Team Roaming Robots

Team Roaming Robots are a family team of roboteers who competed on the British TV show Robot Wars. They competed in or attempted to qualify for Robot Wars with several different robots:
 * Banana-R Armour: A heavyweight Mega Morg lookalike with a spinning disc and a pointed wedge at the rear. It was defeated by Bigger Brother in the qualifiers for Series 4. According to John Findlay, it lasted about four seconds in this battle before breaking down.
 * T-Bone: A heavyweight which competed in and lost in the first round in Series 5.
 * Ripper: Another heavyweight, which failed to qualify for Series 5 and 6 but competed in Series 7 and finished runner-up in the end of series annihilator.
 * Neoteric: A featherweight that competed in the featherweight competition of Extreme 2, losing in the heats.
 * Rip: A featherweight version of Ripper that competed in the Series 7 competition. It made the final, but then drove into the pit to avoid attacks from the House Robots.

Until the right moment for them to retire came, all of the robots fought in live events, including the team's own, Roaming Robots (from which the name their team name originated), which was set up in 2002. They have since been a respected event organiser along with Robots Live! and RoboChallenge.

Robot Wars (Live)
In early 2013, John Findlay announced that the live events company Roaming Robots was to join forces with Robot Wars LLC, the brand behind the television series. The Roaming Robots and Robots: Extreme Wars brands were phased out and replaced with the revived Robot Wars brand.

Additionally, the rights to the House Robots were included as part of the deal. It was the intention that the House Robots would be found and restored, but failing this, replicas would be built. A replica Matilda was constructed from the original casts shortly after this announcement.

In 2014, John acquired the original molds for the House Robots but has not put them to use.

Since the announcement of the televised Robot Wars reboot, plans have been put in place to alter the live event brand once more, with a new name and a new arena.

In July 2016, it was announced that the 2017 live events tour would use the name Extreme Robots.

Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 6
 * Losses: 5

Ripper
The version of Ripper seen in Series 7 fought until 2007, being retired from fighting after being "Terrorhurtz'd" too many times.

Ripper (Model 2)
John Findlay built a replacement Ripper after the 2007 UK Championships. It was similar in shape, but smaller than the original.

Ripper Evo
The team then replaced Ripper with Ripper Evo, an improved version of Ripper, in 2008. Ripper Evo reached the semi-finals of both the 2008 and 2009 UK Championships, as well as winning the Roaming Robots 2008 Winter Tour. After a long run, many problems with Ripper Evo had been found, and a new Ripper was built in late 2010.

Ripper (Model 3)/Dystopia
In late 2010, John Findlay set about building a brand new, stronger and more powerful Ripper Evo. The 'Evo' in the name was removed as it annoyed John. Ripper reached the Grand Final of the 2010 UK Championships, losing out to Iron-Awe 5, then going on to win the 2011 UK Championship, before finishing 7th in the 2012 UK Championship. In late 2012, Ripper was crowned 2012 Winter Tour champion, retaining its title from 2008. The third version of Ripper was sold to Gareth Anstee of Team G.A.R in 2013 and it made its first appearance under its new name, Dystopia, at Guildford 2013, the same event as the fourth model of Ripper. Since the event, Dystopia was repainted and went on to compete in the winter tour - unfortunately having reliability problems along the way. Eventually its age started to show, and after 2014 required extensive modernisation with entirely new electronics and new improved features such as the bungees along with its 2nd new paint job. At its first returning event in 2015, Dystopia went on to win the championship, despite being down on power whereas its newer sister went out in round 1. Dystopia was thus seeded 8th for the 2015 world championships, despite only competing in 1 event so far that year.

Ripper (Model 4)
The fourth model of Ripper made its first Robot Wars appearance at Guildford in June 2013. John Findlay purchased and fitted Iron-Awe 6's pneumatics and drive to the fourth Ripper as Team Iron-Awe wanted to build a new, more powerful Iron-Awe 7. The new Ripper resembles Iron-Awe 7 in appearance.

