name "Robofox"

• ICU - 9/10 - I adore this name and I'm well aware it's probably a "just me" thing, but I think there's so much charm to ICU. The real-world meaning of the acronym ICU would be "intensive care unit", and I'd certainly like to think that a 100kg fighting robot with an axe is plenty capable of putting other machines in the ICU, but really the primary meaning here is just a clever way of spelling "I See You", backed up by the tens of novelty eyes that would persistently fall off the machine. Daft as it may sound, the name is unique, clever with its double-meaning, and is backed up by visual prompts; that's a recipe for a 9/10.

IDO's heat in Dutch Robot Wars is on YouTube in such poor quality that mystrsyko2 thought the robot's name was "100". Not only can I see how this happens, 100 would actually be better

• IDO - 3/10 - Sadly, this one's a disappointment. When I first heard the name IDO, it left me with intrigue as to what it meant, with my head thinking only of the singer Dido as I struggled to guess what it could be. The team's whole theme was the female-only aspect, long before team captain Carlijn Meyboom would do the same in the reboot with TMHWK, so perhaps IDO stood for some kind of feminist meaning which would be absolutely fine. Sadly, the meaning of IDO is "Identified Destroying Object", which leaves me wincing in dismay. Not only is the word "Destroying" a huge departure from "Flying" (you could've had Identified Fighting Object?) but the concept of it being, erm, Identified, just takes away all the intrigue. It's not a very good trait for a UFO to be identifiable, is it? Of the original UFO acronym, we are left with only one letter surviving at the end of IDO's attack and it only scrapes a 3/10 on the grounds that the acronym's meaning is optional information that English speakers didn't have to learn.

Was the Star Wars IG-88 green, perchance?

• IG-88 - 7/10 - Weapons down, hands in the air, I confess - I've never watched a Star Wars film. But wait! Before you leave, I'm still giving IG-88 a 7/10!! For years I simply didn't understand that IG-88 was a Star Wars reference but that didn't stop me from appreciating the name. It just sounded good in its own right. Once I learned it was a Star Wars reference, I was very pleased with that information as it carried the theme over from predecessor Vader. If the name is good with or without the reference, IG-88 gets my respect despite my lack of involvement with its source material.

It wasn't exactly immortal, but fun

• Immortalis - 6/10 - Team Death time! This one's decent, but I do feel the Team Death names got worse as time went on. This might give away other entries somewhat, but Piece de Resistance and Death Warmed Up kicked things off very well, Immortalis is good, Devil Rider is fine, Metalis isn't great, then their newest heavyweight Mean Machine is the worst. Mind you, I suppose Chimera breaks that trend a bit, as may some of the team's featherweights. Immortalis for now is in the middle of the line as an above average name which does the job pretty well.

Here's a picture of Impact 2. I think it's clear to see how Jeroen ended up building THE BASH

• Impact - 6/10 - You don't know how tempted I was to write out this entry in the Impact font. If Impact-font meme templates were a thing back in the early 2000's, I could've seen the sequel being called "Impact: Bottom Text" or something, we know what Jeroen van Lieverloo is like. Impact is good, particularly for a sit-and-spin thwackbot like this machine. It's a shame there's a prominent new Impact on the UK featherweight scene from an unrelated team, because I'd think that with Jeroen van Lieverloo still being a highly active member of the community, there'd be a bit more respect for this machine coming first.

• Indefatigable - 5/10 - It's the Annual Robot Wars Teach Someone A Word Day! This time we'll be teaching you guys the word "indefatigable", which means that someone is tirelessly persistent in their efforts! Thank you, Series 4 Heat A, for that particular lesson.

I love Infernal Contraption, so I often wonder what I'd think of the robot if it did appear in Series 10. Would it be completely crap again and kill the charm? Or would it be secretly quite good... and kill the charm? Clearly I was never ready for a new Infernal Contraption

• Infernal Contraption - 8/10 - Ahahaha, it's time for me to talk about Infernal Contraption again! At first glance, Infernal Contraption is another one of those "quintessentially Series 6" names that combines two hardly related words into one lengthy but unique package. Infernal Contraption was particularly amusing to me, making for a brilliant thing to shout at a robot or device that isn't working. Who needs to say "stupid thing" when you can say "infernal contraption", it's brilliant! What I can't work out, however, is the true origin. While I originally believed Infernal Contraption to be a totally original name, Google has revealed a fair number of results, albeit everything I found originated after the robot's televised debut. This included a STEM expo contest for Rube Goldberg-style machines (something which Infernal Contraption frankly is), and of all things, a card game. "Infernal Machine", meanwhile, has listings in online dictionaries to describe explosives concealed as normal devices. The name would also be given to a 1930's movie and play, a 90's TV series, and a 2009 Grammy-nominated album. I had no idea I'd discover this much, but I didn't find anything pre-2000's for Infernal Contraption so until I'm shown otherwise, I think this was a semi-original deviation on Infernal Machine. I like it a lot. Huge improvement from Gahra.

The battle to decide which Infinity came first! I shall call it... The Infinity War

• Infinity (Dutch) & Infinity (UK) - 6/10 - We have a dilemma here. In all cases of a repeat name so far, I've ranked the two names separately and criticised the one that came second. Here, though, a robot called Infinity debuted in Series 6 of UK Robot Wars in the exact same year that another robot called Infinity debuted in the second series of Dutch Robot Wars. Well how do you separate those? Simply, you can't. Even looking beyond the televised debuts and back into the concept stage, they totally coexist. Dutch Infinity made its combat debut at the Dutch Robot Games in December 2001 and obviously needed to be built however many months beforehand, while Welsh Infinity (according to the team's website) had been in the works 18 months prior to the filming of the Sixth Wars, putting the timeline back to around January 2001. No team could've known about the other robot being built, and although the likelihood of this circumstance occurring means the name isn't original enough to pass a 6/10, it is a good name. Shame this all happened, really. Shout-outs to "Unlimited Numbers" from King of Bots which is so clearly supposed to be called Infinity too but we can't prove it.

A design quite ahead of its time, but a name that doesn't belong in any time period

• Inshredable - 2/10 - I'm gonna level with you all. I think this name is dreadful. I really can't redeem it. Nobody knows for sure what "Inshredable" was supposed to mean, but the most popular prediction is that the team were making a pun on the word "incredible". Terrible pun then, lads. Not only is the meaning of the pun lost, with the intended 'incredible shredding weapon' just coming across as a robot that 'can't be shredded' (which it can). It gets worse when the spelling isn't even right. I'd consider giving "Inshredible" maybe a three or a four, but spelling it as Inshredable is not only a blatant error, but one that disguises the meaning even more... if 'incredible' is even the origin in the first place!

Interstellar: MMLS, now with more Shane Swan

• Interstellar: MML - 4/10 - Dr. Maggie Aderin-Pocock, we need to talk. The name Interstellar that you came up with was very, very good. It's a fantastic example of an astronomy name perfect for a robot, and although space names were starting to become somewhat of a dated trope that a lot of teams relied on, you had a special excuse because you are a scientist based in astronomy, well-known enough to qualify for celebrity Robot Wars as a science personality. It was a requirement that your robot had a space-themed name, and you succeeded in picking a very interesting one which had never been used on Robot Wars before. Enter Robot Wars with a machine called Interstellar and I would offer you at least a 7/10. However. You didn't. You competed with a robot called Interstellar: MML. Now a colon is already fairly new territory for Robot Wars, but we have to explore this acronym MML. What does it stand for? Maggie, Martin, Lauren. The three family team members. Ahem. This is not necessary! Yes, we can see that Interstellar was being entered by a team of Maggie, Martin and Lauren, because you are all visible on-screen! With spoken dialogue and direct namedrops from Jonathan Pearce! Can you imagine if the other teams on Robot Wars ruined their names like this? Chaos 2: GRI? Hypno-Disc: DDK? Apollo: DMB? It's completely pointless and drags a good name like Interstellar through the mud. I'm shocked the TV edit even went along with it.

I suppose to completely reference Red Dwarf the name should be "The Inquisitor", but I don't blame the team for shortening it

• Inquisitor - 7/10 - Real credit on the timing here, gents! Inquisitor is a reference to an episode of Red Dwarf and was clearly a deliberate move in appealing to the new host of the Second Wars, Craig Charles. Can you imagine if the Inquisitor team actually settled upon this name without the knowledge of the host, though? It's unlikely, but not impossible. I'm reminded of the times on The X Factor like when James Arthur sung a Tulisa song on the one year Tulisa was a judge. Inquisitor wasn't the only Red Dwarf reference on Robot Wars but I actually think it's the superior one as to me it's a strong and unique name even without the links to Red Dwarf. Having seen Craig Charles and The Inquisitor in context on Red Dwarf, the appeal only grows stronger, it really was an excellent comedy show.

A crop that I had to make just to propose an Inverterbrat name change on the wiki for the third time

• Inverterbrat - 5/10 - I cannot rate Inverterbrat fairly. To give it credit first, there's not just a double-meaning, but a triple-meaning here. The core is based on invertebrate, a type of animal with no backbone, which also highlights "inverter" (suggesting its lifter will turn you over and that the robot is invertible), and "brat", the word for a mischievous child which the team even tied into their team name Bratwurst Designs. Man, I guess it's a treble-meaning, huh? And yet for reasons possibly out of the team's control, I just don't like it. While the spelling seen on the robot and stat boards in Series 4 was clearly Inverterbrat, which more closely incorporates the triple/treble meaning, its Series 3 debut saw the name spelled as "Invertabrat". This was probably an error on the show's part like Excalibur and Fire Storm, but without the name written on the robot, we can't technically prove the team weren't at fault. It's still clear what the team wanted by the end, but for some reason I was met with years of resistance on the wiki in trying to propose a name change, forcing us to use "Invertabrat" across the site for no good reason. I genuinely had to propose the rename three whole times, all on separate years (2012, early 2016 and late 2017), before the name change was finally accepted. I can't exactly say that I love Inverterbrat after all that.

From Axe-Awful to Iron-Awkward haha gottem

• Iron-Awe - 4/10 - One of the highlight sections in this blog had to be the premiere of my Axe-Awe segment on the very first update, where I launched my case for it being perhaps the worst name on Robot Wars. I went to painstaking detail on what the name so poor, but the one thing I left out... is that Iron-Awe isn't exactly a good name either. The joke is a simple one, it's a play on 'iron ore', an underground mineral. The robot then adopts the pun Iron-Awe, because it will leave you in awe with its mighty axe blows and flips... yeah, I feel it's a little flat. Honestly Iron-Awe is quite difficult to pronounce without it just coming out as Iron Ore anyway. Chuck in the televised jump from Iron-Awe 2.1 to Iron-Awe 6 when there had been an Iron-Awe 7 kicking about for years prior and I find too many nitpicks to praise it.

Can we just appreciate how perfectly remove.bg aced this crop

• Ironside3 - 4/10 - Now then, another difficult one. By itself, Ironside is a pretty good name, I'll give the team credit for that. It's got a little bit of crossover and confusion with the long-running heavyweight listed above it (Iron-Awe), which does lead me to wonder if it's just a coincidence that Ironside3 and Iron-Awe never coexisted on Robot Wars. But still, I give my credit to the featherweight rambot Ironside for its name, and to the featherweight bar spinner Ironside 2 for carrying it on. What doesn't sit right with me is going from featherweight to featherweight to heavyweight within the same Ironside series. Even speaking as a featherweight roboteer myself, I simply don't believe featherweights and heavyweights are of equivalent value, and they should run independently. I'll grant that Ironside3 is essentially a scaled up version of Ironside 2, but if you really want to carry on that continuity then I'd much prefer it if the Series 8-9 competitor could just start afresh and return to "Ironside" for the benefit of the televised audience. Very few people know about these featherweights without going out of their way to find them, and I struggle to see the octagonal weaponless featherweight Ironside 1 as part of the same line that created Robot Wars Grand Finalist Ironside3. Another offence is the lack of a space between "Ironside" and "3", a deliberate move by the team presumably to help with social media hashtags, but one that the TV show rightfully ignored (unless you're the website which wrote it as Ironside-3, the worst spelling of all). A good name that's been mercilessly chipped away at with a plethora of flaws. But it's still better than their planned BattleBots 2020 entry being called Spitfire, that one goes straight in the 1/10 pile.

Ivanhoe, where've you gone, I can't see

• Ivanhoe - 6/10 - A good homage with visual cues right at home in Series 2. The history of Ivanhoe dates all the way back to 1819 where Sir Walter Scott's novel first took place in a medieval setting, forming the design of the Ivanhoe robot and all other pieces of media based on the Ivanhoe work of fiction. It doesn't do anything beyond the direct namedrop, but it's a decent package.

J Range

Where do you reckon the link is

• Jabber - 2/10 - A poor start to the J Range, to say the least. Jabber is one of the most commonly cited "forgettable robots" in Series 7 and with a name like Jabber, you can understand why. I already criticise the likes of Devastator for being spinners with "aggressive word as a noun" names, but Jabber isn't even that aggressive. Wow, the bar spinner is going to jab me, oh no, whatever will I do. I guess it's unusually accurate to how weak Jabber's underweight bar really was, but when the identity stretches no further than "it jabs things", the name sounds feeble and boring.

It's the kind of abstract art that professionals would call you uncultured for not understanding the artist's feelings in lobbing paint at the canvas, but I love the way Jackson Wallop looks

• Jackson Wallop - 8/10 - Like its predecessor Attila the Drum, this is another fairly popular name from "Team Battlebot", but I definitely prefer this one. The name comes from the artist Jackson Pollock, and the abstract 'thrown at the canvas' paintwork across the robot is a perfect match for this. "Pollock" and "Wallop" aren't exactly a perfect match but they are similar enough to express the joke, rounding out to a solid 8/10. A+ for origin, A+ for visual match, B for execution.

A press release before the broadcast also called the machine "Jarbot" which would mean "Jonny & Alistair's Robot Bot". You might as well go the whole hog and make it as bad as possible, I guess...

• JAR - 1/10 - Well it has been quite some time. Our first 1/10 since the F Range and the eighth robot with this total score is JAR, which is just pitiful. Pronounced out loud, "Jar" is perhaps one of the most unthreatening names possible, which is fine for intentional cases like Fluffy, but clearly the Brownlee Brothers had not set out to name their machine after a glass jar, even if it smashed just as easily. Rather, the name is an acronym for - I kid you not - Jonny and Alastair's Robot. Guys, did you even want to be here? I'm sure plenty of celebrities would've gladly taken your spot on the show if you're not bothered. Jonny and Alastair's Robot has to be the most uninspired name possible, made even worse by its remarkably flat acronym "JAR" that makes it sound like the glass containers in my recycling bin. I can see it now, the brothers were stood in the corridor five minutes before filming began when quizzed "what's your robot called", to a response of "err, we're Jonny and Alastair, so it's Jonny and Alastair's Robot, right Alastair?" "Sure thing Jonny, how do we shorten that, JaAR? We'll go with JAR". I at least wish the robot itself could have been a little better to make up for its bottom tier name, but it's widely considered the worst of the Battle of the Stars stock robots too. Much as I've hyped up the likes of Axe-Awe as the worst name in Robot Wars, I think a name as hideously unimpressive as JAR is probably the leading candidate for the absolute worst so far.

Look at the STATS

• Jellyfish - 7/10 - When rating the best and worst names of Robot Wars, it always helps to know which came first out of the name and the design. Jellyfish is a good example of a colourful design where we actually know the answer to that, with the body of Jellyfish being designed before the name was selected. Either approach brings its own benefits; you can either pick a name and structure a robot's entire design to match, or you can design the robot you've always wanted and pick the most applicable name afterwards. No approach is better than the other, but for Jellyfish I like that Dave Lawrie put his creative mind to work and set out to build the weirdest robot he could imagine, before then attaching the closest fit to to the build progress, Jellyfish. A group of jellyfish is called a smack, and we're here to bring the smack down!

• Jim Struts - 4/10 - I have extremely little to say about Jim Struts. It's a walker, so "struts", and it's a guy called Jim. There's not really any more to it than that, although this is still better than the world where Jim Struts is built as a four-wheel driven robot called "Jim".

Do ya wanna know how I got these scars...

• Joker - 7/10 - I think Joker is a great name and the second-best of the J Range. Shame the robot itself was so poor then, a name like Joker deserved more than a 1-8 win/loss record. While for the sake of fun you can draw links between the robot Joker and any of the other fictional Jokers like the Batman and Persona 5 characters, the robot's origins are firmly rooted in the playing card, and in turn the entertainer that the card is based on, represented clearly on the robot's disc. Looking cool, Joker!

Judge Shred 2, the second in the line...

...and Judge Shred 2½, the "second and a half" in line. Yet they're so visually distinct...

• Judge Shred - 4/10 - This is a name that could've been rated reasonably well if things panned out better, as the general idea isn't too bad here. An obvious pun on Judge Dredd, I agree that Judge Shred is a reasonable little pun for Robot Wars and I appreciate that the team later started to don head judge wigs in their televised appearances. Judge Shred (and I guess Judge Shred 2) would score between a 6 and a 7 for a nice homage that was a little hard to say clearly. It's the sequentials that let the robot down. After the first two Judge Shred machines, the team decide to return for Extreme with Judge Shred 2½, a name which genuinely cannot be typed without the aid of copy and paste. Even beyond the fact no keyboard or phone has a ½ button, I don't understand why this machine only warranted the Half moniker in the first place. Judge Shred 2½ looks totally different from Judge Shred 2! I'm sure they share a lot of components, but there's clearly a lot that they did not share, including brand-new pneumatic weaponry and a totally different bodyshape and shell for the 20kg heavier Judge Shred 2½. It quite clearly just deserved to be called Judge Shred 3, but things get even worse when the team actually do build a robot called Judge Shred 3 that just looks like a bigger version of Judge Shred 2½! Obviously I'm not trying to say that machine should've been called Judge Shred 2¾ here, but Two to Two-and-a-Half was a bigger visual leap forward than Two-and-a-Half to Three. When listing the "three" main Judge Shreds you are essentially forced to skip the most important step forward, and the only one to appear in more than one series at that! Going by episode total, Judge Shred 2½ appeared in just as many episodes as the entire rest of the Judge Shred family(!) so this sequential bugs me. They even made a Judge Shred 4 after Series 7 just to prove they were clearly willing to use the number, but they should've done it much sooner.

The team learned nothing from this disaster and tried to name their planned Series 6 entry "Bearbot" which might be even worse

• Juggernot II - 2/10 - Total horror story this, and one that belongs to an already universally criticised robot. By itself, "Juggernaut" would be a great name for a robot, describing pretty much any large, imposing object, especially mechanical ones. This is precisely why a fictional robot in Robot Wars: Extreme Destruction took the name first, props to the developers for that one. There's a few jokes that can work here too, we all saw how well-known Tricerabot was in its Robotica guise as Juggerbot. Meanwhile, Juggernot II over in the UK series just utterly butchered it. First of all, the Fifth Wars competitor made its debut under the name "Juggernot II", with the Two only drawing more attention to the fact that this very badly designed machine was not the team's first robot, and it leaves you to wonder how awful Juggernot 1 could have been when Juggernot II was this below par. The main problem is the spelling, swapping Juggernaut for "Juggernot". Huh?? Are you trying to tell me this robot is not a Juggernaut? Well what is it then? I'd consider it being an error, but the team even underlined the "not" part of the name on the side of the robot, suggesting to me there's a genuine attempt at a joke here. But why?? This is Jugger-not a good name.

Had Junkyard Queen drawn Tyke in the Heat Final, we’re probably looking at a “potential finalist” here

• Junkyard Queen - 5/10 - As a name, Junkyard Queen is perfectly fine. It's not especially interesting, but it's unique enough to be synonymous with the robot. However I do think Frank Fietzik made a mistake in using this name, because until only one or two weeks prior to filming, Junkyard Queen actually had a different name, X-Ray. Now I know this short blog update has demonstrated a shortage of robots starting with J, but the opportunity to have a name in the X Range is so rare that I'd strongly advise taking it. X-Ray sounds cryptic, scientific and benefits from, erm, the "X factor". I mean to say that having an X in the name just sounds great and not that Junkyard Queen is the greatest singer in Berlin, but the short version is that X-Ray would earn a 7/10 and Junkyard Queen gets a five.

K Range

This image feels like it's been awkwardly cropped to take Ellis Ware out of it

• Kadeena Machina - 9/10 - You really couldn't ask for a more mixed bag with Battle of the Stars. Some of the names were excellent like Arena Cleaner and Kadeena Machina, some of the names were utterly terrible like JAR and another machine on the way, and then you have whatever you'd categorise Dee as. Today's rating is for Kadeena Machina and a 9/10 is the bare minimum I could give, with a 10/10 in strong consideration. In a celebrity special of Robot Wars it makes complete sense to pay homage to the celebrity with the robot's name, and when your name is Kadeena Cox, you couldn't ask for anything better than Kadeena Machina. I mean sure, some people who haven't heard it in the episode might read it as "Kadeena Mack-ina", but this flows beautifully and as far as I'm concerned it's the perfect name for Kadeena's robot. Shout-outs to the name even featuring "Dee", the robot's most famous victim. Pity it doesn't flow more logically with Diotoir, I swear if I hear "Kadeeotoira Machina" one more time...

More Bite than a Great White, 10/10 for slogan

• Kan-Opener - 6/10 - There's plenty of good things to be said about Kan-Opener and its name, I certainly don't doubt its capabilities to "open" cans and various more durable items. The "Kan" spelling doesn't really have a great deal of meaning, but it helps the name feel less mundane than just the typical "Can Opener". The reason a good name like this narrowly misses out on a green score is because that mundane "Can Opener" spelling was actually taken by a Robot Wars video game competitor first (on a robot it really didn't suit, I must say). Again, reusing a name from a video game robot can never dock more than a single point compared to the bigger offence of borrowing from another televised competitor, but it narrowly gatekeeps Kan-Opener from the green zone.

It's really no wonder why the producers tried to put Kat 3 in every competition ever, it was just that likeable

• Kat 3 - 4/10 - Speaking of spelling a word with a K to make it less mundane, here's Kat 3. Now if the robot was called "Cat 3" then it would jump straight to the lowest possible scores, but even something as simple as the change to from Cat to Kat is enough to spare this machine from complete failure. Similarly it is the iconic status and likeability of the machine which may have kept it out of the red zone. The main reason Kat 3 escapes certain doom in this blog is because the name change was a decision made to solidify the theme of its lineage. There was no Kat or Kat 2 on Robot Wars, this was the third machine in the KaterKiller line which we'll be covering in just a moment. While those prior machines could never really decide whether to be a cat or a caterpillar, the simple change to Kat 3 made things straightforward and clear. What wasn't straightforward was using the name Kat III in Series 5, Kat3 in Series 6 and Kat 3 in Series 7 (where they were arguably Kat 4 by now) but, uh, ignore that. By no means is 4/10 a good score, but it could've been a lot worse.

Look, it's Kat 2!

• KaterKiller - 5/10 - I think the generous scoring of Kat 3 makes more sense with the knowledge that KaterKiller doesn't score much better. The pun would be a fairly good one if the robot's theme was largely based around a caterpillar, and sure it drove on caterpillar tracks, but the obvious cat branding of the machine somewhat threw off the meaning and added confusion for Kat 3 to later clear up. Who knows, maybe Keith Williams never imagined the robot having cat branding and it was purely the decision of Georje Reed which later developed the team's branding for the rest of their appearances. Don't get me wrong either, Kat 3 may be a below average name, but the general cat branding of the team was excellent fun and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I hope it's obvious that even though I can't rate KaterKiller or Kat 3 too highly as names, I appreciate what they brought to the robots and the team.

Just don't let Pussycat smell the Katnip

• Katnip - 8/10 - Now don't be confused, this was no machine from Team KaterKiller, but rather the work of Stuart Barnwell under the Pussycat team. You could argue that the robot should've avoided taking from the Kat 3 branding by sticking to just Catnip, but again it's been a trend of the K Range that swapping a C for a K just gives a bit more stand-out personality and helps to separate a little more from the real-world origins. While actual catnip is a plant that causes cats to exhibit strange behaviour as though they were on drugs, the robot Katnip was a cat-themed machine with nipping claws. You can't ask for much more than that when the Pussycat team decides to make a horizontal crusher!

I think it's very sad we never saw a heavyweight Kick Robut, only Probophobia gave us this kind of design on Robot Wars afterwards

• Kick Robut - 2/10 - I hate it. Ugh. It still riles me up that my beloved Mute wanted to use this name, thank heavens the producers (for once) told them it was taken by a previous competitor. I feel like Mute wouldn't be one of my favourite robots with a name like this, so I guess I have to thank the superheavyweight Kick Robut for existing? Still a dreadful combination of "robot" and "kick butt" though, it doesn't even warrant a smirk.

• Kill Dozer - 3/10 - This isn't great either. The joke here is turning "Bulldozer" into "Kill Dozer" but that's way too far from the original word to leap out to the audience as a clever joke, and it was fairly obvious that "Kill" would be the start of many robot names to come. Such as...

My face when someone asks me if my robot is named after a TV presenter I've never heard of

• Kill-E-Crank-E - 3/10 - The next of the "Kill" machines, and perhaps a long-awaited robot for this blog after its successor Crank-E appeared all the way back in the C Range. I berated Crank-E for losing the whole origin of its predecessor's name, but now I can at least give Kill-E-Crank-E some credit for its homage to the Battle of Killiecrankie, a historic battle in Scotland which makes some sense for the Caithness-based team led by Robin Herrick. What I can't praise, however, is that dreadful spelling. Kill-E-Crank-E is such a nightmare to type or write out, and the end product just looks like a mistake. Clearly, Robin Herrick wants to highlight both "Kill" (the robot's intentions) and "Crank" (the robot's shape), but that still comes across even with the original battle's spelling of Killiecrankie. Having two individual -E- breaks looks wholly out of place and I'm getting Hamtaro flashbacks all over again. If your opening interview on Robot Wars manages to be a plainly misguided assumption like "is it named after Jeanette Krankie" then I can't say the host is entirely at fault. Which is better out of Crank-E and Kill-E-Crank-E? Probably Kill-E-Crank-E, but they both deserve a 3/10 each.

If the wiki page is to be believed, Killer Carrot 3 was finally built in 2013 except now called "K3". Bleurgh.

• Killer Carrot 2 - 4/10 - Although I give credit to Killer Carrot for being a pretty funny name with great aesthetics to match, the team really needed to sort their numbers out. Yes, there was a Killer Carrot 1 which aimed to enter the Fourth Wars and appeared on the live circuit, technically even a TV show in some random one-off with Lightning. However when you're introducing the Robot Wars audience to your machine for the first time, I really believe you should start afresh and drop any kind of sequential you've built up through your live event history. The viewers never got to see Killer Carrot 1, so why force us to address this as Killer Carrot 2? The problem gets worse though, because Killer Carrot 2 was completely rebuilt between Extreme 2 and Series 7 and returned to the latter series with an all-new chassis, shape, flipper, wheels, aesthetics, the whole lot. It's an entirely new machine with a few reused internals at best. So why is this still called Killer Carrot 2?? Guys, please, either call the Series 6-7 robots Killer Carrot and Killer Carrot 2, or call them Killer Carrot 2 and Killer Carrot 3! ...Or call them all Killer Carrot!! A good name spoiled by a complete inability to sequence them properly.

It kills, and it hurts, get used to it. Another high quality slogan

• Killerhurtz - 9/10 - You would think that with how the Kill Range has been shaping up so far, none of them would pass a 5/10, but that fear has been totally shot dead by Killerhurtz. This one is just brilliant. Derived from the soundwave frequency kilohertz, a double-joke is seamlessly slipped in with kilo becoming 'Killer' and hertz becoming 'hurtz'. Even without knowing about the soundwave, Killerhurtz would still sound perfectly reasonable for a robot name. Knowing that Killerhurtz is such a perfect adaptation of the soundwave, you're left to wonder if the word kilohertz was deliberately set up to make jokes like this! I only have to cut Killerhurtz short of a 10/10 because it debuted in a series containing the likes of Killertron and Mega Hurts which meant Killerhurtz struggled to stand out as its own identity until it became more well-known.

If Pussycat and Kat 3 had a baby, you're apparently left with this. Can we go back

• Killerkat - 2/10 - Oh dear. The problem here goes beyond just having too many "Killerbots" by the Seventh Wars. Killerkat hurts even more because we already had a competitor called KaterKiller, which this is far too similar to. Killerkat itself already gets flack for taking Pussycat's design concept and cat theme, but they took a fair amount from Team KaterKiller too, including the name and the leopard print. Striving for originality was not the goal of this machine.

• Killertron - 4/10 - Finally at the end of the Kill mini-range we arrive at the trendsetter who started it all. Killertron is the type of generic name that would slip into the red territory if it were applied to a forgotten machine, but Killertron slightly saves face by being the first 'killer' on Robot Wars, by reaching a Grand Final to make itself known, and by contrasting the name with the bright pink colours. It's not a great name, but there's only one Killertron and I'm glad it's something important.

From humble beginnings...

To simple changes in direction...

To humble advancements...

To a humble end, Robot Wars wouldn't be the same without King Buxton

• King Buxton - 6/10 - Well with a topic as broad as the King Buxton names, I think there's only one fair way to do things. I'm gonna have to rate them all! The original name King Buxton obviously has the most explaining to do, and I do love how charmingly simple the origin story is. The producers asked Simon Harrison what his robot was called, then he panicked and blurted out King Buxton with no prior discussion with his team. I love that. It's not a bad name either, being a charming reference to The Magic Roundabout, a personal favourite source of names for reasons I shan't say... anyway, King Buxton was good and I do enjoy connecting it to Buxton water, although the team's early abandonment of the full King Buxton name hurts it a little retroactively and keeps it shy of the green scores.

• • King B3 - 7/10 - Perhaps to the surprise of some, King B3 is enough to surpass King Buxton itself and sneak a 7/10. Naturally it wouldn't score this well if the robot was called King B from the outset, or even if the Third Wars machine was called King B2, but the simple rhyme of King B3 is really nice, particularly as it's common knowledge what the B stood for. Simon Harrison was never that keen on his own King Buxton name, so this was a step in the right direction.

• • King B Powerworks - 6/10 - Meanwhile, although I appreciate the switch from numbers to derivative titles, King B Powerworks is overall a slight step back, mainly because of the inconsistency. The stat boards in Series 5 called it King B Powerworks, the surface of the robot said King B The PowerWorks, and the Series 7 stat boards said King B "Powerworks", speech marks included. I'm not sure if the latter was Simon Harrison trying to be self-deprecating over the strength of his machine, or if the guy in charge of the stat boards just couldn't read, but that happened. Anyway, we may never know the true way to write King B Powerworks, but I do know that Powerworks was a totally unique word that would suit a robot by itself without the preceding King B, so props for that.

• • King B Remix - 7/10 - I really like this one. Despite the twelve-year gap, this was probably the smallest step forward in the King B lineage build-wise, even borrowing the same chassis from the 15-year old King B Powerworks, but we were all still delighted to see it and enough had changed to warrant the new name. The move to King B Remix is much more pleasant than the more tried-and-tested name changes like "King B Mk 5" or "King B Evolution", and shows that Simon Harrison was always willing to come up with something new each time. Can't wait for King B Returns and King B HD Remastered.

I'd have guessed Ace of Spades of Queen of Hearts, but this works well

• King of Diamonds - 7/10 - The other "king" of Robot Wars is apparently going to be King of Diamonds, a name which nicely ties in the playing card and the robot's diamond shape. If you're going to make a diamond-shaped robot then this is an interesting take on the naming process where most would pick something like Amethyst or Quartz. I do wish the spinner on this thing was a bit more powerful because it could've been quite a machine I quite liked if it had a bit more prowess.

Cats, cats everywhere!

• Kitty - 7/10 - Kitty is a good name for a featherweight version of Pussycat. It would generally score quite poorly for anything that wasn't linked to Pussycat - the likes of Kat 3 and Killerkat wouldn't magically earn a 7/10 if they were called Kitty, but this little featherweight retains the main feature that makes its counterpart Pussycat such a good name. We'll get into that properly when we reach the P Range, but for now Kitty's surprisingly high 7/10 shall be left to your interpretation.

• Kliptonite - 3/10 - Well this one was quite wide of the mark. Obviously based upon Superman's main weakness "Kryptonite", this name seemingly attempts to create a pun by using the word... Klip? What, it's gonna clip me with its axe? Oh no, how frightening. Kryptonite really would've been good enough by itself, "klip" is not threatening enough to make the name alteration worthwhile. In this clip tonight, we see a a robot break down for no reason against Major Tom!

Side note, Spirit of Knightmare gets its own entry

• Knightmare - 5/10 - It's marvellous what the letter K can do for you. I'm of course extremely critical of stolen names on Robot Wars and this is technically a robbery from one of the most famous BattleBots competitors in its original run, Nightmare. Even the Brits in the early days of Robot Wars knew about this machine, and I'd have to imagine even the biggest Robot Wars stalwarts who've barely watched any BattleBots in their life are quite aware of Nightmare. And yet with just with that extra letter, not only has the name changed, but the meaning has too. Instead of purely describing the robot as a fearsome dream, the main theme here is instead built around knights, which would prove to be the team's mascot. The pronunciation is exactly the same as Nightmare, and that does limit its progress to a 5/10, but well done for being "different enough".

For being such an oddity of a name, arigatou gozaimasu Krayzee Tokyo

• Krayzee Tokyo - 7/10 - Whoaaa dude, it's Kraaaayzee Tokyo!! I am lost for words trying to make sense of this one. I've tried searching "Crazy Tokyo" on Google and it does bring up various travel article names, so I guess that's a semi-known nickname for the city? What it has to do with this tiny shoe-shaped featherweight, I have no idea, but I love Japan and all the good things it introduced to the world, so I become oddly keen on the Tokyo namedrop. Crazy Tokyo was an unlikely name by itself, but nobody would *ever* expect a televised fighting robot to be called "Krayzee Tokyo", especially not in Series 1, but we live in a world where this >0.1% chance came true, and I live for it.

Not the first Sonic homage on Robot Wars, but the best. Sorry Foxic.

Say it with me guys, Kronic 2 ... Yeaaahhhh!!!

• Kronic the Wedgehog - 8/10 - A near-perfect homage to the Sonic the Hedgehog games, this is a very entertaining homage and I'm delighted a robot like this went on to become a huge success in the future. The Kronic team are very unlucky that most of their name had already been covered by previous competitors, with the more direct namedrop Sonic competing in Series 3, and the original hedgehog pun Wedgehog participating in Series 1. Still though, turning "Sonic" into "Chronic" is a very funny joke to make things sound more painful, and the K spelling helps the name stand out on its own when you don't want to type out the full "the Wedgehog". Unfortunately however, the team didn't want to type out that full name, which gave us...
  • Kronic 2 ... Yeaaahhhh!!! - 1/10 - ...the most hideous and brutal murder of a Robot Wars competitor name we have ever witnessed. I can't stress how badly they messed this up - Kronic the Wedgehog was a really good name, and the absolute abomination that is "Kronic 2 ... Yeaaahhhh!!!" just blew a hurricane through the name and utterly destroyed it. Sorry, that's Kronic 2 ...... Yeaaaahh!!!! if you read the side of the robot, and Kronic 2 ... Yeaaahhhh!!! on the website. Lads, if you can't even keep track of how many A's and exclamation marks you were meant to include, maybe that's the first sign that this is a dreadful name. We all saw the ...... Yeaaaahh!!!! on the side of the machine in Series 5, but we all thought it was just a slogan like the "I <3 Beer" sticker on the back. The website puts it as clear as day though, Kronic 2 ... Yeaaahhhh!!! was a completely deliberate and merciless ruination of the Wedgehog's name which was the full official title. The team even admitted the stupidity of the name on the same page, reverting to just Kronic 2 for Series 6, but even this is still much less interesting than the full joke of Kronic the Wedgehog. I simply can't put into words how horrendous this name was, and I can only try to thank the team for going back to the original name in Series 7.

