Main Hazards
Robot Wars Arena Layout
1. The Pit: The Pit of Oblivion is where dead robots are thrown after being beaten by their opponent and been trashed by the house robots. Robots have to hit a button before the pit goes down. It is approximately 1 meter by 1 meter square.
2. The Drop Zone: The drop zone drops a load of heavy weights onto the immobile robot below, damaging the chassis construction and armour of the robot but not a lot else.
3. Arena Floor Flipper: The floor flipper is a very powerful floor board and when a dead robot is placed on it, it can fling them high into the air.
4. Flame Pit: The flame pit might not do very much in terms of visible damage to robots, but inside it can create all sorts of trouble, like melting wires and over heating speed controllers.
5 - C02 Jets: The CO2 jets are very powerful holes in the floor that blow CO2 high into the air. They could stop petrol engines instantly by starving them of oxygen, but were also found to be useful in putting out fires.
6. Corner Patrol Zone (CPZ): The CPZs are where the House Robots live and are to be avoided at all costs. If a competitor enters the CPZ at any time during a fight, whether or not it was pushed in by its opponent or drove in itself, the House Robots can attack it. For Series 2, there was a Perimeter Patrol Zone (PPZ). It worked in the same way as the CPZs, except it went round the entire edge of the arena instead of being limited to the corners.
Other Hazards
Angle Grinders: these were attached to the arena wall at regular intervals. Much of the time, they didn't cause much damage but did create showers of sparks when they came into contact with the robots.
The Sentinel: this only appeared in the Trials in Series 2. It was a converted mini JCB digger, and remains the only arena hazard to require an operator to sit inside the arena. Its main weapon was a hydraulically operated battering ram arm which pushed or lifted robots into the nearby pit.
The Spinning Disc of Doom: was a giant, circular shaped panel set into the arena floor. It was activated by robots pushing a tyre on the arena wall, and would spin at high speed throwing any robot that drove on top of it away in a random direction. It was only used in Series 6 and Extreme 2.
