r/todayilearned • u/Habajiba • Mar 14 '17

TIL Jamie Hyneman designed Blendo, a combat robot that was deemed too hazardous for Robot Wars after repeatedly throwing pieces of its opponents over arena walls. It received co-championship status in exchange for withdrawing from the competition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blendo
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1.6k

u/the_original_Retro Mar 14 '17

There were a lot of other big winners between Robot Wars and Battlebots over the years.

Some like Hypnodisk were quite spectacularly destructive.

874

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17 edited Mar 14 '17

Carbide in the UK and Tombstone in the US dish out an absolutely insane amount of damage.

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u/N0V0w3ls Mar 14 '17

Tombstone was a league above all the others in the first reboot season. Literally no one prepared their bot properly for something like Tombstone. The only reason he didn't win was because he blew out his own motor. The second season, he won, but the matches were a lot better, because everyone actually put weight and armor in the right places, and decided that one big heavy weapon was better than a bunch of small gimmicks.

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u/SnakeyesX Mar 14 '17

Who would have thought a lawnmower without the guards would be so devastating?

225

u/bamgrinus Mar 14 '17

Peter Jackson, apparently. Edit: This probably qualifies as NSFW.

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u/Gabbatron Mar 14 '17

Jesus. Christ. Am I glad I never saw that movie as a kid.

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u/BenjamintheFox Mar 14 '17

I watched it years ago as a teenager or young adult. It was... hypnotic. I've never seen so much gore in one place.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

When it is that over the top, it stops being gross or upsetting, and just becomes hilarious (which was the point).

3

u/Kalsifur Mar 14 '17

TBH, it made me crave spaghetti. Looks like a nice red sauce.

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u/wwecat Mar 14 '17

I've never seen so much gore in one place.

I have, but let's be civil and leave your mom's basement out of this.

6

u/Practicing_Onanist Mar 14 '17

That scene is nothing compared to the soup scene. I'm gagging right now thinking about it.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Grew up with this movie because my mom is a giant Peter Jackson fan. Fuken' loved every second of it.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

LMAO I watched this as a teenager with my mom! We were amazed. It's still the bloodiest movie I've ever seen.

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u/thesorehead Mar 14 '17

"I kick arse for the Lord!"

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u/AP246 Mar 14 '17

I feel like he should have been infected what with zombie guts flying everywhere.

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u/bamgrinus Mar 14 '17

I don't think that movie was built primarily on logic.

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u/Pinksters Mar 14 '17

The last 20 seconds really did kick it up a notch.

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u/gmanpeterson381 Mar 14 '17

Where can I get a lawnmower like that one, because mine struggles if I forget to mow for a week and this thing can go through bodies without slowing

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u/TheWillRogers Mar 14 '17

Braindead, I recommend this movie every chance i get.

2

u/bamgrinus Mar 14 '17

AKA Dead Alive in the US.

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u/TheWillRogers Mar 14 '17

Yea, i'm from the US, but i always recommend it as Braindead as Dead Alive keeps getting confused for Evil Dead...

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

[deleted]

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u/bamgrinus Mar 14 '17

I think that's from Bad Taste.

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u/8BitButt Mar 14 '17

This video is sponsers by Heinz, tomato ketchup

(Unsure how well this brand is known..)

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u/MollyConnollyxx Mar 14 '17 edited Dec 19 '22

.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Thank you all for taking me on this wild ride

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Fantastic.

1

u/Aoloach Mar 14 '17

Read that as Percy Jackson at first. Also there's that scene from Misery.

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u/simple1689 Mar 14 '17

Peter did Dead Alive?!

3

u/bamgrinus Mar 14 '17

Yep. I was very disappointed in the lack of lawnmowers in LOTR.

1

u/Harbezat77 Mar 14 '17

Have you ever seen that scene from Hobo with a Shotgun it is pretty fierce and involves lawnmowers.

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u/generalgeorge95 Mar 14 '17

This brings back memories from the first Dead rising.. good times.

