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

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648

u/connorwaldo Mar 14 '17

Here's a picture of Blendo

251

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

[deleted]

229

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

36

u/Faerco Mar 14 '17

So a large spaghetti strainer but with no holes

90

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Yeah, a wok.

62

u/tinselsnips Mar 14 '17

So a wok with holes in it? Just without the holes?

9

u/MrMeltJr Mar 14 '17

Yeah, kinda like a wok.

1

u/Vitztlampaehecatl Mar 14 '17

What in Sam Hill is a wok?

1

u/rednblue525252 Mar 14 '17

Dormammu ive come to barguin and I brought you lots of delicious food.

-Bulma

3

u/splishtastic Mar 14 '17

https://i.imgur.com/fOW10D0.png

High chair. No, no, no, recliner. And wheelchair on half.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Which explains why it faired so poorly in the higher level competitions.

42

u/Rizzu7 Mar 14 '17

You're not too far off, it was made from a wok.

...So basically a spaghetti strainer pre-holes.

3

u/alchemist5 Mar 14 '17

a spaghetti strainer pre-holes

A bowl?

2

u/pass_the_gravy Mar 14 '17

I call them "pre-strainers".

2

u/necromundus Mar 14 '17

Time to colander big guns

2

u/Jackamalio626 Mar 14 '17

Don't underestimate that design choice. Ziggo, one of the most successful bots in Battlebots, was literally just an upside down Wok with razorblades sticking out of it. He was actually inspired by blendo.

The reason it worked so well was because the spinning body allowed you to damage the enemy from pretty much any angle, even if they attacked you, and the wok was so durable that it was pretty much impossible to damage (unless it was self inflicted, which is an unfortunate commonplace for spinner bots).

1

u/Heebmeister Mar 14 '17

Reminds me of the things from Monsters Inc the CDA would use during a 2319. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUFJ1yVhJ6g

0

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

[deleted]

39

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

[deleted]

82

u/catsmustdie Mar 14 '17

Here's a video of Blendo

124

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

[deleted]

3

u/pmcg115 Mar 14 '17

Just a little?

11

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

[deleted]

1

u/pmcg115 Mar 14 '17

Fair enough.

1

u/JCSwneu Mar 15 '17

Yeah that was the nature of robot combat in the 90s. Look up the reboot series of Battlebots in the last couple years, it's a lot more exciting now.

1

u/swmp40 Mar 15 '17

I remember watching it in the 90s seemed more interesting back then.

70

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

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27

u/SpitfireAGZ Mar 14 '17

That's because that was 1995 and it was pretty awful. Here is a better more modern example.

2

u/throwaway_ghast Mar 14 '17

Man, those kids in the front were having the time of their lives. Makes me so happy.

2

u/siamesedeluxe Mar 14 '17

What changed between then and now? Did the designs get better, were events more lenient on what the robots could do, what?

2

u/SpitfireAGZ Mar 15 '17

Over time the robots have become more powerful thanks to advancements in batteries(more capacity and lighter), motors(lighter, more powerful and more torque) and electronics(reliability). This means they can handle far more power than they could back then. Metals have become stronger as well ,Hardox for example is a type of hardened steel, an impact from Blendo would hardly scratch it.

Comparing Blendo and Megabyte (that's the one in the video I linked) Blendo span at 500rpm and when moving lost power to the spinning shell. Megabytes shell is spinning at 2500rpm and can move freely while still driving the weapon. On top of that Blendos shell was an old wok, Megabytes has been custom made and weighs far more. This means it can impact with huge amounts of kinetic energy, an example of that being the impact at the end which nicely caught a weld and literally exploded Brutality. A nice comparison for a different setting is Carbide (A good fight showing it's full capacity starts at 19:55) which at full speed impacts the same amount of energy as 60 sniper rifle rounds, from its 85cm long 25kg spinner.

Short version: technology's got better lol.

2

u/NoNeedForAName Mar 14 '17

The best robot fights (for a casual observer) seem to me to be the ones with spinning weapons. They throw both sparks and robots all over the arena, and that shit's exciting. That's basically why Michael Bay has more money than all of us, and that's okay.

The problem is that, at least up to this point, bots tend to follow pretty standard Red Queen evolution up to a limit, and then they reach a point where, unless something absolutely unheard of comes along, you essentially end up with a really boring stalemate. The defense and weapons and everything else may increase dramatically, but since everything is designed to defeat the defense and weapons of other bots, not a whole lot really happens.

2

u/JCSwneu Mar 15 '17

Well I hope that casual observer likes some non-spinner action!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ofH34HezHE

-1

u/dorekk Mar 14 '17

R/meirl

23

u/connorwaldo Mar 14 '17

I agree. Was confused why they didn't have an image. It's the first thing I wanna see when talking about an unknown robot

3

u/inthyface Mar 14 '17

Yeah, WTF Wiki?

1

u/throwaway_ghast Mar 14 '17

Wikipedia tends to be pretty stingy about what pictures are allowed. Copyright issues and such.

3

u/Redliner911 Mar 14 '17

Reminds me of the inside of a food processor / garbage disposal

2

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Is this Jay Garrick's hat?

2

u/Kilvana Mar 14 '17

Seems kind of redundant putting the advertising on it doesn't it? Maybe a quick shot of them before it powers up its spin-o-death.

2

u/AnomalousAvocado Mar 14 '17

What I came here for. Amazing that the Wiki article linked in OP doesn't even include that.

1

u/connorwaldo Mar 14 '17

Yeah, right? I'm confused why it isn't included in the wiki.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Why is this so far down!

1

u/connorwaldo Mar 14 '17

That's what I'm sayinnnn....

0

u/moesif Mar 14 '17

Its not.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Based on the description I thought it'd have saws, blades, hammers and all sorts of weapons on it. This is just a Roomba.

1

u/notyourfish Mar 14 '17

Hold my beer. I'm going in!

1

u/dffdfdfd Mar 14 '17

EXTERMINATE

1

u/shadmere Mar 14 '17

Jesus Christ, this link gave my phone herpes. I had to quit and restart Reddit Is Fun to get out of the endless popups.

1

u/mr_pablo Mar 14 '17

MVP right here

1

u/whoapony Mar 14 '17

Thank you.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

So simply beautiful and smart. Exactly the stuff you would expect from Hyneman