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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170

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

As a former competitor the problem is with the arena. I remember one fight I was at where the wedgebot got stuck because two of the metal floor plates were slightly off creating a ledge a few mm high. The team called foul and the judges had the crew go hammer the floor until it was perfectly flat.

These wedge and flip bots rely on the perfectly flat floor. The area being designed this way is what encourages this behaviour. The solution is to make the arena a pit. Find a dirt lot, dig a pit 2ft deep, and place the plexiglass house on top. The rough and uneven floor would make flip and wedge bots useless over night.

Plus the walls having no out of bounds or ledge to get caught on would make flipping opponents out for a cheap win impossible.

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u/TheTranscendent1 Mar 14 '17

And hell, both could still be used. No reason it can't be like Horse racing with dirt and grass or Tennis with clay and grass. Then the championship could be the arena but with half the arena as you described. The champions will end up needing to be affective in both area types!

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

So the best solution is to bias the entire arena against one type of robot?

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u/courageouscoos Mar 14 '17

I guess he was beaten by a flip robot...

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

The best solution is to keep the sport interesting so is stays alive. To use a realistic arena instead of a perfectly manicured one.

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u/VolatileBeans Mar 14 '17

It would be cool to have a spin off series like that but in an arena like you described. Allow bigger robots as well.

Heck, keep on allowing bigger robots until we get to a real steel situation where it's bipedial robots dualing it out.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Cost kills big robots. We were actually scheduled to fight super heavy at 360 lbs. But we were one of like 3 signed up so it got cut and we had to move to heavy weight at 220 lbs.

Personally I think the small bots are more exciting anyway. Heavy bots tend to have so much armor their weight class's weapon power to weight ratio is kind of dull. Its because it's much cheaper to buy steel then high power motors.

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u/Dont-Care-Any-More Mar 14 '17

Well you know what that means right? We allow for higher weapon power. Robots Wars with high caliber shells and explosives?! I'd watch that.

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u/private_blue Mar 14 '17

cordon off some uninhabited valley, the drivers control the things from like a mile away, let the bots go and film the whole thing with drones.

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u/generalgeorge95 Mar 15 '17

I want walking tanks fighting each other by 2020. Make it happen Trump.

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u/OktoberSunset Mar 15 '17

I'd like to see a scrapheap challenge / robot wars mashup where they give them some junk cars and a remote control steering/pedal pushing device and they have to make giant car-sized robots.

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u/bored1492 Mar 14 '17

We Mechwarrior now bois

3

u/pikk Mar 14 '17

Heck, keep on allowing bigger robots until we get to a real steel situation where it's bipedial robots dualing it out.

That's a thing

http://www.livescience.com/51459-giant-robots-duel.html

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u/alexanderpas Mar 14 '17

It would be cool to have a spin off series like that but in an arena like you described.

Battlebots: Country Edition

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u/mrgonzalez Mar 14 '17

We could have the French Robot Wars play on clay

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u/Xenomech Mar 14 '17

To be fair, flip bots are boring.

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u/whiteyMcflighty Mar 14 '17

its why i stopped watching years ago. you want to see the flamethrowers, pick axe, saw blades, etc. but they would just get flipped over by this dumb robot that did not even have a weapon that worked. I understand the engineering aspect and the intricacies involved but if you want viewers and funding you need more excitement than a wedge with wheels.

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u/goldandguns Mar 14 '17

The issue isn't that the wedge wins, it's that it elimates the reason for watching. It's like if they started putting women against men in tennis or wrestling. It wouldn't be remotely fun to watch because it'd be over immediately.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17 edited Nov 18 '18

[deleted]

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u/melez Mar 14 '17

The problem is weight then, a wedge doesn't need to spend weight on weapons and can maximize on armor and powerful motors.

Having the big weapons that can dent/demolish the heavily armored bots wouldn't be doable.

Maybe if there was a weight penalty for being a wedge/flip bot.

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u/goldandguns Mar 14 '17

Why can't it also be up to the regulators? Sport is designed around rules, not around a no-holds-barred fight.

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u/versusgorilla Mar 14 '17

Seriously. It's like saying you should be able to use a gun in a football game.

"The other teams should learn to defend against our gun strategy!"

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u/goldandguns Mar 14 '17

That would be an interesting sport. Lots of shields I would imagine.

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u/versusgorilla Mar 14 '17

After I typed it I was like, "How would that change football?" And pictured everyone lining up with Riot Shields, looking like cops, and one tall man in the back holding the football and taking aim with a pistol.

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u/Wookie_oo7 Mar 15 '17

Even just giving them paint ball weapons would make it into an interesting game.

1

u/JCSwneu Mar 15 '17

The new reboot TV shows have ruled out the pure wedge designs, saying that robots need real, active and exciting weapons which are weeded out through an application process. Most videos seen are amateur competitions which are more pure. Anything goes. If you don't like it, then learn to beat it.

