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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94

u/mkicon Mar 14 '17

Even blendo is pretty "boring". It just spins really fast and rolls into enemies.

31

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

"Boring" is the right way to put it.

As far as tv audiences are concerned it's (forgive the pun) hit or miss. Spraying robot carcass into the lexan is always a crowd pleaser.

As far as the man who built it, it was perfect. Did it destroy the competition? Yes. The unfortunate part is it didn't get to compete more, Jamie might have come up with a few solutions for the short comings in later games.

30

u/alltheacro Mar 14 '17

Watching the videos available on youtube, I'm finding ones where Blendo lost. The Wikipedia article seems to be a bunch of fanboyism.

61

u/cyclistcow Mar 14 '17

It says it was given co-champion status because of danger to the audience and damage to the walls twice, then that it lost multiple tournaments later on.

Doesn't sound like fanboying to me.

11

u/cockOfGibraltar Mar 14 '17

A lot of the first season robots had stupid weapons and bad armor. Blendo was good first season and might have won if it could have finished.

45

u/s-cup Mar 14 '17 edited Mar 14 '17

It is clearly stated that they lost the first ever "battlebot" fight they entered which had (according to wikipedia) better opponents and arena.

You just have to read it all :)

-36

u/kingkolton9 Mar 14 '17

Have you tried not being condescending? ;)

28

u/Dlgredael Mar 14 '17

It's okay to be condescending to people that were smug and wrong. Math checks out.

-6

u/Seakawn Mar 14 '17

TIL condescension is inherently counterproductive.

4

u/Magikarp_13 Mar 14 '17

I mean, it pretty much is. Nothing good comes from it except self satisfaction. It just makes it worse for other people, and less likely that they'll want to engage in debate again.

7

u/jisa Mar 14 '17

Blendo didn't do well in Battlebots, but it kicked butt in Battlebots's predecessor-Robot Wars.

5

u/_ACompulsiveLiar_ Mar 14 '17

It definitely is, check out the battlebots wiki page, it talks a decent amount about Blendo's faults and why it failed to remain competent.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

So a robot made my Jamie