WEBVTT - TechStuff vs. BattleBots 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:08.920 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:17.960 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.160 and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulett, 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:22.360 and I'm an editor at how stuff works dot com. 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:25.280 Sitting across from me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:30.720 No disassemble A nice thank you. I don't usually play 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:33.919 the quote game, but today's episode is one I've quoted 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.600 from in the past. The box is locked, the lights 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:40.879 are on. It's robot fighting time, right and uh, and 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:46.080 we're doing this because of a little Facebook feedback from 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:50.400 Corey who says, please do a podcast about battle butts 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:55.640 and now we will. All right then, Actually, the battle 0:00:55.680 --> 0:01:01.000 bots is but one form of robot competition. Um. As 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:02.640 a matter of fact, there there are many different kinds 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.920 of competition overall. Now, uh, you might be thinking of 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:10.160 a first which is a different type of robot competition 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.360 in which you build robots that are supposed to solve 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:17.400 specific projects. It's uh an educational I think of anyway. 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:21.040 I think of it as an educational robot contest on 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:23.720 which you are trying to do something constructive with your robot, right, 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:26.880 Dean Kaman is involved with that one exactly, is exactly 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:28.200 and I think as a matter of fact, I think 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.119 there is an episode of stuff from the Science Lab 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:34.040 from a long time ago that may have focused on 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:37.800 on that. Yeah. Actually they did a visit to first 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.480 to the robot competition because that they tend to take 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.080 place in Georgia. Now, you know, this is one of 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:45.520 the things that I like about you know, Lego, you 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:48.120 build these massive things, you can build them in all 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.160 different kinds of configurations, and robots are are similar in 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:52.800 that you can do all kinds of things. You can 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.040 have them lift things, you can have them move and 0:01:55.040 --> 0:02:00.760 and grapple, and then as with many of my Lego toys, 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:04.000 you can also bust them into many, many little pieces. 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:11.520 And that's what battle bots is and it's smash yes. Um. 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:16.680 The uh, the whole concept is sometimes i would say 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:22.200 probably mostly attributed to a guy named Mark Thorpe who 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:28.359 he actually was working for Mr George Lucas UM. He 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:31.880 was a senior designer for Lucas Toys. Uh, and at 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:34.000 that point he was he came up with the idea 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:38.840 of fighting vehicles. UM. You know, basically he was surprised. 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:41.040 I went to his website in researching this, and he 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:43.520 said that he was surprised that people seemed sort of 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.760 indifferent to it. And he said, you know what, somebody's 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:49.200 going to figure out how this is gonna work. In fact, 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:52.400 that was almost a verbatim direct quote um. But he 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:55.880 also was thinking about the possibility of creating a radio 0:02:55.960 --> 0:03:00.400 controlled vacuum cleaner. Can you imagine that a robotic vacuum cleaner? 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:07.359 Uh The idea would be too make it an enjoyable process. 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:11.880 Mr Thorpe said, Uh. So he started thinking about the 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:15.040 idea as he was taking is one of his uh 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:19.600 um inventions apart and said, wait a minute, what if 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.680 I put you know, tools of destruction on this, and 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:28.800 we we had these robotic remote controlled robots and acume 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:36.520 cleaner of death. Well yeah, more or less. So essentially 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:41.640 that's how robot Wars was created. Came up with the 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:44.280 idea of having a robotic competition which you would build 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:48.240 remote controlled devices that would attempt to destroy one another 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:51.600 in an arena. Uh and the arena that's arena itself 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.560 would also be trying to destroy the two robots, so 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:58.440 there would be obstacles in play, and you could either 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:04.400 fall prey to them or perhaps manipulate your opponent so that, yes, 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:10.480 it would become a jumble of of garbage. Yes, UM, 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:16.520 this was. This started happening around UM and at the 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:21.080 time you know it launched, it was let's say this 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:23.400 qualified to the people who would actually want to watch 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:28.160 something like this a smashing success, no pun intended for once, UM, 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:32.120 because sometimes it was a flipping success exactly. But yeah, 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:36.000 it took off, the idea, took off the problem with 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:38.120 robot wars. And I don't want to get into this 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:40.560 in lots of detail because I don't know all the 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:46.159 mechanisms of this. UM. Mr Thorpe worked with a company 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:50.599 in New York, record company UH to help him finance it. 