By Will Sturgeon, 22 December 2003 13:20
NEWS silicon.com reader Terry Carlin is making a name for himself and putting his home town of St Agnes on the map thanks to the performance of his robot warrior 'St Agro' in channel Five's Robot Wars.
The cult TV programme is a favourite among techies and It manager Carlin contacted silicon.com ahead of his appearance on Saturday's show.
And it's a good job he did, else the silicon.com editorial team would have missed St Agro's almost unchecked charge to victory, securing a place in the series' Semi-Final.
Making its debut in the competition against seasoned campaigners, in its opening fight St Agro threw one opponent clean out of the arena, favouring the 'flipping' approach to robotic warfare.
But despite a seemingly effortless defeat of all comers, mastermind behind the battlebot, Carlin, told silicon.com it hasn't all been plain sailing.
"We've been building robots with varying levels of success for four years now," said Carlin. "This is the second St Agro. The first one was built like a brick and had all the control and finesse of an off-balance shot putter."
"We rebuilt from scratch. During testing we lost radio control of the robot and hadn't set the failsafes correctly. Luckily my mate's house got in the way to stop it. Not so good for the house though as it took a large chunk out of the wall, and my mate's wife wasn't impressed."
Carlin says since that first blip the team behind St Agnes have been conducting all tests far away from any populated areas. And it appears to have paid off - and for seemingly little investment.
"We're still one of the cheapest robots in the wars, with a total build cost of under £700," said Carlin.
For anybody looking to get behind their fellow silicon.com reader, the show will be repeated on 27 December, check listings for times. And if you're wondering which one Terry is, he's the older one in the very loud Hawaiian shirt - proving that techies still haven't quite mastered sartorial elegance.
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