King B eager to make Robot Wars return following knockout

Simon Harrison, 47, from Portchester, and his team, returned to feature in BBC’s new revamped series of the show in which they appeared to run out of luck after battling into the group stages.

King B remixed had previously featured as a competitor several times during the show’s original run from 1998 to 2004.

After navigating their way through an action-packed first round, Simon’s team then lost their three head-to-head contests in which they had to put the robot back together within the space of an hour after a fault was detected.

Simon, a power electronics engineer said: ‘At the end, we were told they’d love to have us back and we would be delighted to do so!’

‘It was a mixed bag for us but we found it so exhilarating to be back.

‘It was our main aim to not get knocked out in the first round so after that we just wanted to go for it.’

Their first head-to-head against Dantomkia was over in seconds after King B’s jive system played up and despite a strong start against Big Nipper, the team were overpowered by their competitor’s spinning disc.

With an hour to go before their third fight against TR2, they realised some of the old parts had broken and effectively had to take the robot apart and put it back together in under an hour.

Their hard work was then undone after seconds in the pit when Simon realised they had forgotten to switch half the robot on and it was taken out.

Speaking on the overall experience, he said: ‘We were very happy with the whole experience.

‘It was great to be back, the series is now much bigger and better and I think the roboteers were really given a chance to shine.’