Tornado

Tornado was a robot that competed in the British television game show Robot Wars. The robot was a basic box-shaped robot with a red frame and clear polycarbonate armor. It only had a pneumatic spike in Series 4, but was given a vertical spinning disc in Series 5. In Series 6, it had interchangeable weaponry - the disc, a wedge (which would later incorporate a chain flail), a static spike, and a rectangular frame with horizontal blade (intended for use against Razer). Rather than its weaponry, however, Tornado mainly relied on its speed and strength to push competitors into the pit or slam them into the arena walls. It featured 24V motors being run at 36V to give it high pushing power - its top speed was only 10mph, but it had very good acceleration. Tornado was also invertible, allowing it to continue running even when flipped.

Tornado was particularly notable in that it defeated the best performing clusterbot and the best performing walkerbot in Heat Finals across its history. It also defeated Chaos 2 and Pussycat twice each, the only robot to do so. It also managed to win two Challenge Belts across the Extreme Series.

The robot competed in Series 4-7 of Robot Wars, winning the sixth series. It was built by Andrew Marchant, Bryan Moss and David Gamble, from Huntingdon.

Series 4
Tornado's first fight was against Kater Killer and the clusterbot Gemini. It exploded off the starting position and slammed straight into Kater Killer. Shoving it into Sir Killalot, it rushed back, circled the arena and slammed into it again, pushing it into one of the Gemini twins, who flipped it over. It pushed Kater Killer around and righted it, pushing it into Shunt, who immobilized it with its axe. Tornado then shoved Shunt around the arena while Killalot finished off Kater Killer. Tornado's next battle was against the seeded Berserk 2. It rammed into the arena wall until it was immobilized. Finally, Tornado came up against Gemini again. Gemini started slower than the speedy Tornado, who was flipped twice, but came back immediately. It targeted one of the Gemini twins and impaled it on an arena spike, immobilizing it. The Gemini team was eliminated since one half was immobilized. The unanticipated win over the clusterbot put Tornado through to the semi-finals.

In the Semi-Finals, Tornado met Wheely Big Cheese. Tornado was far quicker, and although the Cheese flipped Tornado twice, Tornado shoved Wheely Big Cheese into a CPZ and buckled a wheel. Tornado was flipped again and started smoking, but the judges went for Tornado. Tornado's final battle against Chaos 2 was fought three times, but only the third one was shown on TV. Tornado ran into Chaos 2, who rushed it up and flipped it out of the arena. Tornado was awarded Best Newcomer.

Series 5
12th seeds Tornado eliminated former semi-finallists Gravedigger in the first round. Gravedigger put up a good fight in the opening moments, slamming blows on Tornado with its axe weapon. However, Tornado rammed it into submission against the arena wall. This put Tornado against the Dublin boys and Diotoir, whom it pushed around for most of the battle. However, in a unexpected turn of events, Diotoir activated the pit, before pushing Tornado straight in. This meant that Tornado was the only top 12 seed not to reach the heat final in the whole series.

Series 6
Tornado returned for Series 6 with a new feature - an interchangable weapons bay. It had a wide variety of weapons for different opponents that could be swapped in or out depending on what was needed. Tornado started off its campaign against Terror-Bull, Inshredable and Edgehog. Tornado giving out some powerful slams in this battle - it pushed Inshredable around the arena a bit, then combined with Edgehog to push Inshredable into Matilda's CPZ. Edgehog became immobile soon afterward. Tornado continued shoving Inshredable around, then shoved Terror Bull into the pit a few seconds before Inshredable was counted out - Tornado and Inshredable qualified. Inshreadable was in no shape to fight again, as proved in its fight against Anarchy. In the second round, Tornado pushed Thor around the arena and into the House Robots, causing one of Thor's side panels to come off and won on a judges' decision. It replaced the spinning disc with a static spike for the final against Anarchy, and pushed the walker around, despite being flipped a few times. At one point, after a failed flip, Tornado charged into Anarchy's interiors, spike-first. This meant that Tornado was in position to prevent Anarchy from closing its flipper, and had lost its most potent weaponry. As a result, Anarchy could not attack Tornado, and Tornado won the judges' decision, through to the semifinals.

Tornado fitted a low wedge for the first round battle against Hypno-Disc. It simply shoved Hypno-Disc around, leaving Hypno-Disc unable to get its spinning disc up to speed and use it effectively. Tornado won the judges' decision. In the next battle, Tornado slammed into Dominator 2 twice with its scoop, while Dominator 2 axed it and made a hole. However, Tornado pushed Dominator 2 into the side of Matilda in a CPZ, but Matilda couldn't turn her flywheel into Dominator 2. Tornado backed straight into Matilda's flywheel, and went soaring above the pit and landed at the side of it, where it ran away. Dominator 2 tried to chase it, but did a backwards-nose-dive into the pit. Tornado had made it to the Grand Final for the very first time.

