This is B2B Robot Fighting: Inside Accu presents FightFest at Smart Manufacturing Week 2026

Accu presents FightFest is the UK's first major B2B combat robotics event.

On 3 and 4 June 2026 at the NEC in Birmingham, Accu transformed its Smart Manufacturing Week (SMW) exhibition space into a purpose-built, bulletproof arena. Designed and engineered by Accu's team alongside BBC Robot Wars veterans, five sponsor-branded robots entered the cage and fought live across the two days of the show.

Over 20 thrilling tournament bouts, Torx, the combat robot sponsored by Xometry (a global online marketplace for custom parts), took the trophy. More than 3,500 Smart Manufacturing Week visitors watched the battles up close, and FightFest 2026 content has already reached over 330,000 views and counting across Accu’s website, YouTube & social media channels.

This wasn’t a tech demo. It was a fight for glory, bragging rights and the spotlight.

“This was easily the most dramatic thing ever at an engineering trade show!"

Alastair Morris

Managing Director at Accu

Smart Manufacturing Week brings together the best of UK manufacturing, the technologies, people and ideas shaping the future of industry, all under one roof. For the 450+ brands exhibiting, the challenge was never about relevance. It was about standing out

Engineering companies spend years refining products, platforms and positioning, then present them in rows of stands that can look and sound much the same. Accu's answer was controlled chaos.

This was never just a spectacle. FightFest set out to prove a theory: that combat robotics could borrow the sponsorship model behind sports like Formula 1, drawing real funding into a sport that is inherently tied to developing the engineers of the future. 

It also proved that a bold, interactive stand, built around a real-time engineering spectacle, can showcase not only Accu's components but its sponsors' products and services in a genuinely engaging way, standing out from the typical trade-show stand and gaining traction far beyond the show floor.

For Accu, the robot fights were the ultimate product demo: many of the same precision components and tools that kept these machines alive under 100G impacts are the parts Accu supplies to surgical robots, motorsport teams and aerospace systems worldwide. 

For FightFest, it showed that even if Robot Wars' latest revival did not last as long as fans hoped, the appetite for combat robotics in the UK and beyond is very much alive.

Plus, the F1-style corporate sponsorship employed at SMW can be the framework that grows participation, funding and, with it, a real career pathway into engineering.

On this page:

• What happened at FightFest 2026

• The results: who won FightFest 2026

  • FightFest 2026 Final Leaderboard
  • Every Fight: In Order

• Meet the 2026 robots and their sponsors

• How do you build a fighting robot?

  • FightFest 2026 Robots: Design Considerations

• Built on a proven partnership

• Why FightFest works for sponsors

• The engineering behind the spectacle

• FightFest FAQ

  • What is FightFest?
  • Who won FightFest 2026?
  • Who were the FightFest sponsors for 2026?
  • What weight class are the combat robots?
  • Is FightFest like Robot Wars or BattleBots?
  • Who is Accu?

What happened at FightFest 2026

For two days in June, the busiest space on the Smart Manufacturing Week show floor was not just a stand. It was an arena.

The Accu presents FightFest team built a purpose-designed, bulletproof combat cage in the middle of the NEC and ran a live combat-robotics tournament from doors-open to close, both days, while 15,000 engineers and manufacturers moved through the show around it.

Inside the arena, featherweight robots (up to 13.6kg, carrying weapons such as 6,000RPM spinning blades) traded blows hard enough to throw an opponent across the floor. At full speed, those weapon tips were capable of travelling at around 200mph.

Above it, two 16m² screens carried the animated fight intros, the live action and the pit-lane interviews to the whole hall, driven by an 8-camera crew who caught every impact.

It was loud, it was fast and it did exactly what it was built to do: stop people mid-stride and pull a crowd.

It was deliberately more than the fights. Between bouts the arena kept the crowd lining up ring side with a run of extra features:

• Live power demos from the replica BBC Robot Wars house robots Dead Metal, Shunt and Sgt Bash, along with static displays of Sir Killalot and Matilda

• Penalty shoot-outs where visitors drove Huddersfield Town and Accu branded robot footballers, complete with Accu Stadium inspired goalposts

• Weaponry exhibitions from Killi Pepper, the reigning FightFest 2024 champion and Accu Lead Engineer Ellis Ware's own featherweight robot, pushing the arena and its components to their limits

A dedicated STEM visit, arranged with the Smart Manufacturing Week organisers, and visits from Accu's sponsored academic teams put exciting engineering in front of the next generation.