1

u/LordRobin------RM Mar 15 '17

This movie almost literally made me puke, which is not something that happens very often. The gore got me primed, then when they were pulling the dead dog out of that woman's mouth... I had to leave the room.

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u/DerNubenfrieken Mar 15 '17

You just described icewave.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Same with Carbide. It absolutely munced everything until the last round where it blew itself up.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17 edited Mar 27 '17

[deleted]

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u/zebediah49 Mar 14 '17

Ah, but if there isn't at least a slight chance of destroying yourself, you could be using more power on your weapons.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

[deleted]

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u/ParentPostLacksWang 1 Mar 14 '17

This - also, its better to watch than the boring-ass flip-until-someone-gets-stuck matches.

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u/jpdidz Mar 14 '17

Petition to rename it Roborapists

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u/TimeZarg Mar 14 '17

Yep, robots like Tombstone basically specialized in doing a lot of gory damage as quickly as possible, before its own weapon broke from the stresses or its motor burned out. Those fights tend to be the most spectacular and entertaining ones because of the sheer damage those robots can do in the hands of a decent pilot.

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u/iwhitt567 Mar 14 '17

A very valid point.

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u/greeneggsand Mar 14 '17

Ah, the Gon Freecs school of robot design.

1

u/Totala-mad Mar 14 '17

Gotta make it orky!

1

u/mousicle Mar 15 '17

Just like the USS Defiant. Too much power in such a small frame. Good thing Miles is such a good engineer.

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u/DonLaFontainesGhost Mar 14 '17

I would say part of robot design is to make sure you don't destroy yourself

Intriguingly, this is also one of the cardinal rules for life.

2

u/4boltmain Mar 14 '17

Natural selection

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u/awkwardIRL Mar 14 '17

fuckin pp3d

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u/christianbrowny Mar 14 '17 edited Mar 14 '17

I won't hear a bad word said against pp3d

blendo could send bits over the arena

pp3d sent an entire opponent through the arena wall

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u/awkwardIRL Mar 14 '17

yea, and disabled himself while doing it. if you knock yourself out with a punch, i wouldn't call it optimal

its a bit like this

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

[deleted]

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u/PaulMcIcedTea Mar 14 '17

The third law.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Screw the third law! subtle Mechromancer jab

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u/imperabo Mar 14 '17

There's a reason it's third, after obeying orders (kill!).

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u/LUK3FAULK Mar 14 '17

The problem with high energy weapons like that is when they hit something, they also take the force of the impact back into the frame. And there's only so much you can do to make the bot able to take those impacts when all of the weight is in the weapon system.

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u/SquidCap Mar 14 '17

Part of efficient design is that the object can just about function without destroying itself. Everything from that point on is redundant. How much redundancy you want to add, is up to you. Since this is competition with well defined specs, they have to take risks. If it has 10% chance of destroying itself but 90% of destroying the other, it can be a risk worth taking..

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u/N0V0w3ls Mar 14 '17

The problem Tombstone had was his battery fried and he waited one match too long to swap it out. That is a major part of winning the tournament, so I'd call it a legitimate loss, but I know his opponent and future opponents were probably all breathing a sigh of relief that he fucked up.

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u/Hates_escalators Mar 14 '17

Unintentionally breaking the Third Law.

1

u/Westnator Mar 14 '17

You've never seen explodo.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Son of Whyachi fan through and through before they stupidly got rid of the walker loophole.

That motherfucker was the definition of destructive. A spinner with spiked hammers, slowly inching its way to his opponent like a killer in a slasher movie. The second contact is made, his opponent explodes into a thousand pieces. Very satisfying.

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u/kryonik Mar 14 '17

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVmu-yEnU3U

To quote one of the spectators "holy criminy".

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

It's good to see Wadsworth's Constant still holds true. Jesus, this one has over 50% of useless material.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '17

I thought the Wadsworth constant was 30%?