L Range

It's EWE

• Lambsy - 5/10 - The next robot in my alphabetical list of Robot Wars competitors is, um, La Machine... I don't think that counts, so onto Lambsy. This is the machine that kickstarted the trend followed by Cutlet and perhaps my favourite competitor name, EWE2. Without Lambsy, we wouldn't have had these excellent names, although Lambsy itself is not exactly brilliant. The idea here is that the sheep mascot on top of the robot is the real "Lambsy" while the robot wolf underneath is something else. Despite that, the wolf was never given a name and the side of the robot still says "LAMBSY" so I guess they're both Lambsy? It is just a cutesy way of saying lamb, but we still owe it a lot for shaping the future.

I love how obviously there are two of the same image here

• Lateral Thought - 7/10 - This is a quirky one. In the grand scheme of Robot Wars, the forgotten box which broke down in the Reserve Rumble is more fitting of "Afterthought" than "Lateral Thought", but lateral thinking is the problem-solving approach that takes a creative take on something that's not obvious, and surely something in the build process of this machine set up the name. A quietly good little name hidden in the depths of Robot Wars history.

Team Legion looked a bit different prior to the reboot...

• Legion - 6/10 - Long before we had Gabriel Stroud's featherweight and team name, we had an antweight called Legion in the first series of Extreme back in 2001. Legion's team were known as Team MadScientists, so I guess as far as the wiki's concerned there is no overlap. There's good reason behind the name Legion, as this antweight was a clusterbot made up of a 'legion' of (two) robots. It's definitely a good name and probably one that deserved to be used outside of the antweight division (preferably on a 3+ part clusterbot), but at least Legion nabbed the technical joint second in its Antweight Championship to add a smidge more notability.

• Leighbot - 2/10 - Unbelievably dull. The team of Leigh City Technical College students decided to call their robot "Leighbot", the most obvious combination possible. This is slightly more forgivable in Series 1 when naming precedents hadn't been properly set yet, but surely they could do better than Leighbot...

The biggest threat to the 10/10 score, both the front of the robot and the stats say "Leigh Viathan" across two lines, although the stat boards also said "Wheel Osaurus" so I'll give the benefit of the doubt

• Leighviathan - 10/10 - ...and clearly, they can! Leighviathan sweeps up the 'most improved' award, transforming the dreadful Leighbot into the much more inspired Leighviathan, granting the team a much better name while keeping up the continuity with its predecessor. Leighviathan seamlessly incorporates the college's name into a word which by itself would already be an excellent name for a robot. Perhaps earlier in the blog I would have granted a 9/10 on the grounds that ‘Leviathan’ has doubtlessly been used by other competitors, but I'm thinking of upgrading a few robots like Comengetorix and Disc-O-Inferno to 10/10's in an effort to balance the field a little more and provide a bridge up from the softer 9's like ICU and 259. On that assumption, Leighviathan can take the golden ticket!

Edit after writing the entry: apparently it's called "Leveller 2 Mk 4.5 Evo". I want to throw up

• Leveller 2 - 4/10 - Another robot that started on the live circuit and then finally made it to Robot Wars with the second machine in their series. It's been said before, I don't need to say it again, the robot should start on television as Leveller. It gets considerably worse when you see the likes of Leveller 2 Mk 4.5 on the live circuit. How can something be "2" and "4.5"? Shouldn't it be Leveller 6.5? Why is it Point Five anyway? Even Robot Wars clearly wasn't keen, they couldn't even spell the name right on the stats board.

This is Lightning...

• Lightning - 6/10 - We've got another "who came first" here between Lightning from the UK, and Lightning Tracks from the USA. To cut the story short, neither will be punished as they both have a valid claim to be first. Lightning was the first to be built, attempting to qualify for Series 5 and appearing on Robots Revenge in 2001, while Lightning Tracks appeared on Robot Wars before Lightning did. They both competed in different countries anyway, so the similarity really isn't important. Just-Lightning holds a little more weight to me, it's astonishing that we made it all the way up to Extreme 2 before a robot called Lightning appeared on Robot Wars, but it was punchy and complimented the robot's visuals extremely well. Laurie Calvert certainly bigged it up well with his jokes, too. Lightning is still too obvious to pass the 6/10 barrier, but it was right at home in Robot Wars. I will say though, it's not the best use of the name "Lightning" in robot combat, with the King of Bots fourth-place clusterbot Thunder & Lightning deserving higher praise.

...Just wait for the thunder tracks!

• Lightning Tracks - 5/10 - Meanwhile Lightning Tracks finishes with a slightly lower score. There's just not a great connection between the two terms, I get that Lightning Tracks is supposed to convey quick movement speed, but to me it feels like a bit of an oxymoron. You can build a tracked robot with a reasonable top speed, Trax and even Lightning Tracks itself proved this (mainly in Robotica as "Dark Track"), but just on public perception, "tracks" will never naturally convey speed.

I hope that the new heavyweight Limpet finds some success

• Limpet - 4/10 - This name might be a question to ask John Denny about, because to me Limpet doesn't make sense. A limpet is a type of mollusc that resembles a sea shell, so I'd expect the robot to be cone-shaped, perhaps a shell spinner, not a flat boxy robot with white tiger stripes. I think the meaning comes more from how limpets cling onto things very tightly, which the tracks of Limpet are supposed to provide, but Limpet is now a very rare example of a machine where its untelevised variants are perhaps more important than the Robot Wars version itself, and the beetleweight Limpet sure doesn't have tracks anymore (even if I do appreciate the team keeping the old Series 2 competitor alive).

Some say that mere mention of Little Fly will summon Anderson9132

• Little Fly - 7/10 - I always get muddled up when thinking of how this name came to be. Since I first heard the name Little Fly, I was always reminded of the "little Spanish flea" from the famous 60's song, but this seemingly has nothing to do with it. In fact, the real origin of Little Fly only opens up more questions. The robot Little Fly is named after the team's horse, which is also called Little Fly. Sure, that explains the robot, but then... why is the horse named Little Fly? Of course this is fairly standard practice for racehorses, easily my favourite part of The Grand National is seeing all the ridiculous names that jockeys come up with for their horses, and Little Fly is right at home in that environment. I'd still love to know the origin of the origin though.

The Little Nipper we got

The Little Nipper we deserved

• Little Nipper - 3/10 - This has probably been the single hardest name to rate in the entire blog so far. It probably warrants an N/A to be honest. Every name so far that I've given a red score has totally deserved it for the reasons I've given, but the name Little Nipper is one that I feel very sour about for reasons outside of the team's control. To explain what the team were going for here, they built an antweight with a couple of mousetrap weapons, and the name "Mousetrap" is of course off the table on Robot Wars. Instead, the team went with "Little Nipper", a brand of mousetrap that dates back all the way to 1898 and is still available to this day. A "little nipper" is also British slang for a young child, so the name is right at home for a tiny 150g antweight that gets up in people's faces and annoys them as best as it can. Objectively, this is a good name for the robot, and one that should score very well. Sadly however, it's a name that I ultimately wish was never used on Robot Wars. Little Nipper made its debut in the Antweight Championship of Extreme filmed in 2001, while in that exact same filming period, the heavyweight robot Big Nipper made its debut in battle with Razer. Funny then that Little Nipper got to beat Razzler in its own battle, but of course it was Big Nipper who became far more important in the long run. There is no relation between these two machines and neither were at fault for the naming similarities despite the confusion. Heck, Little Nipper was outright a better name than Big Nipper, it had much more etymology to pick apart and enjoy. However despite my desire to treat Little Nipper fairly, I can't help but prioritise the Big Nipper team in my mind. After building Big Nipper and achieving great success, Team Titanium also found lots of success in the featherweight division, winning a UK championship in 2004 with their axebot Little Hitter, also performing well with Little Spinner which was active during the original run of Robot Wars. Later they would build Little Flipper. Just about every main weapon had been covered by the Big Nipper team's featherweights, leaving only one thing left to do - build a featherweight crusher as the direct counterpart to Big Nipper. They did this in 2015, where the team had absolutely no choice but to call it Little Nipper. There was no other possibility. I'll remind everyone that I am aware Big Nipper and the antweight Little Nipper debuted together in the same year, and the featherweight Little Nipper surfaced over a decade later in 2015, meaning it's technically the Big Nipper team who are 'at fault' here. But I don't want to fault them for picking the only logical name for Big Nipper's featherweight counterpart. It truly is marvellously appealing robot, one that not only looks amazing with its fully-machined look and effective crusher, but it even finished fourth in a stacked UK championship with barely even a working srimech. Little Nipper might well be one of my favourite featherweights ever built, leaving me with a growing resentment to the antweight who got there first. Did antweight Little Nipper do anything wrong? No, not at all. But do I wish it was called something else? Absolutely.

Yeah I can speak Dutch, "and de vinner ish Lizzard!"

• Lizzard - 5/10 - This is another odd example like the robots in the K Range where a simple change in spelling was all the robot needed to feel unique. If you entered a robot simply called Lizard into the show then it would feel completely generic, but just chucking in an extra Z gives us a name we've never seen before or since, even though the pronunciation is the same. To be honest such a simple word feels good in the realms of the Dutch Wars where viewers like us understand less than 10% of the words being said. Oddly charming, if a bit simple.

I didn't realise this before, but the robot's visual design is based on a ghost train, strengthening the 'locomotion' joke

• Loco - 7/10 - "This is driving me Loco!" I like to think this was something the team said while building the robot, when it all came together. How do we drive the opponent loco? Drive straight into them with a robot called Loco, of course! There's a couple of applicable meanings here, including the alternate word for crazy, and the short form of locomotion. This keeps things short while still having a suitable name, not bad at all.

• Lower - 6/10 - Well it's competing in the lower weight classes...!  It brings me great satisfaction to see a robot called "Lower" at the bottom of this section, but it gives plenty of opportunities to make jokes, whether it was lowered into the pit, lowering its crusher, being placed lower on a tier list, or being lower than the other antweights in the camera frame. An interesting name choice that gives you a lot to work with.

M Range

I've gone on public record to call M2 a great name in lists of years past. I think I was deluded into backing up my favourite robot where it wasn't deserved

• M2 - 4/10 - Ah. Well this is awkward. My favourite robot in the TV show finally makes its appearance on the blog and I have to give it a low score. Admittedly, M2 is higher than all the other letter-number names before and after it because the robot itself was at least successful and recognisable enough to boost an otherwise very weak name. I'll admit it was also backed up by Craig Charles' entirely false but still funny backstory of M2 being named after a British motorway. In reality, M2 is the successor to the team's Series 4 era machine Mincer, another quite poor name that the team wanted to abandon due to "certain connotations" surrounding the word Mincer. But then... why not just pick a different name altogether? Sure, the name M2 distances yourself from Mincer while retaining the visual theme of its predecessor, but with Mincer never making it to television, I really don't think the continuity mattered at all. Especially now that the flipper robot M2 does not have a "mincing" weapon anywhere! It breaks my spirit to say anything negative about the robot I've proudly called my favourite competitor for the best part of a decade, but what am I supposed to say in order to make M2 sound like a good name?

Starlight, starbright, the mace of Mace, is out of sight!

• Mace - 4/10 - Another heat winner with a pretty subpar name. I would think the problem with Mace is obvious - the robot is not armed with a mace, or at least not the first 'mace' that jumps to mind. A typical "mace" was a pretty doable weapon back in Series 2, you just give your axe a spiked club outer coat and boom, you're armed with a mace. There's no visual cues back to a mace on the robot's design either, it's genuinely just a box lifter called Mace. It doesn't even have any connection to the tear gas Mace. Or the British shop. I can only guess that the rear flail on the back is meant to back up the name, with flail weapons apparently being called a "chain mace" or "mace-and-chain" on occasion. I think I need to watch the team's interviews again and see if they described their own weaponry because I feel like they probably just called it a flail. I also really think the robot's return in Series 3 didn't warrant the upgrade to the name "Mace II", sure it will have been rebuilt with improved weaponry, but the robot is so visually similar to the original version of Mace that Mace II feels like too big of a leap.

Mad Cow, Florida (2001)

• Mad Cow - 7/10 - While the heat winners of the M Range let us down, it's Mad Cow of all things that starts to save the day! When hearing 'mad cow', the first thing that comes to mind would be mad cow disease, the condition that kills off cattle worldwide. This alone is a suitable origin, but the much more simple face-value meaning of "it's a mad cow that fights things" is also very appropriate for the team of farmer characters. With two reasonable meanings packed into the extremely cow-themed machine, this name was a quiet little success, albeit one that was too good to be true...

Mad Cow Bot, California (2002)

• Mad Cow Bot - 1/10 - ...Because another American team had to weigh in on the fun. This is perhaps one of the shadiest name thefts in all of Robot Wars. At least Cyclone and Cyclone were from different countries. At least Infinity and Infinity were built at the same time. At least Cobra and Cobra were built over a decade apart. There are no excuses for Mad Cow Bot. Only one year after a US team competes in Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors with a machine called Mad Cow, another unrelated team rolls up to the very next season of Extreme Warriors with a new robot called Mad Cow Bot. That's just not on, guys. The original Mad Cow team were even competing in the same season! I can't imagine the Psycho Chicken lads were too pleased about seeing their name recycled right in front of their faces while they had a rebuilt Mad Cow with them in the pits. Honestly the addition of "Bot" makes things even worse, it feels like the team realised during the build process that there was already a Mad Cow on the show so they just stuck the most obvious suffix possible on the end to "differentiate" it. Mad Cow Bot didn't even need to be cow-themed, it's not like Team Boltz who built their entire robot and costumes around the theme of a cow, Team Think Tank's Mad Cow Bot just rolled up with a compact drum spinner that could've been painted to look like anything, but a bit of subtle cowprint was what they chose. It's no wonder the wiki and so many fans were led to believe Mad Cow and Mad Cow Bot were from the same team, but they genuinely weren't, it's just that a blatant rip-off. Honestly I think the TV show probably made the same mistake we did, Mad Cow made for good television in its brief Season 1 appearance and they probably just assumed that's what "Mad Cow Bot" was going to be. Surely they wouldn't allow this name if they knew it had no connection to the first machine?

Names-wise, ICU wins hands down, Chopper loses, and Mad Dog scrapes through

• Mad Dog - 5/10 - The last of the three participants in the infamous Chopper melee, Mad Dog takes the stage! Admittedly I find this name funnier than I should, not just because it was applied to the loser of one of my favourite fights, but also because visiting my grandparents' house would always take me past a "Mad Dog Lane" in the village. Needless to say I have not factored that into the score, the Essex-based team will not have been anywhere near my gran in their lives. Anyway at this point in Robot Wars, the most well-known violent dog breeds like Pitbull and Rottweiler had already been taken, so Mad Dog is a fair compromise without delving into the less harmful breeds.

Pulsar? Never heard of her

• Magnetar - 10/10 - We owe a lot to the name Magnetar. Typically I would prefer it if teams kept the same name for visually similar machines, plus I would suggest that the advancement from Pulsar 1 to Pulsar 2 was a much bigger leap forward than Pulsar 2 to Magnetar. If we didn't know the full picture I'd probably be giving Magnetar a slightly lower score on the grounds that Pulsar and Magnetar having separate articles on our wiki feels a bit wrong when they're all attempting the same core design. However as we know now, the name Magnetar was a last-minute move to make sure the robot reached our TV screens at all. Ellis Ware did not plan on changing the name from Pulsar to Magnetar, he openly applied for Series 10 with Pulsar and didn't get in. This is crazy to think about, I can't believe Mentorn ever tried to turn away a robot with as much success as Pulsar, unreliability issues or no unreliability issues. But that's the reality of it, Pulsar was not selected for Series 10 and Team Ranglebots had to do something to make sure they would still be involved. Cue the name change to Magnetar, which along with a few visual updates, thankfully got Magnetar accepted into the series. Can you imagine the Robot Wars timeline where Pulsar retires on a bit of a whimper and Magnetar never competes in Series 10? I certainly wouldn't want to go down that route. The name itself also has a wonderful bit of backstory to it - a magnetar is a stronger neutron star than a pulsar, often formed by the explosion of a supernova. And what happened in Series 9? The robots Pulsar and Supernova had a devastating spinner-on-spinner collision, basically writing off Pulsar there and then, forcing the creation of Magnetar! You can't make this up. Brilliant.

And after one last flip from Tsunami, Major Tom was sent off his course, far above the moon, and there was nothing he could do

• Major Tom - 8/10 - I think Major Tom is a fantastic tribute to the music of David Bowie. The good thing about music references is that you can put your own interpretation of a lyric into your robot, however close or far from the source material you may be. Although the Major Tom described in David Bowie's music seems to be a reflection of himself throughout the lower stages of his life while personified as a lonely astronaut, there's no visual representation of what "Major Tom" should look like other than David Bowie's acting in his own videos. For years, fans have pieced together the character of Major Tom through listening to the song lyrics, and while I don't think a patriotic royal bubblegum dispenser head was what David Bowie has in mind, it's a much more direct interpretation of the "Major" part of the name and I quite like that. I mean, how did the astronaut earn the title of major? That's got to have a story behind it, right? We'll never know now, but the famous "ground control to Major Tom" lyric perfectly set up plenty of jokes from the Robot Wars presenters. We've all got something positive to say about this charmingly British machine.

Malc, in the middle

• Malc 1.5 - 3/10 - This name reeks of pointlessness. The robot itself was such an ordinary box that at least a vague bit of personality on the naming front was necessary to keep Malc 1.5 in the minds of viewers, but a name so very "what?" as Malc 1.5 just doesn't achieve this. I don't have a clue what it's supposed to mean - is it short for Malcolm? That wouldn't be any better. Few people care about the televised Malc 1.5 already, so why should anyone care about the untelevised Malc 1? Come back and start again.

The first encounter between Apollo and Sir Killalot in 1999

• Malice - 6/10 - A good, strong word for a combat robot which definitely needed to be used as quickly as possible. I would've wanted to see this as soon as Series 2, but admittedly I had my sights higher than a Reserve Rumble breakdown bot. It aggravates me that the likes of BattleBots 2020 planned competitor Malice can come along and my brain defaults to "you can't use that because of a British robot that appeared on television twenty years ago without even moving in its five seconds of screentime" but this is the Malice we got on Robot Wars and we're stuck with it. A good name that would leap up to a 7/10 at minimum on a worthier robot, but still can't score less than a 6/10 on robots of lower quality.

Malfunktion appears in a blog for perhaps the first and only time ever

• Malfunktion - 4/10 - Oh dear. Remember the K Range where I praised a lot of competitors for swapping C's for K's to add another layer of identity? Yeah, I don't think that stretches to Malfunktion. It's a malfunction... but funky? Well Uptown Malfunktion gonna give it to ya, and that's exactly what would've happened to it in an actual battle. You're really tempting fate when you name a robot after something that could cause its immediate downfall. It's like the opposite of calling a robot "Lucky", but with the same likelihood of it all going pants.

To think this would've been our Lightweight Championship runner-up if Team Mammoth filled in the application form correctly

• Mammoth - 5/10 - A three-in-one here, all held under one name. Mammoth refers to a series of robots competing in Series 3, Extreme 1-2 and Series 7, but each time in a different division. By the rules of the wiki, we have to treat these as separate entities, including the first Mammoth (46kg, over the middleweight limit by 0.5kg with no walker bonus in place, probably counts as a middleweight with how most Series 3 robots were up to 5% overweight), the two next two Mammoths (42kg and 38kg respectively, which factoring in the walker bonus makes them lightweights, but they competed in Middleweight Championships anyway), and the miniature fourth Mammoth (24kg according to Jonathan Pearce, which would mean that for once Team Mammoth actually used the walker bonus to their advantage for once while competing in a Featherweight Championship if this is correct). This is an absolute headache for our site which needs to separate robots by weight class, but Mammoth was so all over the place that I can't help seeing the whole line as one continuous series, maybe with an exception given to the featherweight only. I think it's fair to rate all of these under one all-encompassing score, but this does more harm than good really. The idea of naming your robot Mammoth is that your machine is very large, see the BattleBots Mammoth as a key example which managed to be the largest robot in combat history. The Robot Wars Mammoth series varied here. The Series 3 one was cripplingly underweight, but at least had some visual woolly mammoth cues with its wool and big stomping legs. The Extreme 1 Mammoth was at least physically larger than the other middleweights in its fight but it didn't back this up with a weight bonus and in no way resembled a mammoth. The Extreme 2 Mammoth was relatively small and the lightest one yet, but also the best-looking and most entertaining robot. Lastly, the Series 7 Mammoth finally outweighed the rest of its competition and by a wide margin too, but it was the lightest and smallest Mammoth in the series and the aesthetics of a transparent box with no animalistic traits meant it was still an unoptimised execution. This is a lot of positives and negatives that lead us a a straight-down-the-middle 5/10.

Amazing to think this was the same team as Shredder Evolution

• Manic Mutant - 5/10 - Well it's certainly original, if nothing else. Manic Mutant is a bit of a mishmash which isn't exactly reflected in the robot's design nor is there a great deal of meaning to it, but it's an alright bit of alliteration and the robot is the only 'manic mutant' in a Google search, so it's unique enough for at least a 5/10.

Team Shock's Manta can win the UK Championship as often as they like, but this is the Manta I fell in love with

• Manta - 7/10 - Perhaps one of the most unfortunate victims of name theft, a World Championship semi-finalist and Extreme Warriors domestic third place like Manta which had plenty of screentime in various TV shows should mean that the name Manta was off the table for all robots for the rest of time, but Team Shock have never showed any remorse when borrowing names. Did you know one of Team Shock's first robots was called Hammerhead? The signs were there from the beginning, Shockwave was hardly the beginning. The American machine Manta did not deserve to have its identity hijacked by a British wedge flipper and I won't be punishing this notable competitor over Team Shock's lack of respect to Robot Wars history (ever heard of Google, Will?) - anyway, with that out of the way, Manta is a good snappy name that shortens "Manta Ray" into something a bit more unspecific and provides a good basis for visual design which Manta played up to very well. Good job.

Bugger the joke captions, can we just appreciate how beautiful this is

• Mantis - 8/10 - While the previous entry shortened Manta Ray to Manta, this one shortens Praying Mantis to Mantis for a similarly good execution, although simply 'Mantis' is apparently the scientific name for the insect anyway. There were a few avenues that could've been explored here, the comedy approach would be to adopt a name like Slaying Mantis which I'd admittedly prefer, but the uniform Mantis keeps things cool and composed for this very intricate design. Its long lifting and grabbing appendages are very insect-like, and the way a real praying mantis would lift up its prey to eat it is exactly what the robot does. A very clever way to represent an insect design without going the whole way in painting the robot green and giving it a smiley face.

Marauder logo making me want a Maccie's

• Marauder - 6/10 - When entering a middleweight robot against much larger opposition, there's somewhat of an expectation that the name plays into this, but Marauder had no plans to dumb down its name. This is a good title which works well on a robot without great need for explanation. By the virtue of a few months, it entered a US competition after the frenZy team had already entered a robot called Marauder into BattleBots, but I don't think it made the televised cut and likely flew under the radar. It's enough to keep Marauder under the green score barrier but not enough to discredit what is definitely a good name.

I would've loved to have more Italian robots on the show

• Mastiff - 7/10 - Continuing the discussion from Mad Dog, I definitely think Mastiff picked the right name at the right time. When thinking of violent domestic dogs, I would name the rottweiler, pitbull and mastiff in that order. The competitors in Robot Wars followed this exact order chronologically, and with no real fourth violent dog in the queue (the next one in mind would be the distant fourth place of an alsatian, while the non-violent but tough-sounding bulldog also got used along the way), it made sense that the next few angry dog robots just went with Growler and Mad Dog instead. Mastiff fit into the timeline very nicely without giving us a repeat name and I appreciate that.

If you can find more information on German Maverick, I'll give you a quid

• Maverick - 6/10 - At surface-level, Maverick is a good, appropriate name, albeit one that's not too creative and a bit of an inevitability. What I'm more interested in is how the team continued this theme - we will of course carry on this story in the R Range. I've not written out R Range before but it sounds like I'm stuttering over my words. Bonus mention to the name Maverick also being given to, of all things, a registered entry in Robot Wars: The German Struggles that dropped out long before filming. One that we only know about thanks to a producer's post on a 2002 forum, with no details on the robot or its build progress available anywhere that we can find.

Good old 'Tildy, the best House Robot by miles

• Matilda - 7/10 - Ah, Matilda, what an important part of Robot Wars you were. It's a common and now very dated trope in fiction to have one female character in a larger group of villains. Take for example the Koopalings from the Mario games, or The Deadly Six from Sonic Lost World, where the villains adhere to many the following tropes: clever and scheming guy, big stupid brute guy, exaggerated madness guy, menacing ringleader guy, and the girl. There's always just one girl in the pack who doesn't have much of a personality other than "being a girl", usually with some bratty tendencies. Robot Wars seemed set to fall into this trap, with Matilda being the one female House Robot among the original line-up of three male House Robots, and by the end of Series 7, seven male House Robots. I'm glad then that Matilda had such a defined personality of her own from all kinds of sources. The name Matilda paints the picture of a proper old battleaxe, a strong and bruteish woman that you wouldn't want to mess with, the exact goal in making Matilda an odd hybrid of a pig and a dinosaur. This would already be enough to save Matilda from criticism, but the odd crush that Jonathan Pearce would persistently bring up with Matilda is a running joke that never got old, and I love how it advanced with the ages, starting out with simple 'waltzing Matilda, a dance of death' lines in 1999 right up to 'I'd swipe right for Matilda' in 2017. It wasn't just Jonathan Pearce either, but robots like Hellbent and The Hassocks Hog wanting to marry Matilda meant that just having a female House Robot opened up a world of opportunities. Big props to Robo Challenge for retroactively making Dead Metal a girl too, so that Matilda could firmly stand as a female House Robot with a strong personality, and not the female House Robot.

You need to have Max Movement before you can have Max Damage

• Max Damage - 3/10 - I knew the M Range was going to be a big update, but for there to be so many more more robots that start with "Ma-" than there are robots in the entire L Range is kinda insane. Max Damage is a weak entry in the MA Range, being a very tpical name about how dangerous robots can be, except Max Damage is also sporting an entire triceratops as its outer shell which the name makes absolutely no reference to. This could've been Tricerabot before we had Tricerabot! Max Damage is a boring enough name that would typically score no higher than a 4/10, but the utter irrelevance to its dinosaur theme means it drops an extra point.

Is it still for sale, lads

• MaxiMill - 5/10 - I love the idea of a Dutch robot being based around a windmill. MaxiMill had the right bodyshape and spinner design to make this clear, and although it could've gone further with the visual resemblance, it was still quite close and the heavy use of orange was another Dutch stereotype in there. You could say they were going for the "maximum" amount of stereotypes in one, and here we ended up with MaxiMill. A good name, but I'm a bit bothered by the capitalisation. You couldn't call it a WindMill would you? Now that I think about it, with "Mill" being the latter half of the name and the more important part of the meaning, I'm surprised the successor was called Bluemax rather than Bluemill.

All Small Fighting Maximum Torque of the Devil

• Maximum Torque - 4/10 - One Torque too far, I would say. The first "Torque" robot was not from the All Torque line, we'll get to Torque of the Devil later on, but Robot Wars had seen a total of four robots with Torque in the name by this stage, all of which were entertaining plays on words. There's no joke in Maximum Torque, it's just a very literal description of the drivetrain. Even if it were the only Torque in Robot Wars, the option for Talk puns is just so obvious that this would bother me either way.

Sparta Remix of Maximus raising its lifter

• Maximus - 4/10 - I'm giving Maximus a 4/10 in the interest of fairness, but really I want to go lower. The problem with Maximus is that it debuted on Robot Wars after the much more interesting name of Brutus Maximus had already reached our TV screens. Maximus was just the same name cut in half. The reason I have to give Maximus some leniency is that it originally qualified for the Fifth Wars and withdrew, putting it on the same timeline as Brutus Maximus who also made a qualification attempt for the Fifth Wars. Just-Maximus also plays up to the visual theme very well with its Roman design. Still though, after Brutus Maximus had aired on television, there was definitely time to swap the name for another Roman equivalent like Caesar or Sparta before appearing in Extreme 2.

Let me guess, the successor would be called Metal Mayhem to rip off the Game Boy game?

• Mayhem - 1/10 - We all enjoy listening to Jonathan Pearce on Robot Wars, but he tends to get a lot of things wrong. Be it "Foxic's lithium polymer armament" or "Firestorm needs some kind of axe weapon", JP came out with some wild misinformation from time to time, but we love him all the same. One of his most unforgivable mistakes however, surfaced in Heat I of Series 7. When this two-wheel driven spinner named Mayhem made its debut in the warzone, Jonathan Pearce said that it had a "splendid name". Ohhhh Jonathan, you've said it now. Enter a robot called Mayhem into Series 1-4 and I'd call it a generic, predictable name that required no real effort or thought to come up with. Enter it after the first series of Extreme and I'll call it not just a generic failure, but one that screws with the canon of the entire show. To steal the name of a previous competitor is bad enough, but to steal the name of an event? That's arguably even worse. Twelve whole episodes of British Robot Wars featured a Mayhem as a prominent part of the episode, how can you just repurpose that and give it to a competitor? What's next, Annihilator? Eliminator? The Pit? LiPo? The last thing you should be taking names from is the TV show you're trying to compete on, what a farce.

Mazakari may be the only robot from Darlington but I can verifiably say I've passed through it with Amnesia and Euphoria

• Mazakari - 7/10 - I have an obvious soft spot for Mazakari. It hails from Darlington, an area I travel through very regularly (most recently last weekend lol) and it helps to represent my region. Mazakari was completely robbed in Series 4 and it fully deserved a place in the second round, also becoming generally underrated as a result. Honestly I think the design is really appealing and unique for Series 4 too. I could say plenty of nice things about Mazakari, but the aspect where I'll struggle to convey my thoughts is the name. I do not know what on earth a Mazakari is. The first search results in Google for Mazakari return the robot Mazakari. It must be a play on another word then, right? Jonathan Pearce compared it to Kamikaze, but I don't think it's that. But then... I don't know what it is! Totally unique and shrouded in mystery, I can't figure Mazakari out but it sounds great.

Bit of a BTEC Diabolus but still a decent robot

• Mean Streak - 6/10 - Not bad! We've all said that someone or something has a mean streak in general conversation, it's a very well-known phrase but not one that's ever taken out of context and presented in isolation. Proving a point on Robot Wars, Mean Streak works perfectly well by itself and creates a good name.

Better luck next fantasy tournament

• Mechadroid - 3/10 - Love the robot, don't like the name. Everything that competed on Robot Wars is a robot, you need more personality than just other words for "robot". The clear combination here is "mechatron" and "android", but Robot + Robot still equals Robot. I think the robot's small size and nipping jaws are quite insect-like, that would at least be a starting point for creating an identity. You have to try though, I'm not going to get behind a name that could appropriately be applied to all 700+ other robots in the competition.

Maniachanic

• Mechaniac - 7/10 - In a really odd case, we have Mechaniac, a name which was never actually written out on the show. Most robots in World Championship qualifiers still had stat boards, I'm not sure why an exception was made for Supernova vs Mechaniac, but it clearly wasn't to buy more time for introducing Cassius Chrome. We still don't know Mechaniac's weight or dimensions and indeed we didn't even know how to spell it without further research. The first draft of Mechaniac's wiki article was actually called "Mekaniac", requiring us to find the builder on the FRA to learn the true name. Mechaniac is, however, pretty good! A combination of "mechanical" and "maniac", this is a shining example to Mechadroid that you can base your name around something that every robot has (mechanics) as long as you blend it with something else. This mechanical maniac is painted clear as day on the flipper, in a name I find to be quite a smooth combination. I call it a combination, it actually adds only one letter to the word "Mechanic", but that single letter changes the meaning and pronunciation entirely. Kinda like one of those "add a letter to a movie title" Twitter trends...

It took until 2019 for a pure "Medusa" to appear on a TV show, being a Tombclone in King of Bots II

• Medusa 2000 - 5/10 - Sure, why not? This robot was originally going to compete in the side events of Series 3 under the more basic name of Medusa, which would be fine, everyone knows who Medusa is and why she matters. It's very much on the predictable side though, which makes Medusa 2000 that little bit more charismatic. It is one of the key reminders that Series 4 was filmed on the turn of the millennium, after all. Starting an entirely new century is a pretty big deal, why not celebrate it? It would be funny if it entered the Third Wars under the name Medusa 1999 though.

Medusa Oblongotta go fast!

• Medusa Oblongata - 6/10 - With Medusa 2000 differing slightly from the infamous Greek figure, the floor remained open for an American machine to take it for themselves, but this team were also uninterested in playing things the straightforward way, which is how we ended up with Medusa Oblongata. This name is very much on the long side and the joke will fly over many people's heads, but it's a surprisingly decent pun on "medulla oblongata", the name for the lower half of the invertebrate brainstem. Inverterbrat vs Medusa Oblongata when?

• • Medusa Oblongotta - 5/10 - The second rendition of the name was maybe a bit too far though. Medusa Oblongata was already two sources in one, but changing Oblongata to "Oblongotta" just to sound like it's gotta go do something was a bit unnecessary. Maybe it was an error on the show's part, but that feels like a hard error to make. The robot itself was also distanced quite far from Medusa visually in comparison to the first version, which is a shame.

All I'd change would be to swap the rear axe for a "floppy disc" saw weapon

• Mega Hurts - 9/10 - Mega Hurts is a fantastic name that surrounding forces in the show desperately tried to ruin. The joke is extremely clear, interpreting the megahertz measurement of electronic transmission in an even more violent way. It's frankly the perfect name for a computer-themed robot. But on came the onslaught of detractors that the team couldn't control. Roboteers and presenters persistently mixed it up with Killerhurtz and Terrorhurtz in interviews. The Navy stole the name for their own robot. The show didn't accept Mega Hurts into Series 5 and forced a four-series gap between appearances. The laptop-themed Mega Hurts LT was introduced as Mega Hurts Limited by Stuart McDonald. Nobody could just let Mega Hurts be Mega Hurts and that is a terrible shame. It almost makes me wish the robot was just called Mega Bite to get around all this.

What I'd change is everything

• Mega-Hurts - 1/10 - Here's that very machine that tried to dampen the legacy of the Mega Hurts above. Don't think you can add in a hyphen and call it an original name. Your robot isn't even vaguely computer-based, why do you get to use the name Mega-Hurts? You're from the Navy guys, pick something from that! There's absolutely no shortage of good naval names, take your corny "we're Mega-Hurts and you're gonna hurt" catchphrase and get out of here.

