The year is 1962 and you've just woken up in the shadow of the Windscale (now Sellafield) nuclear power station in Cumbria, five years after its catastrophic meltdown. Trapped in the sizeable quarantine zone surrounding the accident site, you must stay alive long enough to figure out how to escape – a task made rather more challenging by the presence of aggressive cultists, irradiated monsters and highly territorial terror bees. Imagine Stalker, but set in northern England, and you're edging towards what Oxford-based developer Rebellion has in store. Fallout may seem like another obvious inspiration for this irradiated game world, but after playing a two-hour demo, it's clear the game draws more from classic British sci-fi. Here you are, stuck in the picturesque Lake District, with its lush woodlands, gurgling rivers and dry-stone walls.

An internationally leading robotics initiative that enables academia and industry to find innovative solutions to real world challenges, celebrated its success with a Hot Robotics Symposium hosted across three UK regions last week. The National Nuclear User Facility (NNUF) for Hot Robotics is a government funded initiative that supports innovation in the nuclear sector by making world-leading testing facilities, sensors and robotic equipment easily accessible to academia and industry. Ground-breaking, impactful research in robotics and artificial intelligence will benefit the UK's development of fusion energy as safe, low carbon and sustainable energy source in addition to adjacent sectors such as nuclear decommissioning, space, and mobile applications. Visitors to UKAEA's RACE (UK Atomic Energy Authority / Remote Applications in Challenging Environments) in Oxfordshire, the University of Bristol facility in Fenswood Farm (North Somerset), and the National Nuclear Laboratory in Cumbria, were treated to a host of robots in action, tours and a packed speaker programme. A combination of robotic manipulators, ground, aerial and underwater vehicles along with deployment robots, plant mock-ups, and supporting infrastructure, were all showcased to demonstrate the breadth of the scheme.

A cat-shaped robot server has worked its first shift in a UK restaurant to help address staff shortages. The BellaBot, a delivery robot created by Chinese tech company Pudu, was recruited by the Bella Italia branch at Center Parcs Whinfell Forest in Cumbria. The robot can zip between tables and the kitchen, with human staff or customers only required to load and unload the trays. The trial by Big Table Group, owner of Bella Italia, Café Rouge, Las Iguanas and other UK restaurant chains, marks the first time the BellaBot has been used in a large restaurant setting. The company said it launched the trial in an effort to'boost innovation and elevate the dining experience', and that it was now'the largest restaurant chain in the UK to introduce robot technology'.

As worker shortages are felt across the hospitality sector, the owners of the Bella Italia chain are turning to robots to provide table service to customers. Big Table Group, which also owns Café Rouge and Las Iguanas, is testing out the robot at its Bella Italia restaurant in Center Parcs Whinfell Forest in Cumbria, in the first such trial by a big restaurant chain. The BellaBot, made by Chinese company Pudu, can carry up to 40kg on four trays and deliver and retrieve plates from tables with help from humans who load and unload its "body". Eric Guo, the chief executive of Spark which distributes Pudu robots in the UK, said there were 60 working across 20 British businesses and he expected more orders in the year ahead. Most are operating in restaurants, but hotels, supermarkets, care homes, snooker clubs and bowling alleys are also experimenting with the technology.

As worker shortages are felt across the hospitality sector, the owners of the Bella Italia chain are turning to robots to provide table service to customers. Big Table Group, which also owns Café Rouge and Las Iguanas, is testing out the robot at its Bella Italia restaurant in Center Parcs Whinfell Forest in Cumbria, in the first such trial by a big restaurant chain. The BellaBot, made by Chinese company Pudu, can carry up to 40kg on four trays and deliver and retrieve plates from tables with help from humans who load and unload its "body". Eric Guo, the chief executive of Spark which distributes Pudu robots in the UK, said there were 60 working across 20 British businesses and he expected more orders in the year ahead. Most are operating in restaurants, but hotels, supermarkets, care homes, snooker clubs and bowling alleys are also experimenting with the technology.

The swarm took over land, air, water and above-water environments, but was operated as one autonomously controlled unit from a single ground station. An autonomous swarm of six drones flew in the sky, dived underwater and crept over land to assist armed forces with various experimental missions in a first-of-its-kind exercise for the UK Royal Marines. The uncrewed systems were deployed as part of training raids on simulated adversary positions in Cumbria and Dorset, and were tasked with various missions ranging from reconnaissance operations through delivering supplies to soldiers, to identifying and tracking targets of interest. Made up of six different types of drones, the swarm took over land, air, water and above-water environments, but was operated as one autonomously controlled unit from a single ground station. This means that the systems worked together, sharing data from their sensors across a single communications network.

The Thorp nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield, Cumbria, has recycled its final batch of reactor fuel. But it leaves behind a hugely toxic legacy for future generations to deal with. So how will it be made safe? Thorp still looks almost new; a giant structure of cavernous halls, deep blue-tinged cooling ponds and giant lifting cranes, imposing in fresh yellow paint. But now the complex process of decontaminating and dismantling begins.