Robot Wars
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50 free Robot Wars trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Robot Wars turned back-garden engineering into prime-time television. From 1998, teams of amateur builders sent home-made, remote-controlled machines into an arena full of traps, where the heavier House Robots waited to punish any mistake. The show ran for seven series, came back in 2016, and still has a devoted following. This quiz covers the whole story: the presenters and the voice in the commentary box, the House Robots and their weapons, the champions and their famous grudges, the arena hazards, the judging rules, and the American roots of the format. You will also meet the spin-offs, the console tie-ins and some of the odder merchandise. It is written for anyone who grew up watching the sparks fly, as well as for fans who can still name every grand finalist. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so even the misses teach you something.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Top Gear presenter hosted the first series of Robot Wars before being replaced for the second?
Jeremy Clarkson
Jeremy Clarkson fronted only the opening run, and during filming a robot's weapon flew off and lodged in a wall inches from him.
Q 02Which Red Dwarf actor took over as host of Robot Wars from its second series until 2004?
Craig Charles
Craig Charles, who started out as a performance poet, signed off every episode with a short poem about the fighting machines. He played the slobbish Dave Lister in the sci-fi sitcom.
Q 03Which Robot Wars House Robot carried a flamethrower, a weapon banned for the contestants' own machines?
Sergeant Bash
Sergeant Bash was exempt from the weapon rules that bound contestants, and in the first series it set the fur-covered robot Nemesis on fire.
Q 04What name did Robot Wars give the square hole in the arena floor that eliminated any robot that fell in?
The Pit of Oblivion
The Pit of Oblivion arrived in the second series, a four-foot square hole painted black inside and part-filled with old tyres. A ball of white smoke marked each victim's fall.
Q 05Which flipper-armed machine is the only robot to win the UK Robot Wars championship twice?
Chaos 2
Chaos 2 won the third and fourth series back to back, and was the first robot to throw an opponent clean out of the arena.
Q 06Which football commentator voiced the loud, excitable commentary on every episode of Robot Wars?
Jonathan Pearce
Jonathan Pearce was one of only two people to appear in every episode, the other being the head judge. He brought the same booming delivery he used at football matches.
Q 07Why did the Razer team drill about 450 holes in their Robot Wars machine after fitting self-righting wings?
To shed excess weight
The holes were drilled to shed excess weight: the wings that let Razer roll back onto its wheels had pushed it past the 79.4 kg maximum for heavyweights.
Q 08In which Californian city did designer Marc Thorpe stage the very first Robot Wars competition?
San Francisco
San Francisco's Fort Mason Center hosted the first event in 1994, two years after Thorpe had the idea while failing to build a radio-controlled vacuum cleaner.
Q 09Which robot's destructive run in series three led Robot Wars to enclose its arena in a perspex box?
Hypno-Disc
Hypno-Disc, built by twin brothers and their father, shredded rivals so thoroughly that the arena was boxed in from the fourth series to shield the audience from debris.
Q 10Which Irish comedian, known for hosting Mock the Week, presented the Robot Wars revival from 2016?
Dara Ó Briain
Dara Ó Briain fronted all three revival series, the first episode of which drew about two million viewers.
Q 11What name does Robot Wars give the amateur and professional builders who operate the fighting machines?
Roboteers
Roboteers from the programme went on to form the Fighting Robot Association in 2003, so that live events could carry on away from the cameras.
Q 12On which American robot combat show did Robot Wars champion Razer win the 1999 Gigabot Rumble on a crowd vote?
BattleBots
BattleBots welcomed Razer to Los Angeles after its team won an international scholarship, and five machines were still moving when the 13-robot rumble ran out of time.
Q 13Which broadcaster picked up Robot Wars for its seventh series after the BBC cancelled the show?
Channel 5
Q 21Which robot, named because a team member chased storms, beat Razer in the disputed sixth Robot Wars final?
