Tornado Mer was a Heavyweight robot built by Team Van Cleve in Prior Lake, Minnesota and was driven by team captain, Benny Van Cleve. It competed in the first three LTRC events along several other events between 2002 and 2004. It was an four-wheeled, orange and yellow, circular robot, with a tornado painted on the top. Tornado Mer was armed with a powerful Horizontal Spinning Bar capable of dealing massive damage. It put this to good use, as it managed to win the heavyweight championship in LTRC-02, and come second place in RCG-212.
Robot History
LTRC-02
Tornado Mer's first match was against ShieldBreaker. In this match, ShieldBreakers spinner was too high to reach Tornado Mer's chassis, allowing Tornado Mer to rip pieces off of ShieldBreaker until it stoped moving. Tornado Mer was then scheduled to fight ShieldBreaker again for the championship.
However ShieldBreker had taken too much damage from the previous fight, and Tornado Mer won the fight by default after ShieldBreaker forfeited. This meant that Tornado Mer became the first ever Robot Club & Grille Heavyweight Champion.
RCG-212
This event the Heavyweight competition was held in the round robin format. Tornado Mer's first match was against The Well-Oiled Machine. It won by KO, and next fought the poorly armored rammer Timber Tantrum.
Tornado Mer rips into Basenji's wheels.
It won this fight by KO, and next fought Basenji in a match that would decide the championship. This fight started with Tornado Mer spinning up, and immediatly removing a wheel from Basenji, as well as shredding another. However this hit also sent Tornado Mer into a gyroscopic spin from which it did not recover.
The match was then called into a time out, however the G-Forces from the robots now spinning body cause the contractor powering the weapon motor to be held in the closed position, and there was little else to do but wait for its batteries to wear down. [1] The fight went to the judges who gave the match to Basenji by KO. Tornado Mer then faced Timber Tantrum. again to determine who would be the runner-up. Tornado Mer won by KO, and became the RCG-212 Heavyweight Runner-up.
Robocide
Tornado Mer was seeded #3 for Robocide and was paired up against Titanium Thunderpants, a 2 wheeled fiberglass box shaped robot with a large titanium wedge at the front. The fight began and almost instantly Titanium Thunderpants began having mechanical issues, barely moving correctly and after only one hit to Titanium Thunderpant's left side it was knocked out. This victory put Tornado Mer up against Maximum Paralysis. The fight started with Maximum Paralysis charging straight at Tornado Mer, trying to use it's front wedge to stop Tornado Mer before it got up to speed, this plan failed and Maximum Paralysis was knocked backwards and after several more hits from Tornado Mer, Maximum Paralysis was counted out after only 40 seconds.
This victory put Tornado Mer into the Semi finals where it faced Crabmeat. The fight started off with Crabmeat backing away from Tornado Mer and Tornado Mer inching forward, letting it's blade spin up to full spin. Crabmeat then took it's chances and charged at Tornado Mer. The collision resulted in Crabmeat's front left wheel being ripped off by Tornado Mer. Crabmeat then began charging towards Tornado Mer and with the second collision Tornado Mer's spinning bar cracked and snapped off! Crabmeat could barely move and was only able to spin around in circles, but the impact had broken something inside of Tornado Mer and it was counted out, giving Crabmeat the victory.
Tornado Mer was then placed into the loser's bracket where it faced Hexadecimator. When the match began Hexadecimator charged at Tornado Mer whom was already up to full speed and the impact between the 2 bots sent Hexadecimator spinning towards the right side of the arena. The impact seemed to have no effect on Hexadecimator as it simply turned around and charged at Tornado Mer again, the second impact sent a shower of sparks all across the arena and Hexadecimator pinned Tornado Mer up against the wall! Hexadecimator would then back up, giving Tornado Mer time to spin up it's spinner again, however like before, Hexadecimator just charged directly at Tornado Mer and used it's flipping arm to off-set Tornado Mer's balance. This caused Tornado Mer to spin wildly out of control and the force from it's own motor snapped it's bar in half and the robot was stuck motionless upside down, resulting in Hexadecimator winning the fight and Tornado Mer was eliminated from the tournament.
RCG-301
Tornado Mer is flipped by Evelyn a modified Dawg.
After recieving a bye in the first round, Tornado Mer's first fight was against Evelyn a modified Dawg in the semifinals. This fight started with Evelyn box rushing Tornado Mer, this impact flipped Tornado Mer on its back, tornado mer then righted itself. Evelyn then kept pressure on Tornado Mer, preventing it from spinning up before shoving it into the wall.
Tornado Mer then got away, but Evelyn gave chase, and slammed Tornado Mer into the wall two more times. The second slam caused Tornado Mer to stop moving, time-out was called, and Tornado Mer was declared immobile, meaning that it had lost by KO.
This put Tornado Mer into the loser's bracket where it faced Frostbite 4.0. It lost this match by KO as well, and was eliminated from the competition.
Wins/Losses
- Wins: 21
- Losses: 11
| Competition | Wins | Losses |
|---|---|---|
| LTRC-02 | bye | None |
| RCG-212 |
The Well-Oiled Machine Timber Tantrum (x2) |
Basenji |
| Robocide | bye
Titanium Thunder |
Crabmeat
Hexadecimator |
| RCG-301 | bye |
Frostbite 4.0 |
| BattleBeach I | Center Punch
Mini-Rip |
Mini-Rip |
| Mechwars 6 | bye
Nurse Nancy Warrior (x2) |
None |
| Minneapolis
Invitationals 2003 |
Spinderella | None |
| Steel Conflict 3 | Particle Accelerator
Drum of Disaster BULL IT The Compressor |
Megabyte (x2) |
| Triangle Series Nationals | Crabmeat
REDRUM |
Megabyte |
Outside LTRC
After RCG-301 Tornado Mer competed at the first Battle Beach event where it did well, going 3-1. It then competed at Mechwars 6, where it won first place before competing in Steel Conflict 3, where it won second place.
Tornado Mer then competed in the Steel Conflict hosted Triangle Series Nationals where it went 2-2, retiring for good afterwards. Tornado Mer also competed at Robocide in between RCG-212, and RCG-301. It noutoriously tore itself apart in a fight with another robot, which is why it was held together with duct tape by RCG-301.
Trivia
- According to Benny Van Cleve every single part of Tornado Mer was made in America