Tornado was drawn up against Firestorm 4 in the first round, and pushed it around the arena for a bit. Firestorm was having trouble getting under Tornado because their scoop was so low to the ground. Eventually Firestorm pushed Tornado into Shunt and Tornado got axed by the House Robot. Firestorm wedged Tornado into the wall. Tornado's wheels started smoking as they then pushed Firestorm back. Firestorm then got under Tornado again and pushed it around for a bit. Tornado was beginning to falter as it pressed the Pit Button. Tornado then got under Firestorm and slammed it into Shunt. After axing Firestorm, Shunt axed Tornado, nearly hitting the receiver. Firestorm flipped Tornado over. Tornado's scoop was now upside down and ineffective, until Firestorm flipped them again. Tornado then got under Firestorm and slammed them into the Pit Button. Just before time ran out, Tornado got under Firestorm and pushed it into the Pit, qualifying for the grand final. For the battle against Razer, Tornado was fitted with a large metal frame with a lawnmower blade at the front. Created specially for this fight, should it have occurred, the frame made it impossible for Razer to reach the inner parts of Tornado. Razer retaliated by attaching a small claw extension to their weapon. The frame was heavily criticized, but was deemed legal as the team had made it clear alongside all its other weapons before the tournament had started. The round begun with Tornado ramming Razer several times, although rather ineffectively. Tornado's lawnmower blade stopped spinning at one point, and Razer grabbed onto the cage several times, but kept losing its grip. Razer became wedged behind the disc button, and Tornado began its patented "relentless ramming" technique. Refbot intervened and freed Razer. The pit button was pushed and Razer managed to get a grip on Tornado's cage, raised it into the air and tried to dispose it in the pit, but Tornado's wide frame prevented it from falling down the shaft. Cease was called. After a 45 minute wait, the judges finally ruled in favor of Tornado, who was subsequently crowned the new UK Champion.

Series 7
Tornado kept the brilliant interchangeable weaponary and came back into the seventh wars as current UK champions. It started off a first round clash with Ewe 2, Saw Point 2 and Devastator. It dominated the early stages, ramming Devastator near the CPZ and singled it out as the probable weakest. It had to seperate it from the other two and continued to bash it into the sidewall, but it had a nudge at Sawpoint 2. After Ewe 2 pitted Saw Point 2, Tornado combined with the flipper to shove Devastator into oblivion and out of the competition. In the second round, it met the Firestorm-esque Leveller 2 and again went with the scoop. Tornado was flipped over, rendering the scoop useless, but used the upside down weapon to get a grip on Leveller 2 and shove it into Sir Killalot. Poor driving meant it couldn't get away and Shunt and Killalot combined to bash it a bit. Leveller flipped Tornado once more but Tornado showed great aggresion by bashing its opponent towards the angle grinder. Leveller eventually was grasped by Killalot, who dropped it. Leveller 2 then drove into the pit. Tornado then destroyed Tetanus Booster in the final with a series of shoves when it kept getting underneath the lookalike. Tetanus started smoking and after a little bout in the CPZ, Tornado pitted it, putting it through to the semi-finals.

There it met Raging Knightmare. Tornado overturned Raging Knightmare with a rebound from a shove into the sidewall, but Shunt axed it. Tornado shoved Raging Knightmare hard repeatedly into the sidewall at speed. Raging Knightmare couldn't self-right and was pitted by Tornado. In the second round it met much-fancied Gravity, who had beaten Dantomkia and 13 Black. Gravity couldn't get underneath Tornado's low scoop and Tornado kept shoving it around the wall. Gravity chucked Tornado high in the air and landed Scoop side up. Although Gravity had a hissing tire, it could now get underneath Tornado. It didn't however and Tornado again pressed the pit release after it had shoved a damaged Gravity onto it and sped away to press it.

In the grand final it met Storm 2. Storm 2 was much like Tornado, meaning it shoved its opponents around the arena but with better speed and power. It also had a flipper. There was no respect between the two and Storm 2 span away into the sidewall with an attempted shove. That was before it kicked in and whammed Tornado into the wall at 25mph, which shook some elctronics. It got some more pushes in and Tornado couldn't handle the Storm 2 movement. It was so aggresive. Unfortunately, Tornado lost the judges decision as Storm 2 won on damage and aggresion. In its battle against X-Terminator, the opponents had taken so much damage against the eventual winners Typhoon 2, it didn't work as well. Tornado dodged the flywheel and more deadly shoving meant X-Terminator was counted out.

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * UK Wins: 32
 * UK Losses: 8
 * US Wins: 3
 * US Losses: 0

Series Record

 * Series 1-3: Did not enter
 * Series 4: Semi-Finals, Round 2
 * Series 5: Heats, Round 2
 * Series 6: Grand Champion
 * Series 7: Third Place