A BROMSGROVE engineer is gearing up to appear on BBC Two’s Robot Wars tonight.
Reigning champions Dave Moulds, who lives in Catshill, and team member Sam Smith will return to the arena with their creation ‘Carbide’ in a bid to retain the title.
After winning the Robot Wars crown in series nine, the bar spinner robot will feature in the second episode of the new series, now presented by Dara Ó Briain and Angela Scanlon, at 8pm tonight.
Dave, a maintenance engineer at Cadbury in Bournville, started watching the popular show as a child and it inspired him to make one of his own.
“When I was younger I spent many hours researching and sketching out ideas, I started building a robot out of bits I could find lying around and it was rubbish.
“But over the years I taught myself mainly by my mistakes and eventually started to build competitive robots.”
The 28-year-old originally competed against Sam, an Aerospace Engineer from Derby, before joining forces to create ‘Carbide’.
He said: “Building a machine together is great, as you can bounce ideas off each other and if one of us misses out a small detail that needs improvement then the other member of the team will pick up on this most of the time.”
The team, based in Bromsgrove, spent six months designing ‘Carbide’ and three months building it, although it has taken years to refine into the machine it is today.
“The reason it stands out from the crowd is mainly due to its reliability,” he added.
“There are robots with more powerful weapons on paper, but in the arena they normally break after one hit.
“Its amazing to see something we’ve built in action.”
