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Not to be confused with the various machines from Team Typhoon.

"Typhoon has been an "on-going" project throughout the last three years. It has been taking up my valuable time and effort, and caused a decaying car to be evicted into the cold harsh winter outside, in order for the build to continue."
— Dave Jones

Typhoon was a competitor robot which was planned to compete in Series 3 of Robot Wars. It successfully qualified for the main series, but withdrew before it could fight, and later failed to qualify for Series 4.

Design[]

Typhoon was a four-wheel driven box-shaped robot with a pair of powerful lifting forks shaped like exhaust pipes, powered by a 36V actuator. Its design gave it a passing resemblance to US Robot Wars and BattleBots competitor Vlad the Impaler, although without the latter's top-mounted self-righting ram. The robot was painted painted black, red, yellow and black-and-white checkers, with its name and an image of a typhoon spout on its top panel.

The Team[]

Typhoon was built by Team Natural Disaster in 1999. The build project was led by Francis Smith, who would later compete on Robot Wars with Ceros in Series 7. The other lead member of the team was Dave Jones, who became the owner and team captain of Typhoon after its attempted Series 3 entry, while Francis Smith left the team to build Tiny.

"This is Typhoon, the first ever robot I had the chance to build. Typhoon is now run by Dave Jones, but up until 2000 I was a major part of the team and helped to get it to this stage."
— Francis Smith on being part of the team[1]

Qualification[]

Team Natural Disaster originally intended to enter Series 1, but Typhoon was not finished until the Series 3 auditions.

"It was started with series one I mind, but by the time anyone picked up a saw it was series three that was the aim, and not only did it get built in time, but it passed the audition too!"
— Dave Jones on Typhoon's construction and entry into Robot Wars

After passing the weigh-in and technical checks - at which point its weight at the time was confirmed to be 82.2kg - Typhoon completed the 'driving test' without its body shell, surprising the Panic Attack team with its manoeuvrability upon being instructed to spin on the spot.[2] Shortly after, Team Natural Disasters received confirmation that Typhoon had passed its audition, securing its place in the main competition. However, Typhoon's speed controller caught fire three days before filming was due to start, forcing the robot to withdraw from Series 3.

Despite this, Team Natural Disasters confirmed their intention to compete in the proposed Tag Team event following The Third Wars, even announcing Daisy Chopper as their partner, but the event was ultimately cancelled due to a serious behind-the-scenes accident.

Team Natural Disaster subsequently attempted to qualify for Series 4, through attending the 25 July 2000 Robot Mayhem event. However, Typhoon's speed controller malfunctioned again during its qualifiers, resulting in it failing to qualify for that series. It is currently unknown which opponents Typhoon fought against in its qualifiers.

"Reliability of the speed controller was again the downfall, and thus caused our defeat in the auditions. Mind you, in one of the fights we managed to get so well tangled up with another robot it took five men to separate the two with crowbars!"
— Dave Jones on Typhoon's performance at the Series 4 qualifiers

Typhoon, and Dave Jones, did not enter any future series, although they continued to fight at live events.

"Series five is being ignored due to principles I have. To be honest the TV show has lost all its appeal for me, and Typhoon is going to be completed and strengthened purely for live events, where the constrictions are far less suffocating."
— Dave Jones on retiring from Robot Wars[3]

Series Record[]

Series Typhoon Series Record
The First Wars Did not enter
The Second Wars Did not enter
The Third Wars Withdrew
The Fourth Wars Failed to qualify
The Fifth Wars Did not enter
The Sixth Wars Did not enter
The Seventh Wars Did not enter
Series 8 Did not enter
Series 9 Did not enter
Series 10 Did not enter

NOTE: Team member Francis Smith also attempted to qualify for Series 4 with Tiny, and later entered Series 7 with Ceros.

Outside Robot Wars[]

TyphoonNoShellWilsonFete

Typhoon without its shell at Wilson School Fete 1999

Typhoon was first tested at the Wilson School Fete 1999 event, where it drove around an enclosed outdoor arena.

FlowerBot

Flowerbot at Techno Games

Team Natural Disaster also entered Techno Games with Dave Jones' swimming robot named Flowerbot.

"Well, the technical consultant for Techno Games 2000 came to my school at the time to ask if we could help. He asked us if we could build a swimming robot in 3 days, but not to take it too seriously (let’s face it, Team ND winning something could cause a major disaster as the shock spread throughout the land). So how do we build a swimming robot that cannot use any boat parts? Well, you take three flowerpots, add two twelve volt batteries, a bundle of R/C gear pinched off Typhoon, and two Ford sierra windscreen wiper motors, then combine with Foamex and go on national television to await humiliation."
— Dave Jones on entering Techno Games[4]

Trivia[]

  • Typhoon was sponsored by Lionhead Studios, the makers of the video game Black & White.

External Links[]

References[]

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