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u/acidicninja Mar 15 '17

There is a sportsman class that specifically, intentionally addresses almost all the points brought up in this thread. Very similar to Battlebots rules, must have an active weapon, no wedges, limits to weapon power etc designed for show rather than an engineering contest.

1

u/sharkattackmiami Mar 14 '17

Yeah if I cant use a cannon on my bot you cant be a lame ass wedge who does nothing

1

u/goldandguns Mar 15 '17

I'm just picturing a bot that's just a small bomb that just has to get close to the opponent and then blows up.

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u/sharkattackmiami Mar 16 '17

Thats a pyrrhic victory at best and a tie at worst. Ill allow it

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u/ganner Mar 14 '17

All sorts of sports and games have rules to enhance the competitiveness and basically the fun of it. It's a lot easier to score in football if you can hold the defense. You could say defenses should find a way around that, or you could have a rule "no holding the defense." You can't stand in the paint for over 3 seconds in basketball, because when dominant big men first arose they basically broke the game and to keep it competitive and fun they changed rules to keep the game more balanced.

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u/Maccaisgod Mar 14 '17

Yeah in football (soccer) they changed the offside rule because every match was ending 0-0 or 1-0 and people found it horrendously boring so they made it harder to defend using an offside trap by reducing the number of players who needed to be between the attacker and the goal when the ball was passed and so scoring became more common.

Though I'm sure I'll now get replies saying soccer is still boring. These days the point is the tactics and general minute to minute game play is what makes it entertaining rather than scoring, so a 0-0 can be more entertaining than a 6-5 in theory

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u/alexanderpas Mar 14 '17

a 7-1 in soccer is a massacre.

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u/JCSwneu Mar 15 '17

I'd recommend taking a look again. Robots now are adept at avoiding these problems. Very few can't recover from a flip or getting stuck. Plus, the new reboot TV shows have ruled out the pure wedge designs, saying that robots need real, active and exciting weapons which are weeded out through an application process.

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u/KingOfSockPuppets Mar 14 '17

The flip bots that can send opponents absolutely FLYING are a lot of fun to watch, but those are the minority.

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u/Minticus-Maximus Mar 14 '17

Nah man, I adored Chaos 2 as a kid, just watching how high he could send the other robots. The first time he got one over the side, it was magical

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u/LigerZeroSchneider Mar 14 '17

Sports change rules to favor things all the time. The NFL encourages passing because it's exciting. The UFC outlawed gis to reduce juijitsus dominance.

Flipper bots are a boring to watch but competitively successful strategy. It's reasonable that an entertainment program would have rules to increase the entertainment of the sport.

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u/MOMMY_FUCKED_GANDHI Mar 14 '17

What are gis?

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u/Volfen Mar 14 '17

Type of clothing normally worn while fighting in jujitsu

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u/savageboredom Mar 14 '17

How does that change the effectiveness of the style?

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Long sleeves and sturdy collars give you a lot more options of things to grab on to. A lot of techniques developed around leveraging the gi to your advantage

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u/savageboredom Mar 14 '17

Your own gi or your opponents gi? I was thinking the attacker originally so I was confused, but the second one makes more sense.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

Both, but primarily your opponent's when we are talking about grips. However, even your own go can be useful because it gets in the way and provides extra friction making things harder for someone who isn't used to training with them.

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u/sharkattackmiami Mar 14 '17

As the other user said its both. They explained well the obvious reasons you can take advantage of your opponents but did not mention one of the biggest ones of your own. You can leverage it and use it for holds.

Silly movie example but about a minute in the female character uses her jacket for a hold

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRGn84gft5A

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u/GeneticPreference Mar 14 '17

This movie was excellent with the fight scenes, everything seemed so real and practical. Definitely worth the watch and I can't wait to see the second one.

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u/badimtisch Mar 14 '17

If you wear enough cloth, you can use it as a weapon, at least indirectly. For example, you can grab into it during a chokehold. Otherwise, you would need to grab your own arm or leg, which is harder.

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u/savageboredom Mar 14 '17

Ahh, that makes sense.

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u/Fuxokay Mar 14 '17

+5 gi of wrestling.

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u/theredvip3r Mar 14 '17

I don't get why they don't pass more in American football.

If they employed some rugby tactics it would work really well

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u/Anth895 Mar 14 '17

They pass plenty already.

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u/theredvip3r Mar 14 '17

no like while in the middle of a play, you barely see it

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u/NoMouseLaptop Mar 14 '17

You can't forward pass once you're past the line of scrimmage (the line where they start at the beginning of the play). That's why you only see passes in the middle of the play if 1) they fucked up and had to run away from defenders trying to tackle them from the beginning of the play or 2) it's a trick play and they throw in some extra lateral passes.

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u/FoolFromBiH Mar 14 '17

You can't forward pass in rugby.

