- Carol Grow: "Why do you call yourselves Team Duct Tape?"
- Jerome Miles: "Because we used duct tape exclusively in the robot for fastening material! As you can see right here, we've got a lot of duct tape down on our components."
- Carol Grow: "So it's not pretty, but it works!"
- — The meaning behind the name of Team Duct Tape
Team Duct Tape (later known as DT Robotics) was an American team who competed in both seasons of Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors. Led by team captain Jerome Miles, the team competed in both US Championships with Unibite and also entered various side events in Season 2 as Team Hyperactive with their titular machine, Hyperactive.
The Team[]
Jerome Miles with Unibite
Team Duct Tape was a Utah-based team led by its captain, Jerome Miles. Despite his young age, Jerome Miles was already experienced in robot combat, having first competed at the 1999 BattleBots event with Knome and entered every televised season of BattleBots up to the filming of Extreme Warriors. He was invited to compete in the US seasons of Robot Wars shortly after filming another season of BattleBots, leaving him with less than two weeks to build a robot to compete in Extreme Warriors.
Jerome Miles with Rebecca Grant in Season 1
Team Duct Tape in Season 1
Team Duct Tape would first compete on Robot Wars with Unibite, an invertible robot armed with a horizontal spinner. This was the team's second heavyweight robot, although Jerome Miles had built various lightweight robots before it. For their debut appearance in Season 1 of Extreme Warriors, Jerome Miles captained the team and was accompanied by his mother Julie Miles and his stepfather Jonathan Babb, although for most of the Annihilator, Jerome Miles was seen to be on his own for the battles and interviews.
Team Duct Tape in Season 2 during Unibite 2.0's heat
Jerome Miles, Jonathan Babb and Joshua Babb (left-to-right) as Team Hyperactive
For the second season of Extreme Warriors, Team Duct Tape split into two halves to compete with a pair of machines, although Jerome Miles would still be present on both teams. The primary Team Duct Tape would compete in the US Championship with Unibite 2.0, where captain Jerome Miles was joined by new teammates Eric Sporer and Christopher Williamson. For side events, the original Unibite was modified to use a vertical spinner among other changes, competing in the Tag Team Terror and Annihilator as Hyperactive. For these appearances, Team Hyperactive would be led by the new captain Joshua Babb, alongside his father Jonathan Babb and stepbrother Jerome Miles, previous members of the Unibite team in Season 1. Hyperactive itself would still be driven and primarily maintained by Jerome Miles.
Jerome Miles with Will Tatman on the Vert-I-Go team
Jerome Miles was also present at the filming of Nickelodeon Robot Wars, making a one-off appearance as Will Tatman's uncredited teammate in the Ultimate Mayhem with Vert-I-Go. He was not seen in any of Will Tatman's other fights with Hannibal or Vert-I-Go, although Hannibal did bear a Unibite sticker on its surface.
Following on from Robot Wars, Team Duct Tape made periodical appearances on the live circuit, fighting at RoboGames in 2005 before taking a long hiatus. The team returned to robotic combat in 2010, becoming known as DT Robotics, and carried out a competitive career including numerous television shows until Jerome Miles retired from robot combat after his final competition in 2019 - for more information, see Outside Robot Wars.
Robots[]
| Name | Image | Weight Class | Series |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unibite | 
|
Heavyweight | US Season 1-2 |
| Hyperactive | 
|
Heavyweight | US Season 2 |
Wins/Losses[]
- Wins: 4
- Losses: 5
Series Record[]
| US Series | Team Duct Tape Series Record |
|---|---|
| Season 1 | Heat (Round 1) with Unibite |
| Season 2 | Heat Final with Unibite 2.0 Side events with Hyperactive |
| Nickelodeon | Did not enter |
NOTE: Jerome Miles also temporarily joined the Vert-I-Go team for its Ultimate Mayhem appearance in Nickelodeon Robot Wars.
