What ever happened to the Robot Wars House Bots?

[Urjak]

I have been wondering this for a while, and have yet to come across a satisfactory answer. I am hoping one of you robot combat aficionados would know something.

[Natef]

I believe they were sold to charity.

[Urjak]

I believe they were sold to charity.

What exactly would a charity do with them?

[SKBT]

My best bet was that the production company gutted them for parts and that the parts ended up in some other animatronic creation for another TV show.

I don't have any direct contacts with anyone who competed on RW so I can't even ask around. But we could ask the worlds #1 leading self proclaimed expert on robot combat who hasn't been to an event in years...   

[Badnik96]

i honestly don't know. Most likely they were sold for scrap, pretty sad if you think about it.

 Wait, didn't Matilda get rebuilt for Roaming Robots or is it a remake?

[Resetti's Replicas]

A remake.  If you know what you're doing, Matilda isn't hard to recreate, just two 750 W motors and some skill molding fibreglass

[HurricaneAndrew]

I would bet SKBT is right. Look at how Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage are always building things from the parts of their past robotic creations and other television props. I know that they didn't pioneer this. I have robbed parts from my retired pulling tractors to build new ones several times, myself.

[Tweedy]

yeah there is still matilda running as the featherweight house robot but there is a mr psycho style house robot called major damage that runs as the heavyweight house robot and they did a have a growler style robot called gripper but the shell was recently sold and is to become a heavyweight.
robots live uses a bot that has the same shape and body as dead metal but with pincers and a hammer that runs as a featherweight house robot

[Vertigo]

My best bet was that the production company gutted them for parts and that the parts ended up in some other animatronic creation for another TV show.

That is very likely considering that all they had to sell Jonno was the shell of Matilda. They didn't even have the tusks.

Apart from that, none of us know what has happened, but what SKBT said is probably the most likely outcome.

yeah there is still matilda running as the featherweight house robot but there is a mr psycho style house robot called major damage that runs as the heavyweight house robot and they did a have a growler style robot called gripper but the shell was recently sold and is to become a heavyweight.
robots live uses a bot that has the same shape and body as dead metal but with pincers and a hammer that runs as a featherweight house robot

None of these have any connection to Robot Wars whatsoever. The only remaining part of Matilda is the shell, the rest is a completely different robot. There were actually two versions of gripper, one was a featherweight house robot about 6 or 7 years ago, but it was scrapped very quickly and a heavyweight house-robot version was made for the 2007 UK champs. This was also scrapped, and the parts from this were used to build Major Damage, along with parts from other robots, such as Tilly 101. Battle axe was based on the first version of Dead Metal with the overhead saw, but for obvious health and safety reasons they used a pathetically weak powered hammer instead. Unlike on robot wars, the plain purpose of our house robots these days is to provide a show, none can to any sort of damage whatsoever to a robot (except perhaps a very badly built feather), unlike on robot wars where they could actually do some damage. If anything they are just a nuisance in blocking your view to your robot! The reason for this is that the show relies on robots, and due to the low amount of "entertaining robots" around these days, event organisers cannot afford to be breaking any. There are certainly very few entertaining (or "good") feathwerweights these days and this is mostly the reason that Matilda is so pathetic. I certainly know that Explosion and several other feathers can absolutely pulverize it :P

[GoldenFox93]

I believe they were sold to charity.

What exactly would a charity do with them?

Well, considering there's been an increase in the amount of orphans in recent years...

[HurricaneAndrew]

I believe they were sold to charity.

What exactly would a charity do with them?

Well, considering there's been an increase in the amount of orphans in recent years...

I see... Sort of the same idea as ending world hunger by resorting to cannibalism.

interesting.jpeg

[Phoenyx]

I know this thread's been dead for a while, but I have an update for it. I contacted John Findlay of Robots: Extreme Wars (assuming that there was a connection) about the fate of the House Robots, and he told me that Chris Reynalds, the builder of these machines, believes that they are still in the possession of BBC. The original e-mail:

Hi Sean,


Thanks for the mail.

The honest answer is nobody really knows what happened to them, however I am led to believe that they are still at the BBC somewhere.

That's what Chris Reynolds the creator thinks anyway.

Regards

John

Sent from my iPhone

On 21 Jun 2012, at 02:33, [Name and e-mail redacted] wrote:

> First of all, I feel your pain about having your website hacked.
>
> Anyway, I'm really curious to find out what happened to the house robot known as Sir Killalot. I have heard rumors of it being cannibalized for special effects work, sold as scrap (a sad ending), sold at a charity event or just being mothballed. It has historical (and in some cases personal) value to many people worldwide, likely more-so than the other house robots. By any chance do you know what happened to it?

I think we may have made progress in locating the house robots. The version of Matilda in that one competition doesn't count - it's a replica.

[System32]

I'm now imagining an incredibly terrible horror movie where the house robots gain sentience and start killing people who wander into the BBC warehouse.

[HurricaneAndrew]

I'm now imagining an incredibly terrible horror movie where the house robots gain sentience and start killing people who wander into the BBC warehouse.

"Mechanical Vengence"

In theaters Christmas 2012.

[TeamXtreemer]

in a world,
 where robots are not your friend...

[Phoenyx]

That would make a good "haunted-house horror" movie.

However, I'm personally interested in purchasing Sir Killalot or Dead Metal and restoring it to full operational condition. Hey, dead metal even qualifies for Superheavyweight tournaments, though it's a bit small for that.

[System32]

I think Shove and Shunt also fit.
 
I'd love to see a Shunt/DM fight.

[Phoenyx]

I think Shove also fits.

Actually, most of them do (only Sir Killalot and Mr. Psycho don't - they'd qualify for the proposed experimental class from the ill-fated Battlebots 6.0), but again they're all a bit small for the Super-Heavyweight class, weighing in at a little above 220 Lbs. They would have trouble against bots like Diesector, Toro, New Cruelty, Atomic Wedgie, etc.

[System32]

They are mostly hollow though.

[Mecha]

Shunt deserves to rot in a fiery junkyard for cheating.
Naa, im kidding. i bet all the robots are in somebody's garage right now.