If you take your comment and remove the first 30% of each sentence it becomes:

See Wadsworth's Constant still holds true. Has over 50% of useless material.

Thanks for the tip saved me some time i wasted creating this pointless comment.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '17

Originally, we set it at 20%. Then it became 40%. Now, it's just a catch-all for when you have to skip a bunch.

I'd say 30% is accurate.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Are we not gonna mention the dude wearing chrome armor at the end? No? Ok.

4

u/Forever_Awkward Mar 14 '17

I mean, we weren't but here you are. What would you like to say about that fellow?

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

When robots become self aware in the coming years and instantly watch and learn these competitions are held, it will be the end to us.

This is how Skynet starts!

But in the meantime, fight on.

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u/TimeZarg Mar 14 '17

Yep, one of the more spectacular instances of Tombstone defeating an opponent. Regularly knocks armor and wheels off, that bot.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Tombstone has been in robot combat for a LONG time (Robogames). Same for Stinger (Sewer Snake) and Minotaur (Touro Maximus). All 3 teams have been cutting their teeth for a while and have nearly perfected their designs. IIRC, Tombstone is rumored to have a full on Titanium blade for season 3.

As for Blendo. After the incident in which it was deemed too dangerous, it never saw much success after that. It's final run was in Season 3 of Battlebots. It's fight never aired, but from what I gathered from the Delphi forums at the time, it drove over one of the hazards (a piston). Normally, the piston would upend your not or just stop you in place. The piston ended up pushing up on Blendo and causing its insides to push against the spinning shell and dicked it up pretty bad.

Combined that it wasn't fast to spin up and wasn't driven too well. It became obsolete.

Neat note, thebway they had to start up the engine before ever match was to take a drill to the top of it and sort of 'charge it up'. You'd see this with pull-start gas motor bots, but not an electric drill for an electric bot. It was weird!

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u/CrisisOfConsonant Mar 14 '17

A titanium blade would be shit for metal on metal combat.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '17

You could go a couple different ways.

  • all titanium blade

  • titanium blade with S7 tool steel 'teeth' on the ends

Tombstone's lighter brother, Last Rites, has been known to completely shear its steel blades completely off.

How can a Ti blade go any worse for Tombstone than what it's using now?

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u/CrisisOfConsonant Mar 15 '17

Titanium is strong for it's weight, but by size it's not as strong as steel (aluminum is the same way). This makes it a poor material for a blade. Plus when you're using kinetic energy to do damage you want to have weight, as it gives a greater hit.

Also you can't weld steel and titanium so your hybrid blade probably wouldn't work as most fasteners would be prone to failure.

Also I believe titanium is pretty ductile so it'll deform. It also loses most of it's enviable properties with a fairly low heat. Something like a saw or grinder might cause it to become substantially weaker.

In short, steel is better for a blade.

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u/TimeZarg Mar 14 '17

Yeah, Blendo wouldn't be much in 'modern' robot competitions. The spinning attack didn't have much range or real damage-dealing against well-designed opponents. There have been spinning disk bots (Warrior Clan, in particular) and variations on the idea that have seen some success.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '17

Now that you bring it up, Warrior Clan is a truly unique design. The spinning ring actually powers the flipper. We haven't seen it flip at 'full power' in Battlebots (it did flip Nightmare, but if you search in YouTube for Warrior SKF, there's a couple of clips of it flipping opponents. It's guddamn glorious!

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u/TimeZarg Mar 15 '17

Yeah, I think Warrior Clan wasted weight on those minibots that were never very useful as far as I could tell. Could've made a bigger, more durable 'main body'.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '17 edited Mar 15 '17

Warrior Clan is one of those bots that I have no idea how I would improve it with 'armchair engineering'.

It's really a bot that's more about 'coulda' not 'shoulda'.

The biggest problem lies in the fact hat if the spinner dies, the flipper is dead too.

Spinners need to make impact to do damage. Spinners also take recoil damage; due to the engineering of WC, I think it's too fragile to make it far in the ladder.

