Storm 2 (commonly known as Storm II) is a robot that competed in the British television game show Robot Wars. It was a small invertible box-shaped robot with a wedge on the front. The robot was originally built with no weapons but the team was asked to add an active weapon in order to take part in the seventh series, so the team came up with a built-in lifting arm, very similar to the American robot BioHazard. However, it was not the weapon but the immense speed and power of the robot that did the most damage to its opponents, managing to throw The Steel Avenger out of the Arena in its Series 7 heat final. The robot competed in the seventh series of Robot Wars, winning The Third World Championship at the end of the series, having won the 16th seed into the competition by being victorious in the New Blood Championship of Extreme 2.
Contents
- Series record
- Robot honours
- Controversy
- The active weapons rule
- Firestorm
- Tornado
- Typhoon 2
- Supernova
- References
Storm 2 was created by Ed Hoppitt. He was joined by Tim Bence and Andrew Rayner. Hoppitt and Bence would alternate driving during the wars. Not long after the filming of New Blood, Andrew Rayner got married, moved house and began a family, so his place on the team was filled by Bence's fiance, Meral Kocak (incorrectly referred to on TV as Kolac).
In the original run, Storm 2 was somewhat notable because it was the most prominent robot never to lose a battle through KO, only losing one battle on a very controversial judges' decision. The said decision was the grand final of Series 7, losing the title to Typhoon 2. The announcement of Typhoon's win caused a large amount of booing from the audience; host Craig Charles had demonstrated through a cheering contest beforehand that the audience believed Storm II to be the victor, having been the most aggressive in the battle throughout. The booing was so loud that Mentorn, the producers of Robot Wars, had to add canned applause. However, it lost on knockout to Apollo (who went on to win the series) in the heat final of the 2016 series after being thrown out of the arena, having lost to the same bot on judges decision in the group stages - in both fixtures, Apollo flipped over at least one house robot. Storm 2 was eligible to be named as a wildcard but was not chosen.
Like many other robots, Storm 2 also competed in Techno Games as Ickle Toaster in the Football and Sumo events. The original Storm was never seen in Robot Wars, but competed in various robot combat events across the UK and the Dutch Robot Games.
When it was involved on the 2016 series of Robot Wars, total cost of developing Storm2 was around £20,000 (about £1250 a year since it was built) and used Telemetry systems, thermistors, bespoke PMDC motors, and dry ice systems to prevent overheating. Team Captain Ed's comments (who said that if he had to write one cheque for everything spent on the robot it would be £20,000) were taken slightly out of context by production - suggesting just the Series 8 robot cost £20,000 It did not enter the Spring 2017 series, so that the team could take more time to renovate it for any subsequent series.
Series record
Robot honours
Extreme Series 2
Series 7
Series 7
Controversy
Despite Storm 2's success in Robot Wars, the producers were not happy with its lack of weapons and the briefness of most of its matches. They thought that Storm 2 was "boring", and changed the rules to try to keep it out. The last thing the producers wanted after Tornado's Series 6 win was another "box" winning the competition.
The active weapons rule
After winning the Extreme 2 New Blood tournament, Storm 2 could enter Series 7, but only if an active weapon was added, saying that Storm 2 was classed as "boring" by the producers. The aim was to try to get rid of heavily armoured robots such as Storm 2. The team obliged, somewhat begrudgingly, to put a lifter on Storm 2.
Firestorm
After Storm 2 kick-started its campaign of the Series 7 championship by throwing The Steel Avenger out of the arena in its Heat Final, Storm 2 met three times Grand Finalist Firestorm 5 in the second round of the semi-final. Storm 2 dominated the match by utilising Firestorm's poor pushing power to eventually pit its opponent. However, Storm 2 was almost disqualified on a technicality — it hadn't fired its lifting arm once during the fight; therefore, the producers argued that Storm 2 should be put out of the competition because of it breaking the "active weapons" rule. The judges refused, and Storm 2 reached the Grand Final.
Tornado
In the first fight of the Grand Final, Storm 2 met reigning champion and fellow rambot Tornado. Storm 2 dominated the fight, and easily won the judges decision. However, the judges shouldn't have been needed for the fight. Late on in the fight, with Tornado running inverted, Refbot activated the pit and Tornado drove into it. Much to Team Storm's surprise, the pit raised back up again. Mentorn edited the fight to show Tornado escaping the pit just after it descended. Despite being given the questionable lifeline, Tornado lost the fight.
Typhoon 2
Storm 2's next battle was to prove one of the most controversial of all. Storm 2 charged into Typhoon 2 and used its lifting arm. Typhoon 2 ran away, before smashing part of the arena wall. The plan was to edit out this part of the fight as if it never happened, although Typhoon 2 refused to spin, so Mentorn allowed Typhoon 2 to repair. Team Storm were surprised at this, but once the wall was fixed, the fight carried on much the same (although the part of the fight showing Typhoon 2 careering into the wall was still shown in the televised fight) until, at the end of the fight, a small panel fell off Storm 2. Cease was called, and, after a difficult judges decision, Typhoon 2 was given the win. Team Storm were deeply annoyed by this, especially since Typhoon 2 was listed as "no damage", despite the fact that its drive chains were scattered all over the arena floor. Team Storm were also saddened by the fact that the show concentrated on Storm 2's aforementioned panel and not Typhoon 2's drive chains, despite losing the latter having a larger difference than losing a small panel. Some Storm 2 supporters called for Gary Cairns, captain of Team Typhoon, to hand his trophy to Team Storm, but the decision stood. The booing from the crowd (save for the small group of Typhoon 2 supporters, who were cheering in delight) was so loud that Mentorn had to add canned applause to hide the booing.
Shooting began for the Third World Championships later that day, and Typhoon 2 were supposed to be fighting in Heat D, but had to pull out because of "technical difficulties". The real reason why Typhoon 2 pulled out was because between Typhoon (the middleweight) and Typhoon 2 there was only one set of batteries. Team Typhoon opted to defend (and keep) their Middleweight Championship status. Typhoon 2 wasn't seen again that day.
In the 2016 series, Storm 2 fought Gary Cairns' new machine, PP3d, in the decisive group match, in which the winner would reach the heat final. Storm 2 gained its revenge on team Typhoon after PP3D's drive failed, and Storm 2 pressed the pit button, meaning PP3D couldn't escape.
Supernova
The last controversial incident involving Storm 2 ironically happened in the last ever televised fight. During the Third World Championship Final, Supernova, the Sri Lankan representative, launched an unsuccessful attack on Storm 2. One of its wheels was on Storm 2's wedge, leaving it off balance and it careered sideways into the arena wall, stuck. Storm 2 ran away, believing Team Storm had won the fight, but Refbot freed Supernova instead of counting it out as his counter wasn't working. Then Shunt propped Storm 2 against the angle grinder. After Supernova got away, Storm 2 was finally freed, but it was running inverted, where it was more vulnerable to attacks. After another close decision, the judges gave Storm 2 the win, based on the old rule that if a robot (in this case, Supernova) is immobilised for more than 30 seconds, it is out of the fight. This fight has received criticism for heavy editing use, since the televised fight didn't accurately show how long Supernova was pinned on the wall. Supernova was judged to be stacked on the arena wall for far more than 30 seconds, meaning it lost.