Meggamouse secretly had one of the best drivers in Robot Wars, you just can't really demonstrate that when fighting Carbide with an outdated aluminium flipper

• Meggamouse - 5/10 - Next in line here should be Mega Morg, with Mini Morg also being an opportunity earlier in the same range. For simplicity, I'll lump those guys under The Morgue in the T Range. This therefore brings us to Meggamouse, which is a little annoying given that it's the successor to Mighty Mouse who we'll be covering in just a little bit, but the alphabet forces me to talk about this one first. Vocally, Meggamouse is a very logical follow-up to Mighty Mouse and in that sense I like it quite a lot. The intentionally incorrect spelling of Meggamouse is a bit weird and I don't know if I agree with it, but this robot has been such a prominent part of robot combat over the last decade that I couldn't fairly say how good Megamouse or Mega Mouse actually look. Just please don't spell it as MeggaMouse, people of the wiki... oh yeah, the minibot, Charles is pretty good for a wedge of cheese, 6/10.

Deserved the wildcard less than Neater, but made great use of its Grand Final slot all the same

• Meshuggah - 7/10 - when ur makin tea and u spill the sugar on the table, "oh no, me sugar!" What is supposed to be a reference to a Swedish extreme metal band just comes across to me as a Yorkshireman mourning the loss of his sugar and for that alone, Meshuggah gets a 7/10.

• Mesmer 2 - 4/10 - Boo, pointless numbers. Mesmer 2 itself hardly got any screentime on Robot Wars, it's perhaps one of the least significant robots in the entire run of the show, so why we're supposed to be interested in finding a Mesmer 1 is anyone's guess. Clearly nobody did care enough because we don't have any record of Mesmer 1 on the wiki. We do have a Mesmer 2.5 though which might be even worse. I'm relatively keen on the Mesmer part, few would think to shorten the word mesmerising but these guys did (unless it was a reference to the film Mesmer), but the sequential is too frustrating to let Mesmer 2 reach the halfway mark.

Get the sieve signed by Jayne Middlemiss on eBay, Colin!

• Metalis - 5/10 - One of the weaker names from Colin Scott, the Team Death names started out very strong and Metalis in comparison tells you nothing other than the robot being made of metal. Despite this, it is a unique word which conveys at least some kind of meaning, whether it's an important one or not. Hey ho, if we can have a modern day Piece de Resistance, perhaps we could have a featherweight Metalis?

At the time of writing I renamed the Micro Mute article from "Micro-Mute" only yesterday, but the rear logo and website clearly use Micro Mute so our hyphen was just a presumption from 2009

• Micro Mute - 5/10 - Again with the M Range and making me talk about successors and spin-offs before I can talk about the main robot in question. You'll soon hear my full thoughts on Mute, and Micro Mute is a pretty faithful way to downsize it, although in complete honesty I'm not sure if the two should be connected. The televised Featherweight Championships were a nice environment to see downscaled versions of well-known heavyweights, so bearing the title for one of my favourite heavyweights in Mute is a nice bit of representation, but the robots themselves just aren't similar. Mute is a compact wedge with a powerful front-hinged flipper, Micro Mute is a long pointy wedge with no weapon. Mute's trademark bad self-righting is instead subtituted for normal invertibility, and the similarities reach no further than grey armour and being from the same team. Micro Mute is fine, but it maybe could've been something else.

A million marks for effort

• Mighty Mouse - 7/10 - There you are! Mighty Mouse is a very charming character that earns a lot of points simply for existing. After competing in three separate series with the original version of Velocirippa, Trevor Wright still had the chassis running and wanted something to enter into Techno Games. The one rule of Techno Games is that you need a different name to the one you use in Robot Wars, and this could be as simple as changing Bulldog Breed to British Bulldog or Wolverine to Wolf, or it could be as adventurous as changing M2 to Mousecatcher (why couldn't that be the Robot Wars name?) or Hydra to Bugs Buggy. Trevor Wright aligned with the latter camp, not only renaming Velocirippa to Mighty Mouse but changing its entire paint scheme and decorations to match. Mighty Mouse proved to be a bit of a hit, carrying far more charm than Velocirippa ever did, so this new brand deserved a crack at Robot Wars itself. After all, it may have been a rule that Robot Wars names couldn't be used on Techno Games, but there was no rule to say that Techno Games names couldn't be used on Robot Wars! Mighty Mouse was such a likeable addition that it ended up taking the place of its intended successor Velocirippa 2 in Series 6 and managed to find some victories of its own too, including the Seventh Wars Heat Final that Velocirippa could only dream of. I like this machine and its brand a lot more than I like Velocirippa, and without Mighty Mouse we would never have the likes of Meggamouse either. I love the disparity of a robot called "Mighty Mouse" actually being one of the most passive machines in the show's history, but I say it's mighty enough simply for entering the arena at all.

"Militant, you're an irritant" --JP, probably

• Militant - 8/10 - A name so complex, our feeble wiki minds could not even spell it correctly until 2020 despite "militant" being a word in the English dictionary the whole time. Yes, we really called the page Millitant for over a decade. I don't know who was at fault but it's amazing we didn't catch this years ago. Anyway, with militant meaning to 'favour confrontational or violent methods in support of a cause', it's a nice word choice that slips another cheeky Ant pun into the antweight division, with no evidence to suggest the spelling is something daft like MilitANT. Solid stuff from CombatANT's little brother.

If you thought Medusa 2000 was a blatant Millennium shout

• Millennium Bug - 6/10 - With Series 4 being filmed in the year 2000, one of the main topics on people's minds was the millennium bug, a conspiracy that led people to believe that computers would be unable to cope with the internal clock advancing from the year 1999 to 2000, with failure potentially costing companies billions of pounds' worth of data. Thankfully the computers handled the date change pretty cleanly, allowing us to look back on the situation and laugh with bug-themed walking robots. Millennium Bug is a very on-the-nose reference to the topic while incorporating insect features. However it wasn't the first competitor to make the joke...

Get yourself a Yorkshire lass like Milly

• Milly-Ann Bug - 7/10 - Because that honour goes to Milly-Ann Bug! The reference to the millennium bug is subtle but seemingly there in hindsight. What I like is that Milly-Ann Bug has the added benefit of entering Robot Wars before the myth of the millennium bug was actually debunked. Maybe we wouldn't look at Milly-Ann Bug too kindly if the computers around the world really were wiped of their data between Series 3 and 4! I definitely missed the pun for quite a long time, with Milly-Ann just coming across as a fairly believable girls' name for the feminine insect robot, but I must've facepalmed when I finally made the connection. This Yorkshire lass carries a lot of personality and it's beloved for a reason.

Find Minimalistic!

• Minimalistic - 8/10 - Antweights again, is it? This is the third one now! This name is really cute though, I may not be much of a designer but the trend of minimalism in home design and modern websites is something I really agree with, and Minimalistic over here was clearly way ahead of the trend. Antweights should take reference to their own size, I don't want unironic antweight robots called Hades, I want self-aware tiny robots with the names to match. Minimalistic is one I'll gladly offer my support to.

A Maul so Mini they couldn't fit the motors in symmetrically

• Mini-Maul - 5/10 - Hmm, this blends together quite nicely, but the name Mini-Maul implies the existence of a heavyweight robot called "Maul" which would be a lot less agreeable. We don't have any evidence to suggest the team have a bigger robot called Maul, we only know Mini-Maul and Micro-Maul, so it can have a pass. For now. The Mauler is looming, watching, in case any updates on the Mini-Maul family arise.

Still defending the anti-spinner bumpers in 2020

• Ming - 7/10 - Ming really was an appreciated part of Robot Wars history. A robot that is nobody's favourite and is often subjected to a bit of criticism, but remains a consistently fun figure throughout the show's original run. Ming started out as a Flash Gordon reference, after the main villain Ming the Merciless, a much more tasteful reference than Bash Gordon. With every complete Ming redesign came a well-earned new number in the name, before the fourth Ming machine changes the reference altogether and dates back to the actual Ming dynasty of Chinese history. The "Dienasty" pun which is such an aggressive combination of two brutal words that it falls totally flat and instead adds charm through the humour of it. Bonus points to the team's biggest success seeing "Team Ming" teaming up with Rick.

It's the Brazilian Bull, Minotaur!!!

• Minotaur - 6/10 - Well, I feel a bit odd talking about a robot called Minotaur when it's not the famous BattleBots competitor! "Ohhh, Minotaur, the BattleBots runner-up?" "Nah mate, the one that appeared on Robot Wars for a few seconds in the lead-up to the Super Heavyweight Final". Thanks to those Brazilians, I can't even say Minotaur normally, it'll always be 'Minnotaur' for the rest of time. Well whichever Minotaur you're talking about, the name is the same and it's overall pretty good.

Fabulous, darling

• Miss Ile - 3/10 - This one winds me up more than it should. I get it, it's a play on the word missile, highlighting the "Miss" to create a female character. Really though, what kind of woman's name is Ile? I'm sure there will be someone in the word called Ile, there always seems to be a name out there for everything, but if you've met someone called Ile in real life I would be amazed. It's really not that bad but I can't say Miss Ile without wanting to sigh.

• Miss Struts - 4/10 - Predecessor to Jim Struts, I have a bit more to say about Miss Struts. It's still a vaguely personified name pointing out the walkerbot's legs, with Jim Struts the boy and Miss Struts the girl. It's nothing exceptional but I'd say it's better than Jim Struts because if both robots were models on a catwalk, there'd be a much bigger expectation of style from a lady called "Miss Struts" versus a bloke called Jim Struts.

Mo mayhem, mo carnage, Mobot! Great save from JP

• Mobot - 4/10 - In the context of 2003, there's really not much to say about Mobot. It's presumably derived from mower (as in lawnmower blade) with the usual -bot suffix thrown on, leaving it with little to escape the red zone. However, Mobot gets a retroactive boost because of how relevant the name turned out to be over a decade later. If you ask any Brit what a "mobot" is, they will now tell you that it's the victory celebration of British Olympian Mo Farah, who would give us a somewhat robotic pose after winning his latest gold medal. This is all a complete coincidence and is no no way related to Mobot from Robot Wars, but it adds some appeal in modern revisits.

*something in Irish*

• Monad - 4/10 - I really couldn't explain this one to you. I don't even know how to pronounce it. Browsing the internet, the most common results are all related to computer programming, with the next-most common result being a philosophical term for "that which is one". I guess Monad was Robot No. 1 for its team, but honestly these meanings are so out there that I feel the Irish team probably just made it up and ran with it. The whole phillosophical and programming possibilities don't really fit with successors "4x4" and "Topbot".

It's Morris, the hero of autocorrect

• Mortis - 6/10 - Guess it's time for another Star Wars discussion in the comments because today I learned the most popular definition of "Mortis" is a planet from the 2011 series of The Clone Wars. Of course, the Mortis we know and love from Robot Wars is derived from the Latin word for death, most commonly used in modern times as part of the subsequent 'rigor mortis' phase. This is a suitably grim and imposing name for the biggest threat of Robot Wars: The First Wars, with this kind of serious name helping to boost the narrative of competitive Cambridge students further. A good choice for an important machine.

Help us find Mutant MouseTrap from TeamMouseTrap agh I'm having a grammar attack

• MouseTrap - 5/10 - When building a robot which is, from head-to-toe, a direct representation of a real-world object, it makes sense to just use the object's name for the robot. This thing looks like a mousetrap, is armed with a giant mousetrap, and almost no other machine on the show would be armed with a mousetrap again (thank you Little Nipper). There's little reason not to call the robot Mousetrap, particularly when it's a machine that went on to win a heat. Sadly the team could not let it lie, and in a desparate attempt to be even slightly different to the word, they capitalised the name as MouseTrap. Ugh. This is just so unnecessary - look in the dictionary and you will see 'mousetrap' in there clear as day, you're not making some kind of pun by merging "Mouse" and "Trap" here. The capital T already ticks me off, but nothing stands as poorly as the dreadful team name, TeamMouseTrap. Go find GroundHog and take a literacy class.

Sorry to say Mr Nasty does not have the X Factor

• Mr Nasty - 4/10 - "It's a no from me". While a name like Mr Nasty works well for a reality TV judge, I don't think it has quite the same impact on a fighting robot where everybody is supposed to be nasty. It's certainly better than the team's Techno Games approach of blatantly stealing the name All Torque, but Mr Nasty just doesn't stand out from the pack.

• Mr. Psycho - 5/10 - Time to sound proper uptight, because we're having a lesson on very trivial grammar mistakes. This concerns the title of "Mr." before the name Psycho. Did you know that 'Mr.' with a full stop is an Americanised style of writing, while the British standard is to just use 'Mr' with no punctuation? Well apparently Robot Wars didn't, because now Mr. Psycho has been painted as an angry American man trying to hurt any robot that steps in the arena. And boy, I can't think of any Americans called Mr. Psycho who would be so mean to the competitor robots...

If you haven't seen Punch and Judy before, the robot fortunately has a pretty good visual for what Mr. Punch looked like on the robot's shell

• Mr. Punch - 6/10 - Here the full stop was optional, the robot's namesake used one while British grammar doesn't, and the robot used both anyway. I won't labour over it this time because we now have an interesting reference to the quintessentially British seaside play Punch and Judy. For those of you who live overseas, Punch and Judy is a puppet show dating all the way back to the 1600's, where the fingerpuppet Mr. Punch would argue with his wife Judy until it leads to some slapstick violence. Nowadays the themes of domestic violence have been heavily toned down for obvious reasons and Mr. Punch's anger is usually directed elsewhere, but the puppet show was still going strong when I was growing up, even if I kept confusing it with the breakfast TV show Richard and Judy. I can't believe You Say We Pay was a scam, man. Anyway, back to Mr. Punch, it's a direct namedrop to the husband in Punch and Judy and it's a charmingly violent homage while representing the weapon very directly.

Revenge of Revenge of Trouble & Strife

• M.R. Speed Squared - 3/10 - There is no score I could possibly give to M.R. Speed Squared without creating disagreement, because it's proved a very divisive name with a group of supporters and haters on each side. The supporters will tell you that this is quite a clever name, derived from the equation that calculates the kinetic energy of the robot's spinner with M and R standing for mass and radius, charismatically creating the personified name of Mister Speed Squared. The haters will tell you that a majority of the viewing audience won't be able to understand the joke unless they go out of their way to research it, that the name is way too long and difficult to type, and that the show couldn't make up its mind on how to say and spell it, resulting in an inconsistent number of full stops in writing and varying pronunciations of "Mister Speed Squared" and "Emm Arr Speed Squared" from the presenters. Can you guess which point of view I agree with?

This is our purple flower-based robot hey did you know it's a girl

• Ms Nightshade - 5/10 - Back in my old Ranking the Series 9 competitors... by name! blog, I put Ms Nightshade 21st out of 40 on the grounds of ruining a name that had real potential. This entry proved to be the biggest talking point of the blog, so I think the best course of action is to directly reinsert that entry from before Series 9 aired. "At one position away from the top half of the list, this is perhaps the highest praise Ms Nightshade has been given on this wiki, and is perhaps the highest praise it will ever have. When I first heard the name, I did think it was named after a lamp due to its somewhat conical shape, but VulcansHowl quickly corrected me, and actually the Nightshade is a good flower to name a robot after. Ms Nightshade and its weaponry are based on a flower, which is a nice colour, and the darker connotations behind the nightshade flower make it a wise pick. Then the name is let down by the "Ms" in front of it. Yes, we get it, you're a team of female engineers. The producers would've caught on to that by reading your application form, the robot doesn't need a title. Flowers are naturally feminine, this turns a subtly threatening name back into a female lamp".

I may not have been able to praise my beloved M2 in this update, but fortunately the #2 was right there on backup brigade and Mute soaks in some much-deserved praise

• Mute - 8/10 - After being a little unkind to Micro Mute earlier in this update, I'm now able to close out the M Range on a high note by thoroughly praising my second-favourite robot, Mute. It's a total coincidence that the M Range opened on M2 and closed on Mute, my two favourites are forever bound together! We nearly went down a very dark path with Mute, which first applied for Series 4 under the name "Kick Robutt", a name that is not only terrible in its own right, but it also would've been a theft from the Series 2 Super Heavyweight champion. Thank my lucky stars that the producers were on the ball and told the team that Kick Robutt was unavailable, because Mute was a very sharp turnaround, jumping from a 1/10 name straight to an 8/10. I think Mute is just so curious, the pure-metal design of the compact robot fits a subdued name like Mute, but it's the contrast which works even better. Launching itself all around the arena with its boisterous flips and loud attacks, this robot is anything but mute in the arena and I admire the decision to give it a name like this. You can really inject your own meaning into it, "Mute doesn't talk the talk but it walks the walk", "Mute intends to silence its opponents for good" etc. It's just not a word you'd expect to be used on a fighting robot, especially not on something as energetic as Mute, but it works marvellously.

N Range

This is not just NAMAZU...

This is N A M A Z U !!!

• N A M A Z U - 6/10 - I find this one endlessly funny when written out in full. Let's tackle this robot step-by-step. The robot is named after the Namazu, a giant catfish from Japanese mythology who causes earthquakes. It's a decent inspiration for the robot which causes earthquakes on the wooden arena floor simply for trying to move, although I think it's a bit strange that they named a walkerbot after a creature with no legs. This alone is how I've arrived at my 6/10 rating, but I'll give the full story anyway. The Dutch team didn't want to settle for just "Namazu", so they headed for their website to spell the robot as "NAMAZU" in all-caps, which again is fair game. There's no particular reason to do it this way, but it's the preference of some roboteers and that's fine. However, things become extra strange when the robot makes its TV debut and the statistics board opens up to reveal the name "N A M A Z U". Why is there a space between every single letter?? I have absolutely no idea, but this was backed up by the team's pit bench too. It seems to be entirely intentional and so for the sake of this blog I have to assume that the name was, hilariously, N A M A Z U. I mentioned earlier that the team's website (our closest official source) uses the spelling NAMAZU without spaces, but I think that's to get around the issue that has possibly appeared during this blog entry already (I write these in Notepad, I can't tell). It's very difficult to stop the one-word N A M A Z U from breaking across two lines of text which I would imagine stumped the team on their website, while I learned this the hard way in the wiki renaming process. Still, in situations where it's permissible like on the Robot Wars stat boards, I always get a laugh out of N A M A Z U.

How can I take the name Napalm at face value when the robot looks like this

• Napalm - 6/10 - Have you ever taken a step back and thought "wait, Napalm is really dark for a robot name" because oh man, seeing a robot so lovably rubbish as Napalm throughout the earlier years of Robot Wars really toned down the effect of a name which is really based on something quite horrifying. Napalm is probably down there with Agent Orange as one of the most frightening and dangerous real-world origins for a robot name, but the complete incompetence of the bumbling yet charismatic Napalm machine has essentially overwritten the intention of the name. You could criticise the name for being a step too far, or praise it for being such a massive contrast between name and robot, it's all down to opinion. I don't really know where I sit, but I do know that I always have time for the endlessly amusing Napalm machines.

Credit for getting dibs on "Extreme Team"

• Nasty Warrior - 4/10 - This one really comes across as "German team makes English name", it's a big hodge-podge of standard words for violent fighting robots, rolling them together to create the slightly more unique Nasty Warrior. We'd have Nasty Humphrey and Mr Nasty, we've had RC Warrior and Eco Warrior, none of these are uncommon word choices, but there's never been another Nasty Warrior so this is OK enough.

NEATER MACHINE

• NEAT Machine - 4/10 - There's no way that NEAT doesn't stand for something. I can't think what it could be, because it doesn't match up with any of the team members Arthur, Albert, Wouter or Jur, while the team's website makes no effort to explain the name. It's a pity, because without an explanation I don't think NEAT Machine is all that good of a name. It has the potential to rise in score if we knew what NEAT meant, but for now it's a 4/10. I appreciate how the team genuinely tidied the name up for Dutch Series 2 by calling it "Neater", but this was totally undone for Series 7 where they rolled out with the complete disaster that is NEATer Machine, which doesn't look neat in any sense of the word.

I unfortunately have to confirm there was also a Nemesis in the 1996 US Robot Wars, sadly making this a repeat even in Series 1

• Nemesis - 5/10 - To judge Nemesis properly, I'd really like to know when the fur came into play. Was this robot originally going to be a fully serious pushing robot called Nemesis? It still would've been one of the best robots in the First Wars and arguably would've deserved the lofty title. Or was it the plan from the start to have a polkadot fur-coated machine that entered the arena mainly just to catch fire? The contrast between the extremely serious Nemesis name and the robot's very lighthearted design is pretty stark, so I'd love to know whether it was a deliberate contrast or if it was something that came up later down the line. Putting the Nemesis and Diotoir names side-by-side, you would prefer Nemesis for nine robots out of ten, being a name that could appropriately suit many competent fighters. However I would say something like Diotoir proved better for this particular team, who stand as one of the show's most well-remembered competitors, with machines that deserved a unique name like Diotoir more than the somewhat fish-in-the-sea Nemesis to help keep the boggle-eyed bot in the minds of the general public.

I feel like Neoteric was a shout for the second-best featherweight in Extreme 2

• Neoteric - 7/10 - We had Eric, we had Derek, we had Maverick, how else can we end a name in "eric"? Introducing Neoteric, something which has managed to evade Shuntposting memes for a suspiciously long time with a name integrating Eric into it. Of course this is all just a coincidence, Neoteric is in fact derived from the word meaning 'new or modern', a term born from Latin poets "the Neoterics" who strove to modernise poetry. Did I know any of this before starting the blog entry on Neoteric? Absolutely not, but I have learned something today and I'm grateful for that. It's a pretty appropriate meaning for a "big vert before it was cool" featherweight too.

I know it's called Night Raider but turn the lights on guys

• Night Raider - 4/10 - This is going to be somewhat of a two-in-one segment with an unrelated competitor who is just a few spaces further down the list, because it's impossible to talk about Night Raider without also talking about Niterider. These were two competitors in the New Blood Championship during Extreme 2 who competed in back-to-back episodes with remarkably similar names. You'd be easily forgiven for thinking Night Raider and Niterider were the same robot, given they made their televised debuts only seven days apart, and neither could even move out of the starting blocks in the New Blood Championship resulting in effortless exits from both. Obviously it's a total coincidence that both robots arrived at Robot Wars with extremely similar names and neither team were at fault, but I really think some responsibility fell to the producers to make one or both of the teams switch names. Having a Night Raider and a Niterider back-to-back isn't really acceptable and I get that it's a difficult call to decide who has to change their name, but something had to be done really. Night Raider lands on a 4/10 because there's less of an identifiable meaning behind the name and it was technically the second of the two robots to appear, even if I really don't want to punish Night Raider for entering the arena less than an hour after Niterider did.

Somehow the name Peeping Tom would be less creepy

• Night Stalker - 2/10 - Wow this did not work out at all. To go straight to the real meaning, Night Stalker is named as such because the team all worked at the U.S. Border Patrol, where night stalker is reportedly a common term in the industry. However I'm hardly surprised that Mick Foley called the robot "Peeping Tom" after its fight (to the team's unamused response of 'no, it's Night Stalker') because a title like "night stalker" just sounds creepy and perverted. Like, I'm at peace with fighting robots hitting and killing each other, but for them to pursue you on your way home and watch you through the windows, ugh, get it out. Even worse is that Night Stalker is also the nickname of an American serial killer and yeah, this name is littered with issues and never should've got off the ground.

It was a few years before I realised how to spell ninjutsu because I just took the robot's word for it

• Ninjitsu - 5/10 - Um, guys? You know the word is Nunjutsu, right? How did you manage to spell it as Ninjitsu? I've done a fair bit of reading to see if Ninjitsu is an accepted spelling, but all I've unearthed is forums asking "what's the difference between ninjutsu and ninjitsu" to the usual response of "one is right and one is wrong". I don't know how the word came to be pronounced the way it is, the same thing applies to Jujutsu being pronounced in English languages as "jujitsu", but I can't find anything to suggest this is a faithful adaptation of the Japanese word. I do think that Ninjutsu would be a very good name for the follow-up robot to Shuriken and I'd honestly offer it at least a 7/10, but the somewhat erroneous Ninjitsu has to fall behind.

Raging Knight Rider

• Niterider - 5/10 - Carrying on the dual segment of Night Raider and Niterider, I'm giving a slightly higher score to Niterider. Not because it debuted at filming first by margins slimmer than the births of some baby twins, but simply because the etymology is a bit clearer. There's no real doubt that Niterider is based on the TV show Knight Raider and its robotic talking car KITT. In the case of Night Raider, it's a little too detached from Knight Rider to be a possible inspiration in my mind, and I think I've only considered Night Raider being a Knight Rider reference because of the similar Niterider introducing the idea first. Essentially Niterider is very likely to be a quirky TV reference, while Night Raider simply "might be" and is otherwise just your average name that wants to sound cool. Right that's enough of those names, Good Night.

Not Perfect looks like the biggest robot ever in this photo

• Not Perfect - 8/10 - Finally we have a second green score in the very small N Range and our winner today is Not Perfect. As in, the robot called Not Perfect, not that it wasn't perfect, but I mean it clearly isn't perfect if I gave it an 8/10 and not a 10/10 but-- Right, start again. I like the name of the Robot Wars: The German Struggles competitor Not Perfect, and the praise I offered to Close Enough back in the C Range applies equally here. I think Close Enough was unfortunate to be in the C Range with four 10/10 names, but Not Perfect is probably a little better simply on the grounds that of the two, it was closer to being a good robot. A title like Not Perfect is pretty much spot on for our German fifth place finisher, the robot was clearly decent and deserving of its dead-centre finish without really being a threat to the top three. I do love how the BBC Visual Effects department gave it a "clearly spraypainted with dodgy logo but still quite decent" coat of paint that was good but imperfect enough to match the name.

Now to rate the names of the minibots, starting with...

• Nuts - 4/10 - This surprisingly short update closes out with Nuts, a very important competitor but a name I'm not all that keen on. The name Nuts has its good sides for sure, the robot's bonkers fighting style is clearly a bit nuts, while the flailing chain weapons are in the same ballpark as the name. Still though, I've never been too keen on names that are attributes of other competitors. Every competitor in the show will have nuts and bolts in there somewhere, in the same way plenty of robots had carbide/tungsten-tipped blades. The fairly obvious innuendo hiding behind the name Nuts is pretty apparent too, which is something many people will appreciate just like with Dee, but it doesn't really hit home with me. I remember the rumours before Series 9 that the upgraded Nuts 2 was actually a clusterbot called "2 Nuts" and I'm still not sure whether that would be terrible or brilliant...

O Range

I would've loved a proper fire truck-themed robot to represent the Fire Service but this will do

• Oblark - 5/10 - Welcome to the O Range, or "orange" for short, the very small lineup of robots starting with O. Our first up is Oblark, a slightly less charming version of Dantomkia, combining the names of team captain Rob, daughter Nicola and son Mark. Arriving at Oblark is quite curious, I would've expected the name to be "Robolark", combining three letters from everyone's first name while also creating a name that still sounds fairly appropriate for a robot without further context. I know I criticise most robots that start with the basic "Robo" title, but knowing the real context of Robolark would add a charming bit of backstory after assuming it was just a robotic larking convention. Anyway, Oblark is what we got and it's a bit weird but unique enough to stand out.

A trip on Oblivion's wedge is a bit less exhilarating of a ride than Oblivion at Alton Towers

• Oblivion - 7/10 - If you told me that the builders of the deadly flywheel Supernova had previously reached a Heat Final with a robot called Oblivion, my expectations would be raised for another great competitor. Sadly, Oblivion was just a small box-wedge which later involved into a below-average axebot, but it at least did well enough in competition for the name to not be a complete mismatch. It's a bit over the top, perhaps, but nobody would doubt it's a great word choice for a fighting robot. I feel like there would be plenty of robots called Oblivion out there but I can't find evidence of any (aside from an irrelevant US antweight) so I'm comfortable enough to step into the green area. Now watch someone enter BattleBots 2021 with a robot called Oblivion.

Google a lump of obsidian and you'll be surprised by the resemblance

• Obsidian - 7/10 - One for the geology fans out there, Obsidian takes its name from the volcanic glass that forms as a solid rock. The obsidian material is largely known for being a shiny black colour which the robot reflects surprisingly well, while the word choice Obsidian sounds good even without knowing what it means. It is a shame that the robot's armour also shattered like volcanic glass, but to my surprise we're already two-for-three on green scores in the O Range.

Space ODT, Dutch counterpart to Major Tom

• ODT-Zero - 3/10 - I like the robot, it was a solid competitor for Dutch Series 2 and it deserved better than a showdown against its own team. But there's too much going on with this name. The quirky part is supposed to be the way it abridges the word "Oddity" into "ODT" which is fine I guess, but there's no real joke in abbreviating something. It goes beyond just ODT though, with the team deciding to get the numbers underway early on the live circuit by dubbing the robot ODT-001. This is starting to look less like a robot name and more like a product code, but it was vaguely setting up a theme. It didn't pay off though, after the team worked backwards to enter Robot Wars under the name ODT-Zero. Not only have we switched from numbers to letters, we've also taken things backwards by reverting from 001 to 000. Aren't we meant to move forwards? The most damaging part is ODT-Zero's link to the three-part clusterbot √3², where its 30kg counterpart adopted the name ODT-0.33 which is surely now overstepping the mark. ODT-0.33 just looks a complete jumble, made worse by it also being (technically) a higher number than ODT-Zero! So... is ODT-0.33 meant to be an improved version of ODT-0? I guess that came true when √3² knocked ODT-Zero out of the tournament but ugh, I need to finish this segment before I accidentally complete a sudoku puzzle or something.

Also known as "Little Onslaught"

• Onslaught - 5/10 - Like many Series 2 names, Onslaught is another one of those strong single-word names that make a lot of sense for a fighting robot, and one that relies on the robot's performance to help it stand out. Luckily for us, Onslaught was a very likeable machine that carved out a nice bit of history for itself, although I must admit it's not a name I've ever been especially drawn to.

Not even an ounce of motion blur

• ORAC - 6/10 - This is quietly a nice little reference. I'd wage that 95% of the audience have no idea what an ORAC is, but in the same sense that Inquisitor and Scutter's Revenge make Red Dwarf references to appease Craig Charles, ORAC dug a little deeper and took its name from the computer in the TV show Blake's 7, a show which Mat Irvine worked on as a visual effects designer. Did the team knowingly choose this name to create appeal for Mat Irvine, or had they already chosen that name anyway? I'm not sure, but it's a neat little coincidence. I quite like the team name "The Oracles" too.

Here we have a green reptile thing named after a computer from a 70's TV show

• Orac's Revenge - 3/10 - However the follow-up Orac's Revenge falls much further of the bar. To accurately reference the Blake's 7 computer, ORAC always had to be capitalised, but in creating the sequel it was decidedly clear that this couldn't be maintained. With the mixed-capitals "ORAC's Revenge" looking too awkward, we were left with the disappointing Orac's Revenge that not only breaks the original reference but even some of the continuity with its predecessor. ORAC and Orac's Revenge are two totally different machines, going from a 55kg yellow box armed with a circular saw and bicycle wheels to a speedy 75kg reptilian machine armed with an axe, you really wouldn't think the two were related if they didn't share a name. From this I feel like Orac's Revenge should've had its own identity, which to be fair, was actually the plan. Orac's Revenge attended the Series 3 qualifiers under the name "Hammerhead"... no prizes for guessing why that wouldn't fly. I get that Orac's Revenge was therefore a late-stage name substitution, but I still really would've preferred a new lineage.

"Oi You, Bigger Brother 2!", the indie reboot of Hey You, Pikachu!

• Or Te! - 5/10 - The inconsistency hurts with this one. Throughout its lifetime, the robot has been known as Or Te (name of the Facebook page), Orte (all official Robot Wars media), Or Te! (team t-shirts, build diary by Charles Hoile), OrTe! (Ian Watts on Reddit) and even "Bigger Brother 2" in the production stages! I think "Or Te!" is the most official name we're going to get for the robot, but who can say. In terms of origin, the name being roughly Latin for "Oi, You!" is very funny to me, so in that sense I like the name quite a lot, but the inconsistency on the spelling brings it down. Ultimately the other main criticism is that I would have preferred it if Or Te! was just known as Bigger Brother 2. That way it could have kept the continuity of the former runner-up going and made Bigger Brother a veteran of five wars across both eras of the show, rather than the clearly Bigger Brother-inspired design having its own identity for all four seconds of its arena screentime.

Underdozer

• Overdozer - 4/10 - Speaking of Series 8 competitors with about four seconds of active screentime, Overdozer is next. Now the Dozer part of the name is quite fitting, the bulldozer plough on the front of the boxy robot certainly enforces the dozer part of the name, but I think calling it "Overdozer" is quite misleading. Overdozer gives a real implication that the dozer blade has some kind of lifting capability, so the fact it doesn't is really odd. When I first saw Overdozer on the list of Series 8 competitors, I didn't even question it would have a lifter/flipper of some kind. Instead it's a static plough on a boxy wooden boat with a weird spinny fan at the back. It's not meant to be a pun on "overdose", is it?

Overkill GTI made its debut in the same year OverKill beat frenZy in BattleBots... which was also the same year frenZy fought Mortis on Robot Wars

• Overkill - 5/10 - Well I nearly served an injustice on this one. When you talk to a robot combat fan about Overkill, I'd guess a majority would think of the BattleBots Season 4.0 runner-up OverKill, which had been competing ever since the first season. It's definitely one of the American show's most notable and heavily merchandised robots in the classic days and I had assumed OverKill was competing even prior to Season 1.0, but apparently not. This means that to my surprise, Overkill from Robot Wars actually predates BattleBots OverKill by a year! I guess it really did have fair dibs on the name Overkill and although the second OverKill of this world would achieve far more fame, the British one deserved a bit more success than it got. With that said, the Series 4 version Overkill GTI just makes me laugh because it reminds me of Pot Noodle GTi! You can probably find record of me spelling the name as Overkill GTi on this very wiki because of the limited time instant noodles. Not a great connection for Overkill to have but it's quite amusing.

P Range

Yo it's ya boy T-PaiN, *something in autotune*

• Pain - 7/10 - This always gets a giggle out of me. If the team were trying to enter Robot Wars with the most blunt and straightforward name possible then I have to think they succeeded. Pain is so comically direct in its approach that I can't help but laugh and enjoy it. Frankly it only becomes more amusing with the knowledge that Pain is one of two competitors who couldn't even run the Gauntlet, it adds further irony to the name. You could argue from the robot's logo that the name would technically be PaiN but this isn't reflected on the team's website so this is purely a stylistic thing for the logo which honestly looks pretty good. I just can't bring myself to say anything bad about Pain, it's painfully funny.

Look at all that available space for even one picture of a panda

• Panda Monium - 6/10 - Man, talk about a tainted name. It's been nearly a year since More Panda Monium was completely cleared of suspicion in the Third Wars controversies but I still get a bit of a shudder when I read the name. It's such a painful association that Panda Monium really doesn't deserve, but it obviously has no bearing on my 6/10 rating. A name like Panda Monium could genuinely reach the 8/10 or 9/10 range if the robot had any resemblance to a panda, but the complete and utter refusal to give Panda Monium even a vague visual identity other than "grey slope" makes this a wasted use of a potentially great name, a lesson that More Panda Monium did not learn from.

