Adrian Oates is a Senior Electronic Engineer in the Technology Department at Daresbury Laboratory. When he is not at Daresbury working with ASTeC on accelerator controls, he is an accomplished robot builder. His son Michael, 18 is the team captain, head designer, robot builder and driver.
Adrian and Michael have been building Robots for a grand total of 13 years, following on from Michael watching Robot Wars for the first time as a young child.
“It all started when my Son, Michael saw the original Robot Wars on TV when he was 5 years old. We both became fascinated by it and then started building robots."
With a top speed of 12.6mph, Eruption has 'flipped' its way to success, beating off competition to become the winner of Week 2, Series 9 of the show.
Eruption isn't the first robot the pair has built. Adrian and Michael created another award winning robot named Explosion, weighing in at just 13.6Kg. It's fair to say it was more of a lightweight machine compared to Eruption (109Kg) but that didn't stop it from being a success and in 2015, Adrian and Michael walked away as World Champions.
We asked Adrian what the best part of being on Robot Wars was and he said: “The best thing for me about being on Robot Wars is seeing a result for the hundreds of hours of design and build time and also being a successful team with my Son."
Having flipped not one…not two… but three of its opponents out of the arena, Adrian and Michael are going forward as Robot Wars finalists!
To catch the final, tune into BBC2 Sunday 9th April at 7pm.
Adrian Oates (Right) of Daresbury Laboratory
with Son, Michael (left) and Eruption their Robot Wars Episode Winning Robot. (Image: © copyright [2017] BBC - BBC NEWS)
If you missed Adrian in action, you can catch up here.
If you want to read a bit more about Eruption, the BBC website has a great section on the Robot Wars finalists.
