Five of the most outrageous new weapons in Robot Wars

Aftershock is a brand new robot from the team who got to last year’s final with Shockwave. The power of their weapon is close to that of Matilda’s spinning blade and the angled armour will deflect heavy spinners like Carbide. The vertical spinner works differently to a horizontal one – the arena floor takes the impact so Aftershock can stay on the attack rather than being catapulted away by the force of the impact.

Coyote is a dual-weapon, invertible machine with a steampunk style and orange LEDs as the eyes. It has electrically actuated, gnarling jaws rated between 750 and 1,000 kilograms. The front jaws are made from ten-millimetre-thick wear plate steel and its outstanding strength can lift each of the team members. The actuated chainsaw tail can spin at 3,000 revolutions per minute, making an intense screeching sound and slicing up wheels.

Ms Nightshade is new to the Robot Wars scene and has been built and designed by a female engineering team to be a unique spinning robot. This will be the first time in the arena for the team who have designed one of the tallest robots in the competition. The six petals with spikes surround the body which acts as a hammer. Ms Nightshade is designed not to destroy their competitors but to survive and has the ability to climb out of the pit.

Jellyfish is a clamp robot designed to be built and fixed using only the most rudimentary tools, whilst remaining competitive. At 17centimetres tall, it is the flattest robot in the competition. Its weapon is a 120 centimetres wide clamping device which runs the entire of the body, allowing it to manoeuvre opponents into hazards.

Apex is an overhead bar spinner, using an axial gap DC brushed motor to drive the bar through a pulley system. It uses a 2,000-amp capacity contractor to switch on the weapon motor, which in turn activates via a relay switch. The weapon is a 120cm long 1” thick hardened steel bar spinning at 1,750 revolutions per minute and using a motor at 58.8 volts. It has a top speed of 242 miles per hour. The total weight of the bar and the pulley is 37 kilograms with a separate pulley on the motor which weighs approximately 1.5 kilograms. The body of the robot has been designed to look menacing and has large, sharp spikes at the front and sides.