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Robot Wars – Dead Metal v Sir Killalot.
Robot Wars – Dead Metal v Sir Killalot. Photograph: BBC Two
Robot Wars – Dead Metal v Sir Killalot. Photograph: BBC Two

Robot Wars… reactivate! It’s the perfect time for a new series

This article is more than 8 years old

With the Raspberry Pi and 3D printing, it’s a great time for the BBC to reboot a new season of the remote-controlled battle-bots

Finally, a nu-metal revival we can all get behind. After more than a decade rusting on the TV scrapheap, Robot Wars has been reactivated. The BBC has announced plans to bring the bombastic pageant of radio-controlled droid proxies engaging in gladiatorial combat backs to our screens for a new six-part run later this year. The original series, which originated in the cyberpunk era of the late 1990s before perishing in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the Channel 5 schedules in 2003, was a scrappy but absurdly entertaining showcase of weaponised Roombas scuttling around a booby-trapped Thunderdome, an arena where overclocked house sentinels like Shunt and Sir Killalot roughed up most of the civilian challengers with ease.

Perhaps it was a reaction to deep-seated anxieties about artificial intelligence superseding humanity as the millennium approached. In any case, a heavily distorted voice shouting “activate!” while two bodged-together killbots went at it with circular saws and repurposed drillbits seemed like exactly the reassuring salve the world needed: the format was eventually exported to 45 countries, and the BBC must hope that any new incarnation is capable of achieving similar Top Gear-like levels of global penetration. (Jeremy Clarkson hosted the first series in 1998, although his default setting of ironised contempt proved a poor fit for what was ultimately a celebration of spoddiness. His replacement, Craig Charles, struck the right note of slightly stern enthusiasm, firing up the crowd with his emphatic catchphrase: “Awooga!”)

Even viewed from ergonomic and app-happy 2016, the grungy Robot Wars still seems considerably ahead of its time. The producers coined the word “roboteers” to describe the teams of enthusiasts who designed and built their machines from scavenged parts, power tool components and golf cart engines. That swashbuckling term helped recast these cheerfully nerdy hobbyists as Dumas-like warrior-inventors, precursors to the ice-cool wave of hackers and heavily bearded disruptors who comprise the currently celebrated movement of hands-on bootstrappers called “makers”.

Will there be a new Sargeant Bash? Photograph: BBC TWO

That’s why it’s the perfect time to bring Robot Wars back. Imagine what a new generation of roboteers will be able to achieve, these digital natives to whom rigging up GoPro cameras, flying quadcopter drones and ingeniously programming Raspberry Pi mini-computers is already second nature. The first wave of homebrew Robot Wars challengers wore their spot-weld scars and repurposed sheet metal with a certain scuffed pride. Thanks to the advent of 3D-printing, roboteers will now be able to achieve previously unimaginable designs with elaborate body panelling. Perhaps the next Robot Wars champion will embody beauty as well as durability, some Jony Ive along with its Mad Max.

Aesthetics, education, innovation: these are all laudable aims. No true heir to the Robot Wars name can deny the tension that exists at its heart, though. The audience and viewers are invited to admire the ingenuity of the roboteers, but that honourable applause is usually drowned out by cheers as their creation gets abruptly reduced to its component parts by a gas-propelled hatchet, left sputtering and malfunctioning in a pool of its own brake fluid.

The BBC may still feel obliged to big up the educational aspect of the show – the official press release describes Robot Wars as “content-rich factual entertainment” – but teachable moments are actually baked-in to the premise. Watching something you’ve spent innumerable man-hours working on get smashed to pieces by an uncaring universe in the form of apex predator Sergeant Bash will always be a valuable life lesson. It should make for riveting viewing.

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