For the five sponsored robot warriors, day one featured a round-robin style tournament bracket, with intensive repairs in the pits between battles.

Day two followed suit, culminating with the Grand Final between the leaderboard’s top two robots, battling out to be crowned the newest FightFest champion.

There was no backstage. Accu's repair crew worked the full FightFest fleet in the open, on the show floor, between bouts and sometimes during them.

The pit lane was an intense working workshop with the crowd leaning over the rail to catch the action beyond the arena walls.

Visitors watched engineers diagnose a dead drive, swap a sheared fastener and rebuild armour against the clock, then send the machine straight back into the cage.

Battles were won in the arena, but the real-time engineering stories were written in the pits, and every part of it was on show, delivered live, safely and professionally.

The response backed the plan. FightFest 2026 media, from videos hyping up the build up to the event through to post-event content (including the full fights on the Accu YouTube channel) has already reached tens of thousands of engineers and manufacturers and driven more than 750 hours of watch time, about 31 days of continuous viewing, on YouTube alone.

Tellingly, the build-up and the robot reveals travelled furthest of all: proof that people do not just watch engineering, they share it, especially when it is framed as a story worth telling.

“We're changing the game in a way that just happens to be ridiculously cool."

Ed Hodges

Director at FightFest

The results: who won FightFest 2026

Torx, sponsored by Xometry, won FightFest 2026.

After a full round-robin style tournament across both days, Torx, armed with its powerful beater weapon, finished top of the leaderboard and beat runner-up Sir VoDrive (sponsored by Beckhoff) in the Grand Final to lift the trophy.

It was a fitting rematch: Sir VoDrive (Fight 11) was the only robot, besides LabmAnaconda (Fight 15), to beat Torx in the group stage, so the final was Torx’s chance to settle the score in front of a peak-attendance crowd.

FightFest 2026 Final Leaderboard

FightFest 2026 Final Leaderboard Explained

• Win = 1 point, Draw = 0 points, Loss = -1 point

• Points are a net record across the group stage (wins minus losses).

• Sir VoDrive and LabmAnaconda finished level on points; Sir VoDrive took second place on head-to-head, having beaten LabmAnaconda in both their meetings.

• Eighteen of the twenty scheduled group-stage bouts were fought over the two days (two were awarded, see table below). 

The top two robots, Torx (Xometry) and Sir VoDrive (Beckhoff), met in the Grand Final, drawing by far the biggest crowd not just at Accu presents FightFest, but likely ever seen at a Smart Manufacturing Week exhibit.

Before this, the 3rd and 4th place playoff was contested by LabmAnaconda (Labman) and The Terrier Twister (Huddersfield Town).

Every Fight: In Order

Group Stage

NB: Fights 17 and 20 were awarded on the day rather than run, after repair time and table position made it impossible to complete every scheduled bout within the exhibition times over the two-day window.

The Finals

Meet the 2026 robots and their sponsors

Five founding sponsors put their brand on a machine and sent it into the arena. Each robot was engineered specifically for FightFest by Accu's in-house team, alongside ex-Robot Wars veterans, and each one carried its sponsor's engineering story into every fight. This is what a FightFest sponsorship looks like on the floor.

Torx, sponsored by Xometry (FightFest 2026 Champion)

Weapon: 6,000RPM beater bar.

Sponsor focus: on-demand manufacturing, rapid prototyping and precision parts.

Torx was the first branded robot to join the roster. A heavy hitter and the eventual tournament winner, its high-mass beater bar stores enormous rotational energy and delivers it in a single brutal strike.

This sends a massive shock load straight back through the chassis, so surviving fight after fight comes down to balance and heavy-duty bearings.

Torx lost just twice all tournament, to Sir VoDrive and LabmAnaconda, and avenged the Sir VoDrive defeat in the only fight that counted: the Grand Final. A neat mirror of Xometry's own world, custom-made precision parts, made fast and made right.

To learn more about the design & manufacturing techniques used to create Torx’s signature beater weapon, check out Ellis’ article on Xometry Pro - Torx Robot: The Story Behind Accu’s Engineering and Xometry’s Precision CNC Machining.

 

“It was a truly fantastic event, and Xometry was proud to be part of it - winning was a bonus!"

Ruth Liddel

Marketing Specialist at Xometry Europe

Sir VoDrive, sponsored by Beckhoff (FightFest 2026 Runner-up)

Weapon: 4,200RPM undercutter.

Sponsor focus: industrial automation, open control systems and drive technology.

