Apollo Crowned Robot Wars Champion 2016

The competition has been gruelling, with Apollo competing in nine battles before going up against Carbide in the Grand Final. In the end, the final decision was down to the judges: Professor Noel Sharkey, Dr Lucy Rogers and Professor Sethu Vijayakumar, who came to the unanimous decision that team Apollo were the worthy winners of Robot Wars 2016.

Dave said: “We can't believe our luck winning Robot Wars. For three guys from a non-engineering background to win a show like this is crazy. Nine years ago when we all met as Bluecoats we would never think this would happen. We had a few issues with Apollo during the competition in the early stages. But it still held its own. We made a few enemies with house robots along the way. But when it mattered the robot worked perfectly. We hope everyone loved the show, as a group of entertainers we want to make sure people had as much fun watching the show, as we did competing in it. Hopefully there will be another series where we hope to defend the title!”

Forty robot teams tested their luck in the purpose built arena in Glasgow across the series, not only facing each other but also the dangerous hazards of Fire, Spikes, The Flipper and The iconic Pit. As well as this, the robot teams had to avoid the iconic House Robots. Aiming to terminate anything that strays into their zone of the arena - Sir Killalot, Matilda, Shunt and Dead Metal were out to get any robot brave enough to venture into their sector.

Many robots were tossed out of the arena, cooked on the flames and smashed to pieces, but Apollo survived it all, whilst still being described by presenter Dara Ó Briain as ‘the great entertainers of this series’.

The thrilling final saw the six finalists Carbide, Shockwave, TR2, Apollo, Pulsar and Thor compete in two group battles, each with three robots in, determining one loser from each fight who were then eliminated. The four surviving robots then faced off in the head to heads, competing in a series of one-on-one fights in order to score enough points to make it into the Grand Final.

Apollo went into the final full of determination as they faced Carbide who had beaten them in a previous head-to-head earlier in the Final.

Ben Bacon from Apollo said: “It’s more than just the Grand Final, this is our revenge match.”

Notorious for being the flipper that humiliated the house robots, Apollo made full use of the house robots and arena hazards in aiding their win. Despite struggling to close the front flipper towards the end of the fight, Apollo thought on their feet and used Carbide’s shunts to shut the flipper again before striking again.

Apollo was described as ‘worthy winners’ – they took on three out of four House Robots as well as nearly all of the competition they faced and despite the damage from their opponents they were able to pull through to become champion.

The DVD, Blu-ray and digital downloads from Robot Wars will be released on Monday 29th August. For all Robot Wars fans the chance to own the series you love and watch again, whenever you choose, the amazing robots and the destruction caused on route to finding the latest Robot Wars champion.

KP2