Team Typhoon

Team Typhoon were a team of Scottish air cadets who competed in both series of Robot Wars Extreme, as well as Series 7. The team won the Middleweight championship three times, as well as winning the Lightweight championship and the Heavyweight UK championship, making them the only team in Robot Wars history to become champions in three weight classes.

The Team
Team Typhoon' was a team made up of cadets of the 870 Squadron from the Air Training Corps who entered a number of different robots in Robot Wars. The aim of these machines was to raise interest in engineering among young cadets, with the various degrees of proficiency going in different weight categories: the least experienced would work on the featherweight, and the most experienced working on the heavyweight.

"It all began in April 2001 when Squadron of Edinburgh Air Cadets were discussing what to do as a project for the next year. They wanted to build a robot to enter the TV programme Robot Wars and their Officer, who worked for an avionics company now called Selex ES, recruited six engineers to assist."

- Team Typhoon website on entering Robot Wars

The team's robots were all cone-shaped full-body spinners, painted to resemble the RAF crest and featured a heavy steel outer ring with four claw-shaped hammer cutters on the side. All were devastatingly powerful, able to cause very high levels of damage when spinning at full speed, but were vulnerable at low speeds and none of them had a self-righting mechanism. Each robot was topped with a small flag that indicated forward-facing, and housed the safety link.

The various members of Team Typhoon were engineering students, whose proficiency level dictated the machine that they designed, built and fought with.


 * Typhoon & Typhoon 2: Flying Officer Peter Bennett, Corporal Gary Cairns and Cadet Hazel Taylor were the team that drove Typhoon in the Middleweight Melee in Extreme 1. Hazel was replaced by Sergeant Graeme Horne, who joined the team (that drove Typhoon and Typhoon 2) for Extreme 2 and Series 7.
 * Typhoon Twins: Neil Harrison, Alistair McLeod and Keri Scott drove Typhoon Twins, who faced Typhoon in the Extreme 2 Middleweight final.
 * Typhoon Thunder: Keri was alongside Martin Armistead and Amy Drinkwater in the team of Lightweight champion Typhoon Thunder.
 * Typhoon Cadet: Young female air cadets drove Typhoon Cadet in the Featherweight tournament of Series 7. They were never named on the televised competition, but Corporal Cairns stated that young female cadets were in charge of the team's featherweight.

Controversy
In the Middleweight Championship of Robot Wars Extreme 2, Team Typhoon was permitted 2 entries in the event (Typhoon and the clusterbot Typhoon Twins). When these machines reached the final of the event, they both attacked and defeated each opposing team in a combination effort, before refusing to fight each other when they were the only robots left. The team stated unconvincingly that they planned to eliminate the others and then fight each other, but this did not sit well with the audience or roboteers. It should be noted that Team Typhoon consulted the producers about the idea of entering two robots into the competition, and it was permitted gladly.

Further controversy occurred, surrounding the Grand Final of Series 7 with Typhoon 2. In the battle with Storm 2, Typhoon 2 was repeatedly slammed around the arena by its opponent, until Typhoon 2's weapon struck the arena wall at full force, shattering one of the panels. While the battle was halted so that the arena wall could be repaired, it is claimed by Team Storm that Team Typhoon were permitted to repair the damage done to their robot, and get their weapon spinning up to the same speed it was at when cease was called, to remove any advantage that Storm 2 would have gotten from the arena collision. This claim is refuted by Team Typhoon, stating that no repairs could have been made to Typhoon 2 under the circumstances. Storm 2 continued to slam Typhoon 2 around the arena, until the final seconds of the fight, where a panel and support structure broke off of the front of Storm 2. The resulting judges' decision was awarded to Typhoon 2 based on damage, much to the dismay of the Storm 2 team, with the crowd booing the decision, resulting in Mentorn being forced to dub over the booing with cheers.

Regarding the Judges' scoring, Storm 2 was judged to have scored zero points for damage, despite the fact that Typhoon 2's drive chains fell off during the match. In actuality, these chains came off due to damage incurred during Typhoon 2's previous fight with X-Terminator when the robot hit the arena side wall causing the wheel and motor units to twist. This damage to Typhoon 2 was not noticed by the Judges, as they did not inspect the competitors for damage while making the decision, as a producer reportedly told the Judges that Typhoon 2 was undamaged.

PP3D Robotics
Driver of Typhoon 2, Gary Cairns, went on to form his own team in 2016, known as PP3D Robotics, named after their heavy use of 3D printing, and Cairns' company PlastiPrint 3D. Consisting of Gary Cairns, Sarah Dennis and Jamie McHarg, the team entered the Series 8 of Robot Wars with their robot, PP3D. Gary Cairns drove the robot, while Jamie McHarg, a roboteer in his own right, was the weapon operator. According to the Robot Wars website, Sarah Dennis' role was 'design and aesthetics'. The robot reached the Head-to-Heads. PP3D has also returned for Series 9, having crowdfunded the cost of upgrades to their machine, but finished in the same position as last time - fourth place in the second round. Sarah Dennis was absent for PP3D's head-to-head battles in Series 9 while suffering from food poisoning.

In Series 9, Jamie McHarg entered Coyote under his own team, Team Coyote, otherwise known as Rogue Two Robotics. This team also included Rachel Gibson and Calum Jones, and together they reached the second round.

Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 13
 * Losses: 4

Outside Robot Wars
Like many Robot Wars competitors, the Air Cadets also entered Robot Wars' sister show Techno Games. For Techno Games, the team built Typhoon Rover, a small box shaped robot. Typhoon Rover won The Assault Course, beating World Record breaker Mighty Mouse in the final. The team also entered the football event with Typhoon Rover and a modified Typhoon called Typhoon 870 which acted as the goalkeeper. The team also competed in the Cycling competition in 2003 with Byphoon. Typhoon Rover is still in one piece, and is currently stored in Gary Cairns' parents' shed.

After Robot Wars, the team built a new heavyweight robot, an invertible 2-wheeled robot with a large horizontal spinning disc called Swarm. Gary Cairns' now has a heavyweight called Hive, and in March 2012, purchased Robot Wars veteran S.M.I.D.S.Y. from Team Troublesome but due to having a lack of time, sold it again to Team ACE. Gary Cairns briefly joined Team Honeycomb during this time.

In 2005, the team set up a company called the Rampaging Chariots guild. "The Rampaging Chariot is a powerful, radio controlled featherweight sporting robot that is used by schools and youth groups to compete in an annual Robotic Games to determine the National Champion. It is a project aimed at interesting young people in engineering organised by the Rampaging Chariots Guild."

- Team Typhoon website on Rampaging Chariots

This is a company that deals in kits for building featherweight robots called "Rampaging Chariots". These kits can be hired by school or youth groups of teenagers, with the aim of getting young people interested in engineering. The robots can be used for sumo, football, assault course and sumo events, and each year the team hold the annual Scottish Robotic Games.

Team Rogue Two Robots built a featherweight replica of Typhoon Rover, called Bullseye, which is now in possession of Team Scar.

Trivia

 * Team Typhoon are the only team in Robot Wars history to enter four weight classes.