One of mine and Susan’s fondest TV memories from the late-90s was Robot Wars on BBC2. Susan’s family especially are complete engineering fanatics, and I was raised by a mechanic, so there’s a little bit of that “building stuff” mentality in both of us. Peggy’s inherited this, too.
We were lucky enough, via a friend, to get our hands on some last-minute free tickets to FightFest at Magna Science Adventure Centre in Rotherham. Not Robot Wars as such (I’m guessing that name belongs to the BBC), but definitely close enough. We weren’t really sure what to expect. Would it be a bit naff? Would it be a bit of a damp squib? Amateur hour?
Amazingly, it was none of those things. We had a blast!
The event was hosted by Chris Wilkins, who talked us through proceedings and walked us through what we had to do before each fight – essentially countdown from 3 and shout “Activate!”. Chris was then joined in the commentary box by Nick Weston – a YouTuber and robot-fighting expert – and they made a great team, giving us plenty of insight into what goes on behind the scenes with the robots as well as sprinkling in the odd awful pun.
We got to watch fights featuring robots from two different weight classes: featherweight (up to 13.6kg), and hobbyweight (up to 6.4kg). Despite their relatively small size, compared to what we were used to seeing on TV, these bots were capable of doing some serious damage, with all manner of spinning, smashing, whacking and chopping devices attached. The “spinners” seemed to be the machines capable of doing the most harm, and opponents were keen to avoid these weapons.
Once the fights got started there were some epic, spark-filled collisions, with bits of robot flying everywhere. In among the action were one or two who didn’t quite perform as expected; all of whom received sympathetic treatment from the audience. Aloha, for example, seemed to damage itself trying to get its weapon to work, while Prismatic had what looked to be a pretty deadly spinner that refused to spin in its first bout (although it got fixed and landed some mighty blows in its second outing). Post-fight, combatants were interviewed by world-champion roboteer and former Robot Wars contestant Michael Oates.
Behind the scenes there was a chance to get our hands on some much smaller versions of fighting robots in a couple of mini arenas that had been set up. It was clear from a few seconds’ play that the controls were super sensitive and me and Peggy spent more time spinning around or landing ourselves in one of the corner pits than actually attacking each other.
There were also full-size replicas of some of the familar house robots from Robot Wars for us to have a look at. What was most impressive about these was the sheer size, with all of them weighing in at more than 100kg each. Truly terrifying pieces of machinery.
FightFest is scheduled to return to Magna in 2025, and you can get discounted tickets by using the code FIGHTFEST25 – but we’re crossing our fingers that we can get some more freebies!
