Robots Of Destruction - 2006

EsatBT's Young Scientist exhibition, in the Royal Dublin Society

Another Great event, Sadly Chompie didn't manage to win this year, but he did manage third which is a great achievement considering the other excellent robots that were there. Granny Weatherwax made her first appearance, Granny was named with the approval of Terry Pratchett himself, making her the first (we think) un-official Discworld robot. Prior to her appearance Granny allowed Magrat to do her hair for her debut, next year the green fungus look will be gone and Granny will be back to her normal hair colour.

Simon had no real control over Granny Weatherwax, as he rightly pointed out, how could anyone have control over Granny! It also has to be said that it was one of the weak spots of Granny Weatherwax's otherwise well-developed character that she'd never bothered to get the hang of steering things. It was alien to her nature. She took the view that it was her job to move and the rest of the world to arrange itself so that she arrived at her destination.



Granny Weatherwax "Her expression wasn't perhaps as vicious as thumbscrews, but is did seem to suggest that thumbscrews were a real possibility".




Kyodai tells the audience to "stick em up"!


Britney Spires boxes for the girls and Killerbot ducks and dives for the boys. Seconds away round one...

Someone tell Killerbot he's not supposed to dive off the stage! One nil to the girls....

And one for the boys ;) Kieran poses for the "World of Robots" calender.


Granny Weatherwax watches over Chompie and ponders exactly what "you shouldn't meddle in the affairs of dragons because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup" means?



Chompies had a little accident in his fight with Top Bot, the result was the two robots took out a wall of the "indestructable" arena. Debs would like to point out that she wasn't driving, so it wasn't her fault!

Chompies next fight was with Monad, a very powerful bot who Chompie was very lucky to beat to take us through to the next round, sorry about the tyre and the vantec guys!

After Chompie beat Monad, his next fight was with "King B", who stuck his spikes in Chompie, and they became stuck together, despite King B trying to launch Chompie through the arena side wall. King B was declared the winner, however, robots shouldn't hold on for more than 30 seconds tut, still congratulations to King B for beating Chompie :) Commiserations to Simon though for upsetting the witch, she'll be after her pound of flesh or should that be metal next year ;o)

Whilst on patrol Granny Weatherwax noticed a moving pictures box and tried to coax the imp out, he did a runner rather sharpish when he saw who he was looking at!

Born to rune! Ian trys out Pete's bike out for size.


We took some time out to see a little bit of Dublin inbetween the roboting as is customary for us when we go to new places. This trip we went to Merrion Park to see Oscar Wilde, Debs being a fan of his works couldn't miss the chance to visit the place he was born.

Finally a pertinent quote from Oscar Wilde that we'd like to share with our fellow roboteers.

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."