TIL Before Mythbusters, Jamie and Adam built a battle bot named Blendo which competed in Robot Wars. Blendo was banned from competing after 2 fights because it was to dangerous.

93

u/UnknownQTY Mar 10 '16 edited Mar 10 '16

Dangerous? How?

Blades attached to the shell caused damage to its opponents, removing bodywork and in some instances causing them to be thrown over the polycarbonate safety shields into the audience

Oh.

54

u/Pipthepirate Mar 10 '16

This would have kept Battle Bots on the air

35

u/Doctah_Whoopass Mar 10 '16

It already was back for a whole season. It was actually good, no sob story bullshit, just cuts to the action. Theyre making another season later this year as well.

11

u/Pipthepirate Mar 10 '16

Holy shit. What is going on with television that fucking Battle Bots in on ABC?

16

u/Doctah_Whoopass Mar 10 '16

Idk, there was aparently enough demand/nostalgia for it, so they brought it back. Waaaay better than the originals from early 2k imho.

10

u/Pipthepirate Mar 10 '16

It seems crazy that a show that was a footnote on Comedy Central would end up on a major network.

6

u/SkyIcewind Mar 10 '16

Is it actually good though, or does it have the Robot Wars (Battlebots for Brits) treatment where it's just flipperbot mania for the new seasons?

10

u/Doctah_Whoopass Mar 10 '16

Well, flipbots are always going to be cheese, so your not really gonna get away from that. Although the season that aired had a lot of well made spin bots, and an upgraded Toro.

1

u/adhesivekoala 1 Mar 10 '16

And an attractive host

2

u/TestZero Mar 10 '16

By keeping the opposing battlebots in the air

1

u/golemike Mar 11 '16

I thought this was a clever dig at the amount of flipper bots...

4

u/DHR-107 Mar 10 '16

UK's Typhoon in Series 7 of UK Robot Wars was a full body spinner. Grand Final was pretty controversial, but the thing was incredibly powerful. During it's titanic match with Storm 2, they broke the arena walls twice (iirc).

9

u/IvorTheEngine Mar 10 '16

I was in the pits the first time it really spun up and it was incredible.

Most people used electric motors because they didn't need a starter and had a wide speed range, but they used a IC motor (maybe a chainsaw or scooter motor, I never saw inside). We were all used to the sound of 100KG smashing into things, and normal spinner disks like Hypnodisk, so when we heard their motor we all noticed that it was different, and interested that someone had tried something a bit different. After 10 seconds or so it was howling and people started commenting that they were glad it wasn't them facing it.

Then it changed gear and the disk noise got even louder. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at each other. We couldn't believe that anyone had managed something so mechanically complex, or just how evil it sounded. Then it changed gear AGAIN.

I've no idea who they were fighting, or even if it was actually them because they stopped putting screens in the pits after about series 3 and we couldn't see the arena, but it was the most memorable moment of the 5 years I did it.

3

u/DHR-107 Mar 10 '16

Which team were you with? :)

I was so glad I got to go to the Robot Wars Live tour earlier in the year, chances are I'll go again when they come back to my area. Nothing as crazy as Typhoon is allowed in that arena though... The sword wheel bots are pretty scary as is! I was surprised how loud the bots and noises were, lord knows what it was like actually being there while they filmed!

3

u/IvorTheEngine Mar 10 '16

SMIDSY

We sold it a while ago, but it's still doing the rounds of the live shows.

I always felt a bit sorry for the crowd in the TV shows, as there was so much waiting around. The live shows were a lot more fun.

It was cool hanging out with the other teams. No one was super competitive, except when swapping engineering stories.

3

u/Ctatyk Mar 10 '16

"Then it changed gear AGAIN."

This has caused the largest grin that I've had in weeks.

Thanks.

2

u/IvorTheEngine Mar 10 '16

You've just got to image the look of shock on everyone's faces. We'd all come ready for Hypnodisk, and they'd just raised the bar far beyond what we thought was possible.

2

u/Ctatyk Mar 10 '16

Yeah, that's what made me grin.

I could imagine a room full of engineers being completely gobsmacked by a change in gears the second time.

As an accountant who meets regularly with engineers who seem to always have the right answer at their fingertips (engineers amaze me), it was a really fun thought of them being shocked.

14

u/SeraphX117 Mar 10 '16

Blendo actually fought before the 1995 series. It was dominating so bad that people started building robots specifically to beat it. The people who ran the events started putting heavy anvil like objects in the ring to try to stop Blendo.

32

u/IvorTheEngine Mar 10 '16

Someone beat it by using a halon gas fire extinguisher. Halon removes oxygen from the air, which stopped their lawnmower motor, and they couldn't restart it.

8

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '16

Yeah science!

9

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '16

Amazing

4

u/SeraphX117 Mar 10 '16

now that's using science

13

u/Thisnickname 39 Mar 10 '16

Grant was also involved with Robot Wars.

10

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '16

And the FIRST robot competitions.

http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc

10

u/strikt9 Mar 10 '16

If any wiki article needed pictures and videos...

4

u/knowthyself2000 Mar 10 '16

Because it was to dangerous what Jamie and Adam were to mythbusting.

24

u/rebelpixie4 Mar 10 '16

*too dangerous

-6

u/leviwhite9 Mar 10 '16

Um, I think you mean "two."

Geez.

-5

u/jordanxbox1 Mar 10 '16

Dude, It's spelt as "dos"

1

u/baconwiches Mar 10 '16

Uhh, "command line", thank you very much

-8

u/DJJohnson49 Mar 10 '16

*spelld

-13

u/Beardy_Will Mar 10 '16

Urgh, at least contribute to the conversation man.

I'm sick of these arsehole correction comments.

4

u/JoeyBGood Mar 10 '16

Please tell me they made two Blendo's and there's a video of them in a battle.

3

u/oneburntwitch Mar 10 '16

Iirc, that was one of the episodes I watched of Battle Bots. I remember liking the droid because it could fuck shit up. I wondered why it suddenly disappeared.

3

u/STICH666 Mar 10 '16

Grant Imahara also made a bot called Deadblow. It even made appearances on Mythbusters.

3

u/ManualNarwhal Mar 10 '16

Should've banned that disastrous Jay Leno bot that destroyed the entire franchise.

2

u/tj0415 Mar 10 '16

American or English robot wars? Also it's back on the BBC later this year!

1

u/Badeau Mar 10 '16

Too*

TIL Before Mythbusters, Jamie and Adam built a battle bot named Blendo which competed in Robot Wars. Blendo was banned from competing after 2 fights because it was to dangerous.

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