Techno Games

Techno Games (2000-2003) was BBC Television's Olympic Games for robots. It was a spin-off from the hugely successful Robot Wars. The TV series was shown on BBC2 every weekday for a fortnight from the third Monday in March just after Science Week. The series of ten programmes was broadcast on the ten weekdays over two weeks (The first series consisted of five programmes broadcast over five consecutive weekdays). Schools, colleges, individuals and technology clubs competed to break world records, win medals and the grand series prize. For most events life-like movement was required so, for example, in the swimming event propellers were banned in favour of legs, paddles, flippers and fins. When the TV show was cancelled a number of enthusiasts kept the competition going under the banner UK Robotic Games.

Events

Not all the events appeared in all of the series.

• Assault Course
• Cycling
• Football
• Gymnastics
• High Jump
• Long Jump
• Micromouse (Wall following)
• Micromouse (Maze solving)
• Relay Cars
• Rocket Cars and Funny Cars
• Shot Putt
• Solar Challenge Cars
• Tug-of-War
• Rope Climbing (Natural movement-arms and legs)
• Rope Climbing (Artificial movement-wheels and rollers)
• Sprint (Two, three, four, six and eight legged walkers)
• Sumo
• Swimming
• Water Polo
• Outdoor Events (Penalty kick, Shot Put)

Machines and Teams

The teams that took part ranged from established Robot Wars competitors (both successful and unsuccessful) to Family Teams and Schools.

Also some of the machines entered attempted to compete in more than one event. For example in Series one Lemming attempted to compete in the Swimming and the Sprint. In series three Mammoth The Robot competed in an unofficial and unrecognised Tri Athlon (on its own) of Cycling, Swimming and the Sprint whilst Bigger Brother and Typhoon Rover (from the same team that produced Typhoon 2)competed in the football and the Assault Course.

People

Most of the people on Techno Games Philippa Forrester, Noel Sharkey, Martin Smith, Julia Reed and Simon Scott also worked on Robot Wars. Philippa Forrester became the host presenter, the technical presenters and judges were Noel Sharkey and Martin Smith who were also judges on Robot Wars and Simon Scott who had built the robot Razer. The more memorable robots included Skeletron, a rope climbing robot, Phoebius, a solar powered robot and Cycler, a presentation robot, that went on to visit thousands of schools. Skeletron, the gas powered natural rope climber so impressed the NESTA award judges that his builders Matt and Ray Tait won an all expenses paid trip to NASA in Florida.

Some of the teams that took part also took part in Robot Wars although the machines were modified to remove weapons (Some exceptions were made for objects like scoops and wedges), and to apply different bodywork, thus going under the guise of a different robot.

Series

Series 1 (2000)

• Host: Ulrika Jonsson
• Winner; shot-put event: Laura Moyser-Carr, James Westmoreland
• Technical Presenters: Noel Sharkey and Martin Smith
• Interviewers: Ed Hall and Sophie Blake

Series 2 (2001)

• Host: Jayne Middlemiss
• Technical Presenters: Noel Sharkey and Martin Smith
• Interviewers: Ed Hall and Liz Bonnin

Japan reports by Julia Reed

Series 3 (2002)

• Host: Philippa Forrester
• Technical Presenters: Noel Sharkey and Martin Smith
• Interviewers: Andy Collins, Liz Bonnin and Simon Scott

Series 4 (2003)

• Host: Philippa Forrester
• Technical Presenters: Noel Sharkey and Martin Smith
• Interviewers: Andy Collins, Liz Bonnin and Simon Scott

• Commentator for all series: Barry Davies

External links

• Techno Games at BBC Online
• Martin Smith's Techno Games website
• What is Techno Games?
• Techno Games, Rules and Guidelines 2000
• Skeletron, The Rope Climbing Robot

See also

• Robot Wars