BattleBots

Saw this news last night. Fuck yes.

About once a year or so I fall down a youtube hole of watching robot fighting videos. There's still leagues and shit. Any robot that uses spinning is tits. Whether it's the inverted bowl style bots, the big flat cylindrical ones, ones with a big weightflywheel or drum, whatever it is. They send shit flying and it's so fun to watch. Wedgebots can eat a dick.


edit: Something like this beats the shit out of two triangles bumping in to eachother for 3 minutes.

Heh, with living in one of the robotics capitals of the US, I've been thinking about this ancient show quite a bit (never really watched it before - but talking to roboticists RL on a regular basis has changed the interest level) - will be awesome if nothing else to show the one young roboticist the program since he didn't know what I was talking about.

Get him on youtube and look up Combots and Robot Fight League.

After my post yesterday I think I spent about 2-3 hours throughout the day watching clips.

Robots to look for if you want to see spinning shit that wrecks fools: Last Rites(Tombstone), Megabyte, Redrum, and Shrederator.

I remember when they had that show on Comedy Central and was it Jay Leno that had his own bot? Was cool seeing the various designs people came up with.

Always laughed when someone had this incredibly complex robot, and one person with a lifter mechanism or pneumatic hammer pick style one gets one good shot in and they are boned.

Yea, the kid I mentioned earlier (wife's new best friend's eldest kid) - was part of the club at the high school, apparently their team won with a pretty simple design. (non-combat bots though, just task based challenges in a time limit)

k^M_sl said:

I remember when they had that show on Comedy Central and was it Jay Leno that had his own bot? Was cool seeing the various designs people came up with.

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CHINKILLA!



We also have the Mythbusters, Jaime and Adam specifically, to thank for the first effective implementation of the awesome spinning body design.

Blendo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It first competed in the second Robot Wars competition in San Francisco (1995). After two fights (against robots Namreko and DoMore)it was deemed too hazardous to compete by the event supervisors and the insurance company after throwing pieces of its opponents over the arena walls. It was given co-champion status in exchange for withdrawing from the competition.Blendo returned in the fourth Robot Wars competition in San Francisco (1997), after the height of the arena walls had been increased to prevent debris from reaching the audience. In this competition, Blendo again fought two robots (Hercules and Punjar), and quickly defeated both.After causing damage to the arena walls in both matches Blendo was again asked to withdraw in exchange for co-champion status.

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Grant Imahara had one as well.

Deadblow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If anyone wants to build a Battlebot, I'd be happy to do the metal work for you. Or at least give you a quote. I do sheet metal fabrication for a living (high end stuff, not HVAC), so it just makes sense.

Loved this show. Mauler was always my favorite but it lost quite a bit.

Show was fun when I was a kid, but assumed it was just nostalgia. Still pretty cool. Too many commentators, too much talking (sometimes the back-stories or them working on bots is interesting, but mostly it's boring), too much ARE YOU READY?!!?!? But the fights are actually fun.

popsicledeath_sl said:

Show was fun when I was a kid, but assumed it was just nostalgia. Still pretty cool. Too many commentators, too much talking (sometimes the back-stories or them working on bots is interesting, but mostly it's boring), too much ARE YOU READY?!!?!? But the fights are actually fun.

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Here you go.


Guy has done episodes 2 and 3 as well.

https://www.youtube.com/user/mattman154/videos

Grimmlokk_sl said:

Here you go.


Guy has done episodes 2 and 3 as well.

https://www.youtube.com/user/mattman154/videos

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I was thinking the same thing. I feel the same way about UFC. Download the file and then jump from fight to fight i don't need 20mins between each fight

I like it on DVR. Some of the people are interesting, sometimes they're in the back tinkering with broken things. Overall I'm enjoying this blast-from-the-past more than when they tried to bring American Gladiators back, though Crush/Carano was fun to watch (until I swear they told her to stop actually demolishing everyone in everything).

Grimmlokk_sl said:

Here you go.


Guy has done episodes 2 and 3 as well.

https://www.youtube.com/user/mattman154/videos

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7:29 You must watch.

That mini bot devestation was hilarious and very photogenic.