Techno Twins

Not really enough has been written about Techno Games, a Robot Wars spin-off - effectively the Robotic Olympics - which ran for four series on BBC Two between 2000 and 2003. It was stripped across weekdays, which helped with the comparisons to the Humanoid Olympics rather better than if it had been weekly (as did the commentary from Olympic commentator Barry Davies), and a lot of the events were broadcast live, which was quite brave given all the things that could possibly go wrong (especially in the Swimming event!) It's probably fair to say it's not as fondly remembered as RW, but if you're not sure if you remember it or not, then see if Skeletron or Scuttle jog your memory.

Although Techno Games was apparently a Robot Wars spin-off, I'm not sure the parent show was ever expressly mentioned (although this was not a rule that was enforced very strongly - when asked if they had been on television before, the Plunderbird team claimed to be the "Smith twins... all three of us" and the Tornado team wore the exact same team T-shirts on both shows). There were definitely strong links between the two - the same production company, for one, several of the events were retired Trials from the parent show after it had switched to being combat-only, and Philippa Forrester actually presented the last two series, with Robot Wars judges Noel Sharkey and Martin Smith often appearing to offer post-event analysis. Unsurprisingly, many teams who entered Robot Wars also entered Techno Games, and many of them used the exact same robot. However, as TG was not about aggression, the weapons had to be removed, and they had to be entered under different names.

Transpower/101

Sometimes the robots would be differentiated clearly from their fighting incarnations - Sprocket was a near total refit of SMIDSY, and some were hard pressed to tell that Storm Chaser was Tornado with different panels. Other times the differences would be less subtle - British Bulldog was clearly Bulldog Breed with the flipper removed, and Transpower was just 101 with a conspicuous piece of gaffer tape over its logo! Scuttle was also entered by the 101 team and went on to be the basis for Anarchy, the one truly successful walker robot in Robot Wars. (The team had plans to enter Anarchy in the 2016 series of the RW revival, but these were scuppered by a change of rules which lowered the maximum weight limit for walker robots - a shame, as that would've been a nice link between the new series and Techno Games.)

Repurposed fighting machines weren't going to be suitable for every event, obviously, and the Diotoir team entered two little-known siblings of their RW entry - Stanoscloir, and the rather terrifying Ulysses.

Sadly, Techno Games disappeared not long after Robot Wars migrated to Channel 5, although it was slipping in BBC Two's ratings in a similar fashion to its parent show (without even having the excuse of the insane scheduling the Beeb subjected RW to in later years). It's a shame robotics disappeared from the BBC once they lost the rights to RW, but given how badly that series bombed it's perhaps understandable (in 2006 Challenge TV were planning to televise the Fighting Robots Association's World Championships, which were to take place as part of the live circuit which sustained the format during its years off-air, but the event got cancelled due to poor ticket sales).