Outside Robot Wars[]
Team Duct Tape competed in BattleBots. They first did this with Knome at the first ever live event in 1999, armed with a side-mounted axe to make the robot a thwackbot, as well as an active axe at the rear. However, it lost to Stinger and W.L.O.W.. The team competed in Series 1.0 with Knome II, a comedic design armed with a static scoop, but it lost to the British Killerhurtz. In 2001, Jerome Miles also built a 12lb counterpart, mini KNOME3, the team's first heavily machined robot which drove on tracks and was armed with a BioHazard-style four-bar lifter.
Team Duct Tape's other lightweight robot was a competitor named Gremlin, a red machine armed with a scoop. It competed at a local BotBash event, but with limited success. The design was succeeded by Gremlin II, an invertible robot armed with a chainsaw. This version competed in Season 1.0 of BattleBots, but lost its only battle to Shaft.
Team Duct Tape then competed in three different seasons with the series of lightweight robots, Sublime. In Season 2.0, Sublime lost its only battle to Hammerhead on a 45-0 Judges' decision. Sublime's experience on television allowed it to skip the preliminary rounds in Season 3.0, and it advanced over Whirl Wep X25 on a 23-22 Judges' decision, but it then lost to Sallad. Sublime was much more successful in Season 5.0, defeating Das Bot, Wedge-O-Matic, Robo Master and SnowFlake in sequence to reach the Round of 32, where it was defeated by Death by Monkeys.
Hot Stuff (lightweight)
Spinner Winner & Twister (beetleweight)
Jerome Miles has competed at RoboGames with lightweight robot Hot Stuff, a robot following the core design of predecessor Sublime. It debuted in 2010 and would compete in each year's lightweight division through to the 2013 event, with reasonable success. For the beetleweight category, Jerome Miles built a pair of horizontal bar spinners form himself and his children to enter separately at events. Built with the same design but in different colours, Spinner Winner (red) and Twister (blue) were build from CNC machined billets and initially suffered from weapon failures at their first events, but were gradually refined.
Hyperactive in 2014 as a 30lb robot (featherweight)
The redesigned featherweight Hyperactive in 2015
Twelve years after its televised campaign in the heavyweight division, Hyperactive returned as a 30lb (featherweight) robot at the Motorama event in February 2014. However, it lost its first fight to Gloomy after bursting into flames. Jerome Miles repaired Hyperactive in time for its next fight later that day, but it lost the battle after being flipped over. Hyperactive was rebuilt in 2015, where the new version's disc mount would adjust if Hyperactive was flipped. It competed at Motorama in February 2015 where it achieved vengeance over Gloomy, the robot that caused it to burst into flames, as well as beating a robot called General Lee after tearing its front open. However, it lost to both The Magnificent Poncho and Whammo on judges' decisions.
HyperBite (heavyweight)
Hyperdrive
At RoboGames in 2015, Jerome Miles built a heavyweight named HyperBite, its name being a combination of Hyperactive and Unibite. It was an invertible robot armed with a large horizontal spinning bar. It competed at RoboGames 2015 where it demonstrated great potential with its weapon. However, after winning against Doomba by default, HyperBite took significant damage in back-to-back losses against Touro Maximus and Ragin Scotsman. At the same event, a wedge-shaped robot named Hyperdrive also competed in a lower weight class.
Red Devil in the 2016 season
Red Devil with DT Robotics
DT Robotics returned to televised combat in 2016 as they entered that year's season of BattleBots with Red Devil. This was a heavyweight robot powered by independently driven track pods, armed with grabbing arms and a moving cutting disc. Red Devil defeated Wrecks in the first round, although this victory required little input from Red Devil, so it was given the third-lowest seed in the Round of 32. This drew it against the highly favoured Witch Doctor, but in one of the biggest upsets of the series, Red Devil used its saw to cut through the batteries of Witch Doctor and flip its opponent over, allowing it to progress to the Round of 16. At this stage, Red Devil survived a full 3-minute bout with the eventual runner-up Bombshell, but did not win the resulting Judges' decision and was eliminated at this stage. Coincidentally, Bombshell also featured former Team Duct Tape member Chris Williamson for the 2016 and 2018 seasons of BattleBots.