The panic attack-inducing spider mascot on top of the robot was named Webster, which was even written on Panic Attack's top lid here. I'll give that name a -6

• Panic Attack - 6/10 - Nowadays when we hear the name "Panic Attack" we wouldn't even bat an eyelid, I mean come on, it's a Robot Wars champion! The name of the loveable Welsh All-Star has been etched into our brains for as long as we can remember and the two are totally synonymous. Strip the name Panic Attack from the robot though, and what do you get? A surprisingly frightening name that in hindsight is quite an unexpected choice. Panic Attack is far from the only robot to be named after a medical condition, but the general difference is that most of the others imply that the robot could output that damage themselves. Concussion will give you a concussion, Frostbite will give you frostbite, that sort of thing. A panic attack is a bit different in the sense that you don't "get" a panic attack, it's a self-contained affliction that starts from within your own mind. Sure, a panic attack is generally caused by outside forces wearing away at your anxiety, but it's hard to say that a fighting robot is going to give something a panic attack, more that the fighting robot itself would develop a panic attack in battle. Was that too meta? Clearly the spider on top of Panic Attack was supposed to be the prompt, forcing opponents into a panic attack through their arachnophobia, although it's quite notable then that the spider became more and more hidden with every new Panic Attack, leading us all to think of the yellow and black colours long before the spider theme. Anyway, this is some heavy over-analysis if ever I saw it, Panic Attack is a good name for our second champion although I don't know how we'd rate it if it were applied to any other machine.

Once you've seen this logo, you can never unsee it again

• PAnts - 3/10 - God. Ugh. If I were to rate the name as simply "Pants", it would probably finish around the 5/10 mark for being a "lol funny" attempt that incorporated the word 'ant', ultimately superceding the Panda Monium naming convention before the team had a chance to make an actual panda-themed design. Instead it just set up for a few too many robots named after pants, heavyweight or otherwise, despite this first Pants generally being OK. You notice that I give not a 5/10, but a 3/10, for which the reason is on clear display. PAnts. Take one look at the spelling PAnts and tell me this is pleasant to look at. We've had some egregious "notice my ant pun!" spellings in the blog so far, from BuzzAnt TNG to CombatANT, but none stick out worse than PAnts. You couldn't even get through the first letter before you had to drop in your rubbish Capital Ant, jeez. If your antweight has a good name, we will notice the pun! The responsibility doesn't fall to the builder to highlight the joke, it falls to the viewers to discover it. PAnts sacrifices any sort of credibility to point out the joke with the subtlety of your average Dora the Explorer episode and it looks like a hot mess. I think the team caught onto this quickly enough because the Pee-Ants spelling was changed for Extreme 2, but it couldn't just be "Pants", it had to be "pants!", lowercase P and all. Heavens above.

Panzer Mk 0

• Panzer - 7/10 - This was an excellent name for its time, so it's a shame things had to become complicated down the line. Judging Panzer as a name in Robot Wars: The Third Wars though, I really think that naming the robot after a tank was the only option considering the presence of its huge tank tracks. It simply had to be the approach. Few tanks are more famous than the Panzer, in part because so many tanks are named after existing real-world things and animals, like The Tiger. I'd say Panzer is probably the clearest association you're going to get without directly calling the robot "Tank". It's just unfortunate that while Panzer was relatively successful in its one series, something much more important had its eyes set on the name. Full credit for the switch to "Panzer Wraith" in Extreme, it helped differentiate the two quite nicely.

Minus points to Extreme Destruction for making us think the name was Panzer Mk 4 and not Panzer Mk4 as intended

• Panzer Mk - 5/10 - And here is the aforementioned other Panzer! This is a difficult one to rate properly because clearly it was the second Panzer in Robot Wars, but it was decidedly the more pivotal one and critically it was never known as "Panzer" in any of its televised campaigns. In fact, even the very first version of the machine was known as Panzer Mk1 from its conception! I do love that the three-time TV robotics champion Panzer was able to maintain the same name across two different shows, competing in Robotica with Panzer Mk1, winning Extreme Warriors with Panzer Mk2, winning Robotica with Panzer Mk3 and then winning Extreme Warriors again with Panzer Mk4. With such an incredible track record, I'm delighted they got to uphold their own continuity while everyone else switched names depending on the show. It gives us a bit of a problem on the wiki though, because we're forced to pick an article name that accommodates every Panzer that competed on Robot Wars, British machine included. The British Panzer was the only one to be known as just "Panzer" and it did come first, so they get dibs on the article title no matter how strange it feels to not prioritise the one double-champion that isn't Chaos 2. With all four American Panzers somehow incorporating the derivative "Mk" into the name, it was decided we'd opt simply for "Panzer Mk", which is far easier to type than the long-winded "Panzer (Extreme Warriors)" despite "Panzer Mk" looking a bit incomplete in isolation. Certainly Panzer is a good name and the American machines really deserved it for their six-wheel driven rammers and military attire, it's just a shame we have to clean up the dust.

It didn't look all that pathetic, until it stepped in the arena with Sater anyway

• Pathetica - 8/10 - I appreciate this one a lot. Self-deprecating teams and robots were very welcome on Robot Wars and a robot with a name like Pathetica manages to take the mickey out of itself while still being completely unique at the same time. Nothing has ever been called "Pathetica" before, but we all know the meaning without even having to think about it. Funny then that Pathetica was probably in the upper half of its heat for robot quality! Pathetica's defeat was certainly pathetic but at least it was living up to the name, unlike everything else that died for no reason in the miserable Dutch Series 1 Heat E.

Sadly this weapon would probably struggle with most tree trunks

• Paul Bunyan - 5/10 - Looking at the weaponry of Paul Bunyan, I think this is a decent fit. Named after a giant lumberjack from folklore, there would be no weapon more appropriate for Paul Bunyan than an axe, but a spinning blade like this is second-in-line. This brings the name down to "slightly above average", but I have to knock it a little further based on how mundane it sounds to people who don't know what the Paul Bunyan from folklore is. As a younger viewer of Extreme Warriors, I had no knowledge of the name's meaning and that left the very dull Paul Bunyan as one of my least favourite names in the series. I appreciate it a lot more now, but a blend of both reactions leave us with a 5/10.

SOrry, should that be PenetratoR

• Penetrator - 1/10 - Oh no. I totally forgot that - ahem - Penetrator was going to be in this update. Where do I even begin... well, erm, I wasn't exactly kind to Dee but at least that's taking the humorous angle, in fact I think I've finally come to appreciate it. Penetrator though, no, just no, never. The combination of a genuinely threatening description of the robot's spike weapons and the strong innuendo is a combination I just don't want to think about. Dreadful implication and I'm just relieved this thing was eliminated before getting to a battle. Who knows what Jonathan Pearce would've said...! I think the worst part about Penetrator for me is that we don't even know if it was a deliberate innuendo. Were the team really daft enough to name the robot after their spike weapon and not think about the broader implication, or was it a far-from-covert dick joke? I'm not going to look around for the answer.

This is Phantasm, a functional* competing** robot***

• Phantasm - 7/10 - Remember Phantasm? Yeah that was a robot on Robot Wars at some point. One of only three non-loanerbots that were totally exclusive to Nickelodeon Robot Wars, Phantasm had no visual identity after removing nearly 60kg worth of armour and weaponry, it contributed next-to-nothing in either of its fights, to finish dead last in one of the show's worst ever episodes. I think Phantasm has a legitimate claim for perhaps the most forgettable robot to ever compete in more than one battle and I do have to double-take whenever it comes up in anything on the wiki. The name though... is pretty good tbh.

Philipper getting spelled wrong before it even appeared on British television

• Philipper - 5/10 - Well if you're going to reference the dolphin Flipper, this is a much better way to do it than the previous attempt (thank you Flipper). I don't really understand the Belgian team's fascination with every one of their robots containing one of their team members' names, Deopoppesaurus Rex was a trainwreck but Philipper is much more natural, if a tad egotistical way integrate the first name of the captain and builder. Philipper sounds good, is relatively unique, and has enough interpretations (Flipper the dolphin, Flipper the weapon, specifically not Philippa Forrester) to reach at least the halfway mark, but it's held back by a challenging spelling that I still have to correct on the wiki to this day, plus that slight dash of egotism.

Retribution, you were warned, once and transformed, once and reborn, because I will rise like...

• Phoenix (Heavyweight) - 6/10 - Nice simple choice of name here, the phoenix is a very well-known mythological bird that not only paints a visual picture for a robot, but also opens up plenty of "rise from the ashes" jokes and associations with fire. The heavyweight robot Phoenix falls short of a green score due to its lack of birdlike or fiery traits, plus the added twinge of obviousness. Something deserved to be called Phoenix on Robot Wars though and I'm relieved at least one robot was.

• Phoenix (Middleweight) - 1/10 - I'm not so happy, however, that a second robot took it. I'm not even going to attempt to justify why the second Phoenix deserves any points to be honest, it's a reused name from the same native series of Robot Wars, the new middleweight Phoenix is even further from any sort of birdlike/fiery traits than the first Phoenix, and I just fail to see any reason why I should reward it with any points. It may be the first Phoenix to actually compete in a battle, but rules are rules. Oh apparently this was another one of those names that a German series withdrawal was going to "borrow" as well, haha.

Resistance was something it offered very little of, but this machine is an important Piece of Robot Wars history

• Piece de Resistance - 9/10 - There is just so much joy tucked away in the name Piece de Resistance. One of the most ironic names ever, Piece de Resistance is commonly regarded as one of the weakest competitors in Robot Wars, while "piece de resistance" (French for 'the main course', usually referring to something at the absolute top of its class) is perhaps one of the most complimentary names you can give to anything ever. There's such a complete and utter disparity between this robot and its name, particularly when the French name is spoken by the most Barnsley Bloke voice in the series. It just never fails to make me smile. Even now that I've fought the featherweight version in combat three times, I still don't tire of seeing this googly-eyed lifting spatula once made from a microwave enter the arena with a name like Piece de Resistance. Endlessly amusing and only adds to the charm that already made the robot so loveable.

Pika II, I choose you!

• Pika II & Pika III - 7/10 - Well as you can tell from my profile icon, I am quite openly a Pokémon fan, so of course I'm going to appreciate Pika. It's quite remarkable that they were able to get away with it, but I guess The Pokémon Company didn't have their eyes set on Dutch TV shows from the year 2001. Wow, that just kinda hit me, Pika II debuted on Robot Wars in the same year that the Entei movie premiered... anyway, Pokémon's usual habits of copyright striking anything that even vaguely involves its characters did not catch up to Robot Wars and so I'm able to appreciate Pika's appearance on the show. Now typically I would criticise a robot for making its televised debut with the number 2 in the name and I'm not exactly delighted that Pika did this when Pika 1 didn't even fight anything, but it's at least partially redeemed by the quirky way that "Pika 2" rhymes with "Pikachu". You can't say the same for Pika III but oh well. I think the real charm behind the name is that Marco van Hek named the robot after his youngest son, a boy who loved Pikachu and adopted 'Pika' as his childhood nickname. Over fifteen years later, Bram "Pika" van Hek himself competes on Robot Wars and drives Cobra to victory against Sabretooth to earn a win for Pika III's distant successor. Wonderful little circle of events.

Krusher

• Pinser - 2/10 - Now you'll catch me sticking up for Pinser as a fighting robot any day, it had a very damaging weapon and was perhaps the best crushing weapon of its series, the robot only broke down in one of its two fights and doesn't completely deserve its reputation for unreliability (it was simply struggling for traction atop a flood of hydraulic fluid in the Crusher Crunch-Up and was arguably robbed of the win considering it was still mobile), while the general design of its titanium shell, side skirts and low wedge are all testament to a very capable robot. What I can't defend is the name. It's a multi-layered issue. One, the robot was not armed with a pincer, it was armed with a crusher. Two, the robot was not spelled as Pincer, but instead as Pinser. Three, even if Pinser was some kind of deliberate spelling change, it just makes me think of the Pokémon Pinsir which it doesn't accurately spell either. Four, even if the name was spelled right and accurately described the weapon, that would still be boring! It was many updates ago that I already punished Crusher for its name and Pinser is no better. There was potential to have some fun with the word pincer, it could've been Pincer Movement or Pincer Attack, or ideally... just something else altogether.

Knowing that the axe was made of titanium, Piranha's weapon alone was probably more expensive than some Series 3 competitors

• Piranha - 7/10 - Maybe this is pushing it a little, but I'm going to stretch to a 7/10 for Piranha. Typically the robot would at least need to look like its name to get this kind of score and I'm not going to pretend this robot really looks anything like a piranha. But honestly, I'm picturing a big green piranha robot with biting teeth and huge eyes and all of a sudden, I don't think I want this robot! I'm happy enough with the more subtle Piranha making reference purely through its unique serrated axe blade. A good name that adds a little bit of weight and personality to a robot that visually doesn't bring much to the table aside from its weapon.

Enter Pitbull with the name of 101 and put it against Cruella, then you have a perfect 101 Dalmatians reference

• Pitbull - 7/10 - Dalé, Mr Worldwide, Pitbull! It is odd how I'm covering the mean dog robots in reverse order. By order of televised debut, it was Rottweiler, Pitbull, Mastiff and Mad Dog which perfectly captured the exact order of violent dogs that spring to mind first. Alphabetically though, I've had to cover them in reverse, with Pitbull being the best yet (but not the best altogether!) - Pitbull is a name so appropriate that even Growler was eyeing it up in the planning stages. This was also the most animalistic robot of the bunch in terms of design and attack. It is a bit weird that the robot resembles a dalmatian more than a pitbull though.

Plunderbirds are GO!

• Plunderbird - 9/10 - Really, really good tribute to the Thunderbirds here. Like many, I grew up watching Thunderbirds before I even started watching Robot Wars, so to see that such a major competitor in the latter show's history was a direct reference to my other favourite show really made me cheer for it at every opportunity. The fact that the Thunderbirds theme tune has played in an official episode of Robot Wars still brings me joy even now. Plunderbird is a perfect pun, taking the Thunderbirds name and adding a more villainous theme to it, which the International Wreck Crew (itself a fun play on International Rescue) were going for. I particularly appreciate the first robot adopting the name "Plunderbird 1" with full knowledge that other Plunderbirds were on the horizon, and most of the robots represent their counterparts very well. Plunderbird 1 is blue and has the most weapon options, like Thunderbird 1. Then, Plunderbird 2 was by far the most successful and dependable Plunderbird robot, much like Thunderbird 2. Later, Plunderbird 4 directly took the colours of Thunderbird 4 and took things in a very different direction to the first three machines, much like the Thunderbird 4 submarine did after the first three aircraft. Finally, Plunderbird 5 was the biggest and heaviest machine with the least emphasis on actually fighting and was simply there to give the team a platform, much like Thunderbird 5 which was purely a backdrop for John Tracy. The only exception here is the third Plunderbird machine, which abandoned the Thunderbirds lineage entirely to present us with a different pun, "Plunderstorm". This really is a shame because Thunderbird 3 was a very important Thunderbird to miss off. I wish Plunderstorm at least had red colours in reference, but this really was just the missing link that broke the sequence. If we got a Plunderbird 3 then I would be very happy to offer the Plunderbirds a collective 10/10, but that one machine out of five holds it back. Still, we all love the Plunderbirds and their team, so I'm delighted to have been able to praise them so highly here.

I may not like the name PP3D, but I really like one of the names on PP3D...

• PP3D - 2/10 - lol Gary you're not slick, let's not pretend the disguising of your business PlastiPrint 3D as the name "Parts Printed in 3D" was a subtle trick. Let's get the obvious bit out of the way - I have absolutely no problem with robots using their names to promote the team's companies and sponsors. RPD International entering RAPID? Cool, it makes total sense as a robot name and Josh Valman's business was a big part of his narrative. BattleBots competitor Poison Arrow? Really clever, their sponsor was only called Arrow but they went above and beyond to create an even better name. Hydrotec? I don't even know for sure if that was named after the team's company, it's that believable as a name. Androne 4000... yeah alright that can get in the bin too. I have no qualms at all with Gary Cairns pushing his 3D printing business forward using a robot that genuinely does contain some 3D printed components, but I'm not accepting it with open arms if the name we get as a result is PP3D. I don't think it's really necessary to explain why this sucks as a name, there are only two things that come to mind when you hear "PP" and they're both as bad as each other. Certainly not something I want to picture in 3D. It's also curious to me that Robot Wars made no attempt to explain the "Parts Printed in 3D" acronym and just left it as the suggestive and otherwise meaningless PP3D when it only would've taken one line. Now I'm imagining the world where Parts Printed In 3D is spelled as "PPI3D" and Gary is mistaken for an insurance salesman.

Pressure, pushing down on Piranha, pressing down on Cedric Slammer, no man ask for

• Pressure - 8/10 - An 8/10 might seem surprisingly high for something as simple-sounding as Pressure, but there's quite a few elements that make this a success. The first meaning that would jump to mind is the pressure of its CO₂ weaponry and that was certainly the primary meaning once Pressure adopted its full-pressure Britflipper design for the live circuit. All of the possible "under pressure" and "no pressure then" quotes are a natural fit for the commentary and presenting team and offer a lot of opportunities. The runaway advantage for me though is the robot's very subtle submarine design traits and the links to depth pressure that come with it. I certainly didn't make the instant connection that Pressure is meant to be based on a submarine, but that's not really a bad thing. Submarines are meant to be covert after all, you wouldn't want to overdramatise it unless you're fully committing to the Sub-Version route. The name Pressure is an excellently subtle nod to the submarine design and the main concern that all submarines have to be constructed around.

Still the best image we have to show Prince of Awe at Robot Wars...

• Prince of Awe - 5/10 - The third and final name from Team Iron-Awe to make an appearance on the list. Axe-Awe collected scathing criticism, Iron-Awe gained mild praise and criticism, while Prince of Awe is just... fine, I guess. There's no ore pun remaining and the name is dependent on you knowing its connection to Iron-Awe for it to make any sense, and even with that knowledge it's not exactly clever. It's far from bad though, just a very standard avenue to run. I'll give it a 5/10 and I'm aware that this is higher than the 4/10 I gave to Iron-Awe itself even though I would say "Iron-Awe" is generally speaking a better name. Gotta remember that Iron-Awe had minus points for sequence breaking itself while Prince of Awe doesn't.

I remember the days when people would slander Jeremy Clarkson because he insulted the appearance of this machine... how could you not??

• Prince of Darkness - 7/10 - The original "Prince of" dates all the way back to the First Wars, which allows me to offer my full support and give Prince of Darkness another surprise 7/10. It's another rating in the same sense as Piece de Resistance, where a famously criticised machine from the early years of the show carries way too much grandeur in its name for you to truly take it seriously, creating an unintentionally funny effect. Prince of Darkness probably set out with victory in mind like many other robots, but seeing this lightweight box arrive at the First Wars with a powerful and fearsome name like "The Prince of Darkness" hastily scribbled onto its wedge in marker pen with little ink devil horns is such a stark contrast that it's very charming. This clearly landed with both Philippa Forrester and Jeremy Clarkson who openly shared their dismay when Prince of Darkness returned to the combat rounds with a much more formal attire, a sentiment I hold too. I loved the comedic simplicity of its incomplete look and the genuinely decent spraypaint job was somehow less appealing, ironically holding the name back from an 8/10 or higher after it became slightly more appropriate for the robot behind the title. Said redesign also makes Prince of Darkness one of the only robots to change names mid-competition, going from "The Prince of Darkness" on the first paint job to just "Prince of Darkness" in the redesign. I won't lie, I panicked and thought I was going to have to shift this segment to the T Range for a moment. Anyway, thumbs up to Prince of Darkness, we love you.

Can anyone identify this plane? Maybe its name will give us some kind of clue

• Prizephita - 7/10 - Right, I've got to come clean with you all, because this has gobsmacked me and I must know if the same thing has happened to anyone else. Before writing this segment today, I was 100% convinced that Prizephita was the name of a fighter plane. It made way too much sense - the robot in Series 4 and 5 bore a picture of a plane on its shell, it sounds like a very realistic name for a fighter plane, and no other meanings sprung to mind leaving me without any other assumptions. I was even going to lead this segment with "Not sure why they entered Series 3 with a robot named after a fighter plane when the outer shell is adorned with Mike Tyson". I have just this second learned that Prizephita is not named after a plane, or indeed, named after anything at all! I've searched for Prizephita on Google, I've searched for it on Wikipedia, and absolutely nothing comes up other than the robot we see before us. Let's really grasp the gravity of how much this has amazed me. I was invited to join the modern Prizephita team in Series 9 if the team had qualified with their upgraded version of the old Series 3 machine (an unlikely prospect, hence me going on Iron Heart 88 for the actual application forms) and even three years after being a technical part of a Prizephita team - and owning Prizephita Mach 2's gas valve - I had completely misunderstood the name the entire time. I feel like there's a plane-shaped hole in my mind now that I know there is not (and has never been) a Prizephita plane in the world and I encourage pilots everywhere to use this name for their next aircraft! I guess the actual origin really is based more on the Mike Tyson aspect, as in "prized fighter" or "prize-winning fighter", but for adopting a totally original name so convincing that I've led myself down this path of deception, I have to award Prizephita with a 7/10 at minimum. Potentially higher if our wiki didn't have to awkwardly treat "Prizephita MKII" and "Prizephita Mach 2" as two separate machines.

Pro-bo-pho-bia, big bonuses for the three-stage rhyme

• Probophobia - 7/10 - A good example of improving on an existing basis. Although I'm not 100% sure on the dates because of both machines debuting in 2002, I would assume that the BattleBots version of the robot came first, a super heavyweight known as The Probe. This is a decent name, it references the probe-like nature of the lifting forks and inspires fear into opponents through a medical sense rather than a violent sense. I quite like it, but for the heavyweight version of the machine, I much prefer the name Probophobia. Essentially, The Probe was a good reference that went no further than the core idea, while Probophobia truly "completed" the name, if you will. The same idea is there, but now as part of a totally original word which is right at home on a fighting robot.

More of a Project Nought Point Five on its combat performance

• Project One - 4/10 - We've been having a really good run of quality names back-to-back, but Project One is here to bring that to a swift conclusion. It really does just feel like a working name that the team grew too accustomed to and then didn't want to change it. Plenty of robots will have been called "Project One" in the design phase, the difference being that most machines would switch off it later down the line. I can't say the visual identity of Project One gives you much to work with, but maybe just picking a name would've helped steer that aspect too? Project One sounds decent enough with the knowledge it was the only televised competitor on Robot Wars to use this kind of name, but if there was even one more, Project One would slip further.

Project Two: Hex'em, the only robot to be known better as a Robot Arena 2 replica than a real machine

• Project Two: Hex'em - 5/10 - Meanwhile Project Two is even more strange. This time, a clearer identity was given to the machine, with the new subtitle Hex'em backing up the gothic look of the redesigned machine, which I will reward with an extra point. The confusing part is that Project One and Project Two did not share a single televised team member. That's not to say the two machines are unrelated, the full explanation can be found on Project Two's wiki article, but as far as the viewing audience was concerned, these were essentially entered by two different teams. Every Dutch team on Robot Wars seems to be connected to about five others in some form anyway. With Project One being a bit of a failure in combat, I do think the new team could've distanced themselves entirely and just called the robot Hex'em. The key similarities of the shape and one-wheel drive are still there so there was some reason to keep the continuity going, but Dutch Series 2 also had The Black Beast debut with absolutely no relation to Sater (somehow), so we'd believe Project Two: Hex'em being its own distinct thing. Does this mean Gravity was Project Three? Is this the reason why WJ Dijkstra entered Dutch Series 3 with a robot called V3, an equation to which the result is still 3???

Prometheus, a silver bi-wedge robot with a cutting disc

• Prometheus (UK) - 4/10 - You know, going into this project I worried that all the duplicate names would be tiresome to cover, with one machine getting a decent score and the other getting slandered. I'm surprised by just how much thought has gone into a lot of them, be it two robots called Infinity debuting in the same year, cases like Hammerhead where the second robot deserves it more, evaluation of significance like the Anarchy robots and occasional unforgivables like Mega-Hurts. Now we have another back-and-forth of who came first out of the two Prometheus machines. The British Prometheus made its debut only in the Second Wars, so it would be very unfortunate to already be a repeat name, but alas that is the case. This Prometheus was the first to compete on televised Robot Wars, but the American Prometheus in the next section down had previously competed in the 1996 and 1997 Robot Wars competitions in the USA. Of course, without the Internet being a prevalent force in 1999 it is unlikely this team could have known about the first Prometheus unless they got early access to the 1996 Championship VHS, but it's perhaps reasonable that the TV show could've stepped in and helped avoid a conflict...

Prometheus, a silver bi-wedge robot with a cutting disc... and an LED strip!

• Prometheus (US)  - 6/10 - ...before the real Prometheus made its televised debut. The American machine had fair dibs on the name and while I spared the British Prometheus of a red score based on a lack of available information, it is a shame that the two debuted only one year apart. This Prometheus made its TV debut second but it certainly had the bigger role, appearing in the famous First World Championship alongside the International League Championship. To rate the name Prometheus itself, it's another very well-known Greek figure that understandably got snapped up very quickly in robot combat with good reason.

Four Propeller-Heads in one image

• Propeller-Head - 8/10 - Another really good name in the P Range! This has of course been one of the biggest updates so far, meaning it's natural that there'd be a good number of quality names, but Propeller-Head is another great example. A robot armed with an overhead rotating "propeller" blade, the name not only describes the weapon very accurately, but is also a play on the caps that had little decorative propellers on top. All of the team members wore one of these during their Extreme Warriors campaign and in general the propeller beanies ended up becoming so closely associated with technology enthusiasts that "propeller-head" became a common nickname for computer geeks. Potentially a fair few roboteers too, given the overlap in interests. A very successful name with a lot to enjoy at all three levels of the meaning, applied to a suitably entertaining and competent robot.

I would quote the song Psycho Chicken but the chorus is either explicit, or just "Psycho Chicken, cluck cluck cluck bwaak"

• Psycho Chicken - 7/10 - How long has it been since I was last able to call something a music reference? I think Major Tom was the most recent. Song references were surprisingly few and far between on Robot Wars, but Psycho Chicken is a seemingly deliberate reference to a 1980 song of the same name, a comedy song that the team also used in Psycho Chicken's introduction video on their website. If the previous robot was called Mad Cow, then the successor Psycho Chicken fits the same kind of naming convention while throwing in the music reference as a bonus. I maybe wouldn't stretch beyond a 6/10 for this name in isolation, but knowing that it's the sequel to the already-great name of Mad Cow, I think Psycho Chicken was one of the better follow-ups available.

Run run run run run run, run away!

• Psychokiller - 6/10 - Next up in the Psycho Range That Doesn't Contain Mr. Psycho, we reach Psychokiller. This was a name I totally misunderstood until after publishing the blog update. I initially said in my rating: "The combination just doesn't add much. Psycho: a person who is psychologically deranged and often violent. Killer: a violent person who is often psychologically deranged. It's just a compilation of two threatening and scary words for a fighting robot and the end result is just a bit boring. You could name it Norman Bates, the killer from Psycho, and it'd still be an improvement on this. Turns out I was wrong - the song is almost certainly named after the song Psycho Killer by Talking Heads. It's remarkable I didn't know this, considering I once made a music video for "Who is it?" by Talking Heads. The funniest part is that the song Psycho Chicken is a compete parody of Psycho Killer, meaning that the same song in both of its versions managed to separately inspire a competitor name! Marvellous coincidence.

Mr. Psychosproutkillerchicken

• Psychosprout - 7/10 - Because who needs a Psychokiller when you could have a Psychosprout? The implication of a single Brussels sprout going psycho and taking on an array of fighting robots remains hilarious over 20 years later and I think it's fair to say this was one of the best names in Robot Wars back in the days when we only had 36 robots to choose from. Psychosprout remains a cultural icon for the more high-level Robot Wars fans and I'm certainly not about to disparage it here.

Magnetar? Never heard of her

• Pulsar - 8/10 - I recently rated Magnetar and gave it a strong 9/10, stripped only of a 10/10 due to its very similar visual vibe to this separately named machine, Pulsar. In order to make Magnetar so wonderful, we needed the original basis Pulsar which is very strong in its own right. It may have often been an easy cop-out to dip into astronomy and astrology for a robot name as it's a world housing so many unique names with an air of coolness that also present an excellent visual theme for easy success. Space names were therefore at risk of oversaturation on Robot Wars, but one that absolutely needed to enter the warzone was Pulsar. Behind only Supernova as one of the most well-known types of star in the galaxy, this is precisely the kind of title that belonged on one of the reboot's first new finalists. And of course, we still have to credit Pulsar for the certain thing that happened when it collided with a Supernova in the arena. Individually strong and a great bridge to the future.

A reminder that the producers picked Infernal Contraption over PulverizeR for Series 7 and 8, guess we know who the better axlebot vert was

• PulverizeR - 5/10 - To rate this on  less subjective basis, PulverizeR falls into the same trap as more widely criticised names like Devastator and The Mangulator where it's just turning a damaging verb into a noun, something that plenty of robots had done before and after the appearance of the Dutch champion. Still, I've always been more drawn to PulverizeR and I think that being a series champion from a very entertaining team is part of that. I have a random appreciation of the capital R to make the name feel just that bit more different, especially knowing that PulverizeR debuted in Dutch Series 1 with the much less attractive "Pullverizer" name which didn't get the spelling of the original word pulverize right. I feel like the capital R was almost a call-to-attention to say "guys, we messed up the spelling last series, here's definitive proof that we've changed our name to fix the error". I will have to cap its progress at a 5/10 though because although it's unique enough for a competitor robot, the BattleBots arena hazards of the same name were already quite well-known at this point which creates a slight conflict of interest. I will say though, there's something beautiful about seeing Petunia take its opponents to the pulverizers in the BattleBox during the reboot seasons of that show!

Purple Hand Gang for life

• Purple Predator - 6/10 - pfffffft hahaha, a suitable blend of serious and non-serious wording in the name choice for a similarly serious and not serious competitor. Looking at Purple Predator's design, it does look like there was a genuine effort to make a competitive robot for at least some of the development process, a wedge-shaped front-hinged flipper is rarely a bad design. Something changed down the line though, when it was elevated about 5cm off the ground and then coated in fur. I think we can take Granny's Revenge as proof that this team were clearly taking part for a laugh, but Purple Predator was certainly close to being good for its time! Just... not close enough. The "Purple" carries the fun, while the "Predator" amusingly adds a hint of competitive intent.

Three great personalities and one robot that we'd have loved to do better

• Push to Exit - 5/10 - Let's bring the front-hinged flippers forward a decade or two then! I really like the concept behind Push to Exit but I'm less keen on the execution. Basing a flipper on an emergency exit is a really nice idea, the goal of a flipper is to get robots out of the arena after all. Although Emergency Exit already would have been good enough (dare I say superior) as the name, I respect the decision to instead name it after the button used to activate an emergency exit. The image of Stephen McCulla repeatedly slamming the flipper fire button in the battle with Expulsion is still in our memories and it's quite appropriate that the controller looked like a Push to Exit button. Still, there's quite a lot of ways that these buttons have been named, from Door Release to the most common wording, Press to Exit. Yes, take this as evidence that ever since Shane Swan unveiled this robot, I've paid stupidly close attention to door release buttons to see how they are named. But regardless of whether your workplaces and schools have Push to Exit or Press to Exit buttons, I think the main bit of dismay I have is that it took the place of a seriously good name that Team S.Tek had used up to that point. Push to Exit was the successor to live circuit front-hinged flipper Envy and I absolutely love this name. If I was rating Envy in this section then I'd be heading straight for the 8/10 or 9/10 kind of score. Is it fair to hold back Push to Exit simply for not being called Envy? Probably not, but I appear to have done so anyway.

If I'm going to call Pussycat one of the best names in Robot Wars, I've got to represent it with a picture of the best Pussycat design, right? This agenda isn't going to end any time soon

• Pussycat - 10/10 - It brings me great joy to say we've finally made it to another 10/10 score! The last two we had were Leighviathan and EWE2, so it really has been quite a while. Pussycat, however, is one of the easiest 10/10 scores I've ever awarded. One of the criteria that makes a 10/10 an easy sell is the question of "would someone bring this up as a contender for the best name in Robot Wars?" In the case of Pussycat, the answer is a resounding yes. I may prefer the likes of Ceros and EWE2, but Pussycat is probably the most commonly cited example of a brilliant competitor name... ever! Only Crushtacean comes close. We all know why it's called Pussycat, the explanation is so simple but so clever at the same time. It's a well-known saying that a cat always lands on its feet and the robot Pussycat is one of the only robots to have a wheel on virtually every side of the robot. Whether Pussycat lands on its back, side, top, even the front if you count the weapon instantly righting it, Pussycat will always land on its feet and we would never see Pussycat KO'ed by landing (apart from when Tornado forcibly removed one of those feet). It's an expertly played reference that lies beyond the surface-level "it's a cat" that already does plenty of favours. The cat theme did set up a natural paint and design theme though, plus commentary terms like "the cat's nine lives", "it's a catfight" and "cat on a hot tin roof". It's all topped off by Pussycat having a perfect weapon for its namesake, remaining the only competitor in Robot Wars to find great success with a small cutting disc, scratching away at its foes like an angry cat until the damage starts to mount up. It just wouldn't be the same if a cat was flipping you out of the arena, spiking you with an axe (sorry Kat 3) or smacking you with a heavy flywheel (not sorry The Cat). Pussycat brought death by 1,000 cuts and its innate ability to stay on its feet means that every aspect of Pussycat's name was a masterclass in translating the design to application.

This weapon was officially described as a "sword", by the way

• Pyramid of Chaos - 4/10 - And so, after a sequence of so many names scoring a seven and up, drawing to a close on the previous entry where Pussycat scored an elusive 10/10, we conclude the P Range... on Pyramid of Chaos. Oh. You just couldn't let us end on Pussycat, could you?? Pyramid of Chaos, more like Pyramid of Repeat Names, you would really think that the word "Chaos" was totally off the table in any capacity. Even the Dutch competitors knew about the two-time British champion. Other than that, the name accurately reflects the robot's pyramid shape, I guess. Man.

Q Range

Right. So this is a bit awkward. Before we get to potentially the three biggest updates in the whole blog (all in a row, too), we have the Q Range which is... challenging to write about, I would say! Somehow, absolutely zero Robot Wars competitors had a name that starts with Q. Not one. Not even a robot that starts with "The Q". I'm not even talking purely about the televised competitors here, because our fairly expansive list of Robot Wars non-qualifiers still holds absolutely no leads on robots starting with the letter Q. Not even the video games! We managed to gather up a few for X, Y and Z, but Q is totally at a loss and it's utterly baffling.

Honestly crazy to think George Francis even began working on a new robot after Chaos 2

Can you imagine if Robo Challenge put a Quantum-style crusher on an all-new House Robot (or a completely reimagined Growler?)