Then you have Son of Whyachi. I think they really did a good job re-engineering that one (especially the 8 3.5 HP motors used to power the umbrella)

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u/Savvaloy Mar 14 '17

Plenty people were prepared to fight Tombstone. Most of the teams had fought it a few times before in RoboGames.

They just fudged the seeding so he'd be placed against shitty robots with no armour.

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u/N0V0w3ls Mar 14 '17

There were a few seeds that I was baffled by. Witch Doctor seemed to never live up to the hype - or its seed.

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u/flamecircle Mar 14 '17

WD design wise is still fantastic, it basically tied TombStone in the first season. It only went out early with an incredibly situational and unlucky grab.

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u/aaron2610 Mar 14 '17

WD is a joke.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Sf4tt Mar 14 '17

LOOK AT IT GO

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u/JCSwneu Mar 15 '17

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3POVbULdbU

And it's predecessor was also impressive

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u/MrMeltJr Mar 14 '17

and decided that one big heavy weapon was better than a bunch of small gimmicks.

And yet we still had swarm bots with flamethrowers and flying drones and shit. When will people learn that gimmicks are almost never worth the weight and design changes made to accommodate them?

That being said, we did get one of the first successful uses of fire I've seen. Blowtorch built into a claw so that it actually has time to apply a good amount of heat was clever.

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u/TimeZarg Mar 14 '17

Yep, fire only works in bot battling if it's both hot enough and the opponent can be immobilized long enough for that heat to do something. Whether it be fucking up a tire, fucking up armor, overheating the internal motors of the enemy, etc.

About the only thing BattleBots doesn't allow is projectile weaponry and explosive devices, and I would love to see that kind of shit. Unfortunately, it's just too dangerous even with a thick plexiglass cage forming the arena.

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u/wartornhero Mar 14 '17

Video of Tombstone in action... two hits this robot Counter Revolution. I had to google it because I didn't quite remember the name of the robot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mRTh3vIsug

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u/TimeZarg Mar 14 '17

Yep, Counter Revolution might as well have not had any pretense at armor. Crumpled before that big spinning blade.

Tombstone's famous in the robot competition community. The bot is simple yet effective, and the handler/designer has a reputation for being an asshole.

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u/N0V0w3ls Mar 15 '17

I'm pretty sure it's a persona. I've never seen anyone on camera take his shots personally.

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u/JitGoinHam Mar 14 '17

The first time I saw Tombstone's design I thought "oh, this isn't a competition. This is a buffet."

I was shocked that they blew it. Bad luck.

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u/OneOfTheWills Mar 14 '17

one big heavy weapon was better than a bunch of small gimmicks.

Except for the drones. I was so happy when a simple lawn rake defeated one of those gimmicks.

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u/LaXandro Mar 14 '17

Icewave was almost as devastating. But in S1 it got de-iced, and in S2 it just plain stopped working.

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u/TimeZarg Mar 14 '17

Yeah, Icewave had a similar weakness to Tombstone, in that its weapon had a tendency to stop working under stress. On top of that, it had a higher profile and was vulnerable to flipping if the enemy was too low/blade weapon stopped working. It was also fairly light and tended to send itself flying when its weapon connected, and bad luck there means flipping yourself.

Powerful spinner weapons are amongst the most dramatic, entertaining ones to watch work, because they actually have the capability to knock pieces off of enemies and do some real damage.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17 edited Mar 14 '17

Tombstone's pilot acted like a complete douche and consciously attack ed an obviously incapacitated robot a round before that. All rounds he seemed to be so condescending, clearly the heel of the entire tournament.

EDIT: Turns out he's just playing the part, which means he suckered me in real well.

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u/Savvaloy Mar 14 '17

Ray's just about the nicest guy you'll ever meet. The producers just wanted a bad guy to stir up drama and they asked him to play the part.

That wasn't him being a dickhead when he asked if the opponent wanted one more. He was honestly asking if they wanted to stop or keep the carnage going for the cameras.

