When electronics engineer Noel Poncelet's children badgered him to make a robot he began tinkering around with a few bits of metal.

Two years on, he has transformed those bits of scrap into a mean fighting machine called the Hassocks Hog.

Now he hopes to pit his metal beast against the best in Britain in the BBC's Robot Wars programme.

Competitors send their robots into battle against other robots with the intent of the machines damaging each other as much as possible.

The Hassocks Hog has a raft of weapons designed to do just that.

It has a flipper to topple the other robots, evil-looking red tusks on the front and a tail on its back, which will flip it back over if it gets into trouble.

Two-pointed leopard-skin ears will hopefully stop the Hog being flipped over on its head.

Noel, 45, of Clayton Avenue, Hassocks, said: "The kids were one of the first reasons I started because they saw the programme and asked if we could build one.

"It also follows on from my father who has always been an engineer and was always building strange vehicles.

"It is quite an exciting thing to do. I am an electronics engineer but as a youngster I always used to follow my dad in the garage, watching him build his vehicles so I got a background in that.

"It gives you confidence, that when you start a project like this, you have got at least some understanding."

It was because of his father Noel named it the Hassocks Hog. He said every time his father, who is French, built a vehicle, he called it un sanglier, which is French for hog or boar. Hog goes well with Hassocks and Noel thought it would be a good nickname.

But building it was not always easy and there were many evenings and weekends spent in the garage, fine tuning the machine.

"At the start you think 'how am I going to do this?' and you sort of build bits and it evolves.

"We decided it had to have a flipper because at the time the reigning champion was Chaos 2, which had a flipper and the ability to self-right. With those things in mind it has evolved.

"The programme is primarily to entertain, hence the Hog is a little bit theatrical. It looks dramatic and I know some robots have got in purely because they look entertaining.

"Some are like cannon fodder - they look good but they are going to be torn apart."

The Hog cost about £1,500 to build and set Noel back another £600 as he bought new tools to make it but he said he was looking forward to the impending battle.

"You flip the robots over to attack. The Hog has got two tusks which a blacksmith friend made. They are obviously weapons as well.

"The other weapons are sheer pushing power and the grip. If you can push other robots into the house robots, which are like the big bullies or the bouncers, then they do all the damage."

Noel is using two of his sons to help out. Jonathan, eight, will be in charge of the weapons control and Robert, seven, will be the strategy manager and lookout for any danger from other opponents.

Four-year-old Daniel will stay at home with Noel's wife, Judith, 38.

"My aim is to get into the main tournament. I have to qualify first. There are about 300 robots, which will get whittled down to 60.

"They check you out and make sure the robot is the right weight and conforms to the rules.

"There are a few robots who will not get through because they are too ordinary and don't look entertaining.

"I have never built anything to this extent before. I have always been mechanical and done car repairs but this is the first thing I have built all myself."