Sir VoDrive was the robot that (almost!) solved the problem of Torx: one of only two machines to beat the eventual champion in the group stage, and a thorn in LabmAnaconda's side, beating them in both their meetings.

Its low, floor-skimming blade is built to get under an opponent and slice through wheels and baseplates, which is all about control: rapid weapon acceleration and precise, repeatable speed, exactly the drive and automation technology Beckhoff builds for a living.

A red-and-white brawler that made the final on merit.

“Accu presents FightFest at Smart Manufacturing Week 2026 was a great reminder that exciting engineering still comes down to good design, with robust control and reliable motion."

Mark Richards

UK Sales Manager at Beckhoff

LabmAnaconda, sponsored by Labman (3rd Place)

Weapon: lifter, over 50kg of lifting force.

Sponsor focus: custom automation and robotics engineering.

LabmAnaconda played the long game. Rather than a spinner, it relied on leverage, torque and tactical positioning to get under opponents and take control.

It finished level on points for second, taking third only on the head-to-head tiebreak, and beat even the champion once along the way (Fight 15).

A genuine threat throughout as, alongside it's powerful lifter, the tips of this weapon were sharp fang-like spikes.

This extra point of impact added the capablilty of piercing an opponents tyres or armour, providing further venom to its weapon system - and aptly lending itself well to the snake-inspired name for this robot!

Fittingly, given Labman's place in FightFest's origins, their branded up robot fighter was one of the most disciplined machines in the field, managing to defeat all of the other competitors in the group stage (except for Sir VoDrive).

The Terrier Twister, sponsored by Huddersfield Town (HTAFC)

Weapon: 2,400RPM full-body shell spinner, 8kg shell.

Sponsor focus: Huddersfield Town AFC, bringing local, gritty sporting spirit to the engineering floor.

The Terrier Twister brought the crowd and was a fan favourite throughout the exhibition.

Whilst not an engineering brand, this robot's sponsor builds on the ongoing multi-year partnership between HTAFC and Accu, with the component supplier the official engineering partner and holder of the club's stadium naming rights until at least 2030.

Sporting the famous colours of Huddersfield Town and their recognisable emblem - featuring the dog that lends its name to their 'Terriers' nickname - this robot, as it turned out, was anything but an underdog.

Its entire outer shell spins up and stores violent kinetic energy, so when it connects the energy dispersal is chaotic.

Of all five sponsor robots, it definitely was the ultimate stress test for the Accu fasteners, retaining rings and welds holding the machine together.

The blue-and-white army's champion had the beating of runner-up Sir VoDrive twice and delivered some of the tournament's biggest hits and surprises!

No Pryor Warning, sponsored by Pryor Marking Technology

Weapon: hammer, 0.125-second activation.

Sponsor focus: industrial marking, engraving and component traceability.

No Pryor Warning fired a high-velocity hammer in an eighth of a second.

This rapid pneumatic strike was designed to leave a permanent, high-impact impression on an opponent's top armour, a true "make your mark" story that writes itself for a sponsor whose business is permanent marking.

It drew the toughest schedule of the tournament and it never stopped swinging, sadly not managing to take home a win.

“A big thank you and congratulations to everyone at Accu and FightFest for what has to be one of the best things I have seen at an exhibition."

"The Pryor Marking Technology robot didn't win (not even a single fight) but that didn't spoil the enjoyment. Maybe next time we will go with a laser instead of a hammer."

Dan Stephenson

Group Director of Sales at Pryor Marking Technology

Killi Pepper, by Accu and FightFest (exhibition robot)

Status: Accu Lead Engineer Ellis Ware’s own featherweight and the reigning FightFest 2024 champion.

Sponsor focus: represented Accu as the host sponsor as a non-competing exhibition machine.

Between rounds, Killi Pepper tested the arena's limits and showed component stress-testing to the live crowd. Ellis Ware created Killi Pepper to compete and win at FightFest 2024.

The robot was repaired using Accu's own components to working condition, acting as an exhibition machine only in-between fights at the 2026 tournament.

How do you build a fighting robot for FightFest?

Combat robotics is the ultimate real-world stress test for engineering components.

High kinetic shock, extreme vibration and sudden torsional shear force every bolt, bearing and mounting plate to its limit at once.

If a single fastener shears mid-fight, the fight is over.

That is exactly why it makes such a good showcase for precision components.

The same parts that keep these machines alive in the arena are the parts Accu supplies to medical devices, autonomous vehicles and rocketry manufacturers worldwide.

The two Grand Finalists show the two extremes of the discipline.

