Team Carbide

Team Carbide is a roboteering team captained by Dave Moulds. Comprising of Moulds, veteran roboteer Sam Smith and, originally, Sheryl Prior, the three competed together as Team Carbide for the first time in Series 8 of Robot Wars, with Moulds and Smith returning for Series 9.

Although Series 8 marked Team Carbide's collective debut, Sam Smith had been competing in Robot Wars since Series 4. Their most famous robot is Carbide, the reigning Robot Wars champion, co-designed and built by Moulds and Smith, which also finished second in Series 8.

Dave Moulds
Dave Moulds is the captain of Team Carbide, and was also the driver of Carbide. By trade, Moulds is a robotics engineer for Cadbury. Dave Moulds entered the roboteering scene as a member of Team Hurtz in BattleBots, and built his own robot Turbulence, which became the UK champion in the 2006 live circuit. Turbulence would later win the 2016 pilot under ownership of a new team.

Moulds was specifically chosen to be a mentor in Robot Wars: Battle of the Stars. He joined BBC Radio 1 DJ's Scott Mills and Chris Stark to compete with Arena Cleaner, a robot which was similar in design to Carbide. Moulds repaired Arena Cleaner when necessary, and eventually the team won the episode.

Sam Smith
In Team Carbide, Sam Smith operates Carbide's weapon, having co-built and designed the robot. By trade, he is an aerospace engineer for Rolls Royce, and is also a featherweight roboteer in his own right.

Sam Smith had previously competed on Robot Wars with his robot Tiberius, which debuted in Series 4, before returning to Series 5 as Tiberius 2, and Tiberius 3 competed in Series 6-7 and Extreme 2. Smith's team represented Loughborough University when they won the University Challenge in Extreme 2. Tiberius' other team members include Simon Coulthard, John Coulthard, Stuart Smith, Craig Lawson and Carl Lawson.

Dave Moulds stated on Inside the Bot that Sam Smith may become the team captain in Series 10 if the team enters, in order to raise awareness of the equal workload that both team members contribute to Carbide.



Sheryl Prior
Sheryl Prior is an accountant by trade. The television show defines Prior's role as the team's tactician, although the Robot Wars website refers to her merely as 'moral support' and 'tea making'. She did not return for Series 9.

Robots
NOTE: Tiberius was entered only by Sam Smith, and has no connection to Dave Moulds or Sheryl Prior.

Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 24
 * Losses: 7

NOTE: This wins/losses ratio includes the performance of Carbide and Tiberius, and excludes the performances of Arena Cleaner and Turbulence

Outside Robot Wars
Dave Moulds was a participant in ABC's rebooted series of BattleBots, as part of Team Robo Challenge with Beta, although Beta could not compete due to parts being lost in travel.

Around the same time that Team Carbide developed Carbide for Robot Wars, the same team were also producing a heavyweight for Season 2 of ABC's BattleBots, Cobalt. Both Carbide and Cobalt are extremely similar in shape and design, but Cobalt uses a sharper, axe-like bar spinner, and both robots feature different internals. Cobalt uses a white and blue colour scheme, over the black and green used by Carbide. In its first round battle, Cobalt was drawn against Overhaul, a reasonably successful robot from the previous year. Cobalt's spinner reached top speed very quickly, and a series of attacks were launched onto Overhaul, all of which deflected Cobalt away due to the shape of Overhaul's side armor. A set screw became stuck in Overhaul's locomotion, rendering it immobile, putting Cobalt through to the second round, further than Photon Storm, Team Storm's rebuilt version of Sam Smith's past heavyweight Tiberius. In the second round, Cobalt fought wildcard newcomers and eventual runners-up, Bombshell. Cobalt tried to ram into Bombshell's overhead bar spinner with its rear end to open up an opportunity to attack, but Bombshell's blade kept cutting up Cobalt's tires and while Cobalt managed to tear of one of Bombshell's side panels, Bombshell eventually managed to tear off enough of Cobalt's tires, defeating it.

On the live event circuit, Dave Moulds has also fought with various featherweight robots since 2002. He has fought with various different versions of Turbine, armed with a flipper, which has since been retired. In full-combat events, Moulds has fought with a few spinner-wielding robots. These include:
 * 360, a featherweight version of Hypno-Disc, with a horizontal flywheel.
 * 540, a six-wheeled box-shaped robot with an interchangeable eggbeater and rammer configuration. The robot has since been bought and renamed Disturbance.
 * 720, an octagonal-shaped robot armed with a spinning drum, now owned and renamed Sabre20 by Team Legion.
 * 722, an improved version of 720 with a similar paint scheme to Carbide, which finished runner-up in the 2017 FRA Featherweight International Championships.

Moulds also won the 2006 FRA Heavyweight UK Championships with heavyweight flipper Turbulence. Team Carbide member and co-builder Sam Smith also fights in live featherweight events with NST, a horizontal bar spinner. NST won the 2012 Featherweight UK Championships and the 2015 UK Featherweight Annihilator, and still actively competes today.

Trivia

 * Team Carbide's Series 8-9 competitor, Carbide, was inducted into The Combat Robot Hall of Fame in 2017 following its dominant performances in those series.