Tornado
Tornado won after the judges deliberated for 45 minutes, having bolted on a bulky frame that kept Razer's claw from reaching its body.
Q 22Which Welsh robot won the second series of Robot Wars wearing a spider logo drawn by a 12-year-old girl?
Panic Attack
Panic Attack got its spider from a school competition to draw something that makes people panic, and its electric lifting forks carried it to the title.
Q 23Which House Robot did Razer wreck and then set on fire after winning Robot Wars' Southern Annihilator?
Matilda
Matilda had just flipped Razer's last opponent onto its side, yet Razer tore into her bodywork and rear shell before pushing her over the flames.
Channel 5 launched its run on Sunday nights with one million viewers, but ratings soon fell and the show was axed after a single series there.
Q 14The 2016 Robot Wars revival built its bulletproof arena in a warehouse on the outskirts of which Scottish city?
Glasgow
Glasgow's neighbour Renfrew housed the new arena, a 15-metre square with a steel floor and higher walls that made it harder to throw robots out.
Q 15Which claw-and-lance House Robot from Robot Wars was credited on a novelty single that charted in December 2000?
Sir Killalot
Sir Killalot shared the billing with a character called Robo Babe on the record, which stalled at number 51 in the UK chart.
Q 16Which machine, built by A-level students as a school project, was the first Robot Wars champion?
Roadblock
Roadblock won the six-way final of the first series by slipping its wedge under rivals and tipping them over. Its builders called it Road Rage until the producers asked for a change.
Q 17Which Tomorrow's World presenter was the original Robot Wars reporter who interviewed teams before and after battles?
Philippa Forrester
Philippa Forrester missed the fourth series because she was pregnant, so Julia Reed stood in until Forrester came back for the fifth.
Q 18Which House Robot made its debut in the fourth series of Robot Wars?
Refbot
Refbot carried a fire extinguisher for burning machines and gave stuck robots the odd nudge to keep a battle moving.
Q 19Which WWE wrestler, famous as Mankind, hosted the American spin-off Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors?
Mick Foley
Mick Foley fronted the US version in late 2001, five years after debuting his masked Mankind persona and long before his 2013 Hall of Fame induction.
Q 20In the very first heat of Robot Wars, the Trial pitted contestants against a House Robot in which sport?
Sumo
Sumo against Shunt on a raised podium was the first Trial, and the robot that lasted the least time up there was eliminated.
Q 24Which of the four original Robot Wars judging criteria was dropped when the show returned in 2016?
Style
Style rewarded a robot for showing off abilities such as self-righting, and it had counted for the least of the four in the judges' scoring.
Q 25In the first two series of Robot Wars, what was the obstacle course that robots tackled before any fighting?
The Gauntlet
The Gauntlet lined its route with hazards and House Robots, and the machine that covered the least ground went home. It was dropped from the third series in favour of pure combat.
Q 26Which University of Sheffield robotics professor was head judge on every series of Robot Wars?
Noel Sharkey
Noel Sharkey, a Belfast-born computer scientist, later became a prominent voice on the ethics of using robots in war and policing.
Q 27Which BBC Two spin-off of Robot Wars had robots chase medals and world records in events such as swimming?
Techno Games
Techno Games demanded lifelike movement, so its swimming robots had to use legs, paddles or fins because propellers were banned.
Q 28When the Robot Wars set outgrew London's film studios, filming moved into which kind of building in Nottinghamshire?
An aircraft hangar
An aircraft hangar at the former RAF Newton base took over once the stage and backstage area had grown too large for any conventional studio.
Q 29Which children's TV network made its own Robot Wars in 2002, with child drivers and the flame hazards switched off?
Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon handed the controls to children linked to established American teams, banned rough language, and ended its version after a single season.
Q 30Robot Wars: Metal Mayhem, the first console title based on the show, was released in 2000 for which handheld?
Game Boy Color
Game Boy Color owners got the game that December, and together with the two titles that followed it passed 250,000 copies.