Team Outlaw

Team Mouse (occasionally known as Team Velocirippa) is a team from Nottinghamshire that competed in Series 4-7 of Robot Wars, also competing in both series of Robot Wars Extreme and the football competition of Series 3.

The team originally consisted of Father and Son Trevor and Matthew Wright, before Anthony Hillier joined the team in Series 4. Trevor's daughter Emily joined the team in Extreme Series 2.

"My lad was watching the television show, and he said "Dad, could you build one of these?", and I watched it for a bit and said "I can build a better one than that!", so I had the missus shouting from the kitchen "Well, go on then!", so I did!"

- Trevor Wright on deciding to enter Robot Wars.

Team Mouse's original robot was Velocirippa, a compact, agile, wedge shaped robot, based on a dinosaur's head. Its weapons were originally had 8mm armour-plated spikes, which could be effectively used for ramming other opponents, as the robot had a top speed of 20 mph. It originally failed to qualify for Series 3, but used its agility to reach the final of the Robotic Soccer Competition. The robot qualified for the main competition in Series 4, but was defeated by the seeded Razer in its first battle. In Series 5/Extreme 1, the spikes on the front were replaced by a small disc.

This version of Velocirippa was destroyed in Extreme 1, so was retired and re-built to become the team's second robot: Mighty Mouse, a robot armed with Velocirippa's original ramming spikes, and based on a mouse's head. Mighty Mouse was built from the chassis of the original Velocirippa machine, but proved more successful than Velocirippa in the main competition. For Series 6, the team had also built a new and improved Velocirippa machine, this robot was still based on a dinosaur's head, but was bulkier and larger than the original, and was originally armed with ramming spikes at the front. Both qualified for Series 6 but the team could only enter one, so only Mighty Mouse was entered.

The pair of robots fought together in the Extreme Series 2 Tag-Team Terror competition; however they performed poorly, being eliminated in the first round by the eventual runners-up: Barbaric Response and Hydra.

For Series 7, Team Mouse entered and qualified with both Velocirippa and Mighty Mouse. Again, Team Mouse could only enter one so picked Velocirippa this time. However, Mighty Mouse managed to compete because a reserve robot was needed and Team Captain Trevor Wright was able to reach the studio for filming at short notice. Due to a new rule requiring all heavyweight robots to have an active weapon, Velocirippa's front spikes were replaced with a lifter, whilst Mighty Mouse was given a pair of rear spinning discs. Although neither escaped the Heats, the tournament line-up would have made it impossible for them to fight each other until the Grand Final.

The team never had tremendous success in Robot Wars, aside from its Robotic Soccer qualifier win, neither model of Velocirippa ever won a battle on the televised show. Mighty Mouse was slightly more successful, reaching the Heat Final during Series 7, losing to Thermidor 2.

Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 4
 * Losses: 9

Series Record

 * Series 1-2: Did not enter
 * Series 3: Robotic Soccer Final with Velocirippa
 * Series 4: Heat, Round 1 with Velocirippa
 * Series 5: Heat, Round 1 with Velocirippa
 * Series 6: Withdrew Velocirippa and Heat, Round 2 with Mighty Mouse
 * Series 7: Heat Final with Mighty Mouse and Heat, Round 1 with Velocirippa

Robot Wars Live Events
The team's new heavyweight robot, Meggamouse, competed in the first live event of the new Robot Wars at Barnsley in February 2013. Mini Mighty Mouse then debuted in the Portsmouth event in March.

Outside Robot Wars
Like many Robot Wars competitors, Team Mouse entered Techno Games. The team entered an only slightly changed Mighty Mouse (the front spikes was removed and replaced with two little spikes) in the football tournament and the assault course. Having broken the world record along the way, it got to the final of the assault course but lost both the record and final to Typhoon Rover. In the football it was teamed with Bugs Buggy rather than Velocirippa, who entered alongside another robot. Together, the two were the Mousekerteers.

The team also built a Battery Sprint competitor called In A Rush, for the 2001 series, but it lost in the first round to Junior from the International Wreck Crew.

Despite their lack of success on Robot Wars, the team has gone on to be very successful at live events. The team created a featherweight called Mini Mighty Mouse, which won the 2007 UK Featherweight Championship. Velocirippa, along with Team MAD's Merlin, won the 2006 Tag-Team Terror Competition.

However, in 2008, both Mighty Mouse and Velocirippa were retired from Robotic Combat, with the newer Velocirippa being stripped of its innards, for the team to build their new robot: Meggamouse. Dubbed the replacement for Mighty Mouse, Meggamouse is a low robot armed with a long flipping arm. Both Mini Mighty Mouse and Meggamouse still fight competitively today.

They also use a rambot featherweight called Ironside. They have built a new version of Ironside called Ironside 2, which is invertible and armed with a front spinning disc. At the UK featherweight championship, Ironside 2 had a spinning bar.

Team Mouse were working with Team Roaming Robots to turn their robot Orbiter into an axe wielding robot. This fell through and Orbiter has been sold to Krissy Knee, who has renamed it Rybot.

Trivia

 * Like Team Vader and Team Ming, Team Mouse entered both of its robots into the Seventh Wars.
 * The replacement for both Mighty Mouse and Velocirippa use different aspects of each in its design: it has the body shape of Mighty Mouse (minus U-bar) and the insides and wheels of Velocirippa. It also has compartments not seen in either, like the flipper ram and the flipper (the second Velocirippa in Series 7 had a small bucket-like lifter, but not a flipper).