However, the show is still as family friendly as it was a decade ago, when children and their parents cobbled together basic creations in garden sheds. "The machines are picking up a lot more damage." "There's a lot more fights put in this show than there ever was before," says Lewis. To be crowned champion a robot will have to be victorious in up to 12 separate fights. Across the six, one hour, shows the robots battle through a group stage with the winners progressing through to knockouts and a final – where a champion is crowned.
There is also a greater demand put on the robots and their crews over the six days of filming.
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When in full flow the noise can be heard throughout the giant warehouse where the show is filmed. The spinning disc on Pulsar, one of the robots competing in the new series, flies round at 9,000 revolutions per minute (rpm), the fastest in the competition. (The arena still has its pit, flames, spikes that get fired up from the ground and a flipper that flings robots meters into the air). Spinners, spikes, and flippers are the standard weapons of choice, although they've come a long way since the red googley eyed Diotoir was set on fire multiple times. The weapon is held between two wheels and flips forward and backwards as the robot is driven – if a nippy competitor wanted to (or was capable) it could drive between the wheels and under the weapon. One of the more eccentric bots is Gabriel, which looks like a Segway but with an axe or spike where you'd normally find a person. Traditional four-wheeled robots with flippers are joined by the more creative and strange killing machines only found on Robot Wars.
Also the armour they're using, it's this new thing called hardox, which is like a hardened steel, it's much lighter than titanium and much tougher." "The motors are better, more efficient and smaller so they can pack more in there.