Typhoon 2

Typhoon 2 was a robot that competed in the British television game show Robot Wars. It was a full-body spinning robot with four cutting blades capable of shattering the arena wall, which it did on two separate occasions. The robot competed in and won the seventh series of Robot Wars. It was created by cadets from the Air Training Corps and painted to resemble the RAF crest. The team also competed in many of the other weight categories with various other robots of the same design. Strangely, on the robot's controller, there was a self-destruct button.

Typhoon 2 also for a while competed at international level, in the American RFL (Robot Fighting League), with a reasonable degree of success.

Extreme 2
"...planning to whip up a storm with this, or self-destruct"

- Jonathan Pearce on Typhoon 2

Typhoon 2 competed in the Annihilator in Extreme Series 2. No sign of its future promise or the success of its predecessors was evident in the first round. Typhoon 2 spun up to speed, but its first blow skewered it on the claws on Kan Opener, stopping the spinner completely. It was unable to start spinning again, and Raging Reality came in and flipped Typhoon 2 over, where it was unable to self-right. "Will we see the self-destruct button?"

- Jonathan Pearce after Typhoon 2 was flipped by Raging Reality

Series 7
The eventual champion was almost eliminated in its very first fight with Bigger Brother, Colossus and U.R.O. It did very little whilst Colossus was flipped over by Bigger Brother and U.R.O. broke down. Typhoon 2 wasn't spinning properly and was eventually flipped over by Bigger Brother as well, but caught a lucky break as Colossus and U.R.O. was immobile first. In the second round Typhoon 2 came up against Hammerhead 2. It instantly ran away to get the disc up to speed. It began to strike Hammerhead until it lost drive on one side. The side panels started being ripped off until Hammerhead completely broke down and was counted out. The Heat Final against Iron Awe 2.1 was done in similar fashion. Typhoon ran away to start spinning. It was almost at full speed which caused Iron Awe to spin violently each time it was hit. The flipper was buckled and Iron Awe hit the wall after one of Typhoon's strikes where it broke down.

The Semi-Final was fairly easy for Typhoon 2. In its first round it took just one strike to knock Thermidor 2 (one of the machines present in Typhoon 2's annihilator loss) out. In the second round it once again ran away to get up to full spinning speed, but Atomic instantly came in and attempted to flip it. However on its second flipping attempt it got the flipper caught on the angle grinders and flipped itself over. Instead of self-righting, the flipper stayed stuck open and it started venting CO2 gas. By this point Typhoon 2 was spinning so quickly that a whirring sound could be heard coming from it. After a few strikes Atomic completely broke down and Typhoon 2 was through to the Grand Final.

Typhoon 2 met its first non-flipper robot in the Grand Final; X-Terminator. It too had a spinning weapon but its height meant it couldn't strike Typhoon 2. After a few strikes X-Terminator's drivetrain for the flywheel was knocked loose, leaving it with no weaponry. However Typhoon 2 hit the arena wall, destroying it, so cease was called. The judges said that Typhoon 2 was potentially the most dangerous robot in Robot Wars, as the only other robot to smash the arena wall was Topbot in it's World Championship qualifier against Crustacean (ironically in the same series). The bout was restarted and X-Terminator was knocked out in one strike, so Typhoon 2 progressed through to the Final. Storm 2 drove straight at Typhoon 2 but missed, it then simply bounced away after the first strike with no damage. Typhoon 2 ran away until it hit the arena wall and stopped spinning. Storm 2 then came in and attempted to flip Typhoon 2. Typhoon 2 got away and struggled to get up to speed, so Storm 2 came once again and attempted to flip it. Typhoon 2 escaped once more and got up to speed. It then hit the wall and knocked another panel out, so cease was called again. The arena wall was fixed and the battle started again. Storm 2 was able to attack Typhoon 2 even when it was spinning at full speed without sustaining any damage. It pushed Typhoon 2 into Matilda's CPZ and attempted to flip it again. Typhoon 2 was pushed across the arena where one of the blades caught on the pit panel and gave it an opportunity to escape. It got up to full spinning speed again and was nearly pushed into the pit. Storm 2 started slowling down and Typhoon 2 stopped spinning. Storm 2 started slamming Typhoon 2 into the wall, where a panel at the front came off just moments before cease was called. The judges said that control and aggression was won by Storm 2, and that style and damage was won by Typhoon 2. But since damage carries the most points the win, and the Championship Title, was awarded to Typhoon 2.

As the new UK champion, Typhoon 2 was due to enter The Third World Championship. However, the robot suffered electrical problems before its first battle against Tough As Nails and Rawbot, so Typhoon 2 was forced to withdraw and the other two robots were left to fight alone.

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 7
 * Losses: 2

Series Record

 * Series 1-5: Did not enter
 * Series 6: Failed to qualify
 * Series 7: Grand Champion