Red Devil in the 2018 season
Red Devil returned to the 2018 season of BattleBots, although Jerome Miles was absent due to filming clashes, and entrusted the robot to the team All Black Robotics led by Ravi Baboolal, who competed in the previous season with Lycan. In Red Devil's first battle, it fought Brutus, and earned a relatively easy win, after Brutus burned out its weapon motor, allowing Red Devil to saw into its opponent, which lost mobility due to its internal fire. In its second battle, it took significant damage from the vertical spinner of Monsoon, losing its saw blade from the attacks, but Red Devil managed to disable Monsoon's own weapon, and attempted to control the remainder of the match. The battle resulted in a split decision from the judges, although this went in favour of Monsoon. After this narrow loss, Red Devil recovered by winning a Judges' decision against SubZero, cutting into its armour and maintaining a grip during the second half of the match. In Red Devil's final battle of the season, it fought Valkyrie using its anti-spinner scoop, but one of its track modules was ripped from the robot, causing the severed part to run wildly around the arena, while Red Devil unanimously lost the Judges' decision, leaving it with a 2-2 record. This balanced ratio was enough to place Red Devil within the six-way Last Chance Rumble, to earn the sixteenth seed in the post-season bracket, but its track was ripped away by Bombshell, which proved to be critical in Bombshell's eventual win. Red Devil was eliminated here, but nevertheless, Red Devil also represented Canada in the USA vs The World special, where Red Devil lost the use of a track module after a biting attack from Kraken, and Red Devil lost the Judges' decision.
Dragon King at This is Fighting Robots
Jerome Miles was absent from BattleBots in 2018 because he was instead competing in the Chinese show This is Fighting Robots with a new robot, Dragon King. This advanced the design of Red Devil by using more efficient grabbing weaponry and two cutting discs. As a 'challenger', it joined the competition at a later stage than most competitors, and Jerome Miles decided to enter Wu Chun's team. In order to do so, Dragon King fought Wu Chun's current representative Blade from the ORBY team in order to earn a space on the team. However, a heavy impact from the bar spinner of Blade removed one of the track modules from Dragon King, and although Dragon King could still move around the arena, it was soon immobilised by the South Korean machine. As such, Dragon King was eliminated without entering the main competition.
Dragon King at King of Bots II
Dragon King also returned for King of Bots II, again sacrificing a place in BattleBots to do so, once again competing as a late 'challenger' to join Tao Shen's team in the seventh episode of the season. Dragon King's first battle was against Boxing Champion, which it lost on a Judges' decision, although it survived potential elimination when Big Carioca faced the consequences on Dragon King's behalf. Dragon King was able to win its next match over Warrior, but was still eliminated at the end of the round due to its teammates losing their respective matches.
After this appearance in King of Bots II, Jerome Miles would announce his retirement from robot combat. Both Dragon King and Red Devil were sold to new owners in 2020, with the latter being sold to YouTube content creator William Osman[1]. Jerome Miles' former teammates still continue to compete and intended to enter a new version of Red Devil into the 2020 season of BattleBots, before COVID-19 restrictions made this unfeasible.[2] By June 2021, work on developing Red Devil 2 for a 2021 season entry was halted following a six-week lockdown imposed in the Ontario region. As a direct consequence, the new design was abandoned and Red Devil was retired from combat altogether.[3]
Dragon King at BattleBots World Championship VII
Dragon King, meanwhile, was sold to Bot Bash Party Crew, the owners of BattleBots reboot competitor Skorpios. Under their captaincy, it attended BattleBots World Championship VII as a reserve competitor, captained by Will Prater, a close friend of the Skorpios team. Dragon King fought in two televised battles against fellow series newcomers Doomba and Terrortops, achieving a 1-1 record in its BattleBots debut.
Trivia[]
- Jonathan Babb's name was incorrectly spelled as "Jonathon Babb" on Unibite's statistics board in Season 1.
- In Season 1, Julie Miles was seen only in Unibite's brief interview before the US Championship. Jonathan Babb was only seen here and in the post-match interview for Round 2 of the Annihilator. Otherwise, only Jerome Miles was seen.
External Links[]
References[]
- ↑ "I Bought a BattleBot from the TV Show" - William Osman
- ↑ Public message from "Red Devil - Roboteer" on Discord
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/battlebots/comments/o5wr7r/comment/h2oythq/
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