So the question is then, what's the closest match we can find to a Robot Wars competitor starting with Q? Well George Francis had something in mind, as he started building a robot for the fifth season of BattleBots under the name Quasar. This honestly would've been a fantastic name, but if George couldn't afford to build Chaos 3, I really doubt Quasar was properly on the cards. Sticking to the realms of BattleBots, the 2019 season finally gave us an extra example, not from former Robot Wars competitors, but from the team that built the reboot House Robots! Almost by default, Team Robo Challenge's Quantum has instantly secured the title of Best Robot to Ever Start with Q, something it won't give up in a hurry. The final lead we have from BattleBots is from Team Dynamic Duo, the American team who drove Tiger Cat in the first season of Extreme Warriors. They brought a robot called Queen Bee to Season 4.0 of BattleBots, but like many robots in classic BattleBots, it withdrew before even entering the arena. As did all five of their other BattleBots entries. And their intended Extreme Warriors robot, The Wife. Yikes.

We've gotten to the point of adding in robots built by our own wiki editors, it's only a matter of time before The Tragic Roundabout and Choppy Boi get ratings

Nothing in King of Bots brings us towards a conclusion, with their nearest attempt Little Qinglong technically being no closer than the likes of Junkyard Queen. It's a real shoot-and-a-miss, honestly, because Qinglong would've been plenty good enough already. Robotica has nothing. Clash Bots, I'm not even going to check. The UK live circuit has nothing on record while the RoboGames circuit is restricted only to two beetleweights, adding Queen and Kings into the mix along with Quicksand. Who made Quicksand anyway? Oh, that's right, our very own wiki admin Resetti's Replicas! It's almost like he knew this dilemma was on the horizon...

Wouldn't it be perfect if Quadsey and Shockwave swapped places? It would solve the issue of the two Shockwaves on Robot Wars and add a Q-bot

Techno Games finally gives us a little bit to work with. There's no known links between the swimming robot Quackers and Robot Wars, plus the swimming entries really weren't robots in the sense that we're looking for anyway. However, the second and final Techno Games competitor in the Q Range has to be our runaway winner. We haven't even talked about the Police Force representative Shockwave in this blog yet, but it seems to have rescued the Q Range from total emptiness, thanks to Shockwave competing in the Assault Course of Techno Games 2002 under the name Quadsey. What does Quadsey mean? Not a clue! Did it do well in Techno Games? Not at all! But is it an official Robot Wars competitor that has in some capacity competed under a name starting with Q? Yes. Therefore I'm happy to award Shockwave the dubious honour of "Best Name Starting With Q in Robot Wars". 6/10.

So now that we've revealed the issue of no robots starting with Q on Robot Wars while the rest of the world struggles to add more into the mix, what could the roboteers have done to fix this? I'm going to spitball a few ideas, it would be interesting to see if you guys in the comments have anything to add too. For me, the leading name starting with Q that hasn't already been used on a robot would be Quicksilver, the alternative name for the element mercury and also a Marvel Comics character. I did write this update before the same suggestion was made by Toon Ganondorf in the comments below, but he also added Quick Draw into the mix which I like - both Quick and Queen serve as good prefixes for any number of original names. Delving into science, I like the idea of Quark being used on a featherweight or antweight robot, being a very small particle which provided the name for computing terms and fictional characters like Quark from Star Trek and Virtue's Last Reward (the latter being what introduced me to the word). I looked through dog breeds and dinosaur classifications but it was a bit of a dead end with nothing better than Quetzalcoatlus... bit of a mouthful. It seems like animals are a dead end altogether, with the most well-known animals starting with Q being the quail, queen snake or the quetzal (again). For a random quirky name - I hate that I just double-taked over the word 'quirky' as a potential avenue, by the way - you could stretch to say Quizmaster could be quite funny, but really you'd want it to be The Quizmaster. Maybe it would try to quiz its opponents to death, starting with Question One. Can we make a Quentin Tarantino pun? An environmental approach with Quarry could work for a robot that makes heavy use of the pit, or perhaps Quartz after the crystal to add a layer of expense. I've won a couple of Scrabble games thanks to the easy cop-out eleven-pointer that is Qi, so it'd amuse me to see that on a robot. I think that's the best I've got though, with Quicksilver and Quark being my top two shouts. What would you guys suggest? Let me know in the comments!

R Range

Rabid M8 as we know it..

...and the Rabid M8 that the team actually built

• Rabid M8 - 6/10 - The R Range gets underway in what will prove to be the three largest sections of the blog all back-to-back, starting with the Portuguese representative Rabid M8. This one earns a lot of points for pure quirkiness, because long before we heard the team says "Rabid Em Eight" on television, I think we all read this as "Rabid Mate". I do love the idea of a robot called Rabid Mate, it's like one of your drinking buddies has had a few too many and he's gone on a wild one, backed up even further by "M8" (as in, u wot m8) being such a text-speak way to spell it. That's not to say we can't still enjoy Rabid M8 in the unintended way, it's just a little disappointing that this wasn't the team's intention and the M8 is just there to denote it being part of a wider Rabid series. I would guess it stands for "Model 8" or something similar. Sadly, this means the fun M8 also brings a second problem with it, because Rabid M8 is somehow... not the only M8 in the Rabid series? From our research, we've only unearthed two of the team's previous robots, a four-wheel driven box featherweight called Rabid M6 and a featherweight crusher called, erm, Rabid M8. I don't doubt that Rabid M1-5 and Rabid M7 probably exist out there somewhere, unless you're desperately trying to name the robots after your favourite bolts, but there was really nothing stopping the team from just calling the heavyweight Rabid M9. Sure, they didn't build this loanerbot machine, but you've already made the decision to include it in the Rabid line at this point. I think the main problem here is that the two Rabid M8 robots just aren't similar, the featherweight is a crusher and the heavyweight is a thwackbot. Now had the team entered the World Series with a rebranded Soldier Ant, maybe then we'd have a different story!

The comments section has already praised Raging Knightmare for its likeness to 'waking nightmare' although for me that's a bit of a reach

• Raging Knightmare - 7/10 - Alright, so the alphabet dictates that I'm supposed to talk about Raging Knightmare before Raging Reality, but let's keep things simple and talk about both together. After competing in Robot Wars with Knightmare and Spirit of Knightmare, something that for me gets overlooked quite a lot is that Raging Reality was a total departure from the sequence. Absolutely nothing tied the pneumatic rear-hinged flipper of Raging Reality to its front-hinged paddle Knightmare predecessors other than its team members. With how different this machine was, I can respect the decision to create a totally new identity and Raging Reality was a pretty good one - I'll rate that properly in its own section. What Raging Knightmare did, however, was tie Raging Reality back into its original lineage and essentially 'adopted' it. This too, was also a pretty good move. Raging Knightmare was more like Raging Reality than any of the previous Knightmare machines, but bringing back the Knightmare title helped to make its mini-rivalry with Spawn Again and its recurring presence in Annihilators that bit more concrete. It also further helped the original Knightmare feel less of a borrowed name from BattleBots Nightmare, as Raging Knightmare was now the first "Knightmare" that came to mind. The two words work well together, a raging nightmare sounds even worse than your average nightmare, while I'm overall glad to have Raging Reality included in the sequence.

Clearly the word "Knightmare" was a requirement to do well in an Annihilator

• Raging Reality - 7/10 - As for Raging Reality itself, it's in there with the likes of Barbaric Response and Infernal Contraption as a "very Series 6 name" that slams two relatively unrelated words together and creates a unique package. I can visualise a 'raging reality' only as someone who's tired of working 37.5 hours a week and is coming to terms with how little free time they have, but the retroactive addition to the Knightmare continuity somewhat quells this. Now it's just the Reality version of Raging Knightmare. Good though, splendidly unique.

Aggrobot's combat record: Binky, Razer, Blade...

• Raizer Blade - 3/10 - In Robot Wars history, the name Raizer Blade has always gone down as a fairly awkward hybrid of two other competitors, Razer and Blade. Like how Brutus Maximus contains the separate robots Brutus and Maximus, the difference being that both of those two came after Brutus Maximus. In the case of Raizer Blade, the likeness to Blade is completely fine because it was Raizer Blade who made its TV debut first, future robots would never be criticised for incorporating the word Blade and to be frank, Blade is the one at fault for having such a generic name. The one that doesn't really slide is borrowing the name Razer. So the points of defence first, one is that Razer had only been in a single episode of Robot Wars so far, where it lost its only fight. Two, Raizer Blade uses a slightly different spelling of 'Raizer'. Although there is no actual word called Raizer (a Google search nets you results for an elevating chair brand), it's a little different than just 'Razor Blade' and means we're less likely to send casual fans to the wrong place when searching for 'Razor' or Razer. That's where the defence stops. You know me, I'd dock one or two points no matter how insignificant of a robot it was borrowing from, but the signs were clear that Razer was going to be a big deal. It made a mockery of Shunt, caused the most damage out of any Second Wars competitor even in its defeat, and won the Best Design Award, all during a series where the Raizer Blade team were present with Kill Dozer. Clearly the producers were aware of their own plans for Razer, giving it an easy heat (one that contained both Razer and Blade only two heats after Raizer Blade) and set the plans in motion for The First World Championship and beyond. Why, then, did they let Raizer Blade slip through the cracks? Some blame falls to the team for choosing the name, but an equal amount of blame falls to the producers for hampering their own cash cow. It'd be like if a robot called Chaos Theory competed in the Third Wars - sure, Chaos didn't do all that well in Series 2, but we could all tell Chaos 2 was going to be a big force in Series 3. I would eraize this one.

Fullbodyhammerbot

• Rambot - 2/10 - I'm going to be very critical of Rambot here and in some ways it doesn't deserve it. The main problem with Rambot is that its name is also used as terminology to describe the likes of Tornado and Storm II, speedy robots designed to ram opponents to death, with Team Tornado coining the term. I'll admit that 'rambot' was not really an established term back in Series 4. Tornado was just about to make its debut in this series and the competitor Rambot had already been built by then. I can't really blame the team for not having the epiphany that would foretell the creation of the term 'rambot', but even if you do forgive it... what are you actually left with? Ram, and Bot. That's all. It's a wedge-shaped robot with a vague focus on ramming and lifting, adorned with a little vinyl of a ram's head. By the fourth series of Robot Wars, I think people were starting to realise that just adding "-bot" on the end of something was not really interesting enough, particularly in a series where the qualifiers reportedly saw 600-1000 robots fight for a place in the Fourth Wars. Identity was extremely important here - in that sense, Rambot was fortunate to qualify at all. Thank heavens it used its one shot to provide us with a fantastic three-way melee.

Rameses 2

• Rameses II - 4/10 - The negativity keeps on coming, because I've also got problems with Rameses II (pronounced: Rameses the Second). Named after the most famous pharaoh of the New Kingdom, this a very important piece of Egyptian history which provides a good name for a robot. Unfortunately however, the team didn't quite get this right, using the lesser-known alternative spelling of Rameses II rather than the most historically accepted spelling, Ramesses II. Honestly, even "Ramses" is more used than Rameses. Now, Rameses II is an accepted alternative spelling so it's not bad enough to push the name into the red territory, but I also think it's a downside that the robot itself is completely barren of any Egyptian identity. It's just a white HDPE box with a red stick on the front. Now alright, it's cool that we got an all-HDPE robot all the way back in 1998, but to take a name from something as important as Ramesses the Great and then not provide any sort of visual homage is a big miss. An interesting precedent that it presents to our wiki is also the use of Roman numerals to represent "the Second". No robot would ever do this again, with the nearest example being Reptirron the Second which just wrote it out in full. A policy on our wiki which has brought me much grief over the years is the rule that we don't use Roman numerals in text and article names, even when the team has a strong preference. This is to get around the likes of Chaos 2 having "Chaos II" written on all of its stat boards despite the surface of the robot clearly reading "Chaos 2", among other competitors that flip-flopped between both. This comes at a cost to the likes of Thermidor II and Dominator II who very clearly stated their preference for Roman numerals in every piece of media they've ever presented, which the show accurately reflected with complete respect. It still brings me great dismay that we have to prioritise consistency over team preference, but hopefully this blog serves as a good guide for the team's preferences where they're known. It is a little amusing that Rameses II gets to circumvent the rule thanks to its numerals representing two words - not that it had any impact on the score, of course!

I'm sorry but this tiny grey piece of rubber with the dodgy aerial worth no more than £2 is just something I must have

• Rammstein - 6/10 - We previously had Meshuggah, we had PulverizeR, now we have Rammstein, another reference to a rock/metal band with a very heavy style of music. I think we've all heard Du Hast (ENG: "you hate me") by now and I can't disassociate it from the robot. Rammstein is a great source for a name, the band's extremely aggressive music translates over to the robot seamlessly, even incorporating a little joke that the machine's entire attacking style was based purely on 'ramming' things. There would be enough material here to breach into the green scores, but I'm going to hold it back slightly because it was a tad risky. Before its appearance on Robot Wars, Rammstein did rather well in its first season of BattleBots and that gave the US TV show good reasons to produce a toy of Rammstein, which they did with a little rubber toy in their MiniBots range (something I want very badly). The complication here is that all of a sudden, BattleBots is now selling a product called "Rammstein" for profit which brings them sudden legal risk. I'm not sure if BattleBots did come under any copyright ramifications for this legally grey tribute, I'd guess not because the BattleBots MiniBots were always sold in packs of two-five so no product was released purely on Rammstein, but maybe that name is what stopped us from getting a bigger toy.

Logo of the Series 2 Rampage...

...Logo of the Series 6 Rampage

• Rampage - 2/10 - There's woefully little to say about Rampage from Series 2. It's a well-known word that is very appropriate for a fighting robot, but it is unbelievably generic. It's got to be up there in the top ten for Most Obvious Names Ever, which really doesn't help this one-time Gauntlet failure stand out. That's why Rampage was our pick for the most forgettable heavyweight robot in the entirety of UK Robot Wars (out of over 500 options) in a previous blog I helped NJGW and Toon Ganondorf to run. And of course, a name this simple and obvious was bound to be used in the past and the future. For the past, the first recorded Rampage I can find was the featherweight built by Jason Bardis for the Robot Wars 1996 US Championship. Yes, Towering Inferno & BattleBots judge Jason Bardis. What I never expected was for the Rampage font to get hijacked too! What happened in 2002 was quite unprecedented, where an unrelated robot called Rampage arrived at the Sixth Wars with not just the same name but near enough the same logo, just in lowercase instead of capitals! This is despite the Series 2 and Series 6 versions of Rampage being completely unrelated, by direct admission of the newest (third) Rampage team. It's uncanny that these machines aren't related despite the similarities, but Rampage really was just that common of a name.

UK featherweight Rampage 1, just in case you were interested

• Rampage 2 - 1/10 - But wait, there's more, because we have a fourth Rampage to talk about! Like I say, generic name, bound to be reused a lot. To have four unrelated robots called Rampage take a shot at some form of Robot Wars is pretty poor. I might've spared Rampage 2 of the dreaded 1/10 if it was the only featherweight Rampage, or if there were less than three previous Rampages on Robot Wars, but enough is enough. At least it was the first Rampage to reach the number 2. And yes, just in case you needed to ask, we do have a picture of the featherweight Rampage 1 and it is once again unrelated to the other Rampages. Who knows, maybe soon we'll find a fifth Rampage with some kind of connection to Robot Wars, I really wouldn't doubt it.

TrUlY tHe MoST PRiMiTiVe rObOTs, hAhAhAhA

• Ramrombit - 7/10 - This is a curious one, because our article offers an explanation to the meaning of the name Ramrombit and really it's the only explanation, although I can't say I'm overly confident that it's a fact. Ramrombit appears to be a collection of three different terms for computer memory; RAM, ROM and bits. If we treated Ramrombit (RAMROMBit?) as an acronym, then it would read as the incredible "Random Access Memory Read Only Memory Bit" which deserves to be etched in the books of history at least once. Still though, I'm surprised this computing angle was taken (if indeed this is the meaning) when the robot has such a clear visual inspiration from "The Smash Martians", robotic advertising mascots for Cadbury's Smash brand of mashed potatoes. Step aside Crackers 'n' Smash, this is the true heir to the Smash name! From names as simple as "Smash" up to a complete mess like "Mashed Botato", this kind of naming route was entirely possible, but Ramrombit is good in its own right and I'd rather praise it for creating something unique from unexpected places.

RAPID is nowhere near a duplicate name on Robot Wars, but some roboteers have shared their frustrations that RPD International is very similar to "Rapid Electronics", a separate supplier for other robot components

• RAPID - 7/10 - I think RAPID is an interesting one to talk about, because it's an example of a sponsor plug done right. Nothing dodgy like Androne 4000 or PP3D that just don't sound good, RAPID is perfectly logical with or without the knowledge that it was named after the company that financed the project. When I first heard the name RAPID before Series 9 aired, I wasn't personally keen on it, thinking that a verb didn't work for a robot name and that everything needed to be some kind of noun. RAPID also... wasn't all that fast in Series 9? However, once it became a lot faster in Series 10 and stole the record for quickest win by knockout in Robot Wars history, yes I think the name is justified now. But of course, the primary purpose of the name RAPID is to promote a company, so let's talk about that. Team captain Josh Valman is the young owner of London firm RPD International, standing for "Rapid Product Development". Great name for a company, RPD already resembles the word RAPID and this was clearly the point with Rapid also being part of the acronym. It also means that the robot RAPID can directly promote the company RPD International without technically name-dropping it. Let's be clear again, I have absolutely no problems with the overt sponsorship of robots, these things are expensive and they need to be financed somehow! I would know, my attempts to secure sponsorships for my BattleBots team proved wildly unsuccessful and I was saved only by the greater efforts of my teammates. The fact that a big company like RPD International would openly show interest in Robot Wars and bring such beautiful machinery to our TV screens is a mutually beneficial relationship where I think highly of both the company and the robot we see on the show. This corporate link is precisely why I'm so stringent on capitalising the machine as RAPID, over the simple "Rapid" used in most places. If the block-capitals RPD International brand was the source of the robot's name, then RAPID should be capitalised too. We haven't made this official on the wiki because there's technically not enough evidence to support it - the Facebook page formerly called "RAPID Robotwars 2017" is now called "Team Formula KoB1.5 / Rapid RW Series 9 + 10" where its more recent posts have written Rapid in lowercase, but I suspect the page is managed by Andy and Lettie who solely comprised the Formula team without Josh Valman. Now, I do think that Andy Hibberd probably deserves the most credit for RAPID being such a success considering he was the driver of the robot, and RAPID's design was based on his series of antweights, but Valman was the captain for Robot Wars and the more on-brand RAPID would surely be his preference. That's why it's written on the flipper that way, right? tl;dr, RAPID good name, capitalise to respect the brand, please sponsor my robot

• Rat - 4/10 - Right. Well, we've had a lot of long entries already, I guess a smaller entry was in order. Rat is a rat, there's nothing else to it. It's painfully simple, but straightforward enough to get a laugh out of me.

Imagine if they outright called it Bubonic Plague

• Rattus Rattus - 5/10 - Here's a rat that put a little more effort in. Rattus Rattus is the Latin name for the Black rat, which of course became infamous for spreading the bubonic plague in the fourteenth century. The Rattus Rattus team play up to this by saying that their robot itself was from the fourteenth century and that it helped to spread the plague, which is of course backed up by Rattus Rattus' black outer shell. What makes me laugh is that, in the most Robot Wars Wiki level of factual correctness possible, our article delightfully points out that the team claimed their robot's name was Latin for the Brown rat (Rattus norvegicus, did not carry the plague) rather than the Black rat (Rattus rattus, did carry the plague). If that's not splitting hairs then I don't know what is, but it's one of the funniest fact checks I've seen on our site.

It seems that Sweden being terrible at naming robots is just a hard rule, at least they can name songs marvellously

• Rawbot - 2/10 - This one's proper, proper bad. At its core, this is a combination of just two things: the word "raw", and the suffix "-bot". We all know by now that the suffix -bot is going to lose you points in this blog unless it's a clever pun. Raw is a description that could realistically apply to just about every competitor in Robot Wars, it's not original at all. There's no joke here. The cherry on top is that if you don't put heavy emphasis on the A in Rawbot, it's just going to sound like "Robot" which is endlessly damaging to the robot's identity if you don't even realise it's being mentioned by name. And somehow, even on a score of 2/10, Rawbot is the best (read: not the worst) robot name out of the two Swedish competitors...!

I think my appreciation of the name Razer doubled when the reboot announcer said it in Series 8

• Razer - 7/10 - ...So it's time, huh? This has been on the horizon for quite some time, but today is the day we finally talk about Razer. An extremely important name with both positives and negatives, I've edged in favour of a 7/10 on the pure weight of the name being such a huge part of the show's identity, but it's not without problems. Let's start with the meaning - the most common assumption would be that Razer takes its name from a razor blade. This would be a bit of a tepid inspiration if you're just picturing a typical household razor, but it still conveys that feeling of sharpness that is exaggerated by the giant crushing claw. Jonathan Pearce was wildly off-base with his Neil "Razor" Ruddock claim, and if you're really pushing it, the hardware company Razer that nowadays leads the market and earns millions was technically founded in the same year as the robot Razer. They didn't find any great success until after their relaunch in 2005 though, but sadly they're also the reason you can't just type "Razer" and expect to end up with the robot. No, the meaning of Razer is... honestly a lot more subdued than any of that. It's derived from "raze", a term for levelling/flattening the ground by force. I... can't say I had heard this word before I discovered it was the meaning behind Razer. Sure, Razer could kinda level/flatten other robots by crushing them, but I think the true meaning of Razer is one we were better off not knowing. Oh well, at least the true meaning wasn't pushed by the show, we only found our answer because we sought it out specifically. Thanks to the immense value of the most successful competitor in Robot Wars history, the name Razer carries a lot of weight and I do praise it for being short, memorable and menacing, with a good logo to boot. There's a lot of good to say about Razer and we can all hear it in the voices of Craig Charles, Stuart McDonald and all those who would shout its name time and time again. Unfortunately though, it carries another problem that is likely rooted in its unclear origins. Razer is perhaps the most loved and remembered robot among casual Robot Wars fans, but those casual fans absolutely cannot spell the name Razer. This is surely the fault of domestic razors being the most likely name origin, with a bit of help from autocorrect, but truly when you're browsing the broader Robot Wars fandom on Twitter and LAD Bible comments that will mention only the big three, Diotoir and Wheely Big Cheese, you'll see "Razor" in comments far more than Razer. This is how the whole "omg its razzor" community meme got started. I really don't want to mark Razer down for the slightly inaccurate recollection of its fans, but I guess it was bound to happen with this kind of name. Overall the strengths of the name definitely outweigh the relatively petty flaws, despite what the length of this write-up may suggest...

Wow razor is tiny m8, i knew these were just remote controlled toys and not real robots

• Razzler - 5/10 - Now for a blog update that has updated in real time! It was only days ago that Ian Lewis hopped onto the Robonerd 2020 livestream to talk about his time on Robot Wars and although I caught very little of the interview, there was surprisingly a brief chat about Razzler to mention how it was inspired by George Francis' motorised Chaos 2 pullback - and most importantly - its name. Ian Lewis cleared up a suspicion many people had held when he said that Razzler was "a bit of a naughty name" and shared his surprise that they got away with it. I'll let you figure out why Razzler might be a bit 'borderline', but the joke is subtle enough to slip through. It's also genuinely quite fitting for a cuter. miniature Razer, so fair play mate.

Dutch Robot Wars laughs in the face of acronyms

• RCC - 4/10 - An odd machine to place in the blog is RCC, because technically we could've had it near the top of this update under its full name "Radio Controlled Carnage". RCC was used on the battleboards and became the name of its successor RCC 2 and team name (would you guess it, Team RCC), but the statistics board in RCC's battle with PullverizeR clearly did say "Radio Controlled Carnage". This is unlike (for example) B.O.D which never used Blades of Destruction on a stats board. In the long-term, RCC was the much more accepted name of the two, but if you asked the team what their robot was called at the time of Dutch Series 1 (its only televised appearance), I wonder what they'd tell you. Neither one of the two names are particularly interesting though.

1/10 for the Series 7 entry "RC2" and the completely unfitting team name "Team Spinner"

• RC Warrior - 2/10 - This one is pretty irksome. Let's break down every bit of meaning RC Warrior has - well, it's something remote controlled that is competing in a war. Doesn't that describe every single robot in the show? The name RC Warrior could be given to absolutely any competitor for the exact same effect and it's woefully simple. I think the thing that hurts the most is the lack of distance it creates in the age-old "these aren't robots, they're just big RC cars" criticism. How are we supposed to defend the machines of Robot Wars and their status as robots when this 4kg wedge turns up with a name like RC Warrior? Back in Series 1, we certainly had some questionable "robots" like The Demolisher and Psychosprout, but by Extreme 1 you would really think that teams would be entering something that isn't just a converted RC car. Instead, Beef-Cake became a Robot Wars champion...

Reactor trying to jump on the YouTubers React bandwagon a bit too early

• Reactor - 6/10 - This is a simple but nice theme to use. Reactor by itself is a fairly straightforward name, but the team did a good job of subtly playing up to the name with their robot's dome shape and radioactive wheel patterns. Well, they did, until Reactor II got rid of the striking wheel pattern. Did they just not want to rain on Atomic's parade? In summary, a modestly good name for a modestly good robot.

Just learned that Reali-T is also the name of a London rapper, OK then

• REALI-T - 7/10 - Even now, I still find it intriguing that in the very first series of Robot Wars, one of the teams opted not to call their robot simply Reality, but the more adventurous REALI-T. Clearly the word Reality was in reasonable demand for fighting robots - Raging Reality would give it a crack in Series 6, while the Dutch machine Reality would eventually make its appearance in the 2018 season of BattleBots. Back in 1997 though, REALI-T stood for Reverse Engineered Alien Technology which totally wasn't a necessary acronym, but it was charming all the same. It was a much, much better way to add personality to a UFO-themed robot than to simply call it UFO. Who would want to do that...

Reaper FFP (Far From Perfect)

• Reaper NP2 - 2/10 - Ahhhh this is really disappointing from the German team. Just a few updates ago, predecessor Not Perfect took the crown for the best name in the N Range as a charming reflection of the builder's satisfaction with his machine. "Not Perfect" is still present here, except it's been abridged to 'NP2', haphazardly tacked onto the end of the word Reaper. The continuity is just contradicting itself, is it a new robot called Reaper, or is it Not Perfect 2? You can't really be both. I would've loved for the naming theme to continue and give us a machine called "Getting Better" or "It'll Do", but Reaper was a complete change in direction and unfortunately one that had been snapped up already. Now let's be clear on a few things - no, I wouldn't expect the team to know about Grim Reaper from Series 3, that was years ago and aired in a different country. No, I also don't think that once a reaper-themed robot competed on TV, nobody else can use it. The reaper is a very broad concept which was bound to be used plenty of times over. Finally, would it be fair to punish Reaper NP2 for competing in the same series as the heat-winning The Grimreaper? Typically no, you would think the British and German teams wouldn't know of each other. Trouble is, they did have some level of notice prior to the Seventh Wars, when both Reaper NP2 and The Grimreaper both competed at the Dutch Robot Games 2003. Again, sure, they both arrived at that event independently and likely didn't know the other one existed, but surely it created some kind of issue having two heavyweight Reapers in a field of 30-ish robots. They will have known that Series 7 was on the cards for both teams and now is the point where the newer of the two Reapers should have the courtesy to step away and revert to its Not Perfect branding. Instead we just got both where one Reaper proved to be significantly better than the other. The short version is, Reaper NP2 and The Grimreaper are different enough to avoid claims of being a directly repeated name, but for abandoning a great naming convention to use something much more generic that conflicts with another competitor, it all adds up to a low score.

Maybe the other two thirds of the robot looks more interesting...

• Reckless Endangerment - 7/10 - Some of the names hidden in the Grudge Match special truly were something else, man. I've always felt that Lateral Thought and Reckless Endangerment are two peas in a pod, unexpected two-word combos applied to Series 2 machines that we never even saw moving. Honestly, I perceived Reckless Endangerment as an over-the-top way to describe its own endangerment by merely entering the arena, but apparently it's an official criminal charge in US law. I wish we could see what this robot looked like, because I'd love to put a face to the name.

:P

• Recyclopse - 9/10 - What a seamless fusion. It's still so perfect. The robot is made out of recycled materials and is visibly a cyclops thanks to its one big eye, so the name shall be Recyclopse! This machine has always fallen a little under the radar for my liking, with Cassius collecting all the praise, but Recyclopse was a very likeable and important machine in its own right and for a brief period of time, the best name in Robot Wars. You could mark it down for the letter E on the end, given that the word is "cyclops" and not "cyclopse", but I think Rex Garrod was just trying to squeeze in the last letter from 'recycle'. Thanks to that inclusion, we can say that the beautifully succinct Recyclopse contains every single letter from "recycle" and "cyclops". Well done Rex.

REAL ROBOT FROM ROBOT WARS ON TV RED DRAGON FOUGHT SIR KILLALOT AND SURVIVED

• Red Dragon - 5/10 - Boy I hope you like this name, because it can be yours for the low low cost of £1378! It's £20.70 less than the build cost on the statistics board, what a steal!! Anyway, I was initially going to criticise Red Dragon for literally just being "Dragon" with a colour attached when there are so many actual dragon names still available. However, I do like the all-red look of the robot and I think we all associate the red dragon with the Welsh flag. I went looking for the name of the dragon on the Welsh flag and apparently it is called "Y Ddraig Goch" (not really useable), the "Welsh Dragon" (the team are from Sunderland so that's a no), or indeed, just "the red dragon". Well fair enough then, I'll let it slide and call it a reference, I did always find the robot oddly charming before the whole eBay meme started anyway.

At least it wasn't called Corona

• Red Virus - 5/10 - The other 'red' name on the show is now a little unfortunate because a formerly good name like Red Virus is nowadays the punching bag for Coronavirus jokes on Shuntposting. I can hardly blame a robot for being called Red Virus nearly twenty years prior to the 2020 pandemic, but it's just a little bit tainted now. Not as tainted as my mate's featherweight which debuted in 2019 with the name Virus and is still competing today though, and especially not as bad as the US beetleweight called Pandemic, built after the COVID-19 outbreak. Oh dear.

Oi ref, that's gotta be a foul, send it to VAR, he's biased, he's an idiot, other things yer da would say to the ref

• Refbot - 7/10 - This is probably a very unexpected score from someone who has a written criteria that ending a robot name in "-bot" without some kind of pun is automatic grounds for a low score, but Refbot is exempt. The reason here is that, by necessity, Refbot had to be very straightforward. This machine is present for every single battle from Series 4 until the end of the classic series, his battle count will have been approaching treble digits, but he wasn't there as a competitor or a hazard and so he isn't something to draw attention to. Frankly if he had some over-the-top name like "The Deadly Count" or "The Refinator", that's simply unwarranted attention. It's like that time the floor flipper was called "The Evil Ejector", get out of here, it's a flipper in the floor and that's all we needed to know. This is the refbot, a robot that is here to be the referee, and we needed no more information than that.

Imagine if we got a heavyweight Argh! in Series 7

• Reptirron - 4/10 - I just don't get what it's supposed to mean. Maybe "Riptirron" would at least sound a little more hazardous, but what is a Reptirron? I also think that "Reptirron the Second" is way too long and quite unnecessary when the robot looked fairly distinct from its predecessor even in Series 6 and Reptirron wasn't a great name to begin with. I could be more harsh with the score, but the name is at least unique and I do appreciate the total coincidence that Reptirron is an anagram of Terrorpin.

Revenge's Revenge

• Revenge - 1/10 - Blimey, this one's awful. A complete mockery of the Generic Rule, I can't believe any team had the confidence to call a robot "Revenge" and just leave it at that. Reams and reams of robots already had Revenge in their name, from Orac's Revenge to Scutter's Revenge, Tut's Revenge to Widow's Revenge, Forklift's Revenge to Granny's Revenge. And that's just some of the British robots. Revenge is very, very firmly rooted as a word you use when making a sequel robot, a name like this is almost like calling a robot "Two". What's it even meant to be avenging? Darkness in the US Championship? I'm even more amazed to learn that Revenge was not the team's first choice of name, as it appeared in an official programme for Extreme Warriors under the name Dark2. This is also a bad name, but surely it confirms that Revenge was meant to be the true successor to Darkness then? Why not Revenge of Darkness? Or just... something better!

Look how much they're struggling to fit it on the screen!

• Revenge of Trouble & Strife - 2/10 - And while the Revenge above is clearly the biggest offender of the Revenges, this one has to be next. Peter Forsey, my man, why are you so fascinated with overly long and hard to type names!! I've already shared my transgressions with M.R. Speed Squared but this one is even longer!!  Revenge of Trouble & Strife is so hideously long that it's one of the very few names out there where (vocally or in text) I will voluntarily acronymise it despite the team never doing so. Ask me to talk about this robot in conversation and you'll hear me calling it ROTAS, I can't be going through the seven-syllable nightmare that is Re-venge-of-Trou-ble-and-Strife that often. ROTAS isn't even accurate because it's actually meant to be "ROT&S", with the ampersand creating inconsistencies with the robot's predecessor Trouble 'n' Strife and its big old 'n' in the middle. Like, let me make sure I've got my facts straight, you started with the OK-at-best Trouble 'n' Strife (cockney slang for 'the wife', not the last time Peter Forsey's partners would be turned into a joke on TV, bless 'em), changed the formatting and made it painfully lengthy, despite Revenge of Trouble & Strife looking absolutely nothing like Trouble 'n' Strife! Jeez, just call this one M.R. Speed Squared so that your third robot might finally have an actual good name for once.

Revolution 3, more like Devolution, am I right? this joke was written by SpaceManiac888

• Revolution 2 & Revolution 3 - 5/10 - I really want to like the name Revolution. It's a simple yet meaningful name in a few ways. It refers not only to the revolving nature of the robot's various spinners, but also the general idea of a cultural or political 'revolution' - I'm sure this team sought out to achieve a revolution with a deep run in Robot Wars. Put a robot called Revolution into the TV show and you probably get a 7/10 from me at the very least. Unfortunately, with something as simple as a number on the end, Revolution was sadly spoiled. It's a well-documented bug bear of mine in this blog already that entering your debut series with a '2' in your name is irritating, with the audience being left to wonder where Revolution 1 was. Those who actually embark that search for information also leave essentially empty-handed. We still don't even have a picture of Revolution 1, just the vague knowledge (with no listed source) that it applied for Series 5. Still, we got Revolution 2 in the Sixth Wars with a very bold and appealing design which definitely picked up some appreciation despite the breakdowns. I've criticised it already for being "Revolution 2" in its debut series, but I'm also similarly disappointed with the name change to Revolution 3 for the Seventh Wars. The new machine was a competent, logical design which could have been a real threat in the Seventh Wars if its removable link was better secured. I fully believe that Revolution 3 is functionally a superior machine to Revolution 2... but visually, it just didn't look it. The whole "go hard or go home" look had been substituted for a much more uniform and modest design which never really struck me as a successor to Revolution 2 - more an "alternative", if you will. Irrespective of whether its predecessor should've been "Revolution 2" or "Revolution", I would've appreciated a change in direction for the name of Revolution 3. Maybe Vive la Revolution? It's a different name while also (in French) prompting people to remember and prosper the Revolution that came before it.