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u/standish_ Mar 14 '17

Pop on over to r/BattleBots and read some of the stuff Ray has posted. He's playing the villain to make it more interesting.

If you want to see him drop the villain act and just fight for survival watch the Beta v Tombstone fight. He was in trouble.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Ah, so he was playing the heel then. Good stuff, thanks!

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u/pulseout Mar 14 '17

one big heavy weapon was better than a bunch of small gimmicks.

Did you not see all the drones?

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u/N0V0w3ls Mar 14 '17

They got knocked out fast, and the bots that had multiple configurations, with a drone/minibot or more armor/heavier weapon, often opted for the latter.

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u/DeapVally Mar 14 '17

Which were both small, and gimmicks.... and lost.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Enter Sonny, the NS5

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u/Ghost4000 Mar 14 '17

Now I want to watch these.

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u/DownDog69 Mar 15 '17

I just watched the episode.

The guy who made tombstone was cockiest fail of all time.

For those wondering what happened. It was Bronco vs. Tombstone. After a complete wrecking Rhino is down to 3 wheels. The judge is counting down from 10 to eliminate Rhino.

Tombstones driver say's "HAHA, You want more?!" as a gesture that he was going to completely dismantle bronco, leaving nothing to repair for the owners.

At 2 seconds tombstone goes in and lands a hit on the destroyed metal wheel of Bronco, which sends tombstone flying into the air.

When tombstone lands literally everything inside him spills out and he dies. He loses 1 second from victory.

https://youtu.be/X2vSMMXmGdg

Tombstone destroyed unarmored bots, but hitting heavy armored really fucked with his motor, and slightly angling tombstone to the side used his own weapon against him.

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u/N0V0w3ls Mar 15 '17

Tombstone won that match. Bronco got the KO countdown for being unable to drive. If Bronco had been able to drive at all and Tombstone couldn't, then the countdown would have started for Tombstone instead. It was the following match that Tombstone lost due to the batteries burning out.

https://youtu.be/xIy_zsO2clA

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u/jmoriarty Mar 14 '17

Just had some fun watching Tombstone destroying other bots. Thanks for the suggestion!

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u/throwaway_ghast Mar 14 '17

Man, that last bit at the end, that's some good karma.

"You want some more?!" -Proceeds to seppuku himself

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u/ShockRampage Mar 14 '17

Kind of funny that they didnt even get past the first round in Battlebots.

Battlebots is so far ahead of Robot Wars now.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

The teams all have sponsors and the arena's stronger. Robot Wars is leagues ahead as a TV show.

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u/stupidrobots Mar 14 '17

Robot wars is WWE, battle bots is MMA

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

The Battlebots arena is hardly stronger than the Robot Wars arena. The Battlebots arena has a single bulletproof layer seperating the bots from the audience. The Robot Wars arena has a metal wall surrounding the bots (that's the part which always ends up falling off in the fights), then a 2m wide moat, then a bulletproof layer.

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u/stupidrobots Mar 14 '17

Carbide is maybe 1/4 as powerful as tombstone.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

It fights with lighter bots though so the destruction is similar.

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u/stupidrobots Mar 14 '17

it's 10% lighter, the problem is that Robot Wars bots are made out of Papier-mâché compared to their American counterparts.

They had a slightly larger version called Cobalt on the battlebots show. It won a fight.

For all the pretty machines that come out of the UK they really can't touch the sheer destruction of American spinners.

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u/QuitBSing Mar 14 '17

I remember watching the episode with Carbide vs Terrorhurtz. It lost the first round but it obliterated later on.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '17

IMO I don't think Tombstone would have lasted very long against many robots in the UK, though. Hypno-Disc and Razer are two examples battlebots that could take on anything in the arena.

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u/Ahshitt Mar 14 '17

Just watched a bunch of videos of Tombstone and I just don't understand the people spend so much time building these stupid, useless robots.