Rip Evo
The team once fought with Rip Evo which was an improved version of Rip, and finished runner-up in the 2009 UK Featherweight Tag-Team Championship. It was sold in 2012 to Team Shock who rebuilt it as Shockwave 2. Shockwave has been sold to the team that own Scar, Eric and Chimera and renamed Eric Jr. 2. Eric Jr. 2 has changed hands and is now owned by Gareth Anstee, the person who owns Dystopia, and has been renamed Utopia. This has since been extensively rebuilt so it is now a strong resemblance to Dystopia (itself an updated version of Ripper Evo, which Rip Evo originally resembled)

The team also fought with a new Rip, a rebuilt version of Beauty 3, until it was given to another team, with new internals, where it now fights as Busted. John has built a new Rip (called Rip 2) with resembles the current Ripper.

Rip (renamed Rip-Off)
Team Roaming Robots have sold the original version of Rip to eam Toon, who renamed it Rip-Off. Rip-Off has since returned to John Findlay who reverted the name back to Rip.

Gripper
Gripper was built by John Findlay in 2015, spouting a crushing ram as its weapon. Gripper will not participate in Robot Wars 2016, as the robot will have just returned from a trip to Moscow for educational purposes.

Halo
Built to rival Thor, Halo is a highly armoured robot with an axe, built by John Findlay, also in 2015.

Fluffy
They also fight with a featherweight rambot called Fluffy, which is covered in polkadot fur, similar to that used by Diotoir. Fluffy has a self ignition system which sets its fur on fire.

It made its Robot Wars debut at Colchester 2014, where its self ignition system set the fur on fire.

R
Team Roaming Robots now have an antweight called R, which is shaped to resemble Ripper, with a similar paint-job. It is John Findlay's robot that sees the most usage from his son.

Stinger
John Findlay purchased Stinger in late 2009 and entered into the 2010 UK Championship and the Annihilator where it finished fourth. After withdrawing from the 2011 UK Championships, it was returned to just being a static display robot. It has since returned to combat in 2014.

Stinger made its debut in the new Robot Wars live events in 2014 at Colchester. It has won several 'retro battles' against robots including Mr Nasty, Bulldog Breed and The Steel Avenger, and recently defeated Iron-Awe 5 at The World of Robots 2016.

Mighty Mouse
In 2013, John revealed that he has Mighty Mouse's shell on loan and is taking it to school events.

Schumey Too
In May 2014, John acquired Schumey Too. In August, Schumey Too was sold to Krissy Knee, the owner of Rybot. Eventually it was retired due to battle damage.

Mangler
In 2014, John Findlay started building a new invertible robot called Mangler that is to double up as a featherweight house robot and heavyweight competitor. Mangler is armed with rotating drums that rotate under 500rpm. John has stated that Mangler needs a rebuild if it is to compete in the heavyweight competition.

Robogeddon
In 2014, John Findlay purchased Robogeddon from Andrew Cotterell and debuted it at the Robot Wars Santa Pod event.

Double Action
John Findlay built a new heavyweight machine called Double Action with a flipper/axe, nicknamed a "Flax", weapon. Double Action was converted into a robot with a front hinged flipper called Orbiter. Team Roaming Robots and Team Mouse were originally working together to turn Orbiter into an axe-wielding robot. The plan to convert Orbiter into an axe wielding robot fell through, and Orbiter is now called Rybot and was in the possession of Krissy Knee. Rybot made its debut at the Robot Wars Winter tour final in Gloucester, later competing in the 2015 World Championship.

Hammertime
The team also occasionally fought with Hammertime, a reincarnation of Corkscrew Two with the spinner removed and an axe added. The axe was removed and given to Scorpion, turning Hammertime into a rambot, before it was sold to Team Tilly and became Dizzy.

S.M.I.D.S.Y.
In 2010 Team Roaming Robots bought S.M.I.D.S.Y. from Team Hydra, but later sold it on to Team Avenger, who after one event sold it again to Team Troublesome, changing hands once again to Gary Cairns, and finally to Team ACE.

Storm Force
The team have also owned Storm Force before it was sold to Liam Bryant.

Scar
The team have owned Scar which, along with T-Bone, was sold to a Glasgow based team who also owned Eric and Chimera.

Pussycat
John Findlay briefly owned Pussycat, using it for static display, before returning it to Alan Gribble in 2013.