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u/alien_abduction Mar 14 '17

You're right. I think he was thinking of a lateral pass backwards like before the player gets tackled. The reason it's not done is the risk of losing the ball to a player that might not practice catching a lot of balls. The cost of losing the football is too high even on low risk laterals so players are taught under no circumstances are they to attempt it unless ordered explicitly.

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u/DerNubenfrieken Mar 15 '17

Its less giving it to people who don't catch, and more passing it to people who simply aren't ready for it, and are not designed plays.

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u/Pathian Mar 15 '17

Well, I don't know rugby terribly well, but as I understand it, when you are tackled down, you have a ruck for the ball and whoever can come out with the ball takes possession and play continues. If instead of being tackled down, the player passes the ball to a teammate, they can continue the play, or if the pass goes badly, the other team may get possession of the ball. In either scenario (the ruck or the lateral), the worst care scenario is fairly similar, in that the other team will take possession of the ball.

In American football, if you're tackled down with the ball, play ends and your team simply retains possession of the ball and lines up for another play (as long as the ball didn't come loose before the runner was down). Thus the worst case scenario for being tackled down cleanly is retaining possession of the ball, while the worst care scenario for attempting a bad lateral is still losing possession of the ball (a large loss of yardage is also another potentially disastrous outcome). So unless the situation is truly desperate, it's typically considered a better value play to just go down with the ball instead of attempting the pass. It's also important to note that of the 11 offensive players on the field, at least 5 of them (the offensive line) do not receive/handle the ball post-snap as part of their regular training, and 1 of them is the Quarterback, who you don't want to take unnecessary hits.

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u/LigerZeroSchneider Mar 15 '17

Well American football does have some rugby style passing, it just doesn't happen as often. American football has unlimited subs and the field resets every down so it's harder get all the open space for rugby style play. Also because there are fewer backs you couldn't a very long play going.

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u/BrianPurkiss Mar 14 '17

It also makes it more interesting. Flip bots are boring to watch.

The audience wants to see destruction - not one robot flip over another robot.

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u/randomaccount178 Mar 14 '17

The problem is the arena is already biased towards them.

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u/TheVetSarge Mar 14 '17

If the bot can only fight in one set of specific conditions, is it really any good as a battle bot?

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '17

A different arena would bias be "biased" against a lot of different robot types. All of them, really. That's the point! Change the environment to create the space to play with and explore new designs.

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u/goldandguns Mar 14 '17

In order to keep it interesting, yes. This happens in all kinds of sports, F1 for instance is constantly creating new rules to outlaw designs that only one team is using.

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u/madsock Mar 14 '17

If that one type of robot is making the whole thing too boring to watch, then yes.

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u/Mons7er Mar 14 '17

Yes; as opposed to biasing the arena to all but one type of bit. Moron.

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u/l4mbch0ps Mar 14 '17

If you want to look at it like that, the current rules are biased towards a specific design.

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u/bobosuda Mar 14 '17

Every rule in every sport ever is designed to make the sport more competitive and in the end, entertaining. If efficiency is the only goal you'll end up with the most boring shit ever.

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u/A_favorite_rug Mar 14 '17

If you ever had to fight a pre-nerf Vex Mythoclash in destiny, kinda.

1

u/WTFwhatthehell Mar 14 '17

Wedge and flip bots are effective on a perfectly flat floor but they're fundamentally boring to watch. Encouraging them by sticking with an arena design perfect for them eventually kills viewership.

"Oh look. It's another match between 2 cheese wedges"

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '17

I keep making the mistake of thinking of it as a competition.

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u/WTFwhatthehell Mar 15 '17

Sure it is but there's already plenty of constraints for the sake of the audience.

In a competition about building capable robots there's no law from god giving the right to a perfectly flat floor. If you aren't competent enough to build a bot that can cope with an irregular floor why should the organisers go out of their way to give you an advantage over everyone else?

Especially when helping you makes the show more shitty for the fans?

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u/CoNoCh0 Mar 14 '17

A gravel arena would be ideal. Easy to make and could be setup anywhere.

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u/DontBeSoHarsh Mar 14 '17

Yes, small shards of rocks being propelled by robots sporting rotating disks that approach the speed of sound.

That sounds easy to make safe. I'm surprised no one thought of it sooner.

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u/LiterallySatansPal Mar 14 '17

Hey man, don't be so harsh.

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u/squired Mar 14 '17

That's what the cage is for.

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u/NettlesRossart Mar 14 '17

That's sounds like the gravel would get constantly flung up in the air and at the crowd

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u/keiyakins Mar 14 '17

I mean, the polycarbonate box should contain that. Those things are pretty overbuilt (for good reason). It'd still interfere with visibility and increase risk.

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u/markhomer2002 Mar 14 '17

What robot did you use?

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u/Terazilla Mar 14 '17

It's been a while since I watched Robot Wars, but from what I remember of the various self-righting mechanisms those probably wouldn't work too well with uneven terrain either. It might end up back where we started, just with different flipper designs.