The winner of Robot Wars 2017 has been revealed after a tense final
In an exciting and nail-biting finale Eruption has won the coveted title of Robot Wars Champion tonight on BBC Two, with previous champions Carbide, the once most feared machine in the competition the worthy runner-up.
The father and son team from Warrington completed the finest comeback in Robot Wars history. After winning their Grand Final place through the Ten Robot Rumble, the biggest battle in Robot Wars history, Michael, beat the odds to go all the way and fulfil his dream of becoming Robot Wars Champion.
After winning the Ten Robot Rumble Michael explained his tactics; “You’ve got some really nasty spinners in there, but they’ve only got so much battery. If you can hang back and let them use it up –and everybody else went straight in, and I was happy for them to do that. If they all take each other out, I’m ok with that.”
Behemoth, Carbide and Nuts 2 were the first teams to fight in the deadly Group Battles, followed by Rapid, Magnetar and rumble winners Eruption. The winners of the group battles automatically made it through to the semi-finals, with the four losing teams getting a second chance to qualify via the Robot Redemption battles.
Carbide and Eruption emerged as the winners of the semi-final battles – a case of history repeating itself as last series they also faced each other in the final head-to-head battle.
It was another closely-fought and tense fight, with both teams’ weapons appearing to stop working and then suddenly springing back into action. Eruption flipped Carbide multiple times, and Carbide’s bar spinner sliced into Eruption in a battle described as “the stuff of Robot Wars dreams”by commentator Jonathan Pearce.
There was no clear winner so it went to the three judges, Professor Noel Sharkey, Professor Sethu Vijayakumar and Dr Lucy Rogers, who unanimously declared Eruption the Robot Wars Champion.
Michael Oates said about his win; “It was totally a dream come true! I’ve been obsessed with Robot Wars ever since watching the original series back in the early 2000’s as a young child, and we’ve now been competing for over 13 years with various robots.
“After all these years of hard work, winning Robot Wars has been a totally surreal experience.”
On his opponent Carbide; “It was a bit of a fairy-tale ending being able to avenge our defeat in the Grand Final last series, and of course we couldn’t have had a more deserving and worthy opponent.”
Robot Wars airs on BBC Two