Or as Brian Nave would call it, "The Tank"

• Rhino (Extreme) - 5/10 - This is a pity because the team were within their rights to pick this name, but it set up a limitation for the future. The Army's representative Rhino was not named after the animal, but rather the American tank. It was certainly one of the more well-known tanks available after Panzer was taken multiple times over. Sadly though, it was pretty obvious that roboteers would want to build actual rhino-themed machines and this definitely got in the way. Indeed, the Bronco team had already built their team namesake Rhino years prior and while this was the first Rhino in the UK, it wouldn't be the last.

No disrespect to the visual design, Rhino really was a looker

• Rhino (Series 7) - 3/10 - Nor would this Rhino be the last British machine called Rhino, thanks for that one King of Bots II! Here in the Seventh Wars though, this is decidedly the first Rhino that comes to mind on Robot Wars despite being the second one, much like Shockwave and Shockwave, robots I can't seem to stop mentioning. This is the more remembered Rhino thanks to its strong animalistic design, being a rhinoceros in every facet of its appearance. Rhino is still a really dull name though, not only one that had been used on the show during the years that Team Reactor were competing, but just boring in general. Our 10/10 friend Ceros proved that it was entirely possible to come up with a name other than Rhino, so while I'll give this machine some leniency in comparison to other reused names, it doesn't get away unscathed.

I'll make the joke so you don't have to, something something Pickle Rick

• Rick - 7/10 - What's this? A human name robot has actually been given a 7/10? Between REALI-T, Reckless Endangerment, Refbot and Rick, my last few green scores have all been proper wildcards. Rick, however, achieves something that was seldom pulled off in Robot Wars - a successful adaptation of the predecessor's name to create a new identity with an obvious link to the past. Rick is a heavily shortened version of Maverick, the Fourth Wars competitor which used a very sensible but unimpressive name to start the team's legacy. Maverick wasn't bad, but it didn't stand out and the whole 'green screaming thing' paint was not a good look. Seemingly, the team wanted to make an all-new flipper with a much better aesthetic coat, but keep the links to Maverick alive. Rick was a perfect solution, taking the really butch, blokey name out of 'Maverick' and created suitable distance between the old and the new. Rick then proved it was worthy of the new name with a set of much better performances in battle. A good human name, remarkable!

A feature of the first US Robot Wars fight I ever saw

• Rigby - 5/10 - Rigby is presumably a human name robot too? I can't think what else it would be. Rigby is mainly a surname rather than a first name though, so that's a little something to set it apart. With no real knowledge of the name's origin and a generally decent sound, I'll give Rigby some benefit of the doubt and give it a 5/10. It's a lot easier than what is likely to be its Techno Games identity, "Stanoscloir".

• Rippa Raptor - 4/10 - I can't really put my finger on why I don't like the name Rippa Raptor but it's just never sat right with me. I'm trying to overlook the whole "other robots called Ripper" thing because the British ones were pretty insignificant at that time while the better-known one was yet to come. But nothing about Rippa Raptor appeals to me. I get that all of Team Raptor's robots had to end in the word Raptor (even Cyclone-Raptor in some sources), the consistency is good, but Rippa Raptor is maybe one of their weak links.

Shout-outs to when Team Toon renamed it "Rip-Off", maybe they can name things after all

• Rip - 5/10 - Yet another example where the alphabet is out to get me and I need to talk about a sequel or spin-off before talking about the original basis! Rip is of course the featherweight version of Ripper, one of five "Rippers" that we'll be talking about on this blog from three different teams. Rip was a very logical name for a scaled down Ripper, I toyed with the idea of "Skipper" and "Chipper" as they're occasionally used as nicknames for young children, but Rip was the best course of action, albeit only a 5/10 because the source material wasn't brilliant to begin with.

YOU'RE GONNA GRIP RIPPAH THE FLIPPAH

• Ripper - 5/10 - So here's Ripper itself then. By a country mile, this is the most significant Ripper in robot combat, being a star of Robot Wars in Series 7, a live circuit hero and even a future BattleBots competitor. It wasn't really the first Ripper on Robot Wars, but I absolutely can't blame anyone for not knowing about the Series 2 featherweight "The Ripper" or its middleweight successor that occupies the next entry. Rippa Raptor was also clearly different enough, so I'm fine with this being our true Ripper on Robot Wars. It's just not really that fitting of a name though. There's no visual cues to the Yorkshire Ripper, instead being a giant car wash-coloured wedge with a big old flipper. You'd think that the weapon would be some kind of cutting weapon or axe with a name like Ripper, a flipper weapon is probably as far removed as you can get. This was exemplified when John Findlay started naming robots after their weapons, including Gripper the gripper, St Ripper the spinner and Flipper the flipper Ripper the flipper is left as "close but not quite". The name is certainly synonymous with the machine and it made for some entertaining Jayne Middlemiss interviews, so I think a middle-of-the-road finish is about right.

"I only upload high-quality rips". If anyone gets this joke I'll be amazed

• Ripper's Revenge - 4/10 - One more Ripper for today, the last one will make its appearance in the T Range. The middleweight Ripper's Revenge was the successor to the Second Wars featherweight 'The Ripper' and right off the bat, I think it's a tenuous link to connect the two machines when A) The Ripper barely made a televised appearance, and B) the two are in separate weight classes with limited similarities. I dread to think what would happen if the Yorkshire Ripper did need to get revenge on somebody, he's already got enough of a motive as is! Ripper's Revenge is another in the line of "Revenge" sequels that grew a little tiresome, while it quickly lost the right to call "Ripper" unique despite taking it first.

The first and only time Riptilion was pictured from the front

• Riptilion - 5/10 - This is a name that gets spelled wrong very, very frequently and that's no fault of the team. Their robot's name was Riptilion, a pun which adds the word 'rip' into 'reptilian', hence the lizard scale paintwork. The team did reinvent a bit of spelling here, going from -tilian to -tilion, but this isn't what I see getting spelled wrong. Rather, I most commonly see "Riptillion", which I've previously been guilty of too. I couldn't tell you exactly why - the show never spelled it wrong on any of Riptilion's three appearances, and this spelling is more accurate. But something's just strangely unnatural about it. Either way, the name doesn't really have the means to break past the halfway mark.

Decorating the side of your robot with black-and-white road chevron is a guaranteed way to win fights, right Roadblock?

• Roadblock - 7/10 - Champion alert! There's not too many left... Roadblock is an interesting example because it's an extremely literal and descriptive name, but not by choice. The planned name for Roadblock was in fact "Road Rage", which even squeaked into a televised episode thanks to The Making of Robot Wars. Between Roadblock and Road Rage, I have to state my preference in Road Rage, the more creative and violent name better suited for a fighting robot. A name change was requested by the producers due to an excess of real-world road rage in the late 90's, which is a shame. I can't speak for how impactful the road rage news was at the time, I was too busy being a 2-year old to have any knowledge of the news, but I would certainly think that a few road rage stories is a lot less controversial than, say, an Anthrax outbreak. Regardless, the name change went ahead, so the down-to-earth Roadblock was a good alternative that has of course been boosted further by its use on a Robot Wars champion.

This looks like a giant chicken! Any more Jayne Middlemiss quotes we wanna throw in today?

• Robochicken - 3/10 - After an already lengthy R Range up to this point, we reach the main reason I expected this to be such a giant update - the robots whose name starts with "Robo". There's actually less than I thought, with a total of seven, but the first is a robot we all love - just sadly one without a good name. Robochicken is a very, very straightforward name and does nothing out of the ordinary. This is such a shame because this personality-filled team came up with such great names for their weapons, including the Fowl Flipper, the Rooster Rotavator and the Poultry Pecker. All of this was brilliant and added real character, which seemed to be leading up to a fun name like Fowl Play, Rule the Roost or Clucky Shot. We even got precedent later with the well-named Extreme Warriors entry Psycho Chicken. But this robot is just called Robochicken. Nothing more, nothing less, it's a robot and a chicken. This already has adverse effects when you try to look up Robochicken on Google or YouTube only to be given results on the Seth Green TV show Robot Chicken. A name like Robochicken works, we all love the robot for every other aspect of its design, but the name is utterly underwhelming.

If the head was genuinely there to make Robocow a Robocop pun, at least get it into the arena

• Robocow - 3/10 - While Robochicken was an underwhelming name on an otherwise very entertaining robot and team, something like Robocow is just underwhelming in all aspects. Once again Extreme Warriors set the precedent for a good cow name with Mad Cow, again from the same team as Psycho Chicken that had the better name than Robochicken! You can do so much better than Robocow. My efforts to come up with one on the spot is only giving me cringy names like Moove Over, Truth or Dairy, or Final Cowntdown. Maybe you play it dead seriously and opt for something like The Butcher. Robocow is bad, Son of Robocow is worse, and this robot doesn't even have the benefit of a fun campaign to back it up. Needs more cowbell.

Yes, 101 cost a pound and a penny to build, and nothing called Robo Doc ever existed

• Robo Doc - 4/10 - We're back into sponsor plug territory, with Robo Doc being built to represent Dr. Martens, the well-known shoe brand that captain Mike Franklin worked for. Robo Doc is subtle in that it contains "Doc" of Dr. Martens, but disguises it as some kind of robotic doctor. Honestly though, I think it's a little too subtle, I had absolutely no idea the robot was representing Dr. Martens until years down the line. I also think that the attempt to promote Dr. Martens completely backfired, at no fault of Mike Franklin. Clearly in the upper class of Series 2 machines, Robo Doc could've been a real contender for the Top 8, but it was stopped short by an unfortunate draw against King Buxton. So, do Dr. Martens put it down to a promising performance ending in a bad draw then choose to support their employee as he builds again for Series 3? No, they completely drop the sponsorship, so Mike Franklin abandons the Robo Doc brand entirely and returns with 101, a recycled robot born from Dr. Martens' investment which became known for being the cheapest robot in the competition. That very investment had now created a machine that came within touching distance of the Grand Final and became a true icon of the show after its famous World Championship campaign. Perhaps it was at that point Dr. Martens realised they'd made a massive blunder. I don't think I'll be rushing out to buy a pair of docs now. Anywho, the name, whether you interpret it as a simple robotic doctor or Dr. Martens the Robot, it's not great. Perhaps Dr. Martyr? I do think the brand subtitle AirWair offered a lot of potential.

It's silly that Robogeddon was never accepted for future series, it could've had a redemption arc like Splinter

• Robogeddon - 5/10 - A name like Robogeddon is good, but it's such a general combination that I feel it's better saved for something on a grander scale, like an actual competition or brand. I know it sounds like I have an extreme power of hindsight there, given that Team Ming and Team Razer's joint business was called Robogeddon and even Hollywood director James Cameron planned to make a combat show called Robogeddon at one stage. But genuinely, even when I was on an educational course with John Findlay and he still hadn't settled upon the name Extreme Robots, our class tried to brainstorm some potential ideas and Robogeddon was one of the first suggestions there too. Had Robogeddon itself not been such a famous victim of Hypno-Disc, maybe a name like that would've been given to the Annihilator, or the Grand Final itself - goodness knows Craig called it "Robot Wars: The Armageddon" enough. Well done to Robogeddon on picking a good name, I just can't shake the feeling it was always destined for bigger things.

Robopig.commm~

• Robopig - 3/10 - Back to the Roboanimal names again. Thankfully this is the last one. Robopig is a robotic pig, been there, done that. Now let's think of some better ones. Seeing as I've just mentioned the educational course I did under John Findlay, now's probably a good time to mention that the first 300g cardboard robot that my group put together was a pig-themed wedge called "Snout Special" (as in, it's nowt special). The name wasn't my idea, but it's still one of my favourites I've been involved with. Alright, so it's unlikely that this team would've arrived at a name like Snout Special, so for a more widespread idea, how about "Mr Pig" as a reference to The Lion King? It would play into the robot's ramming attacks very well. Any number of bacon jokes were on the table. You could've beaten Pokémon to the punch and stolen Pignite from the future, heaven knows that dreadful Pokémon doesn't deserve such a good name. Just not Robopig please.

I think we know the real reason I couldn't give it a 10/10

• Robo Savage - 9/10 - Please understand the level of restraint I took to avoid giving Robo Savage a 10/10. Hidden amongst the dull "Robosomething" names is quietly one of the best names in all of Robot Wars. Of course, the only way a name like "Robo Savage" could possibly score this highly would be if the Welsh football player Robbie Savage himself entered it onto Robot Wars, but by golly, that actually happened. There's no way to undersell this, Robo Savage is the perfect name for a competitor driven by Robbie Savage. It probably took no more than 30 seconds to come up with, it's extremely obvious, but the odds of football pundit Robbie Savage ever competing on Robot Wars in the first place were so low that only this name could possibly be our reward for the pure happenstance that occurred in the BBC production office that fateful day. It even has a slight edge over the similarly fantastic Kadeena Machina in that you could give the name Robo Savage to another competitor and it would still be somewhat fitting. Sure, it wouldn't score any higher than a 5/10, but it would still paint the picture of a savage robot with a name that was unique enough. In the hands of the one and only Robbie Savage though, it's completely perfect and I only held back from the perfect score on the weight of how it looks in isolation (and I probably still prefer Arena Cleaner).

I'm surprised we didn't see more Robert puns in robot names, maybe next Battle of the Stars we'll meet Robot Downey Jr

• Robot The Bruce - 8/10 - Very original and a great bit of inspiration for Series 1. I do have to hold the First Wars competitors up to the same standard as everything else and drop in the lack of medieval theming with Robot the Bruce's visuals. On the whole though, we have a very cheeky transformation of Robert the Bruce - King of Scots in the 1300's - into Robot the Bruce, a robot with plenty of brute force. It's one that had to grow on me after I repeatedly watched the First Great War VHS as a kid without any knowledge of who Robert the Bruce was, but the quality is very apparent.

Now much as it's nice to see Douan Bingham in normal clothes, where is my "At least you had a prime, Mick" screenshot

• Rocky-Bot-Boa - 6/10 - Another really tricky one to rate, because I really enjoy Douan Bingham's Rocky Balboa act, it made every single interview with Mick Foley a treat and instantly made the team one of my favourites in the whole of Robot Wars. The name Rocky-Bot-Boa itself is the point of divergence, it's a decent but imperfect Rocky Balboa reference. It's close enough to get the point across, but the 'bot' placement is a little awkward, not sounding like 'Bal' and sending me on the lookout for a Boa constrictor that I'm not going to find. I like it more than Rocky BalBot but maybe Rocky Balbotta was nearer the mark. The excessive punctuation is a bit much too, Rocky-Bot-Boa is a lot of emphasis when it could've just been Rocky Botboa. You know, now that I see it written as Rocky Botboa, the overall name suddenly seems a lot better...

No joke here, just an underappreciated machine

• R.O.C.S. - 4/10 - When it comes to R.O.C.S., I'm really not sure which came first out of the acronym and the full name. If you didn't know, R.O.C.S. stands for "Radio Controlled Operating System" which is one of the most fluent acronyms we've had on Robot Wars, although the only real point of note in the shortened R.O.C.S. name is that it phonetically sounds like "rocks". While I'm certainly glad that we can say Rocks instead of Arr Oh Cee Ess, if this was meant to be a joke then it's not particularly funny. Overall it's a decent name, but R.O.C.S. slips on points thanks to the hard-to-type rule (it really could've just been ROCS) which then got worse when they threw a '2' in the mix for Series 3. Honestly, R.O.C.S. 2 looks proper crap, while the Series 6-7 machine is so far removed from its distant predecessor that I'm shocked the team kept the same name at all.

Rohog with its optional side flywheel

• Rohog - 4/10 - OK, I definitely got a bit of a giggle when a Google search for "rohog" brought me a top listing for Richard Osman's House of Games. I'll never be able to see Rohog in the same way again. This machine is infamous for being one of the worst competitors in Series 5 that didn't really warrant a space over the higher quality machines that failed to qualify, which the uncreative name of Rohog didn't really help to remedy. I think it's short for either "robotic hog" or "roadhog", but if it's the former then Rohog looks nothing like a hog, and if it's the latter then they should've just called it Roadhog. It looks more like a beetle if anything, and there are countless cool beetle names that went unused on Robot Wars.

"Very suspect 3cm ground clearance, that is far too high off the arena floor to survive a flipper" --Jonathan Pearce, before backing Roobarb to beat Mute

• Roobarb - 6/10 - I've picked up a little bit of knowledge today. I think all of us (or at least, all of the British readers) knew that the robot Roobarb is directly named after the green dog from the fondly-remembered British TV show Roobarb and Custard. However, did you know that the show was never actually called Roobarb and Custard? Turns out the original show was simply called Roobarb, with the 2005 reboot being called Roobarb and Custard Too. Maybe that was obvious, but I sure didn't know. Roobarb is a direct name drop that doesn't do anything beyond the reference itself, but that's OK. Having a featherweight counterpart or a minibot in the arena called Custard would've truly taken things to the next level, but you can't have everything. I think the strangest part is the visuals of Roobarb - you've taken the name of a green cartoon dog known for its 'wobbly' artstyle, which itself was named after the red and white vegetable rhubarb, and the visual design of the robot is... holographic purple foil? W-Wha...

Desperately trying to read the rear logo to see if "RON" is written on it

• Ron - 4/10 - The human-name robots make a return, with Ron being one of the earlier examples. There's a few angles to approach this one. Jonathan Pearce, Craig Charles, and even the logo on the back of the robot (apparently) all make reference to the 1963 song "Doo Ron Ron, Doo Ron Ron" by The Crystals, our only concrete bit of origin behind the robot's name. Oliver Steeples capitalised the name as "RON" on his website and although Steeples isn't a first-hand source (one who also spelled other names wrong on occasion), I could definitely believe it being some kind of acronym. Robotic Operating... N-something. The team's surnames brought us close, with a Chris Ransom and a Colin Offer, but then the third team member was 'John Economou', so we fall just short on the surnames front. I went to the Axios website to see if they also capitalised the name Ron, but I soon ran into trouble when I discovered that every single word on that website was capitalised. They also called it 'ROBOT RON' (as in, FROM THE TEAM THAT BROUGHT YOU 'ROBOT RON') so I'm just keeping clear. I would guess the name is RON but without knowing the potential acronym we have to stick with a 4/10.

• Rosebud - 5/10 - I do wish I could peer into the timeline where Rosebud is an actual heavyweight competitor in the real series so I can accurately judge how I'd feel about it. As it is, Rosebud is quite a sweet name that I appreciate, but I also voice my dismay at the robot's complete lack of floral aesthetics (or any kind of aesthetics). I don't know what this thing is supposed to be, but a flowery name like this keeps it in the mind more than some of the other Second Wars cameobots. Also, while Rosebud works nicely from the charming angle, I think the bittersweet blend of Rose Thorn would be a step further.

I do think it also helps that Stefan Frank could lovingly call the robot "Rosie" and address her by name without totally killing the meaning of the name

Rosie the Riveter vs Pussycat, the only battle made up of solely 10/10 names! We also saw Pussycat and Disc-O-Inferno defeat Comengetorix but both fights had other robots involved

• Rosie the Riveter - 10/10 - Everyone, we have a 10/10! This is another one that I don't see among the suggestions for the the best name in Robot Wars but I think this was easily the best name outside of the UK series. Rosie the Riveter collects a 10/10 in much the same fashion as Cherub, where the team have built a relatively wedgy machine that would struggle to be selected for a televised series without some kind of bonus factor, but the robot's entire visual identity, team branding and name was lovingly crafted in such a way that the robot easily deserved a space on the show. The term 'Rosie the Riveter' described the hardworking women in the World War II era that took up historically masculine jobs such as machine maintenance and factory labour, with the positive 'Rosie the Riveter' concept being one that helped women make a genuine difference in times where they were needed the most. In the modern day, the message lives on as we hope to encourage women to take up STEM jobs and education, all dating back to that famous 'WE CAN DO IT!' poster. We have a long way to go, no doubt about that, but the future is looking brighter. That's what makes the robot Rosie the Riveter so special. What first entered Robotica as a blue wedge under a team of four blokes underwent an important conversion to appear in Extreme Warriors. Our result was a colourful and patriotic wartime plane with the wings and cockpit to match, piloted by the suitably dressed driver Chris Gattman and his team of female engineers. Not only did these women dress the part as 1940's engineers, they were shown to actually work on the robot and Chris Gattman had no shortage of praise for their efforts. OK sure, the Season 2 team only had one woman involved and the by-necessity child-led Nickelodeon team didn't have any, but that original prospect of Rosie the Riveter paving the way to inspire women to take up engineering in the USA is fantastic. I hope it made a difference.

The things we can learn just from "ROT BOT" being written on the top in marker pen

• Rot Box - 5/10 - We follow up Rosie the Riveter with its very first televised opponent, Rot Box. I've given a surprising amount of praise to Team Boltz throughout this blog for their Mad Cow and Psycho Chicken names, but when it comes to their loanerbots, it was challenging to defend Bang, while Rot Box gets a 5/10. I appreciate how honest it is, the team were given a wooden box designed to fail, and Team Boltz made no effort to hide it. The comedy farmers talking about their box of rot was quite entertaining and pushed a typically below-average name a little higher than you might expect. I'm not entirely sure whether I prefer the final name Rot Box or the original name Rot Bot, but I think they'd each earn the same score.

We may have Roter Ochse to thank for the Series 3 arena walls having some level of rigidity

• Roter Ochse - 5/10 - So this one is a bit embarrassing for the wiki. Roter Ochse was a super heavyweight competitor in Series 2, one whose wiki article was spelled wrong for over a decade! The name Roter Ochse is German for 'red ox' and is the name of various German restaurants and tourist attractions (and a prison). Now granted, we aren't German speakers, but it's pretty bad that our page was called "Roter Osche" for over ten years, forcing the actual builder of the robot to come on the site and correct us. Whoops. I shall give the 5/10 because it's highly original but naturally a little difficult for people to understand.

Yearly reminder that Rottweiler and Constrictor were from the same team

• Rottweiler - 9/10 - The last of our angry dogs makes an appearance, with Rottweiler taking by far the highest score. But a 9/10, really? How does a robot simply named after a breed of dog (in a series that also contained a robot called Bottweiler) earn a score that high? Easy - the team was made up of Dominic and Werner Rott. Young Dominic and his enthusiasm were perhaps a bigger focus than the robot itself, so it's a wonderful bit of fortune that a lad called Dominic Rott could enter the show with the perfectly named Rottweiler. Nothing else would've worked better. I also appreciate the team backing this up with the spiked collar surrounding the entire outside of the robot itself. I don't quite feel comfortable in giving a 10/10 to what is clearly just the name of a dog breed, but naming the robot anything else would've been a total missed opportunity.

robot wars, that's the tweet. pls can I get 81 RT's

• RT 81 - 2/10 - Frustrating is the best way I can describe the name RT 81. It's probably quite apt for the robot too, in fairness. At the heart of this name is a genuinely good basis for a successful name. Team captain Andrew Lovelace is supposedly "involved" with the Round Table (don't ask me how you can be 'involved' with a table from English folklore) and irrespective of whether he was somehow associated with it or not, the round table would already be a good source for a name. It gets us thinking about King Arthur and the robot itself is a round machine with legs. At a guess, I'd probably award "Round Table" a 7/10. Fair enough if the team wanted to play around with it a little more, but what we ended up with was so far removed that it completely spoiled the name. Prior to the Sixth Wars, Mr Lovelace thought it would be a good idea to shorten Round Table to RT (even though round table wasn't even that long to begin with) and with just "RT" now too short to make do, he bunged some random numbers on the end and called it RT 80. What does the 80 mean? I'd tell you if I knew! My best guess would've been that Lovelace was Member #80 of the active Round Table society or something like that, but after a failed qualification attempt for Series 6, the name that returned for Extreme 2 was RT 81. Right, clearly you can't have been that attached to the number 80 then. This just makes it feel like the number was chosen at complete random when it was totally unnecessary to begin with! Round Table was fine, you could maybe expand upon it further, but to strip it of all meaning and leave it as the vaguely robotic clump of letters and numbers that is "RT 81" (space in the middle included) just leaves me feeling very disappointed.

It's quite fascinating how comedy designs were most prevalent around Series 3, but the two best-remembered ones debuted in the 100kg era

• Ruf Ruf Dougal - 7/10 - After King Buxton, the next robot to derive its name from The Magic Roundabout was Ruf Ruf Dougal, another splendid tribute. After all. I wonder. Why Toast. Might Like. Names From. The Magic Roundabout. Hmm. Still, personal attachment aside, I always think TV and fiction references are an excellent avenue to run with robot names and while King Buxton was a reference in name only, Ruf Ruf Dougal takes things to the next level. Visually and physically, the whole thing looks like a massive version of Dougal from The Magic Roundabout and it's a 10/10 for aesthetics as far as I'm concerned. The name itself is worthy of a generous score, it directly names Dougal and expands upon it to create the unique factor. Give me "Ruf Ruf Dougal" over Robodougal any day. The choice of "Ruf Ruf" is interesting, I'd traditionally spell the word as 'Ruff' and Microsoft Word will never stop telling me how there shouldn't be a second consecutive "Ruf" in my sentence, but I like what we have here. Really "roughens" up the mild=mannered Dougal.

Run Away may not have been a runaway success in Robot Wars, but boy did we need their records of the show's results all those years ago

• Run Away - 6/10 - I'm quite keen on the name Run Away, particularly with respect to how it near-enough keeps the continuity of the original machine going. It's not as seamless as Panzer Mk1 going to Panzer Mk2 but Run Away is a very clean transition from its alternate identity Run Amok, which bears pretty much the same visual look too. It's certainly a subtle change when compared to the likes of Kritical Mass, Jawbreaker and Kraken becoming Manta, General Chompsalot and G-Force. This was again pretty important to do, because like Panzer, Run Amok was also a Robotica champion. The difference being... Run Away was not successful in Robot Wars at all. For the name though, I appreciate that the mere addition and removal of a space can change the meaning on the fly. "Run Away" is an instruction, get away from this dangerous(ish) robot! "Runaway" suggests that the robot itself is some kind of convict on the run, with whichever meaning you prefer being applicable where appropriate.

Rusty is still available for sale from Tony Smith at the time of writing. For £2000, I could genuinely buy this machine purely for the sake of renaming it back to Ceros. But we all know I'd chicken out and preserve its Robot Wars identity so I could bloat the Outside Robot Wars section with my fights, all while dealing with the internal headache of ever owning the runner-up for my worst name in Robot Wars. I think I'll keep clear...

• Rusty - 1/10 - Talk about ending on a sour note. What we have here is my least favourite name of the reboot and one of the worst names in the show altogether. It doesn't even contend for a 2/10. My heart genuinely sank when I learned that there would be a robot called Rusty in Series 9, because this is a name I had long considered an absolute "DO NOT WANT" name for Robot Wars. I dreaded the idea of a robot being called Rusty because it's just so utterly typical. Never mind generic for a combat robot, it's generic for any robot. Look up robots in books, TV, film, even poetry, and you'll probably find a robot called Rusty. If something like "Mayhem" is a default name for combat robots, then Rusty is a default name for robots in any capacity, truly it's that basic. It also just doesn't paint a picture that you want to see at all. How do you make a robot look like it deserves the name Rusty? Uh, by making it look like garbage, of course! That awful orange paint all over the robot is there specifically to suit the name Rusty and to know this was a deliberate change in direction for an existing robot which already looked fine makes things even worse. Not to necessarily say it should've kept the unpainted metal look, you can do plenty better than that, but to go for 'rusty' orange is basically setting out to make your robot look ugly. By Series 9 standards, just being a wedge flipper wasn't enough to stand out, a proper identity was absolutely critical, so this is an appalling failure at creating one, no matter how last-minute we know it to be. This wasn't even the only robot at Series 9 called Rusty! Obviously I'm not going to call it a repeat name on the grounds that Anthony Murney took an antweight version of Foxic to the exact same series with no prior announcement (Anthony you're a great dude, I love being your mate, but you don't get away with the Rusty name either) and it builds a real display of how widespread and basic the name truly was. A combination of all these things means that Rusty is already bad enough to approach the dreaded 1/10 score, with its only saving grace being that it was somehow the first Rusty to compete on Robot Wars after all these years. But we're still not done. I've not even touched upon the absolute worst thing that Rusty did, and it's one that I've never forgiven. My standards for a flipper in Series 9 called Rusty were already low, but once I actually took to the Robot Wars website on the day of the reveal and saw what this machine truly was, I was in disbelief. Rusty was immediately familiar to me as a repainted version of a 2004 robot built by Francis Smith which later competed in the modern live circuit under Team Outlaw. That machine built by Francis Smith... was the second version of Ceros. Yes, the Ceros, the robot that earned the blog's very first 10/10 name rating all the way back in the C Range and probably my second-favourite name in all of Robot Wars (I won't hide it, EWE2 has already won). Over the course of the televised hiatus, a name I'd come to accept as an all-time favourite had done the unthinkable after a team of Scottish students took ownership of the robot's successor and independently gave it one of my least favouties names. I would honestly say that with repeat names excluded, Rusty is second only to one machine for the title of my most hated name. The complete disparity in jumping from my second-favourite name to second-least favourite name in a field of over 700 options should frankly be impossible, but Rusty achieved it. I get that a name change may have been necessary to get it on the show, HIGH-5 was probably going to continue the S.M.I.D.S.Y. brand while only Dantomkia and TMHWK(ish) got permission to enter a previous competitor under a new team, but given that Rusty didn't even apply for the series in the first place, surely they could've just dragged it out as Ceros V2.0 and thrown it in. Then we'd at least get some kind of continuity with a respected Series 7 Heat Finalist making a fairly unexpected return to the reboot under a new design that we were supposed to have all the way back in "Robot Wars: The Eighth Wars". But no, it changed to Rusty in order to: ruin the continuity with Ceros; abandon one of the best names of all-time for one of the worst; sport a dreadfully unappealing orange overcoat; clash with another robot inside the same building; use its last-second reserve status to prevent the competent TR3 from giving Carbide and Apollo more of a challenge in a two-horse race heat; completely fall apart in battle after a few flips to tarnish the legacy of the new machine and Ceros in one fell swoop. That is an absolute hurricane of destruction and I still can't quite believe it.

S Range

S3/10

• S3 - 3/10 - We're out of the frying pan and into the fire, as we move from the R Range to the likely-even-larger S Range! We open up with a machine of great significance, S3. This is another example like M2 where I loved the robot so much, I managed to convince my younger self that S3 was a good name. There really was a time when I thought letter-number names were very cool, but that has since passed, and unfortunately S3 is one of the worst. I'll preface by saying I totally understand why the team went with the name S3 and think they were approaching from the right angle. S3 is the third robot in a line of 'Sting' machines, which we’ll cover separately further down. For now, all you need to know is that Sting was a perfectly decent name for its debut in Series 2, but outside of the team's control, a certain robot called "Stinger" became more well-known in subsequent series, meaning a name like 'Sting 3' wasn't going to fly. Especially not when S3 made its debut within the fifth seed Stinger's heat! Clearly, the team went with 'S3' to keep the links to Sting and Sting II alive while effectively distancing itself from Stinger. What it didn't do effectively was create a good name. When creating a letter-number name like this, it's always inevitable that there's going to be a lot of overlap - M2 certainly never meant to be "named after a motorway"! It's sad, but the clash S3 presents is a little too invasive to ignore. S3 could mean any manner of things in different contexts, but the one that hinders me the most is one that regularly comes up in conversation about Robot Wars. Say you're talking over text and you need to quickly refer to a particular version of a long-running robot, like the Series 7 version of X-Terminator... well, for me the easiest way would be 'X-Terminator S7'. Maybe you'd use it to tell the difference between two robots with the same name (Spin Doctor S2 vs Spin Doctor S6), two battles from different series (Carbide vs Eruption S9 and Eruption vs Carbide S10) or just to quickly name a series by itself. We hit a certain complication when we hit Robot Wars: The Third Wars, or indeed the third series of any robot combat show. By my book, "S3" should be a useful shorthand for "Series 3", but the fact we have a notable robot whose only identity is S3 is something that creates a clash, whether we're trying to talk about the series or the robot. It's an annoyance that has no bearing on S3's actual televised appearance, but an annoyance nevertheless. Based on its success in Series 5 and 6, you'd think a machine like S3 would be right in line for a pullback toy, but for a parent who doesn't watch the show, I can't see the toy called "S3" being a very enticing pick in the shop.

Hey, remember the drama about BattleBots Sabertooth? Yeah, that kinda blew over while I was writing this

• Sabretooth - 6/10 - Another very important machine! They become less notable from here, honest. Sabretooth made itself a Robot Wars icon during the reboot, but Gabriel Stroud laid the groundworks all the way back in Series 5. By no means were the Series 5 and 6 versions of Sabretooth competent or particularly memorable fighters, but their sheer existence helped to pave the way for future stories. Some roboteers would build a new machine every year and name them in sequence, although many would give up somewhere in sequence. Big examples include X-Terminator, who spent so long on an "X-Terminator 2.5" model that they simply didn't bother to give a 3/4 to the vertical spinner version, or Bulldog Breed which named the first three robots in order before growing bored of the numbers and just running with "Bulldog Breed" for the fourth and fifth models. Very few would go beyond a Model 3, with Firestorm being the biggest exception, and if anything Firestorm somewhat muddied the waters when Firestorm IV and V looked so similar to the rebuilt version of Firestorm III. Yes, there were two Firestorm III builds. Where I'm going with this is that Sabretooth has more variations than almost any other Robot Wars competitor, fought off only by the likes of Behemoth. Between the Series 5 and 6 competitors, the promising Series 7 withdrawal, and the three separate Sabretooth machines in the reboot, there were six Sabretooth variants built for Robot Wars. That's no mean feat... but could you imagine if Team Legion tried to number them one-by-one? Something about "Sabretooth 6" competing in the same series as Iron-Awe 6 would feel wrong. The most likely scenario was having Sabretooth 2 and 3 in the classic series before abandoning it for the reboot. Gabriel Stroud, however, just wasn't planning on letting this happen. From the first model right through to the sixth, this machine has always just been "Sabretooth", no matter how much it evolved over time. I really appreciate the foresight there. The name itself is an X-Men reference which also presents a strong visual theme initially borrowing leopard-print designs before just keeping the signature yellow as the main identity. We previously had a "Sabre Tooth" in the video games which narrowly bars Sabretooth from the green scores... but having it in yellow feels better anyway, right?

What time would it be if an elephant SAT'arn your fence? Time to get a new one--

• SAT'arn - 4/10 - I'm baffled. I've edged SAT'arn into the yellow zone on the grounds of the pure mystery factor, but what we have here is a name that sounds similar to "Saturn" but has no visual ties to the planet with the robot's design, nor has it been spelled the same way. Indeed, the presentation of the name SAT'arn is the biggest hindrance to the score as it really does look messy. The question is though, if we look beyond the planet Saturn for inspiration, what could possibly lead to the team choosing a name like SAT'arn? I have a few guesses but nothing conclusive. The robot was entered by schoolchildren, so maybe the British exams "SATs" played in? I can't remember how old you had to be to take SATs but I imagine SAT'arn was built as a school project. I think a more likely guess lies in the team members' names. SAT'arn entered Robot Wars under Sam Barber, Tom Barber, and in an old Robot Wars Wiki classic, Unidentified Female. Much as I expect this lady was probably present just to take care of the kids who couldn't legally enter the show by themselves (she's not a credited team member) but maybe her name starts with A? Or perhaps some other schoolkid just couldn't make it. My best guess is that SAT stands for three team members and it was then awkwardly fleshed out to spell "SAT'arn" (a cross between Saturn and maybe the barn that the cow mascot thingy would be kept in)… this one's on thin ice but it sure is something.

