HUDDERSFIELD has produced a technical team of robot warriors.

Jeremy Cuss, 55, of Golcar, along with a team of helpers, made it into the first round of TV's Robot Wars with his robot Herbinator.

The metal monster - which cost thousands of pounds to build - beat four other robots in the qualifying rounds on August 22.

This secured it a place in the first televised round of the new Robot Wars series, which moves from BBC2 to Channel Five when it comes to the screen in November.

Herbinator has a flipper to overturn its opponents in the battle arena - a converted aircraft hangar at RAF Norton near Nottingham.

But the pneumatic flipper was not enough to see it through the first round, filmed last week.

Herbinator was battered by competitors 13 Black and Lightning, before also taking a beating from House Robot Shunt.

Fortunately, only bodywork was damaged.

Mr Cuss, a chemical engineer, works with Rob Bennett, 30, also an engineer, at Syngenta in Huddersfield.

Gavin Whittaker, 25, is a quality assurance manager at Score Europe in Leeds.

A fourth team member, Rob Atkinson, 30, of Dewsbury, could not attend.

Mr Atkinson, a software engineer at Syngenta, had driven Herbinator throughout the qualifying rounds.

Mr Cuss said he named Herbinator after a combination of two film characters- the fearsome Terminator and the loveable, brainy Volkswagen Beetle car Herbie.

Mr Cuss began work on Herbinator after attending a robot building course at Huddersfield Technical College three years ago.

The course ran only for a year, but Mr Cuss, who had been a fan of Robot Wars for several years, had got the bug.

He said: "It was a pity the course stopped. I liked the fact that on Robot Wars people use their engineering expertise to produce a fun sport. I thought that was something I could do."

In 2002, Herbinator entered the sixth series of Robot Wars, but failed to qualify.

Mr Cuss thanked everyone who helped him towards this year's success.

He said: "There are a lot of people who have helped me over the years, particularly Bill Doodson, of Edgerton.

"He did all my welding - I met him on the robot college course and he has helped tremendously."