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**orac** · 25 March 2016, 22:31

Hi,

I think that warehouse was in docklands and now part of the Excel arena.

I have a few old photos of the day

**team death** · 28 March 2016, 10:56

In my opinion,the venue for the second wars was the best I ever attended,the set up was just perfect
from the lighting and the temperature to the atmosphere and the canteen on the floor above.
my robot was positioned just feet from the tech check and I got to see all the robots as they qued up to
go through the large stage door.
Behemoth was on a table behind and nepalm,vctor and the other robots in my group were on adjacent tables.

The order in which the teams ventured into the arena was not allways as broadcast on the television
and I thought the ones going first were at a disadvantage as you could learn by thier mistakes
as a small screen was displaying thier progress to the any roboteers who cared to watch and
for the gauntlet the distance was marked on a board.
My robot had a microwave oven chassis and fibreglass bodywork with a wiper motor from a mini on each corner
the yellow robot head concealled a Opel Manta wiper motor connected to a car jack and a snow shovel.
The car jack shovel weapon proved to be less than useless and only proceded to buckle the microwave frame
each time it operated .

**RogueTwoRobots** · 28 March 2016, 12:14

Sentinel aside, Series 2 is probably my favourite one. The atmosphere and look was brilliant and it was still very much a game show rather than a straight up battle tournament. Great to hear more perspectives from those there at the time.

**supernova** · 28 March 2016, 17:14

I was there for the series 2 filming with my 1st robot Oblivion think i was 17 at the time. Oblivion was made of plywood and chequer plate.

I remember going to the audition too, and that warehouse! was a lot of fun, things have changed a lot now.

Don't think Oblivion would last 5 secs against current robots.

**maddox10** · 28 March 2016, 17:36

Most series 2 machines will have a hard time against a current high end feather.

**orac** · 28 March 2016, 20:12

Hi,

Here are the rest of my pictures form that testing day if anyone can spot their own creations

**almost_there** · 29 March 2016, 07:01

Originally posted by RogueTwoRobots View Post

Sentinel aside, Series 2 is probably my favourite one. The atmosphere and look was brilliant and it was still very much a game show rather than a straight up battle tournament.

Makes me wonder how modern heavies would do on the Gauntlet.

**maddox10** · 29 March 2016, 08:54

Depends on the heavy, but most have way better control than the series 2 machines, and are smaller. In other words, it's not the machine, but the driver.

**Matt** · 29 March 2016, 10:27

Originally posted by almost_there View Post

Makes me wonder how modern heavies would do on the Gauntlet.

I suspect they wouldn't do too well - lots of them would get stuck on the ramp and the ram rig due to their low ground clearance.

**team death** · 29 March 2016, 18:13

It's great to see those old photos from series 2 auditions,I'm struck by how so many seem unfinished and
I guess some were not-those photos are worthy of a museum to Robot Wars history .

Auditions for series 3......
Now the going gets tough,hundreds of people have applied and an unknown number make thier
way to the auditions venue,at the time I believed there would be only 70 places available for robots
and that 12 seeded robots had allready been chosen.
As we pushed our robot into the venue we were greeted by the crew and producer and informed
we had made a great contribution to series 2 and they we glad to see us again,they looked
our robot- Death warmed up,up and down and there were smiles all round.
We then made our way to the check in desk and the young ladies behind the desk fell into hysterics
pointing at the weapon between the robots legs,we could still hear them laughing when we entered the
other room for the tech check.
Derek foxwell did the usual checking and he stated-this is what we are lookin for ....people having
fun with thier robot building and he was generally pleased.
The obsticle course was a better set up than in series 2 auditions with a ball and goal to shoot at
a slalom and the same tipping bridge to drive over,we did well and the guy marking down the
affort gave us the thumbs up.

**maddox10** · 29 March 2016, 19:17

Saint? Bullfrog? Tough As Nails? Gravity 5.2?

Most heavies ain't as low to the ground anymore..

**team death** · 30 March 2016, 18:14

Robot Wars Series 3 competition venue......
This was going to be a big robotic competition,120 robots had been selected to take part and
future stars were about to emerge from the ranks.
The building itself resembled a aircraft hanger with arched windows about 60ft of the ground,the layout
as I remember was a large canteen then rows and rows of tables for the robots to sit upon
then a massive sliding door leading into the arena .
Our Robot -Death warmed up- was right in front of the arena door on a shared table with stealth.
8 robots were in each group and we chatted to most of the teams in our group except hypnodisc-
dont know how I missed them.
Progress was slow regarding round one battles and by the start of the afternoon on the second
day we still hadnt been in to do battle.
we amused ourselves by chatting to the other teams and watching the screen when a battle took
place, I remember the young lad about 6 or 7 years old and his dad were due to fight chaos 2
in the first round,the lad kept drawing pictures of his crocodile style robot gobbling up chaos 2
and his dad remarked how he had got a standing ovation during the auditions, I know
thier ic engine let them down and chaos 2 showed little mercy.
Stealth whom we were due to fight were a father and son team and the father kept saying he didnt
mind losing as long as the robot didn't get smashed up-they were to fight hypnodisc after beating our robot.
This was the occasion that Robot Attacks Man made the headlines -I was the only one tech checking my
robot when rex garrods robot went bezerk due to a faulty switch and for a long time thought I was
controlling his robot from beyond the sliding door.

**Matt** · 30 March 2016, 20:38

Interesting to hear things from the perspective of someone who was there

I always got the impression, watching the TV show, that the first 3 series had a lot more of a "fun and games" type atmosphere than in later series, where people seemed to take the competition a lot more seriously.. of course, this could be something of an illusion created by the change in the way the show was presented.

**AGT** · 31 March 2016, 15:56

Im currently building my first robot ever (yay!) and you would not believe the amount of people who say "build a giant death laser on top" or "if I was building a robot, I would have,like , machine guns and stuff". It's clear that they don't know what they're talking about. Just shut up and let me build my own damn robot.

**Matt** · 31 March 2016, 16:53

I'm also going to start building my first featherweight soon. My dad suggested that I should build a miniature Tiger Tank with a working cannon and seemed legitimately disappointed to learn that there are rules and regulations and that explosives and un-tethered projectiles aren't allowed

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