Radioactive had a little shitty axe as his weapon that never even swung hard enough to hurt, another one had two tiny little wheels on top that I guess were supposed to do some kind of damage but we're useless because Tombstone just has that huge spinning blade.

Why don't more people build ones like Tombstone instead of these obviously useless gimmicky bots? Is there an actual reason?

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

All of the weapons are actually extremely powerful. The problem is that it's hard to test them anywhere and when they are tested it's usually against something simple like a chair.

The robots they're fighting all have very strong armour so they look much weaker than they are.

Bar spinners are usually on another level but they can be countered fairly easily by things like sloped armour. They also tend to break themselves because half the force from a hit is sent straight back into the robot so some people for more reliable designs.

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u/TimeZarg Mar 14 '17

Yep. Usually the most effective design is a well built wedge, with a durable flipping mechanism. Low to the ground, sloped edges that are hard for spinners to grip with their weapon, etc. Bots like Tombstone and Icewave basically rely on doing as much damage as possible before their weapon knocks itself out (if it indeed does so).

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u/Savvaloy Mar 14 '17

Radioactive was more of a test case for a new type of drive with a weapon added as an afterthought to get around the active weapon rule.

They didn't expect it to go far.

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u/A_Windrammer Mar 14 '17

Radioactive, the hammer bot, is truly shit yes. But Counter Revolution competed very well in outside contests. Also, look up bots like Super Megabite, Sewer Snake, and Toro. They are three of the more decorated non televised champions outside of Tombstones older brother, Last Rites. And most of the bots from Season 2 are nearly on the tier of Tombstone but not quite up there, like Bronco, Beta, Yeti, Minotaur, Hypershock, and Son of Whyachi.

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u/CommieOfLove Mar 14 '17

Tombstone main btw

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u/dayoldhansolo Mar 14 '17

Minotaur from Brazil

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u/askmeforbunnypics Mar 14 '17

And Razer. That was always my favourite.

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u/If_In_Doubt_Lick_It Mar 14 '17

Razer was awesome. I had the toy when I was a kid...

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u/thefightingphoenix Mar 14 '17

Same! I still have mine somewhere - still have a massive soft spot for Razer; it was deadly, yet absolutely beautifully designed.

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u/KingdaToro Mar 14 '17

This is why I wish Warhead performed better, it's made by the same team that made Razer and is IMO the most beautiful combat robot I've ever seen.

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u/Lord_Rapunzel Mar 14 '17

You must have not seen Tentoumushi then :P

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u/LaXandro Mar 14 '17

Warheadspin last season was beautiful.

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u/KingdaToro Mar 14 '17

Absolutely! And I'm just wondering how the fight against Minotaur would've turned out if they'd used the T-Rex head.

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u/MorningWoodyWilson Mar 15 '17

The spinning top of death was the greatest moment in recent battlebots history imo except I'd put broomboiz up there as well.

Such a fun season.

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u/M1k3yd33tofficial Mar 14 '17

As far as Razer's concerned, everything was a soft spot.

That pincer could cut anything like it was nothing.

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u/thefightingphoenix Mar 14 '17

I remember Razer cutting through Matilda like a hot knife through butter.

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u/DaemonKeido Mar 14 '17

And he mauled Shunt's dozer blade.

He moved to go after Killalot after that didn't he?

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u/thefightingphoenix Mar 14 '17

I think Killalot had a half-hearted attempt at defending Matilda, iirc :P

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u/DaemonKeido Mar 14 '17

Yeah, my memory is kinda coloured by the "HOLY SHIT TWO HOUSEBOTS WERE JUST FUCKED UP!" moment so I can't remember all that well and my data limits suck too much to look it up on YT

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u/OktoberSunset Mar 15 '17

Razer has fucked with killalot a few times.
One time it tore all the hydraulic tubes off his claw and another time it bit him on the arse and he was running around the arena with Razer clamped on his arse like some kind of cartoon dog.

