A CATSHILL robot engineer will battle it out to be crowned Robot Wars champion in the new format BBC Two series, starting this weekend.

Dave Moulds, who builds industrial-sized bots at Bournville's Cadburys World, will compete in the group battles in episode two, airing October 29, alongside his teammate Sam Smith and their optimised robot Carbide.

Carbide will enter series 10 as the defending champion, after winning the title last year - making the team the first UK victors to win via knockout since series three.

Bot driver Dave, 28, told the Advertiser: "Since last series, most of our efforts have been on optimisation of the existing machine.

"We’ve lightened internal components so we could use the weight advantage on other areas of the machine, such as replacing the overly-strong titanium weapon shaft with an aluminium one, so we’d spare some weight to improve top armour."

Carbide is equipped with a powerful bar spinner, which last series caused so much damage to some of its opponents that they couldn't be fully repaired in time for their next battles.

"Carbide has been engineered like an F1 car," Dave said. "It's always on the edge of working perfectly or total failure."

After watching Robot Wars as a child, Dave spent two years building his first heavyweight bot, which made him the UK's youngest heavyweight champion at the age of 17.

Series 10 of the show incorporates an all new competition format, with a Robot Redemption, new hazards and the biggest battle in the programme's history - the Ten Robot Rumble.

Team Carbide will be among 30 competitors battling it out in the bullet-proof Glasgow arena for a place in the semi finals, ahead of the last heat, which will hopefully land Dave and Sam a place in the grand final.

Dara Ó Briain, who will again be presenting the show alongside Angela Scanlon, said the upcoming series was 'one of the most ludicrous things I have been involved in'.

He said: "We had our first satirical robot this series, Donald Thump, which has his hair and is very funny. Actually there are a lot of new teams coming in who create a few surprises but also returning ones.

"The returning robots essentially feels a bit like the Premier League, with teams such as Aftershock, Eruption, Carbide or Apollo.

"There are robots that die in hugely dramatic ways, flames shooting out of them, flying into the arena wall, or tearing themselves apart."

Readers can watch Robot Wars on Sundays at 8pm, starting October 22.