Getting the band back together
Watching gleefully as some tearful child’s robotic pride and joy was ripped to shreds by a competitor, built by an ex-engineer with too much time on his hands – that’s one of our fondest memories of the BBC series Robot Wars.
Thankfully, gladiatorial televised battling robots is returning to terrorise a new generation with a new six-part series – although this time around it could be the youngsters handing out the kickings.
As the Beeb cheerfully points out, the new series “includes a raft of technological advances since the show first aired over a decade ago, and viewers can expect to see more innovative fighting machines as teams of amateur roboteers battle it out to win the coveted Robot Wars title”.
We’ve always thought that destruction and mayhem get more people immediately interested in a topic (people get into watching F1 for the speed and crashes, then resign themselves to becoming interested in either the engineering, or simply watching cars go around and around and…) and hopefully this series will involve a bit more about the tech used, both inside and in the development.
Alan Tyler, BBC Acting Controller of Entertainment Commissioning, says: “The redeveloped Robot Wars proved compelling, offering a mix of real people, real passion and raw power. It is remarkable to see how much more powerful these robots have become since the series last aired, with battles now staged in an arena that is literally bullet proof. And yet, the show is still fundamentally driven by the eccentricity of the brilliant brains behind the machines.”
We’ve few more details to go off, other than it will be recorded in a new ‘purpose-built fighting arena in Glasgow’ (our immediate thoughts were Sauchiehall Street), that allows viewers to get even closer to the action with state-of-the-art cameras.
