Spectre: A next-generation combat robot equipped with a state-of-the-art hydraulic breaching device as its weapon.
Since the engineering team behind BBC's Robot Wars, Robo Challenge, was itself barred from participating in the series, they looked further into the future and decided to build Spectre for the King of Bots (KOB) World Championship in China.
James Cooper, CEO of Robo Challenge, says: “There is no other industry like combat robots that pushes materials, batteries, and motors to the extreme like we do. We have to design and build a 110 kg fighting machine that will either annihilate or destroy its opponent within three minutes in a 110-ton, bulletproof arena.”
“The difference between designing for the automotive or aerospace industries and combat robots is that with robots, there aren't the same safety implications if a robot fails in an arena and injures people, as is the case in Formula 1, for example. This means we can push things much more intensively and closer to the tolerances of the material specification without having to fear that something catastrophic will happen.”