Torx is about energy: a 6,000RPM beater bar only works if the weapon is perfectly balanced and the bearings can absorb the shock of every hit, because all of that force feeds back into the frame.

Sir VoDrive is about control: a 4,200RPM undercutter has to spin up fast and hold a precise speed to get under an opponent at the right instant, which is as much an electronics and drive challenge as a mechanical one.

Between them sit three very uniquely designed contestants, each with their own punishing engineering challenges that the roboteers had to find repeatable solutions for in order to rapidly build, repair and prepare for fights in quick succession.

They were:

• A 50kg-force lifter (LabmAnaconda)
• An 8kg shell spinner (The Terrier Twister)
• And a pnemuatic hammer that fires in an eighth of a second (No Pryor Warning)

FightFest 2026 Robots: Weapons vs Engineering Component Considerations Comparison

Across all five machines the common thread is the unglamorous, load-bearing detail: the fasteners that do not back out under vibration, the bearings that survive repeated shock, the shafts, gears, retaining rings and 3D-printed wheels engineered to take 100G impacts and keep driving.

Accu's engineers designed the robots and got every part one of three ways: 3D-printed in-house, custom-made through a sponsor's manufacturing network (Xometry machined Torx's beater bar weapon, for example), or pulled straight from Accu's range of 750,000+ standard components.

Because every Accu standard component comes with a free 3D CAD model, the team could drop exact part models straight into the robot CAD and move faster from design to build. Anything still bespoke came through Accu's growing Custom Manufacture service.

Built on a proven partnership

FightFest at SMW 2026 did not come out of nowhere. It built on an established multi-year collaboration between Accu and FightFest, already proven with live audiences outside the trade show exhibition world.

In summer 2024, Accu collaborated with the team behind FightFest to bring combat robotics to the Magna Science Adventure Centre in South Yorkshire, where over 2,000 spectators experienced the sport first-hand.

The format demonstrated its ability to engage technical audiences, hold attention and complement a broader visitor experience - creating a buzz for engineers and hobbyists alike.

Machines like Explosion, a multi-award winning featherweight, showed the format could hold a technical audience's attention and sit comfortably alongside a wider visitor experience.

The response was clear: when precision engineering meets competitive theatre, people stop, watch and share.

SMW 2026 took that foundation and scaled it up, placing FightFest at the heart of the UK’s flagship manufacturing event as a feature designed to add value to the event as a whole, supporting exhibitor visibility and visitor engagement.

Why FightFest works for sponsors

FightFest gives an engineering brand something a mere banner never will: a machine with your name on it, engineered by the best, fought live and turned into weeks of content.

Plus, the chance for the winner to get their hands on the coveted FightFest trophy.

In 2026 that meant a branded robot built by Accu and ex-Robot Wars veterans, plus:

• a dedicated pit-lane presence
• dual 16m² overhead LED screen branding and ad spots
• a guaranteed minimum of four tournament rounds
• a dedicated sponsor interview slot on each day
• and a full content pack cut from more than five hours of footage.

 

For the five sponsors, that package delivered what a conventional stand rarely does:

• Elevated profile in a hall of 450+ exhibitors, in front of a crowd of over 3,500 spectators that gathered on its own

• Drama and memorability attached to their brand, not just a logo on a banner

• A natural talking point that pulled visitors into deeper technical conversations

• Association with innovation, performance and real-world engineering credibility

The proof is in the numbers.

FightFest 2026 has been watched more than 330,000 times across five platforms and drove 752 hours of watch time on YouTube alone.

Crucially it reached a genuinely hard-to-buy audience: predominantly working-age engineers and technical decision-makers, concentrated in the UK.

This audience is made up of many of the exact segment of B2B buyers & potential hires most sponsors struggle to reach through conventional trade-show exhibits & their associated media.

The robot reveal films, naming each sponsor, were among the most-watched posts of the entire campaign, so sponsor branding did not just appear, it travelled, with the Xometry Torx reveal drawing over 7,000 organic views across YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.

And it keeps working. The post-event films & reports are still being published, so a sponsor's robot earns views & engagement long after the show floor clears.

FightFest reflected what Smart Manufacturing Week itself stands for: collaboration, innovation and making modern engineering engaging, visible and memorable.

Before the show Henry Anson, one of the organisers of Smart Manufacturing Week, called it:

“The most ambitious exhibition event… ever!”

Henry Anson

Director at NineteenGroup

But afterwards, his verdict was pretty clear:

“You brought something unique to an engineering exhibition and stole the bloody show.”