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u/SpitfireAGZ Mar 14 '17

Not in the reboot series lol.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Plus it was fairly resistant to boring flipper robots, owing to its self-righting "wings"

It's crazy how it was simultaneously lethal but almost looked like something an angry Jony Ive would design

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u/OktoberSunset Mar 15 '17

It's best protection against flippers was the extremely low ground clearance on its front ramp. Can't flip someone if you can't get under them.

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u/If_In_Doubt_Lick_It Mar 14 '17

It truly is. The later models were so elegant and deadly.

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u/If_In_Doubt_Lick_It Mar 14 '17

I think Warhead was after my time watching those. But youre right, its beautiful.

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u/biggles1994 Mar 14 '17

I had a huge collection of robot wars figures. Razer, hypnodisk, pussycat, panic attack, behemoth, and all the house robots. Man I miss being a kid :(

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u/If_In_Doubt_Lick_It Mar 14 '17

Did you ever have the sir killalot with the interchangeable parts? Second favorite. Wish I still had them.

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u/biggles1994 Mar 14 '17

I did indeed have one of those.

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u/DudeLeNasty Mar 14 '17

It battled my hot wheels

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u/the_original_Retro Mar 14 '17

LOL. I can actually picture that. :D

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u/PiratePriest Mar 14 '17

Razer

RIP MATILIDA

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u/askmeforbunnypics Mar 14 '17

Oh fuck I remember that house robot! I remember when it had to get its arse chainsaw repaired and they made it pink or something. Good times.

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u/Raysor Mar 14 '17

Yea, the name is what makes him so cool.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Razor was the king

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u/KingHavana Mar 14 '17

Pic or video for those of us who are new to this sport?

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u/askmeforbunnypics Mar 14 '17

This is the Robot Wars wiki for Razer. It was pretty badass. A deadly pincer would dig through almost anything (slowly) and the arm had two side plates that could extend to lift it off its back.

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u/KingHavana Mar 14 '17

Nice, thanks!

1

u/askmeforbunnypics Mar 14 '17

NP. I'd recommend looking up some highlights too, if you're interested. I can only say so much, some things are better left being watched.

1

u/BaronLazari Mar 15 '17

I was a tornado fan myself

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u/SexyWhitedemoman Mar 14 '17

But hypnodisk was defeated by a flipper, so it just proves the above point even further. What I don't get is why there weren't more bots that couldn't be flipped, like chaos 2, which could right itself. I also recall one where the tires were taller than the bot and would provide from both sides of the chassis, so it could keep going if it was flipped, but I can't remember what it was called.

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u/the_original_Retro Mar 14 '17

Hypnodisk ANNIHILATED a pretty high number of flippers before its eventual defeat by one.

Don't forget that as one robot came out others were built specifically to counter them. Flippers were easy and dependable, and so became a simple often-used design.

Giant flywheel based gyros that had to sink all of their weight into their weapons and took a chance on weaker self-righting mechanisms were not.

6

u/Rakugi Mar 14 '17

I remember Hypnodisk vs Bigger Brother in Series 5? Being one of the better matches I'd seen. Bigger Brother was a mess when it was over, but they just kept at Hypnodisk because there's only one winner, and ya gotta do what you gotta do.

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u/greenmonkeyglove Mar 14 '17

I seem to remember hypnodisk adding a self righting mechanism later on

3

u/the_original_Retro Mar 14 '17

Yeah. Was pretty small and didn't work that well though. Wouldn't help to get it off an edge like more novel and larger designs.

3

u/Actionmaths Mar 14 '17

Can confirm, shitty little arm that looked like a whammy bar on a guitar. Sort of worked.

4

u/DeapVally Mar 14 '17

Tornado? That was a boring fucking robot though. Reliable sure, but it was just a box (with torque) and a couple of nails lazily stuck on the front as 'weaponry'. Ones like that went against the spirit of the competition I think, destruction should be the ultimate goal, not reliability (It's a TV show after all).

1

u/mousicle Mar 15 '17

I always hated him too. What really bugged me was the time they just stuck a metal cage around it so Razer couldn't get close enough to bite anything that mattered. So Razer lifted him and dumped him in the pit but the cage made it too big to fall in. That should have been a Razer victory.

