London robot-fighting events bring small machines into the arena

Small fighting robots take to the arena in Stoke Newington on the second Sunday of each month at Rock & Robots, a night combining antweight combat with indie music, karaoke and a Super Nintendo console.

The machines shove, flip and damage one another in bouts watched by a cheering crowd. A rule displayed for attendees makes the boundary clear: the fighters are robots, and people should not hit one another.

Started by Eli Gumble, Rock & Robots describes itself as bringing regular robot combat back to London for the first time since the television series Robot Wars was filmed in the capital in 1997 and 1998. The site used for filming is now occupied by the O2. Robot Wars was hosted at different times by Craig Charles and Jeremy Clarkson.

The event’s scale and informal setting distinguish it from more elaborate depictions of robot combat. Its competitors are antweight machines, rather than human-sized robots, and the evenings pair the fights with music and activities that make the event a social gathering as well as a contest.

A separate initiative, the Queer Robot Fighting League, is launching in Hackney at a vegan venue. Its stated purpose is to make combat robotics more accessible to beginners.

The league’s founder says the project is intended to open up an activity often associated with men. The founder, who describes themself as a queer femme person, says they have encountered the idea that engineering is not for them and wanted to create a space where newcomers could try the hobby without that attitude.

The founder also presents combat robotics as a practical way into electronics: participants learn by building machines, testing them, repairing damage and trying again. The league describes its approach as activist-led and beginner-targeted.

In Wood Green, the vegan venue Karamel opened its doors to Live Robot Fighting last year. The event was described as an experiment to demonstrate that robot fights could be staged in the city.

The London contests involve machines fighting other machines. A different kind of event in San Francisco brought a person into the arena against a robot. Robot Entertainment Kombat staged what it billed as the world’s first human-robot fight, featuring influencer Frankie LaPenna and a six-foot humanoid machine operated remotely through a virtual-reality system.

The California State Athletic Commission issued Robot Entertainment Kombat a cease-and-desist warning over staging unsanctioned combat events involving humans. The distinction between that event and London’s small-machine contests is central to the local scene: its fights are designed around robot-versus-robot competition, with people watching rather than taking on the machines.

Together, Rock & Robots, the planned Hackney league and the Wood Green event show different aspects of London’s combat-robotics scene: a regular public night, an effort to broaden access to the hobby, and an event testing whether the format can work in the city. Their small machines make engineering part of the entertainment, from the bouts themselves to the building and repair skills that the league’s founder says newcomers can develop.

Information on this page is refreshed from the connected theuk.fyi services when the interactive page loads.