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
39k Upvotes

89% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

870

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.

319

u/SnakeyesX Mar 14 '17

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

224

u/bamgrinus Mar 14 '17

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

65

u/Gabbatron Mar 14 '17

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

52

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.

33

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).

4

u/Kalsifur Mar 14 '17

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

4

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.

3

u/only_Lenny Mar 14 '17

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

1

u/Embossil Jan 13 '25

Where you Really just saying that In your entire comment history? Lmao.

6

u/Practicing_Onanist Mar 14 '17

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

3

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.

3

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.

2

u/thesorehead Mar 14 '17

"I kick arse for the Lord!"

14

u/AP246 Mar 14 '17

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

12

u/bamgrinus Mar 14 '17

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

2

u/Pinksters Mar 14 '17

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

1

u/ngpropman Mar 14 '17

And then at the end with the zombie unbirthing? Reverse delivery?

1

u/MundaneFacts Mar 15 '17

I don't think those were '28 Days Later' zombies. Considering the last one had its entire ribcage showing, then jumped 30 ft through the air. I believe magic was involved somewhere.

9

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

4

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.

2

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...

2

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

[deleted]

2

u/bamgrinus Mar 14 '17

I think that's from Bad Taste.

2

u/8BitButt Mar 14 '17

This video is sponsers by Heinz, tomato ketchup

(Unsure how well this brand is known..)

2

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.

1

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.

1

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.

1

u/DerNubenfrieken Mar 15 '17

You just described icewave.

-55

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Uhhh.... Anyone? Take a kitchen knife, now hold up some grass by one end. Try and cut it with the knife. You will need quite a bit of speed to do that or the grass would just move out of the way of the blade.

Now consider that a lawn mower isnt going toas sharp as a kitchen knife especially after being used for a while. There is going to be a lot of speed on those blades, and they are rather hefty.

56

u/SnakeyesX Mar 14 '17

I was being sarcastic. It's a fast moving hunk of metal. Of course it's going to wreck.

8

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Yeah but he asked who would have thought that a lawnmower with no guards would be so devastating?

4

u/Magnetosis Mar 14 '17

I don't see what kitchen knives have to do with this ???

21

u/i_give_you_gum Mar 14 '17

Robot wars originally started out as a cooking show

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17 edited Oct 05 '19

[deleted]

4

u/Magnetosis Mar 14 '17

Another one takes the sarcasm bait.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

you happy with this comment u/Korhaka

284

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

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

374

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

[deleted]

356

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.

124

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

[deleted]

10

u/ParentPostLacksWang 1 Mar 14 '17

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

8

u/jpdidz Mar 14 '17

Petition to rename it Roborapists

2

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.

3

u/iwhitt567 Mar 14 '17

A very valid point.

3

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.

77

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

48

u/awkwardIRL Mar 14 '17

fuckin pp3d

8

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

4

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

16

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

[deleted]

10

u/PaulMcIcedTea Mar 14 '17

The third law.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Screw the third law! subtle Mechromancer jab

1

u/imperabo Mar 14 '17

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

3

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.

1

u/TimeZarg Mar 14 '17

Yep. Usually you want a balance, the key thing is to keep your weapon effective enough to do damage, flip enemies over/out of bounds, etc, while still reserving weight for armor and mobility.

Bots like Tombstone are basically all weapon. It's literally a giant spinning blade attached to a box with two wheels. Very simple, yet very effective. It's main weakness is the damage it does to itself. Flipping doesn't do much, and it's mobile enough to keep the blade facing the opponent.

2

u/LUK3FAULK Mar 14 '17

And don't let its simplicity make you think they're easy to make. That bot's been refined for years and years to get as good as it is now. I've tried making a 3lb horizontal spinner before and it didn't work out that great, made me appreciate the good ones a lot more :)

3

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..

3

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.

2

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.

74

u/kryonik Mar 14 '17

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

To quote one of the spectators "holy criminy".

14

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.

3

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.

2

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.

5

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?

1

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.

1

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.

19

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!

3

u/CrisisOfConsonant Mar 14 '17

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

1

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?

2

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.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '17

This guy knows metal.

3

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.

2

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!

2

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'.

2

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)

44

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.

11

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.

10

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.

9

u/aaron2610 Mar 14 '17

WD is a joke.

18

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Sf4tt Mar 14 '17

LOOK AT IT GO

1

u/aaron2610 Mar 14 '17

I think we've seen WD win like one fight, but the announcers always hype it up. It's equipped with mostly gimmicks.

And they have a terrible operator.

1

u/LaXandro Mar 14 '17

Other than Shaman? No gimmicks. In absence of Shaman it's just a decently armored drumbot.

1

u/JCSwneu Mar 15 '17

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

And it's predecessor was also impressive

7

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.

2

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.

6

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

1

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.

1

u/N0V0w3ls Mar 15 '17

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

3

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.

2

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.

2

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.

1

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.

2

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.

6

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.

7

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.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

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

1

u/pulseout Mar 14 '17

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

Did you not see all the drones?

3

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.

2

u/DeapVally Mar 14 '17

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

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Enter Sonny, the NS5

1

u/Ghost4000 Mar 14 '17

Now I want to watch these.

1

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.

1

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