Erin Seils|
St Andrew’s and St Bride’s pupils got a chance to watch “Robot Wars” live in brand new arena.
S2 robot fanatics and S3 physics students headed off to a purpose built, bullet proof, arena in Renfrew at 8:30 on Friday 11 March, arriving at around 9:20. I was lucky enough to be one of these pupils.
We weren’t allowed into the arena until 10:45, with filming beginning at 11:00, so we had a bit of waiting around to do. But, with free tickets, we couldn’t really complain. We were patiently waiting for our call to go in, when one of the pupils spotted a YouTuber!
Mandy Wan and Cameron McQuarrie were both very pleased to see Daniel Hardcastle, aka OfficialNerdCubed. The gamer/ YouTuber has over 400,000 subscribers and Mandy has been subscribed for almost 4 years.
Robot Wars itself was very exciting. The old house robots are back, bigger and better than ever. Matilda, Dead Metal, Shunt and Sir Killalot are all back for the rebooted series.
It’s not only the house robots that have massively improved but the built-in obstacles are also deadlier than ever. With spikes that can cut through 5 feet of steel, fire reaching 10 feet in height and the flipper sending robots flying just as high, this is bound to be the most exciting series yet!
“It was amazing and better than it has ever been! The advance in technology was incredible!”- Sandra Santhosh, a third year student.
We got to see 4 fights in total and all of them were equally entertaining.
First up were, Storm 2 and Apollo. Then it was Ironside 3 and Gabriel’s turn to battle it out. Up next was Beast VS Pulser and finally, Eruption against PP3D.
Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait until the show comes out on BBC 2 to find out who the winners were. However, I can reveal that there were some surprising outcomes and the judges had to be consulted in a few of the battles, as they were just too close to call.
A lot of audience participation was involved during filming. I think I speak for everyone when I say that my arms were aching after all that applauding, whooping and cheering. We had to say the famous line “3,2,1 ACTIVATE!” before every fight, along with a few practices beforehand. Some foam hands were even thrown into the crowd with the famous line printed on one side and another well known phrase on the other side, “IN THE PIT!”. St Andrew’s and St Bride’s even got one to take back to the Physics Department and some pupils got one for themselves too.
We also got to see hosts Dara O’Briain and Angela Scanlon doing interviews with the contestants. Although we didn’t see him today, it has been confirmed that legendary commentator, Jonathan Pearce, will be back for 2016. A release date for the new series has not been confirmed as of yet but hopefully it will be coming out soon.
It was an extremely enjoyable day but also very tiring. A presenter for the studio audience, who will not be shown on TV, managed to keep us full of energy though, with a sing-and-dance-along to both 500 Miles and Jump Around.
Everyone agreed that it was a great experience.
“Robot Wars was a lot of fun and the battles and robots were really unique” – Stephanie Veal, an S3 pupil who had never seen Robot Wars before.
Hopefully the show will be on screens soon. I can’t wait to see how it turns out!