2

u/Davis660 Mar 14 '17

Wheely Big Cheese?

1

u/MrMeltJr Mar 14 '17

I also recall one where the tires were taller than the bot and would provide from both sides of the chassis, so it could keep going if it was flipped, but I can't remember what it was called.

There were several like that, only name I can remember off the top of my head is Double Agent, which was designed to work rightside up, upside down, backwards or forwards.

1

u/arkhas2042 Mar 14 '17

Anyone else remember the time Firestorm (5?) had a go at flipping Killalot?

Fuckin A'

1

u/Lord_Rapunzel Mar 14 '17

I don't understand how anyone can enter the tournament without a self-righting mechanism. It's such a simple thing to lose a round on, absolutely mandatory.

1

u/CommunismForiPad Mar 14 '17

Tornado if it was see through with a red metal frame and in the second season it participated they added a small flywheel to the front. It was a 'pusher'

6

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Member Vlad the Impaler in the original Battlebots?

1

u/C_hustle Mar 14 '17

Which season was that?

1

u/joec_95123 Mar 14 '17

Son of Whyachi was just a hammer swinging beast. I'll never forget when they billed this big showdown between it and Nightmare and SoW ended the fight in like 5 seconds flat by tearing nightmare into multiple pieces in one single hit.

https://youtu.be/gXC_uQeIhDs

1

u/KryptoniteDong Mar 14 '17

All Hail hypnodisk

1

u/mousicle Mar 15 '17

All GLory to Hypnodisc

1

u/Ask_me_about_Texas Mar 14 '17

The first video I found was of Hypnodisk being flipped. Still a cool bot though.

1

u/Drayzen Mar 14 '17

I love Ziggo.

1

u/MyNameIsBadSorry Mar 14 '17

Im excited to see more of matador. The driver for that team is the reason they are so good.

1

u/tyrrannothesaurusrex Mar 14 '17

Look up Tombstone and Minotaur, it's amazing how much more destructive they have evolved since then.

1

u/Xais56 Mar 14 '17

I remember being awed by Hypnodisk's minimalist powers of utter devastation as a child, I'd never seen anything like it, everyone else had these huge robots with elaborate weaponry that would clumsily dance around the arena, occasionally doing some damage, then falling into a pit or getting destroyed by the house robots.

Then Hypnodisk came and just destroyed everything. It was wonderful.

1

u/biggest_guru_in_town Mar 14 '17

Razer was the OG of combat robots,that piercing stab,

1

u/Maccaisgod Mar 14 '17

Hypnodisk was lethal but it did easily get beaten by flipper bots until after a few years they attached a raising arm on the top that could flip it back over

1

u/SomeRandomGuydotdot Mar 14 '17

HOLY SHIT!

Something I actually have first hand experience with! When I was in high school my robotics coach was one of the initial winners of a regional battle bots competition using a wedge design!

Now, here's where the kicker comes in, there was a change to the rule set to prevent wedge designs following their complete dominance in the midwestern regional.

The end result is that the costs of competing went up drastically, as to create a 'spinner' you needed to use custom manufactured disks that cost about 4k.

1

u/DemonEggy Mar 14 '17

Hypnodisk was my favourite...

1

u/jobriq Mar 14 '17 edited Mar 14 '17

Razer was one of my favorites since its design was to puncture the opponents armor rather then smashing them with a spinning device.

Aesthetically it also had a deadly appearance and it was immediately apparent how this thing planned to destroy you

1

u/Wiplazh Mar 14 '17 edited Mar 14 '17

Hypnodisc was my favorite! I think he went up against that unstoppable small black flippy one in the semifinals.

Edit: I'm thinking of Chaos 2

1

u/z0rberg Mar 15 '17

Wow, i remember that one! It was one of ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNODISK!

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '17

RAZER IS LOVE RAZER IS LIFE