Henry Anson

Director at NineteenGroup

The engineering behind the spectacle

Strip away the sparks and the spectacle, and FightFest is a genuine engineering success story for Accu.

Accu positions itself as the new kind of component company, built specifically for the pace of modern engineering: more than 750,000 precision-engineered components online, with same-day dispatch, real-time stock and a free 3D CAD model for every standard part.

These are the pillars behind a rapidly growing customer base, one that now supplies over 70% of the world's top 100 manufacturers.

The FightFest arena, and the tantalising robot fights inside it, are simply the loudest possible demonstration of what those components and tools help engineers achieve every day, the world over: in operating theatres, on race cars and in orbit.

But crucially, for Accu and the FightFest team, it is also about people and the impact an exhibition like this can have on them.

FightFest started life as a STEM initiative, initially developed by Labman, and the 2026 event kept that at its heart.

A dedicated STEM visit opened the arena up to the next generation of engineers, and alongside the football and the fighting robots the Accu team introduced students to its Academic Partnerships and Accu Scholarship programmes.

The latter of which supports high-achieving engineering students from low socio-economic backgrounds through their degrees, with the scholarship fund now offering £3,000 per year for two students.

For those budding young engineers who came to watch FightFest 2026, the sponsors on the floor were more than logos: they were real openings into careers and future supply chains.

The beauty of choosing an exhibition that showcased the best of modern combat robotics was that it’s an engineering sport that is, and likely will always be, enjoyed by engineers young and old.

As a result, the short term impact of Accu presents FightFest at SMW 2026 was to create connections between engineering brands, sparking collaboration and lead generation for products and services needed here and now.

But, importantly, the longer term goal was to sow the seed of inspiration into the minds of up and coming engineers, those who will go on to innovate and create, knowing that brands such as Accu and the FightFest sponsors will be there to support them, throughout their careers.

The spectacle of FightFest is the hook; the point is inspiring the engineers who will build tomorrow.

Key takeaways

• A world first, delivered: Accu built the UK's first major B2B combat robotics event and ran it live for two days at Smart Manufacturing Week 2026.
• Torx (Xometry) are the champions of FightFest 2026: beating Beckhoff's Sir VoDrive in a Grand Final rematch after a full on two-day round-robin tournament.
• Five brands backed a robot: Xometry, Beckhoff, Labman, Pryor Marking and Huddersfield Town, each machine engineered by Accu and ex-Robot Wars veterans.
• Real reach, real spectators: 330,000+ views and 752 hours of watch time, in front of a hard-to-reach engineering audience.
• It is a great Accu story: the same precision components that survive the collisions & impacts in the arena power clean energy solutions, marine equipment and advanced prosthesis, and the event doubles as STEM outreach.
• Proven, then scaled: The format was tested with over 2,000 spectators at Magna in 2024 before FightFest took centre stage at the UK's flagship manufacturing show in 2026.

FightFest FAQ

What is FightFest?
FightFest is Accu's live B2B combat robotics tournament, staged in a bulletproof arena at Smart Manufacturing Week, with sponsor-branded featherweight robots engineered by Accu's team alongside ex-Robot Wars veterans.

Who won FightFest 2026?
Torx, sponsored by Xometry, won FightFest 2026, beating runner-up Sir VoDrive (Beckhoff) in the Grand Final after topping the round-robin leaderboard.

Who were the FightFest sponsors for 2026?
Xometry (Torx), Beckhoff (Sir VoDrive), Labman (LabmanAconda), Huddersfield Town AFC (The Terrier Twister) & Pryor (No Pryor Warning).

What weight class are the combat robots?
FightFest has previously been the home for the European featherweight fighting robots championships. In keeping with tradition, Accu presents FightFest at SMW 2026 featured featherweight combat robots; weighing up to 13.6kg.

Is FightFest like Robot Wars or BattleBots?
Same sparks-and-steel spirit as Robot Wars, BattleBots and NHRL, rebuilt as a live engineering showcase on the trade-show floor, with real sponsors and real precision engineering behind every machine.

Who is Accu?
Accu is the new kind of component company: 750,000+ precision-engineered components online, with same-day dispatch, real-time stock and free CAD models, supplying over 70% of the world's top 100 manufacturers.

Stay in the arena

The full fights, the robot reveals and more behind-the-scenes content are on Accu's channels now, with more still to come. Follow @accucomponents and subscribe on YouTube so you do not miss a single fight.

Further reading

• AccuBots: precision engineering meets robot rumble

• How to make a combat robot (antweight 150g)