Or as it was pronounced in Dutch, SAAHTR

• Sater - 6/10 - I definitely think this name is better than it is. Named after a 'Satyr' from Greek mythology, a nature spirit with human and horse-like traits, a design that Wikipedia describes as 'comically hideous'. Does Sater look like a satyr? No. Is Sater spelled the same as satyr? No. Does it have any right to score more highly than other Greek mythology references with the same flaws? No. But something about it, I just love. I think it sounds unusually natural in Dutch, like it was always meant to be part of their language rather than our own or that of the Greeks. I guess something good did come out of Dutch Series 1 Heat E after all (foreshadowing).

Phwoar, game-changer, the logo says Sawpoint

• Saw Point (Series 4) - 7/10 - No doubt about it, Saw Point is a good name, making a pun on 'sore point' with clear visual homage in the robot's giant sawblade wheels. I've struggled to appreciate the name for a long time because the robot beneath it is the one I was introduced to first, but there's really no reason to punish Saw Point from Series 4 because of what came later.

Minus points for the rebuilt version, "Disc-struction"

• Saw Point (Extreme 2) - 3/10 - Meanwhile it's Team A-Kill's Saw Point who gets the red score. I'm honestly not even sure why the first machine was called Saw Point. Even if you overlook the name being used on Robot Wars a few years prior… Saw Point didn't even have any saws?? The robot's weapons were described as "Lifter, Thumper and Spinner", none of which I can see on the robot which appears to be a set of twin grabbing jaws. Honestly if I ranked this particular Saw Point by itself then there would be no reason to go beyond a 1/10, but thankfully the Series 7 version makes some steps to redemption. It slightly mixes up the name by jumping from Saw Point to Sawpoint II and although this name is very much still "Saw Point", it at least looks visually distinct from the other Saw Point machines. Critically, the robot was also now armed with two cutting saws! I'll stretch to a 3/10 for the slight attempt at differentiation, and the name that they took being one that was actually good (vs. something like Cobra which was never interesting in the first place).

The beast itself

• Scar - 6/10 - From Leamington Spa, Scar! That alone warranted a boosted score. One of the shortest names in Robot Wars to not be an acronym or a letter-number combo, Scar is straight to the point and very fitting for its sharpened cutting disc powered by that electric Bosch GPA 750W motor. The literal meaning of Scar is appropriate enough, but as an aside I do appreciate anything that can remind me of The Lion King, intentional or otherwise. Yes, its teeth and ambitions are bared, be prepared!

I've heard this robot bugs a few people

• Scarab (Dutch) - 2/10 - In yet another consequence of alphabetical order, we have three robots called Scarab to talk about, and I must go through them completely backwards! The third of the three Scarab machines naturally scores the lowest. The visual resemblance to a scarab beetle is kinda there, it's the only Scarab in its native Dutch series, but there are way too many Scarabs for me to offer much lenience.

The true most unfortunate victim of the arena spikes

• Scarab (UK) - 2/10 - The second Scarab is likely the one with the most resemblance to the scarab beetle, and is in general a robot I would've liked to do better in its home of Series 3 Heat P. Ignoring S.M.I.D.S.Y., I still feel like it could've been the best thing there. This Scarab had a different spelling to the first one at least, but it also competed only two years after the pioneering "Scarab" on the show, and be default is the very first repeat name within televised Robot Wars.

Devastated to realise we don't have an image of Scarey-Go-Round on the flame pit

• Scarey-Go-Round - 3/10 - And finally, the third Scarab... oh, you're not Scarab. Yes, we have to return to the third one in a little while, but Scarey-Go-Round will keep the low scores coming. It's sad too, because Scarey-Go-Round would score very well if it was just spelled correctly. Vocally, we have a transformation of "Merry-Go-Round" which is comically direct in its change of meaning and goes well with the fun fairground design of the machine, but that "Scarey" spelling has wound me up since 2003. I desperately clung onto the hope that it was another Leveller 2 or Tomahawk where the show itself just got the spelling wrong, but sadly, "Scarey-Go-Round" is written on the robot and the statistics board, teleporting the name straight into the red zone. There is a more modern US featherweight that righted the wrong by entering a competent full-body spinner into 30lb competitions with the name "Scary-Go-Round", although frustratingly this caused a few people to call my robot Scary-Go-Round instead of The Tragic Roundabout during its first few events.

If a robot's official image has to be taken from behind, perhaps you need a better paint job

• Schumey & Schumey Too - 5/10 - A very unique way to convey speed! The original Schumey machine had no real defining features other than its comparatively blistering top speed, so naming it after Michael Schumacher was quite a fun way to inject a bit of personality into the black box. Shortening it to "Schumey" is quirky to say the least, I probably needed the hint from JP that it was a Schumacher reference, but it's solid. Schumey Too enforces the racing driver theme more with its racecar design, with the "Too" suffix being a bit strange but somehow better than just "Schumey 2" for being that little bit different. It wouldn't be the last to play around with the number 2 like that, Doom wanted in on the action as well, but it was infrequent enough for me to enjoy both.

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

• Scorpion - 3/10 - This has really been a poor start, hasn't it? The only names to even pass a 5/10 so far have all been taken by other competitors now, but Scorpion over here is one that has been used countless times. Fortunately, this was the only Scorpion to compete on televised Robot Wars* but frankly the team are very lucky that this was the case. It was probably the horrifying face of the Series 4 Scorpion that put people off! Extending to the whole Robot Wars canon though, we had a middleweight "Scorpion" in the 1996 middleweight division alongside a separate Red Scorpion in the heavyweight side. BattleBots would later have its own set of Scorpion machines, King of Bots had a "Scorpion" in the very first season and an unrelated "Silver Scorpion" in the second, and none of this is even touching upon the live circuit. What I'm trying to say is not that Robot Wars Scorpion took anybody's name, it was the first in the United Kingdom and the first televised one (unless you count the RW 1996 VHS), but the name is so frighteningly generic that it was destined to be drowned in a sea of other Scorpions. Really, we're lucky that this machine was set apart by its garish design and later its genuinely potent spinning disc, because without the appeal of the robot itself, this team would really struggle to stand out with such a placeholder name.

G.B.H. 0.5

• Scrapper - 4/10 - Another generic one. Come on Robot Wars, throw me a bone here, I need some good names if I'm going to convince people to read all 16,000+ words that I've written on robots whose names start with S! While Scrapper gets some level of forgiveness because it competed in Series 1 when robot naming had no real precedent in the UK, it's not one that sticks in the mind. If anything, it almost helps that Scrapper's name was semi-stolen in Series 7, just to remind us that there was ever a "Scrapper" in the first place.

The Scraptosaur that actually had reason to be named after a dinosaur

• Scraptosaur - 3/10 - Noooooo, I've already ripped on enough robots for having really basic names today, don't make me pick on one of my favourite machines in the show! Like with M2 and Chopper, this is not an entry I've been looking forward to, as I'm forced to criticise one of the machines I like the most. It's not even the only time I have to do this in the S Range! Unfortunately, Scraptosaur is one I can't praise. Only the first of the three Scraptosaur machines looked vaguely dinosaur-like, with that being more of a reptile look in my eyes, and Robot Wars already had no shortage of names with "saur" in them anyway - see the Depoppesaurus Rex and Destructosaur entries for those particular rants. Having blown half its name on the very standard "saur" cop-out, it all fell to the first half to redeem things, but "Scrap" just doesn't deliver. There's the smaller issue of there already being a Scrapper with the fairly basic idea of turning robots into scrap, but with a name like Scraptosaur, I'd really expect the robot to look a bit more... secondhand? Scraptosaur would be a fairly fitting name for something like Dead Metal where an animalistic design has been born from genuine landfill scrap, but nothing about Scraptosaur looks like it was made this way. Who knows, maybe it really was made from scrap, but even the first one looked like it was pretty intentional in its design and the other ones only looked more refined and pretty from there. It was also a fairly clever idea to name the sequel Scrap-2-Saur, it was much more interesting than "Scraptosaur 2", but ended up spoiled by the use of Roman Numerals. Reading "Scrap-II-Saur" just makes you pause to think about how you're supposed to say it. I certainly wouldn't want to change much about the physical builds of Scrap-II-Saur and Scraptosaur 03, they jumped into my favourite robots list for a reason, but I definitely would want to give them a new name.

If you look really closely, there is a small Skutter logo on one of the white stripes

• Scutter's Revenge - 7/10 - I'm glad we were able to wait a little while before the Scutterbots made their first appearance in the blog, because our (read: entirely Toon Ganondorf’s) recent conversations with team member Oluremi Idris have revealed a lot of things about the name Scutter's Revenge that we didn't know previously. What we did clearly understand was that it's a tribute to Red Dwarf in an effort to appease presenter Craig Charles, much like Inquisitor from the previous series. Although Inquisitor was the first Red Dwarf reference on Robot Wars, Scutter's Revenge is the one that borrows its name from a much more robotic entity in that universe, namely the Skutter cleaning robots aboard the spaceship. These things already looked very Robot Wars-y in their design and it was a natural name choice for a competitor in the Craig Charles era. I'm really pleased it went to a heat-winning series veteran like this. Sure, Scutter's Revenge probably needed some kind of claw weapon to complete the look, but the reference was worth making either way. The one thing we weren't too sure on was the spelling, because the Red Dwarf robots were spelled as "Skutter", leaving us unsure if the change to Scutter was an error or an intentional change. Thanks to Remi, we now know that the robot did attend the auditions under the name "Skutter's Revenge", which was later changed to play it safe with copyright rules. I can't argue with that! The only real flaw with the name is that the Scutterbots lineage is a little confusing when viewed out of sequence. Between the two names "Spawn of Scutter" and "Scutter's Revenge", it would be a very natural assumption that Scutter's Revenge was the second of the two to compete, with "Revenge" itself being an oft-used subtitle anyway, but these are just minor things. I think this name is brill n interesting.

Say goodbye to the antweights!

• Serpant - 4/10 - And so we've made it to the final antweight competitor in Robot Wars! Within just the early stages of the S Range, they're already done. For many years, we knew this robot as "The Serpent" because our only evidence towards the robot's name was Jonathan Pearce mentioning it one time in the Robot Rampage. It was only a fairly recent discovery that the name is in fact "Serpant". Just when you thought there were no more Ant puns in the antweight division, another one comes along and says "you missed a spot". Well, points for subtlety I suppose, but something about "Serpant" just looks off. It's too believable of a misspelling for me.

I wouldn’t be much of a marketing graduate if I didn’t back up the public branding

• Sgt. Bash - 5/10 - Our next House Robot is Sgt. Bash, a name that has given me a fair bit of grief on the wiki ever since somebody made an executive decision that all written instances on our site had to be written as "Sergeant Bash" in full. This was merely because of an on-screen introductory title in Series 1-2, even though future titles and stat boards in the other series, along with the surface of the robot's shell, its toys, video game appearances, everything surrounding it would all use the proper name. Of course, that would be Sgt. Bash. We now have an odd compromise where Series 1-2 mentions of Sgt. Bash are written out as "Sergeant Bash" while the other series are allowed to get it right. One of these days we'll sort out that actual page title. Personal aggravations aside, the name is fine, it's unique enough for merchandising and has clearly stuck in the minds of casual fans more than most of the other House Robots, even if it sounds just a little bit silly.

Even Sgt. Meikle gets the proper page name

• Sgt. Meikle - 3/10 - Did I roll out of bed on the wrong side today? I swear I've been handing out red scores more than any other colour. I've never been keen on the name Sgt. Meikle though, it feels a bit cheeky to try and put your competitor robot on the same footing as the House Robot above it. You then really need to know someone with the surname "Meikle" to have a clue what that could possibly mean (or even how to spell it). The name is a tribute to the engineering lecturer that taught the thirteen team members the skills they would need to build their machine. Yes, it took thirteen people to build Sgt. Meikle. Much as I really should respect the students for naming the robot after their teacher, I just can't get over how awkward Sgt. Meikle sounds on this grim reaper-esque machine and I can't convince myself otherwise.

• Shadow Fiend - 6/10 - A bit of a guilty pleasure is hidden among one of the remaining Series 2 lightweights that we still haven't been able to associate directly to a robot. If I had to guess, Shadow Fiend will be the boxy one with black spraypaint, while Damacles is the rounded unpainted one. Perhaps we'll never know. Regardless, the name "Shadow Fiend" is completely over-the-top and awarding such a menacing and dastardly name to a lightweight we can't even identify is quite amusing. #RememberShadowFiend

The only Napalm to have eyeballs, something sorely missing from the canon Napalm machines

• Shadow of Napalm - 3/10 - This one is less of a name rating and more an analysis of its mere existence, but Shadow of Napalm is a massive continuity blotch that really never needed to happen. The Napalm story has always been a fun one, a clearly below-average robot from a fun team that keeps coming back to Robot Wars with expectations of failure, yet it still made it past the first round every single time. In no way did Shadow of Napalm break this, it made the Heat semi-final in similarly surprising circumstances, seed or no seed. While it was perhaps the worst Napalm robot yet with even the basic fundamentals of movement somehow outside of its capabilities, it was still Napalm with the same team, history and amateurish charm. Except wow, this isn't Napalm, it's Shadow of Napalm! As far as I was concerned, that just meant it was the second Napalm machine, so I still remember my confusion in seeing that we treat Shadow of Napalm as a completely separate robot to the Napalm seen in Series 2-3 and 5, despite machines like Spirit of Scorpion/Knightmare sharing a page. Why is this? Sadly, it was the team's own desire to retcon Shadow of Napalm from history that put us in this situation. Clearly, the team were quite unhappy with Shadow of Napalm hardly even driving properly, so they returned to Series 5 with the name "Napalm 2". Uhhhh what about Shadow of Napalm?? So that's not the second Napalm then? Even though it's called Shadow of Napalm? Jeez, I didn't think the Shadow part was so distinguishing. I understand the frustrations at the robot not working, but I wouldn't want to remove it from history, it still made the second round and went out to Dominator II of all things, all while bringing that classic Napalm fun. I wish it could've just been called "Napalm". To fully secure the red score... have you ever thought about how strange a name like "Shadow of Napalm" actually is? We just know it as the Shadow of the deceptively successful Robot Wars crumbling ship Napalm, but what if you actually thought about it as the shadow of real-world Napalm as it falls onto your burning face-- you know what, let's stop there.

I'd guess the blue shell was the most recognisable of the first Shapeshifter after it was blown up by Matilda, but here's how it looked in the beginning

• Shapeshifter - 8/10 - Surprise! The current leader of the S Range is, of all things, Shapeshifter. Of course, a name like Shapeshifter would be rubbish if the robot didn't actually "shapeshift", but the gimmick that this team brought to the Dutch Battles is secretly one of the best ideas I've seen for a competitor/team theme. Shapeshifter would sport a new paint job in every battle it entered, with the team also regularly changing outfits in interviews and fights. I think this sadly slipped under the radar for many people because most would not watch interviews in a language they don't speak, nor did Shapeshifter have many fights to show off its different themes. It at least managed to go from bumblebee yellow-and-black in its Dutch Series 1 opener to the all-blue shell that Matilda obliterated in the losers' melee, but I would think that most people picture the bulldozer-shaped Shapeshifter from Dutch Series 2 when the name is brought up. I imagine the second Shapeshifter would've needed a fairly generous draw to reach the second round, but I wish it could have, if only to see some more paint and costume changes. Instead the second Shapeshifter is just a singular identity, which is a shame. Still, we know what the team were going for, and the name Shapeshifter sells it very well.

Dolphin Attack, more like a shark that's been slapped around the blowhole

• Shark Attack - 4/10 - There's not a great deal to praise about the name "Shark Attack" but it's fine enough, it's certainly better than having another Hammerhead! Plenty of good shark names were available at the time like Megalodon and Great White, but these have all now been used on much more notable machines around the world, so it's a slight relief that this one-time loser was just left with something basic like Shark Attack. Plus, it gave us another "extremely Robot Wars Wiki" fact check like the Rattus Rattus one, whereby our article colourfully mentions that Craig Charles' quote of "Shark Attack: more like a dolphin that's been slapped around the gills" is factually incorrect because dolphins are mammals that do not have gills. Whatever would I have done without that information!? It's still on the page now but to be honest, it's got to stay for comedy archival purposes...

For a one-time competitor that was turned over in 20 seconds, Shear Khan gets a surprising amount of love

• Shear Khan - 6/10 - We've had the sabretooth cat, but now it's the turn of the tiger here with Shear Khan, earning a matching 6/10. Referencing Shere Khan, the main antagonist of The Jungle Book, this was perhaps the best tiger you could name a robot after. Changing 'Shere' (itself based on the Persian word 'shir', meaning tiger) to 'Shear' (another word for cutting, like the robot's weapons would attempt) is a clever way to bypass Disney's legal stronghold, slipping a nice Rudyard Kipling reference into Robot Wars with few complications.

I'm one of the oldest species that the world has ever seen, I hardly seem to move but you can see where I have been...

• Shell Shock (Series 3) - 6/10 - I'm embarrassed to admit that yes, I am one of the many people in the world who nicknamed their Blastoise "Shell Shock", I'm sure that I was one of thousands. A name like Shell Shock is certainly obvious for a tortoise-themed robot, it was hardly going to be named after the tortoise poetry of Chinese warlord Cáo Cāo, was it? Shell Shock was going to get snapped up quickly, it's very easily distanced from its slightly darker origins and we’d be remiss if we didn't have at least one on the show. No great degree of pace to this particular machine, but a good laugh.

• Shell Shock (Series 7) - 2/10 - I didn't ask for a second one though. You know why the score is a 2/10, so let's just lay down some praise instead. I do appreciate the idea of the Fat Boy Tin team making a snail-themed robot after their previous machine famously took a real, living snail into battle in the Robot Wars Arena. One final bonus, at least it gave us the iconic "Don't forget, Robot Wars fans, if the judges SAY-IT'S-BEEN-IMMOBILISED-TOO-LONG-IT'S-OUT-AND-THAT-CERTAINLY-IS-NOW-SHELL-SHOCK-GONE"

Qshockwave

• Shockwave (Extreme) - 5/10 - Boy, as if the Saw Points, Scarabs and Shell Shocks weren't enough, we're having another pair of name duplicates immediately after the last one! Oddly we've managed to separately talk about both of the Shockwaves already, with this particular Shockwave being the best name of the Q Range thanks to its Techno Games appearance as Quadsey... but here, its actual Shockwave name is just fine. Rather, I should say that it's a good name, just not for this robot. The entire visual identity of the thing is a policeman's hat, wrapped in police tape, all while being entered into the Forces Special by actual members of the Police Force. So why is it called Shockwave then? The floor was open to so many police-themed names like The Copper, Peeler, Walloper, Lestrade, Eye of the Law, Paddy Wagon, Cops & Robots... anything you can think of, really. Or just call it Quadsey so I can actually have a Q Range! Honestly, it's quite odd that only two of the six Forces Special competitors were actually named in reference to the service they represented, while only three have unique names now.

No disrespect to this Shockwave, but why did the producers pick it over Maelstrom

• Shockwave (Series 8) - 3/10 - Introducing the main reason we all wish the previous machine was called Quadsey, the second but much more important Shockwave machine. Representing a team who had long been known as "Team Shock", this robot beautifully set up the excellent sequel name Aftershock, and unlike Manta for example, taking the name from a forgotten one-time loser like the first Shockwave is much easier to accept. Naturally I have to award a low score like I do to all of the duplicate names, but I won't harp on Shockwave anymore, the number of two-time names in the S Range has grown tiring and it's far from over. Clearly I have no reason to appeal to Will Thomas with my write-ups as he has unexpectedly read my scathing Manta entry, to which all I can say is... whoops.

I never really noticed it in the arena, but that sure is a giant angry Shogunate man's face

• Shogun - 6/10 - The world refuses to let me move on from repeat names, because now we have Shogun whose name was taken by an upcoming UK featherweight. This typically wouldn't be worth mentioning on the blog, all kinds of names we've already covered will have been taken by lower weight class machines without me knowing, but this one hits a little closer to home. Literally, because parts of the featherweight Shogun are currently in my house. Shaking my head Alex, you’ve seen the first episode of Robot Wars. Anyway, the televised Shogun is worthy of a bit of credit. A name like Shogun typically represents the Japanese warrior class within the Shogunate era, although Jonathan Pearce's comments suggest this may actually be named after the Shogun starship from Star Trek. The artwork on top that I never really noticed until today then suggests back the other way. No matter the origin, it's pretty solid. Shogunate Japan is full of tons upon tons of good robot names, it's a good avenue to explore if you're struggling to come up with something.

I'm running the risk of ShorT CirCuiT being the next Manta where the builder discovers my harshly written write-up, but I've just gotta tell it like it is

• ShorT CirCuiT - 2/10 - Ohhhhh here we go. This is one of those names that has been long-awaited in the blog because... well, just look at it! Let's rate the standard "Short Circuit" first. This much simpler name is how we knew the robot from its appearance in 2002 until last year where builder Nathaniel Poate reached out to our community. Short Circuit was a simple enough name fitting for a robot, hence there already being a famous 1986 comedy film called Short Circuit all about a robot. I don't think the Robot Wars competitor was a deliberate reference, it was probably just a nod to the common electric failure. I'd give it a 5/10, I think, maybe a 6/10 on a good day. This is certainly a higher score than I would award to the name Short Circuit used in the Series 3-4 qualifiers, the almighty "NataPataBot". I appreciate Nat's honesty in telling us this, but wow... NataPataBot?? Named after the team members Nathaniel and Patrick with your normal -Bot suffix thrown on the end, that name which I'll generously call a "working title" was a hot mess. Much as it's fun to picture this Series 6 exclusive competing all the way back in the Second Wars, it is a relief we didn't see Short Circuit on TV until after its name change, simply to spare us of having a televised competitor called NataPataBot. Thankfully that doesn't factor into the rating, we're judging Short Circuit... except we're not. We're judging ShorT CirCuiT. Take a moment to look at that name and recognise that someone genuinely thought this was a good idea. I could write this off as just a logo, but Nat was quite specific in telling us that "Short Circuit was short hand, the proper title was ShorT CirCuiT but only because of aesthetic reasons". Again, I appreciate the total honesty in telling us, but we were almost certainly better off not knowing. Who knew that such a simple name like Short Circuit was hiding dark secrets like NataPataBot and ShorT CirCuiT? I can only laugh in helplessness.

• Shrapnel - 4/10 - Something something UK featherweight, something something took the name, yadda yadda. Heavyweight robot Shrapnel competed in the Third Wars with a name that is just completely unremarkable. Generating a bit of shrapnel is the best thing it could hope to achieve with its milling cutter thingy, instead we got to see it craftily pitted by The Big Cheese. This name is passable but just a bit unimpressive, it didn't desperately need to be used once, never mind twice.

If Shredder really was a TMNT reference then Shredder Evolution would probably be called Super Shredder

• Shredder - 3/10 - Come on blog, give me a break!! After a big block of entries full of dull names, flawed concepts, repeat names and few scores beyond a 6/10 where our biggest reprieve so far is Shapeshifter of all things, I must once again revisit the Scraptosaur issue and berate the name of a robot I love. If I loved Scraptosaur, then I really love Shredder, this is right up there in the top five for robots I like the most. Yet the name is just... so average!! Armed with two cutting discs, the robot is called Shredder, that's it, that's the origin. There's an outside chance that Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles factored in. I doubt it. It's just a robotic shredding device with the same name as your typical office shredder. Wow, it can cut through paper! So could MouseTrap, and Shredder clearly couldn't deal with that either. Series 7 later gave us Shredder Evolution, a worthy enough subtitle for the heavily revised machine, but the core concept of a cutting robot called Shredder remains. I'll just stop myself here before I say anything worse about this robot, I don’t have the heart.

R.C.L 221219: RoboChallenge Limited, 22nd December 1987, what an Easter egg from the Coopers on Shunt’s armour

• Shunt - 4/10 - Of the House Robot names, the worst was… well, Cassius Chrome. Then it’s Shunt. All of the other House Robots were very careful to have totally unique names for merchandising purposes, ones that also sounded like characters and felt alive. From Matilda to Sgt. Bash, Sir Killalot to Mr. Psycho, all of these names could be given to a WWE fighter - even Growler felt alive as a big robot dog. Shunt was just Shunt. That's all there is to it, it's a single word which sells the idea of how well it can push things. This is fine for a competitor, but I could never buy the idea of Shunt being a living personality in the same regard as the rest. Even Dead Metal at least looked like a creature despite its name! Beyond this, "Shunt" is just so inherently plain compared to its immediate family that I have to mark it - sorry, "him" - down on points.

Shuriken casually making an appearance in every episode of Series 5

• Shuriken - 7/10 - Finally, we have a happy ending when it comes to the oft-recurring tale of repeated names. Shuriken is an example where I was somehow responsible for preventing name duplication! A mate of mine and fellow member of Team Immersion has recently built an absolutely beautiful new featherweight, made entirely out of 3D printed parts while running on tracks and fighting with a gigantic undercutting disc. It really is a spectacle to look at and I can't wait to see it in the arena. With its three-bladed disc being such a prominent feature of the machine, Shuriken was to be the leading name for the robot. Luckily, I was around to mention Shuriken from Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors and instead we were able to shift over to "Kakute", a Japanese weapon which translates into English as 'death ring'. A satisfying conclusion, I'd say. Meanwhile the Robot Wars competitor Shuriken is something I'll gladly stretch to a 7/10 on, maybe I'm just burnt out on poor names in this range, but a robot with a strong Japanese theme and two miniature cutting discs is very worthy of a name like Shuriken and it also set up Ninjitsu very well. Smiles all around.

You really don't know how tempted I was to score Silver Box as a 5 or a 6 purely because the terrible name makes me laugh

• Silver Box - 3/10 - I mean, they aren't kidding, it is a silver box!! I imagine most of the loanerbots were generally unnamed until they were claimed by their teams, maybe some of the most thematically obvious machines like Tut Tut and Rot Box gained their original King Tut and Rot Bot titles in advance, but the teams were quite welcome to name the robots whatever they wanted (e.g. Joker). I think what happened here is that nobody had settled on a name for this robot, the producers said "right, you're having the silver box", and the team thought they were under some obligation to keep it. It's laughably simple but I really shouldn't give it points just for being funny-bad.

There's something contradictory about "Class Act" being written in WordArt

• Sir Chromalot - 4/10 - Awww, I don't want to have to criticise Sir Chromalot for anything. We all love the charming wit of The Class Act and the robot always had our support in battle just to keep Steve and Ray on our screens that little bit longer. Unfortunately, the name wasn't really part of the appeal. I think it's meant to be a deliberate jab at Sir Killalot to try and wind up the in-house people, which certainly wouldn't be out of character, but I much prefer the Jonathan Pearce rivalry they later settled upon. If it was more on the nose like Sir Killanot or Sir Killedalot then I'd at least find it funny, but something so distant like Sir Chromalot leaves enough doubt to make you wonder if this was the name they really wanted. It's rightfully regal for the Class Act but I've never thought it flowed particularly well, or that chrome was a defining feature of the robot.

Siren, more like Sigh-ren hahahaha

• Siren - 5/10 - Breaking up these prestigious Sirs is Siren, unless you want to call it Sir En, of course. This name could be great when done effectively. There are two very different meanings of the word 'Siren' - the killer mermaid Siren, or the alarm Siren. One meaning is of course much better than the other and I would have loved to see a fully mermaid-themed Siren to charm and shipwreck the opposing robots. Sadly, the simple sheet metal outer coating of Siren gives no clues to the team's intention, but the exterior is so boring that if I was forced to guess, they probably named it after the standard everyday siren. You can just see a little flashing siren being there in the centre to give this lumbering thing any sense of identity. For not only leaving doubt between the two meanings, but also failing to live up to either one of the themes, a potentially high-scoring Siren is stunted at a 5/10.

Forceful Gentleman

• Sir Force A Lot - 2/10 - Again with the knock-off House Robots, but this one's particularly bad. Sir Force A Lot is definitely down there with my least favourite Extreme Warriors names, where again the team didn't really clear up whether it was a parody of Sir Killalot or not. I guess being explicit about it would just make you a target for the deadliest House Robot in the warzone, it wouldn't be a wise move, but without creating that rivalry it just sounds like a bad piece of copied homework. Maybe the team really had just never watched Robot Wars before and wanted to reference Sir Lancelot by changing technically only three letters, but the whole thing sounds so different to both Lancelot and Killalot that it really falls flat. The spelling is even more aggravating. Sir Forcealot (or Sir Forcelot) would still score quite poorly, but using “Sir Force A Lot” has actively pushed this down to a 2/10, it really is unreasonably irritating.

When do we get a separate article for Sir K

• Sir Killalot - 5/10 - Finally we get to the source of the dodgy Sir Lancelot tributes, the main man Sir Killalot. Truly the only machine that can take on Razer, Chaos 2 and Hypno-Disc for the title of most famous Robot Wars machine, and I reckon Sir Killalot probably takes it. The head honcho of the House Robots and potentially the single most important Robot Wars robot altogether is one that absolutely required a unique and memorable name. Is Sir Killalot a memorable name? Yes, I would say so, I've heard it recalled more easily than the big spinning one, the massive claw and the one that throws things right up into the air. Being in pretty much every episode ever made will do that, I suppose! So, the name is unique, is it good? Ehhhhh, good enough. While it was necessary to stray quite far from Lancelot for branding purposes, Sir Killalot has lost a lot of that original meaning and just substituted it for perhaps the most obvious of the evil-words. This cost the show a key name when Nickelodeon Robot Wars had to adopt the more child-friendly name "Sir K" for its six episodes. Frankly, I don't even disagree, I'm sure plenty of kids were discouraged from watching a show called Robot Wars and becoming long-time fans because parents didn't want their children calling their toys "Sir Killalot" and saying it to their friends at school. Gonna have to split this one down the middle.

Yo check out my six pac dude, I've been doin Muay Thai in the gym mate

• Six Pac - 6/10 - I'm sat here thinking about why this robot might have adopted the spelling "Six Pac" rather than the more conventional "Six Pack" and I can't say I have many ideas. I briefly considered a link to the famous rapper 2Pac, but the timing would be a little unfortunate in 1999. I guess it must have purely been for a bit of differentiation, but whether it be Six Pac or Six Pack, I quite like this one. Whether you think of it as a beach bod six pack or a six pack of beer cans, it's all a good bit of fun for this six-wheel driven robot.

Oh wow, there is a scarab beetle on it

• Skarab - 5/10 - Did you forget about me? The third Scarab on our list was the first one to compete on the show, that being Skarab from Robot Wars: The First Wars. You'd think the strange letter substitution that gave us "Skarab" over Scarab would be a measure made to set it apart from previous Scarabs... instead it somehow managed to future-proof itself! There really was a better way to future-proof the relevance of your name though, and that was simply to not call the robot Skarab. This machine was by far the least insect-like of the Scarab machines, with just a bit of artwork on top of the robot representing its namesake. The low quality of Series 1 on YouTube is really showing its flaws, because I didn't spot the shogun on Shogun or the scarab on Skarab until today. Because of this, I've grown to prefer the name "Slow-Moving Piece of Cheese on Toast". SMPOCOT for short...!

What did poor old Yoshi do to you??

• Skullmania - 5/10 - Boy you must really love skulls to end up with a name like Skullmania. It's quite committed but I do like that. However, after learning that this team would also enter BattleBots with a robot called "Yoshikillerbot", I'm suddenly concerned just how badly this team really do like skulls. D-do they want to see mine? If you're bloodthirsty enough to wish death on a poor old Yoshi then you must have quite a grim outlook on living creatures as a whole... harrowing.

• Slamtilt - 6/10 - Simplicity worked well for this one. It slams, it tilts, it's Slamtilt! I'd never seen these two words combined outside of Robot Wars, although a bit of research tells me that Slam Tilt is the name of a PC pinball game. I'll stick to my 3D Space Cadet Pinball cheers. Although Slamtilt is certainly on the literal side of names, it's got quite a nice ring to it and for that it gets a thumbs up.

Apparently putting the RAF logo on your robot was the key to winning the championship

• Slicer - 3/10 - Seeing as we're talking about Dutch champions, now might be a good time to mention my PulverizeR segment was totally wrong. The whole name was a reference to a band, with the R capitalised on both PullverizeR and PulverizeR. It was also originally going to be called "Petunia"... I wonder if they'll ever use that name! Slicer, however, is a much poorer name than the second champion. Armed with a spinning weapon, it's capable of slicing things. That is the full extent of the meaning, unless you're going to argue the team were inspired by a paper slicer. Shredder was enough. It's completely basic and household, not an impactful enough name for an otherwise very worthy champion, particularly when the drum proved to be much more of a thrower than a slicer.

"Weird - yes. Guaranteed unique - yes. Sufficiently cryptic to avoid hassle from the censors - yes." --A real quote from the team (I’m clearly missing something here)

• Slippery Strana - 6/10 - This one's a journey, man. I have no idea what to make of it, a total balance of good, bad, and things I don't understand. I'll just let the wiki's etymology section speak for itself and you lot can make your own judgments: "Slippery Strana's unusual name was derived from The Axle Grinders' decision to give their robot an 'elusive' and 'surreal' identity. The "Slippery" part was adopted as a result of the high top speeds of the robot's prototype, and in turn influenced the octopus logo on its bodyshell. "Strana", meanwhile, was a portmanteau of 'strawberry' and 'banana', which not only alluded to the robot's yellow and red colour scheme, but also - according to the team's website - contained a hidden innuendo which complied with the family-friendly nature of Robot Wars." Talk about a chapter and verse. I'd probably go to a 7/10 and beyond on pure novelty value and uniqueness but it bothers me that I'm once again oblivious to dirty jokes. To be honest I thought it was just called Slippery Strana because it looks like a bar of soap...

I'm convinced Small Torque was built in 2015, where it travelled fifteen years back in time and the world made sure it would catch fire in battle so that a robot this modern could not win the series

• Small Torque - 9/10 - Thank heavens for Small Torque! Finally, we get something in the S Range that's really, really good. After 44 robots beginning with S where the best name of the bunch was Shapeshifter of all things, Small Torque comes to our rescue - even if it is just the third entry in the All Torque series that we've already discussed several times already. Looking at each Team Torque entry individually, they all had the perfect name for that revision. All Torque was based on perhaps the most well-known phrase and was most at home on the entirely-pushing robot. Small Torque was the smallest machine, still fairly contemporary in its design even now, taking yet another great phrase with its own sub-meaning. Finally Fighting Torque was the biggest and most weaponised of the three, who should've been the most fitting for its own name. I do wish it was a bit more, y'know, competent - but we got what we got. I really think All Torque and Small Torque are equals in terms of name quality, certainly if the robots entered in the other order then I'd prefer All Torque, but Small Torque worked best as the downsized sequel. Looking back at the A Range (man I can't believe how short the entries used to be), it appears I gave All Torque only an 8/10, but clearly both are equally worthy of at least a 9/10.

Ess Emm Eye, Dee Ess Why

• S.M.I.D.S.Y. - 9/10 - Woohoo, two classics in a row! Let's get the slight negative out of the way first and say S.M.I.D.S.Y. missed out on a maximum score because of the excessive full stops. Simply "SMIDSY" would go all the way, but the hard-to-type rule (including its own little "hard to end sentences with" rule) has blocked S.M.I.D.S.Y. from a complete victory. But that's my only criticism of an otherwise outstanding name. I'm hardly providing new information to you all in saying that S.M.I.D.S.Y. is a reference to motorcycling, with "Sorry Mate, I Didn't See You" being the most common excuse from vehicle drivers as to why they put a motorcyclist in danger on the road. All of Team Ixion's first few televised members and many more off-screen team members were all part of a motorcycling group split across the country, with the team forming over internet chat rooms (hence "From Cyberspace"). I think it's brilliant that we had a Robot Wars team who all shared a common interest outside of robotics, and got together to build a robot with strong references to their main passion. The acronym S.M.I.D.S.Y. is a really memorable and easily spoken shorthand for an equally entertaining full name. Super Material, I Do Say, Yes.

I keep thinking Chris Danby is in this photo

• Snake Bite (Extreme Warriors) - 6/10 - A name like Snake Bite makes perfect sense. This robot first competed in Robotica as Viper, so some kind of snake-themed robot with a biting weapon was always on the cards either way, but I would suggest Snake Bite is probably a better name then Viper was. You've got the implication of the weaponry in there alongside the hidden alcoholic meaning. I will mention that Viper ended up playing a real rarity in its return to Robotica, with the sequel being called not Viper 2, not Viper Mk II, but specifically "Viper Revision 2". I can't think of anyone else who adopted that kind of naming convention.

Bit of a missed opportunity that it's a Swiss robot full of holes and wasn't some kind of Swiss cheese joke

• Snake Bite (Swiss) - 3/10 - The second Snake Bite is our friend from Switzerland, the one that admittedly comes to my mind first. Though arguably less snake-like in its design, Snake Bite was the one I knew of way earlier and the robot itself I feel is a little underappreciated. It's not a bad crusher by any means. It gets a lower score than the US robot Snake Bite because it was definitely the second of the two to compete on televised Robot Wars, but this was only the case by a matter of months (early 2002 vs late 2002) rather than years. That's enough for me to spare it of a dreadful score - it's just a shame the wiki ends up with the awkwardly long "Snake Bite (Extreme Warriors)" and the one-off "Snake Bite (Swiss)" as a result. Big thumbs down to the European Championship for giving us hope when it accidentally used the spelling “Snake Byte”.

It's relatively stealthy, but the eyes make it feel less of a Sniper

• Sniper - 6/10 - This one was honestly nearly a 7/10. On the basis of the name on its own, I could definitely still see it that way. It's a uniform name that somehow hasn't been snapped up by another notable robot that I know of. Definitely one fit for the combat arena. I've just edged Sniper back into the 6/10 region because I really don't get what's going on with the visuals. With a robot called Sniper, you'd expect the visuals to be stealthy, military, or just plain jet black. Instead the robot is... an alligator? Wha? Why?? If ever you see an alligator wielding a sniper rifle, please let me know.

Moment of celebration for the fact that the Snookums team are still competing with fish-themed robots on massive tyres to this day

• Snookums - 8/10 - Genuinely a delightful little name. Seeing Ed Robinson and John Hoffman arrive in their pirate outfits with the sea sailor accents and parrot mascot, it seemed incredibly obvious that this robotic swordfish would have some kind of pirate-themed name. If not a pirate theme, then at least something vaguely aquatic! However, this team had no interest whatsoever in meeting expectations and they instead called their predatory sea creature... "Snookums". Yep, you got me, well done guys. This is an alternative way of carrying out the Fluffy style of naming, where a harmful fighting robot has been given one of the most inoffensive and cuddly names available, with Snookums being a particularly American term to give the robot. All of a sudden, you do find this fighting swordfish to suddenly be... quite cute! Mission accomplished.

It's just a little bothersome how the jaws are closed in the photo, you wouldn't put Chompalot in the arena with its claw down

• Sobek - 6/10 - Now this is the kind of name that you would expect on a robot like Sniper! This machine who is actively based on a crocodile (despite looking a lot less like one) takes its name from the Egyptian God of crocodiles who controlled the waters. I'd love if we could build a triangle of name swaps: let's chuck in Storm II as an example, a successful robot with a stealthy jet black design who deserves a much better name than it has. We give the ideal Sobek name onto the body of Sniper, making it a fitting crocodile tribute. Next, we take the name Sniper and give it to Storm II, giving that sleek machine a great name worthy of its appearance and success. Finally, we palm off the rubbish Storm II name on the poor old husk we once knew as Sobek. At least it'll be the only "Storm" in Extreme Warriors. Problem solved... as long as you're willing to throw Sobek under the bus.

Introducing Soc'em!!!

• Soc'em - 5/10 - Who??? Wow, we've really done it, we've actually made it to a Robot Wars competitor that I cannot recall in any capacity. There was a robot on Robot Wars called Soc'em? I'm even reading this from my own Ragnabot competitors list that I clearly wrote Soc'em into, but this feels like the first time I’ve ever typed it. Time for a live reaction, which weight class in Series 2 did this compete in... Super Heavyweight apparently. Hope it socked it to 'em.

Gone are the days of Razer clones, the reboot era gave us an unironic Tiberius clone

• Soldier Ant - 8/10 - With a generous score of 8/10, Soldier Ant is far above average for the S Range so far, but would you believe it's only a little above average for Battle of the Stars? With stern competition from Arena Cleaner, Kadeena Machina and Robo Savage, this is the firm fourth-best name out of the eight competitors, unless you find great amusement in John Reid's Big Pink Dee. More commonly known as an "army ant", a soldier ant may only be small, but they can deliver bites that could even prove fatal for humans, very fitting for this crusher. While it's technically no different from the likes of Scarab in that it takes an insect name and applies it to a robot with a crusher, this has the added advantage of its generally combat-ready name, and the educational aspect. The whole theme of Neil Oliver being on Battle of the Stars (other than him living ten minutes away from the studio, pretend it's planned) was to bring along a factual television presenter and allow his children to learn about the world of engineering. I'm pleased that I too was able to learn something from this machine - I'd never heard of a soldier ant or an army ant before this robot came along, but I certainly know them now! An appreciated bit of seriousness in a realm of celebrity robot names that were either hilarious or just dreadful.

Unlike Sonic, I don't chuckle, I rather flex my flipper

• Sonic - 5/10 - Right. The question has to be asked. Is it a reference to Sonic the Hedgehog, or is it just called Sonic? It's certainly not a rule that everything named "Sonic" has to be a gaming reference. It could just be a nod to the robot's high top speed, or a sonic boom, but we're hardly going to get a clue by looking at the team's previous name, Barry. I should specify the names are SONIC and BARRY if you take the team's website at face value... I'll overlook that for now and write it off as the website trying to look stylish. Sonic does have eyes and a few spines on the wedge, but it still looks nothing like the famous hedgehog. I'm really 50/50 on whether it's a reference or not, and I'm similarly 50/50 when rating the name overall.

Father of Armageddon

• Son of Armageddon - 5/10 - With a name like Son of Armageddon, the likelihood of it being a reference to something or just a made-up name was probably about equal. I dropped it into Google and the top-level results were a 2006 rock album by The Order (too late to be a reference), and our own Diotoir's YouTube upload of the "Foreign Favourite", Son of Armageddon vs Tyke vs Thorgrim. Frankly if that qualifies as a "foreign favourite" then I look forward to seeing literally every single fight from German, Dutch and American Robot Wars uploaded to YouTube over the coming weeks. I could say that bringing attention to that fight is like actively trying to make someone never watch Robot Wars ever again... but then I also did a fandub of German Heat A with NJGW, so I should probably shut up. Five-outta-ten, a seemingly quite unique name but not one that's particularly interesting.

Spam spam spam spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam

• Spam - 7/10 - Spam spam spam spam spam... I could comprise this entire section purely by repeating the word spam, but this robot isn't explicitly a Monty Python reference (although I'm sure it helped). It's this robot's tin-opener style weapon which led to the name Spam... at least the builder realises he went to the whole bother of building a flywheel weapon just to turn it into a tin-opener! Spam is a great little homage to get across the tinned food idea without just calling the robot Tin-Opener. Spam spam spam spam spam...

This was built by a reboot team...

• Spartacus (Lightweight) - 6/10 - Ugh, another Anarchy/Ripper where some irrelevant Series 2 lower weight class machine that nobody remembers swept in and took first dibs at a good name before the more important heavyweight could come along. This makes it so difficult to rate both halves of a duo. Featherweight Anarchy, Featherweight The Ripper and Lightweight Spartacus are all machines that I want to mark down because they prevented the more deserving heavyweights from getting there first. Then it's those heavyweight robots that I have to mark down, even if I don't want to. So for now, I'll force myself to give this Spartacus a 6/10 for its good name with minimal homage in its visual design...

Did the show even one time call it "Spartacus II" vocally?

• Spartacus (US) - 5/10 - ...While the American machine that actually bears the helmet of Spartacus, by necessity, sadly has to score lower. Life's not fair. There's no reason why the American team would be aware of a Series 2 lightweight whose name didn't make the broadcast edit, but once it did cross over to the Seventh Wars for the Third World Championship, it became the second Spartacus to compete on Robot Wars in the UK and so I'm simply not allowed to give it a higher score than the previous one. I suppose it did enter Series 7 as "Spartacus II", but not exactly a complete fix.

Ah yes, the improved version for Extreme 2, the bridge between Respawn and Respawn Again, guess this one is still Respawning

• Spawn Again - 7/10 - The Scutterbots are all out of order now, so we'll have to talk about the "Spawn" side of things in the next entry, but this one was important in that the reference to Skutters from Red Dwarf was now totally absent. And that's fine - the Scutter part of the name survived through two whole series, Craig Charles went through all of Series 4 without making a second Red Dwarf joke, it was now safe to let go. "Spawn" had become the new trademark and topping it off with "Again" is such an unexpected sequel name that I really appreciate it a lot. The obvious option would've been to call the robot "Respawn" and this would've scored similarly. In fact, I would've been open to the rebuilt Series 6 version of Spawn Again being called Respawn as a separate successor to Series 5's Spawn Again. Then realistically the Series 7 version ends up being called Respawn Again. It would've been hard to properly rate Spawn Again, Respawn and Respawn Again in the Top 100 Icons, mind you. Anyway, Spawn Again is the name that spanned three series and it's a total oddity that I accept with an open embrace.

Spawn spawn spawn spawn, lovely spawn, wonderful spawn

• Spawn of Scutter - 6/10 - Now we get to Spawn of Scutter, which I've ranked as the lowest of the three Scutterbots, but it's still good of course. The necessary bridge to tie Scutter's Revenge and Spawn Again together, Spawn of Scutter was relatively unique in its Fourth Wars debut, with "Spawn" being a never-before-seen way to introduce a sequel robot. They couldn't use Revenge of Scutter's Revenge after all! It is still a little confusing how Spawn of Scutter came after Scutter's Revenge and not the other way around, but on the whole a useful addition to the pack.

Ah yes, the King of Bots champion and strongest crusher in history, Spectre

• Spectre - 6/10 - I'm delighted to announce that we've arrived at the King of Bots champion and the pinnacle of Robo Challenge design work, Spectre! What's that? This isn't the King of Bots Spectre? Yes, I unfortunately have to bring this incredibly obvious but necessary joke to a close, so that we may discuss Spectre... the Series 3 Robotic Soccer competitor. It's really quite remarkable just how much infamy this 1999 machine gained simply because a future robot legend happened to use the same name, I think that very few people would have discussed Spectre 1 over the past two decades if it weren’t forcibly revived. Robo Challenge did it a favour, really. Spectre itself is a great name but hideously unfitting for this... thing.

Knock knock it's Spike the Echidna

• Spike (Extreme Warriors) - 1/10 - If you're tired of repeat names in the S Range then do I have a "treat" for you, it's time for an almighty slog with five in a row! Spike is particularly poor because this name honestly never should've been used once, never mind three times! There will only be two entries on Spike here, but certainly the American machine Spike that turned up to the MTV Pilot was the second of three robots called Spike to compete on Robot Wars in some capacity. It had previously been on BattleBots too. But frankly, it didn't matter how many robots had previously used the name Spike, because this would score poorly regardless. Sure, it's a porcupine, they have spikes. That doesn't make "Spike" an interesting name. Call it Porcupain or something, idk.

Slayer of Behemoth, enemy of Thing II, killer of Pitbull, it’s the Series 3 Spike!

• Spike (UK) - 1/10 - Honestly, I think the original Spike is even worse. At least the porcupine aesthetic might have been enough for the US loanerbot to grab a 2/10 or 3/10 if it was somehow the first ever robot called Spike. This machine just gets a 1/10 no matter what it does. The Third Wars had a few dubious name choices derived straight from the weapon like Crusher the crusher and Flipper the flipper axe, but surely nothing's worse than entering a spike called Spike. If your robot's only weapon is a spike, frankly I'd want to divert attention from the weaponry, not name the machine after it! While spikes already becoming outdated as competitor weapons, this is the series where the most successful spike was not one belonging to the arena, but the ones in the floor! The most infamous feature of Series 3 altogether! This disastrous name choice paved the way for all the other Spikes to follow, all while giving us the woefully unexciting prospect of "Blade vs Spike" in its only fight. Oddly the battle itself was actually quite enjoyable, but looking at the names on paper, you'd want them both to lose.

I tried writing "Spin Doctor" backwards to reference the logo, but actually when you reverse the letters you get... um...

Great White doesn't stand a chance

• Spin Doctor (Extreme Warriors) - 3/10 - It’s time. We've perhaps arrived at the most infamous repeat name of all. “Spin Doctor” is a name that collects infamy because it's just 'that one name' given to spinners with no other visual identity to go off. A total of three Spin Doctors competed on Robot Wars, and while this Spin Doctor was the only one to take part in a series outside the UK episodes, it was the second of three in Robot Wars history and is far from the most famous Spin Doctor made in America. Obviously, the American Spin Doctor that competed in King of Bots came nearly fifteen years later, but I raise it mainly to highlight that one being the fourth Spin Doctor in televised robot combat and perhaps the most frustrating name choice to date. Back to Spin Doctor from Extreme Warriors, I'm going to give it a 3/10 because the team were at least very unlikely to have known about the British machine from 1999, and this one actually attempts to play up to the theme. A more literal Spin "Doctor", I like the ambulance visuals going on with this spinner. Naturally I prefer the unique name it adopted after Extreme Warriors, Bambulance.

• Spin Doctor (Series 2) - 6/10 - Here's the original Spin Doctor, or at least I think so, anyway. There was probably one before it, let's be honest. Still, this Spin Doctor is the one that gets the points for the joke, it was originally quite a novel idea. Naming your spinner after a 'spin doctor' who twists the truth for political agenda? Sure, great idea! Just... once. Only once. Not four times.

With losses only to Bulldog Breed, Behemoth and Panic Attack, this must be a pretty good machine! Leave the bribe money under the sink

• Spindoctor (Series 6-7) - 1/10 - This of course means that the most blatant foul was Spin Doctor from Series 6 and 7, plus Extreme 2. Or should that be, "Spindoctor". Yep, there are so many Spin Doctors in robot combat that I have to split hairs and highlight the fact that Series 7's statistics board read "SPINDOCTOR" without any spaces. Why? Who knows! But that's all we have to differentiate the most infamous Spin Doctor from the three that surround it. I'm thoroughly unsurprised that this machine is one of the most unpopular in Robot Wars - it failed to work on three separate occasions, essentially wasting a space in three entire series, and couldn't even bring its own identity without taking from two previous competitors. Truly an impeccable failure on all accounts.

Nooooormaaaaaan!!!

• Spirit of Knightmare - 6/10 - This was definitely a necessary addition to the series of names. Many would point out that Knightmare and Spirit of Knightmare are much the same machine, with the main things suggesting that it's a new robot being the additional weight and the new colour-scheme. Just think though, if this machine did enter Extreme as "Knightmare", we'd be building up that confusion with Nightmare further than it needed to go, and Raging Reality would essentially be the team's second robot, giving Raging Knightmare no reason to tie itself back into the continuity! In that sense, Spirit of Knightmare was a welcome addition, with the ghostly naming theme going well with the new darker colours.

Just in case you thought Scorpion S7 and Spirit of Scorpion were the same robot

• Spirit of Scorpion - 3/10 - But for an unrelated machine to adopt the same "Spirit of" title only one year later is just plain odd. We saw Scorpion and Spirit of Knightmare compete in the same series, were they really that inspired, or is this just an unlikely coincidence? I will say that Spirit of Scorpion deserved an updated name from Scorpion, it was a huge change in direction from previous Scorpion machines, but this was totally undone when the team returned to Scorpion one year later with a visually very similar machine. We do at least know that Spirit of Scorpion was an entirely separate build to the Series 7 version of Scorpion, that's somewhat comforting, but the score remains a 3/10. This is the exact same score I gave to Scorpion itself - one is painfully generic, the other is certainly not generic but manages to awkwardly borrow from a recent competitor, giving no reason for the score to improve.

Even under its Series 7 team, Splinter was a splinter entry from Team RCC who also entered RCC 2

• Splinter - 7/10 - I have an interesting theory with Splinter and I could be wildly off-base, but I think there's a meaning below the surface level that we've all overlooked. The obvious thought would be that it's named after a wood or metal splinter, it's a relatively unthreatening but still painful enough name. I think it goes deeper than that though. A clue lies in its qualification attempt, where Splinter tried to compete in the Third Wars one year prior to its debut. Splinter was not the only robot that Team Ivanhoe built for Series 3, with their primary robot Ivanhoe 2 ready and waiting to compete. Although ultimately neither machine would qualify, Team Ivanhoe had intended to enter with two separate robots... you could say that they "splintered off" and entered separately! Yes, the new machine was the "splinter entry" to go alongside the main Ivanhoe 2 machine... or so I think, anyway. Maybe they just got a splinter in their thumb while building the thing.

The Nickelodeon House Robot Rebellion was good for one thing and one thing only - bringing the name Squirmin Vermin to this world

• Squirmin Vermin - 9/10 - Ohohohoho, we've made it to what might be my favourite name of the S Range! If you thought Shapeshifter was a dodgy choice to be in the lead, then Squirmin Vermin might be even worse. I'm not going to pretend it's a "better" name than S.M.I.D.S.Y. or Small Torque - all three have earned a 9/10 - but Squirmin Vermin gets such a smile out of me. Having previously been entered into US Season 1 under the incredibly basic name of "The Green Mouse", the Nickelodeon variant chucked on a coat of yellow fur, necessitating a name change. It would have been very typical if the machine just ended up being called The Yellow Mouse, but the new team had other ideas. OK, I can't prove that the Basenji squad actually came up with the name themselves, it could've been the producers, but for anyone to suddenly dub it "Squirmin Vermin" on the spot when the robot was never even meant to take part... oh, it's so good. Such an unusual rhyme that still tells you everything that you need to know, I honestly think this was the best name possible for a mouse-themed machine. Why do so many loanerbots get some of the best names in Robot Wars?

I definitely thought a "Staglet" could've been a real thing, but the top Google result after our wiki is "Anagrams of STAGLET in Scrabble"

• Staglet - 5/10 - As a featherweight version of The Stag, you really can't go wrong with a name like Staglet. There is no such thing as an actual Staglet - you go from a larva to a cocoon to a stag beetle, that's the cycle. It's not like this machine looks anything like a cocoon (although if it did, I expect it to look incredibly fed up), so making up a fake word like Staglet is fairly believable and indirectly gives the robot a totally unique name. I'd feel wrong scoring it more highly than The Stag itself though, so there's a clear ceiling.

St. Aggrobot, the robot that beat Razer and then finally won a heat in Series 7

• St. Agro - 5/10 - I'm not sure where I stand with St. Agro really. It's definitely one of those names that probably wouldn't collect any praise if the robot itself wasn't successful - anyone who can remember watching the Sixth Wars in 2002, I'm sure you can attest to St. Agro's year of obscurity – I wonder what people thought of it back then – but the heat win certainly made people stand up and take notice. Combining the team's home town St. Agnes with "aggro", meaning outwardly aggressive, St. Agro is a fairly messy but decent enough combo. What's confusing is the show's complete refusal to say "Saint" properly. I never really noticed it until mystrsyko2 started calling the machine "Suntagro" in his YouTube live reviews, but there really was a recurring pronunciation of S'ntagro for no good reason. Anyway, score, erm, 5/10, full stops in short robot names ruin my sentences.

Not so stealthy now!

• Stealth - 7/10 - A very uniform and appropriate name for this stealth bomber-inspired machine, Stealth is definitely a name of high quality. It perhaps deserved to go to something good, hence we saw plenty of machines called Stealth outside of Robot Wars, but if the Third Wars competitor couldn't be a good robot, I'm at least glad it got to be an extremely famous victim. Stealth, honestly, is one of my favourite visual designs in Robot Wars. I genuinely love the aircraft design hiding in the darkness, the actually-quite-stealthy look sells both the robot and the name.

Two-time UK finalist Steel Sandwich

• Steel Sandwich - 6/10 - This is an example where a decent name was sold very well be its accompanying slogan. A name like Kan-Opener was good, with its "more bite than a Great White" slogan also being separately good, but the two were hardly linked. Steel Sandwich: The Sandwich that Bites Back is a wonderfully cinematic title which really pushes the whole thing to the next level. I would expect a robot called "Steel Sandwich" to not be one of the most low-profile wedges in the show, whatever sandwich John Frizell made has clearly been squashed to take the air out of the bread, but the sentiment rings true that it is still a top and bottom "slice" of metal with electronic components sandwiched in-between. Tasty.

I love that Steg-O-Saw-Us was the one machine who didn't face forwards in the arena

• Steg-O-Saw-Us - 5/10 - Much like Crushtacean (but less good), this is a name where the team clearly implemented a pun, only for the show to totally overlook it and just call it by the base word. Crushtacean was simply Crustacean, while the Third Wars finalist Steg-O-Saw-Us was relegated back to being a normal Stegosaurus. I mean, that's fine - it was certainly the only Stegosaurus in Robot Wars and the visual identity made it quite charming. In comes the pretty obvious flaw - Steg-O-Saw-Us doesn't have a saw! It would've been incredibly easy for the front of the machine to have a small cutting disc, every robot and their dog had a token saw in the first few series, but Steg-O-Saw-Us just boasted a pure flat face for pushing and the rear lifting tail. Thinking about it, just calling the robot Steg-O-Saw-Rus would not only feel more natural, but it would completely fix the opening problem. Abridge it down to Stegosawrus and boom, fixed your name.

Goodbye green, hello Microsoft WordArt

• Steg-2 - 4/10 - Something went gravely wrong here. Let's just start by rating the name as we know it - "Steg 2". This is actually an improvement! Recognising that nobody was saying Steg-O-Saw-Us properly, it made total sense to shorten the name to Steg 2 for what proved to be a very different Steg machine. That name would push things slightly forwards to a 6/10. However, it's my responsibility to point out the nitpicks that most people missed, and this particular 'saurus carries a few. Let's take a look at the robot's logo - what do you see? Well, first you see Microsoft WordArt, but bad font aside, you see a full title: Steg-2-O-Saw-Us. Now if this were the robot's official name, I think we'd be on a nosedive to a generous 2/10, but this is at least not the robot's name, just an official alternative that sadly exists. Although it can be ignored in favour of the shortened name, some damage will always exist. This can be seen in the robot's true, intended name. It's not Steg 2; it's not Steg-2-O-Saw-Us; it's Steg-2. Yes, Steg-Hyphen-2. All of a sudden it becomes clear why the team needed help from Robot Wars Magazine readers to help name the third machine, because putting a hyphen right before a number is such a cardinal sin that I can hardly contain my dismay. The only other occasion that comes to mind is when the Robot Wars website erroneously used the name "Ironside-3" instead of the desired Ironside3. I've avoided giving Steg-2 a red score because its dark secret is totally optional information that seemingly only I have discovered, but if you don't believe me, just scan through the team's website.

S1

• Sting - 5/10 - If we cast our minds back to 1999, there was a time where Sting was a totally unique name in Robot Wars with no obvious comparisons to make. Clearly referencing the "sting" in its rear tail weapon, the name was effective at selling the weapon while also doubling up to provide Jonathan Pearce with a bunch of The Police jokes. It was a bit simple, I wouldn't venture beyond a 5/10, but Sting and I guess Sting II were on the right track. However, as we know, similarities with a future competitor forced the team to abandon the Sting line and move onto S3. It's fair enough, the "certain other machine" became much more famous, but I can't fault Sting for having the idea first.

In my blogs you will only find Stinger photos with the yellow end facing up

• Stinger - 5/10 - Here is that "certain other robot", Stinger! Debuting only one year after Sting's passing appearance in Series 2 (and technically prior to Sting II to help solidify it), Stinger has the same "sting in the tail concept" but had its ever-so-slightly-different name because it was suggested by Kevin Scott's children. You can't really argue with that. If I was their dad, even I wouldn't just say "well actually there was already a Sting last year"... or so I hope, anyway. In principle, Stinger should absolutely score lower than Sting, but it's definitely the suggestion from the kids and the robot's greater iconic status that helps it catch up to Sting for an equal rating. It's unfortunate that Stinger would later be put into deadlock with the bee-themed Stinger: The Killer Bee in the race for "most famous Stinger", a question which remains hard to answer to this day, but not one we asked for.

Top 1 Robots that look like they could contain a caged animal

• STOMP - 5/10 - Let's take a momentary break from the heat winners (counting Sting on behalf of S3, we're in a very crowded area) and discuss a robot that couldn't even move, STOMP. Honestly it is that complete lack of motion which causes the name STOMP to fall flat. If it did have large imposing legs as it stomped across the arena floor then I'd give my approval. Two articulating boxy things that couldn't carry the robot forward is not the stomp you'd want to leave on history.

Storm {noun} pl Storms 1. a violent weather something something dodgy main quote

Hey, pay attention to our slight name change

• Storm II - 1/10 - Back to the notable machines, where we may be stuck for a little while, because Storm II has earned itself the dreaded 1/10. I think this is one of very few cases where a robot's fame has actually dragged the name down further, a sharp contrast to the likes of Razer, Carbide and Behemoth who reaped the benefits. Were Storm II some random first-round drop-out then it would still score extremely poorly, but after we became stuck with this name in key parts of Robot Wars history, I'm prepared to award it the lowest score. When you're going to become an All-Star of Robot Wars, having your own unique identity is absolutely critical, but Storm II went to every available measure to make sure this didn't happen. Let's cross them off. First, we start with the robot's core design. It's a boxy wedge-shaped brick with a huge emphasis on pushing robots around. Who's the biggest counterpart? That would be Tornado, a machine that Storm II was consistently branded a "rip-off" of. Tornado and Storm are both natural whirlwinds, so already the machine is going to be painted as a copycat. Next, you want to be the first notable "storm" in the upper echelons of Robot Wars. Who was the first notable 'storm' in Robot Wars? Firestorm, of course! Sure, Storm II isn't playing into the fire aspect in any way, but when you have a genuine battle in Robot Wars called "Firestorm vs Storm" with a place in the Grand Final on the line (immediately prior to Tornado vs Storm), obviously the Just-Storm is much less appealing. But fine, Storm is still not the same as Firestorm, have we had an actual robot called "Storm" on Robot Wars before? Well, yeah. A year and a bit before Storm II made its televised debut, we had Storm Force. This is a name that goes beyond just the base word Storm, and yet it entered the arena for its well-remembered fight with Chaos 2 while being introduced simply as "Storm". This also sets up another major problem - when you have a 2001 competitor called "Storm" and a 2002 competitor called "Storm II", you would naturally assume the two are related, right? But of course they aren't! I've definitely come across a number of comments asking if Storm II was the sequel to Storm Force and I really can't blame them for posing the question. Instead, Storm II crosses the outlined criteria of making your TV debut with a "2" in the name, leaving the audience to wonder where the first one was. Clearly the producers thought the same, as they thought they were getting the untelevised grabber Storm 1 for their New Blood Championship. That very Storm 1 is the whole reason Storm Force had to abandon its planned name "Storm", by the way, Hoppitt's team got to take priority even though they were the ones who didn't make it into Fifth Wars. Still, that "2" is the only thing keeping Storm II slightly distinct from Tornado, Firestorm and Storm Force on its path to the Grand Final against Typhoon 2 (another tropical storm ending with a 2). Surely, they at least won't mess up the numbers, right? Introducing the reboot, where after a decade of proudly displaying "II" in Roman numerals on the machine, Storm II adopts a slight rebrand for the benefit of social media, taking on the updated name "Storm2". No space, no consistency with the numbers, nada. I used to think of Storm II as the biggest victim in Robot Wars Wiki's necessity to use standard numbers over Roman numerals after that stylised "II" was the only identifying feature about the name Storm II, but even that is invalidated in the transition to Storm2. The only vague positive I have is that Storm II (the quick and exciting Series 7 machine) and Storm2 (the slow and methodical reboot machine) were so different in their performances that I'm at least glad we have an easy way to refer to specific versions, but really that's just making light of a bad situation. For being such a multi-faceted issue in every available angle, Storm II and Storm2 completely fail to get off the mark with any points at all.

Gotta use a main image from 2013 purely because Robot Wars refused to photograph it from the front

• Storm Force - 3/10 - Meanwhile here is the aforementioned Storm Force for its own ranking. I've given the story already - Storm Force turned up to the Series 5 qualifiers with the name "Storm", but after learning that another team had built a (better) robot called Storm that same year, it was this Storm team who magnanimously updated their name. Clearly "STORM" was already written on the robot's flipper so they just haphazardly threw the word "FORCE" underneath it. That's fine I suppose, Storm Force is different enough, but really the original Storm name was the problem and I can't give the team too much credit for revising it.

I still miss my morning sub, curse these reduced Subway opening hours

• Sub-Version - 7/10 - Ask someone what they think of the name Sub-Version and you could be met with absolutely any response. Of course, it's customary to criticise the Forces Special robots over just about everything, but at least Sub-Version was the one who escaped and got to compete in a UK Championship. I'm glad it was Sub-Version too – out of every Forces Special machine, it was probably the best blend of a good name, visual theme, weaponry and general likeability. Highlighting the "sub" in a word with no Naval connections like subversion is... well, it "subverts" our expectations to say the least. Get it? A silly little joke like that in a robot name just makes me smile. I was heading for an 8/10 score but it's the "1.1" tacked onto the Series 7 machine that put me off. It takes longer to say 1.1 than it does to say Sub-Version and as a result it diverts (Dive-Version? There’s your successor sorted) my attention from the joke just to say "yeah we've barely changed it since last time".

I went a bit too far off-track to actually rate the name, but basically: very amusing, glad the risk paid off, albeit particularly lengthy

INCLUDES SUICIDAL TENDENCIES!

• Suicidal Tendencies - 6/10 - I think the name Suicidal Tendencies is generally very well-liked by fans. It's unexpectedly dark even for killer robot standards and totally unmistakeable. Only one machine ever truly "went there" and that was Suicidal Tendencies. But can I just point out how utterly mad the producers were for, not only allowing this name on TV, but heavily promoting and merchandising it? I really do think that this is an elephant in the room that's been overlooked for an amusingly long time. Suicidal Tendencies takes its name from a punk band active in the 80's and 90's, so already you're toeing the line with copyright quite directly. To this day you can still go to suicidaltendenciesstore.com and buy into their brand, so this "homage" was risky to say the least. But at least the Suicidal Tendencies band was targeted at hardcore music fans of a mature audience, this Suicidal Tendencies was included in children's toys and video games! Frankly, "included" isn't a strong enough word either, because Suicidal Tendencies was the flagship minibot of the second wave, the one that was actually included with the Minibot Arena itself! Previously the mums, dads and grandparents were buying their young children fun playsets with the miniature machine "Chaos 2" included as the bonus - now their gift idea comes unironically packaged with a toy called "Suicidal Tendencies" and that to me is utterly hilarious. Meanwhile the video game accidentally made Suicidal Tendencies the most over-powered robot in Extreme Destruction, leading to years of children complaining and asking "how to beat suicidal tendencies". I just can't adequately say how funny all this is. No way would all this slip through quality assurance nowadays, but I adore the blind courage of early 2000's to proudly sell such an outwardly dark (and copyrighted) name to kids all around the country, it really is just one of those things that only Robot Wars could do.

Mr Dig and Dr Zulu looking to get their own name rating

• Sumpthing - 8/10 - A fairly popular name on a fairly popular robot. There's a fun idea with Sumpthing - take this very industrial and greasy machine, name it after sump (essentially a collection of dirt and chemicals, commonly getting in the way of engineering), then turn it into Sumpthing for a soundalike pun with the word 'something'. This is particularly amusing on a team who would always talk down their low-tech machine as something that had no business winning fights on the show. It can get just a little bit confusing in commentary or casual conversation when "Sumpthing" is dropped in the middle of a sentence and you have to work out whether the actual robot Sumpthing was indeed what they were talking about (rather than just 'something') but honestly that was probably the point, only fitting for a team like this.

I think 8/10 is a perfect score for the likes of Supernova and Black Hole - objectively cool names given to worthy, successful robots, only losing points for obviousness

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• Supernova - 8/10 - We've made it through plenty of space names to make it this far, but we've finally arrived at the quintessential title from outer space, it's Supernova. While it's certainly not the space name I've rated the most highly in this blog (that would be Magnetar), it was at least responsible for making that name a 10/10! Supernova itself made its appearance in the Fifth Wars, and let's face it, this was inevitable. Just like Black Hole, everyone has heard of a Supernova, it's just an almighty presence with an aura of "cool" surrounding it, with nothing else to possibly confuse it with. There absolutely had to be a fighting robot called Supernova, so what a relief it was when Suren Balendran turned up with this menacing flywheel and truly made it one of the modern stars of Robot Wars. There's no underplaying the importance of Supernova. It was a new machine for the latter half of the classic series, but represented a team who had been around since the earliest days. It made a huge splash in the later seasons and showed that robots other than Hypno-Disc could really take the horizontal spinner to great heights, which it did with a World Championship second place. Finally, the machine returns for the reboot as a representative of what the old guard could do in the modern era, completing a truly likeable machine. Any machine could be called "Supernova", but few could do what the robot Supernova did. That's why I'm so glad the two entities fused to give us this delightful package.

Guys you dropped your suitcase

• Sweeney Todd - 7/10 - But we don't get to end the S Range on a historic gem like Supernova, we get to end... on Sweeney Todd. It's a good job I like the name then, regardless of what we think about the robot itself! A direct reference to the demon barber in the titular film, it's a miracle Barber-Ous didn't nick the name Sweeney Todd first, because this film reference definitely injects a bit of extra personality into what was otherwise just a middleweight box with cutting discs. It may be an unthreatening machine, but I still wouldn't want it to give me a haircut! We didn't need a pun here, I'm creasing just thinking about "Sweeney Bot" and all the other alternatives, so as a name in isolation I'm happy with this.