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:57.240 The company UM was named Profile and UH Profile Records 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:02.800 at that point, and apparently after some time there were 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:08.040 some grappling over the rights to the name and the concept. UH. 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:11.039 And by that point, you know, I don't wanted to 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:14.039 skip ahead UH in in a great but this is 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:16.120 not really a history podcast because we're actually going to 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.800 talk about that UM as the thing is. By that 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:21.280 by the point where it really got to be a 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:24.520 serious fight, and we're talking like lawyers are getting involved 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:28.720 with this enough people were involved with the idea that 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:31.520 they it sort of took off and other people became 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:34.839 involved with it, and that's where, you know, some of 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:38.280 the fans broke off and started their own U league, 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:41.520 which is now known as battle Bots. Yeah. They had 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.599 become disenchanted with Robot Wars just because of all the 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:47.360 legal wrangling and UH there was there was there was 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:50.120 an effort to bring it to UH, to England as 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:53.160 a television show, which eventually did happen and was very 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.800 successful there than some shows in the United States as well, 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:00.320 with the United States cast that also were you know, 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:05.320 followed under the Robot Wars name. But some people during 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:09.680 this this UH period of turmoil, they just felt like 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.359 they felt like they were being overlooked. They felt like, 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:15.040 you know, this was supposed to be just about engineers 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:18.839 and robots specialist building machines and having them compete, and 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:21.200 it's kind of all getting lost in this legal shuffle. 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:23.960 So they sort of formed a splinter group and split 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:25.840 off from there, and that's that was kind of the 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:29.840 genesis of battle Bots. Ye. And UH, of course, the 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:32.920 the the people who were in charge of robot Wars 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:36.320 sued the people who were in charge of battle bots. Um. 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:40.240 But as as time went on, battle bots sort of 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.279 came to be the primary competition in the United States, 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:49.280 and robot wars had moved overseas to the United Kingdom. Um. 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.720 And you know the thing is this probably would have 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:56.720 passed in relative obscurity for people who really like robots, 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:01.720 but um, in the United States, they and televising BattleBots 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:06.000 competition on the Honest Channel possible. Well, you know, there 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:07.480 are a lot of things that have come out of 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.480 Comedy Central that you might not have expected. Yeah, but 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:15.680 you know, robots fighting each other, and you know, we 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:19.080 we should say here if you have never seen battle bots, 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.040 when you hear robots fighting each other, you may be 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:27.480 thinking of because yeah, like humanoid type robots, robots that 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:30.880 have an anthropomorphic type shape. Uh, that's not the case. 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:33.240 Some of these robots were quite odd. A lot of 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:36.320 them look like boxes with wheels, um. And in fact, 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:38.560 a lot of them that's essentially what their their basic 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:44.040 form factor was. But you know, it's there was nothing 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:49.000 inherently comedic, although of course the the play by play 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:53.480 announcers and the behavior of the crowds could sometimes lend 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:56.600 a slight comedic air to the proceedings, but it wasn't 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:58.600 you know, you wouldn't call it a comedy. It was 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:02.200 a competition, no, no, but it was certainly a lighthearted competition. 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.480 No one, no person or was getting hurt, at least 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:09.000 not in the arena. Feelings might be heard, certainly, Oh, 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:10.760 I'm sure there was more than a little bit of that. 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:13.000 But yes, for for a few brief years here in 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:15.960 the United States in the early two thousand's and I 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:20.000 guess technically stretching back to Maybee, but really in the 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.120 early two thousand's, UM, there were a few seasons of 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.800 battle Bots, which I recorded on my DVR and watched 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:29.760 as far as I know, every episode of and was 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:31.920 very sorry to see that they canceled it, and I 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:36.720 was a little concerned that it might disappear. UM actually 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:40.520 was talking with a friend about the possibility of creating 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.480 a battle bot. As it turned out that we uh 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:48.440 didn't get very far with that because creating a battle 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.600 bot a robot to do this, we're not talking about, uh, 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:54.480 you know, something like the Lego mind Storms that would 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.120 be kind of fun too, Whether those would last very 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.959 long in a battle, not in in this particular kind 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:04.200 of arena, because we're talking about things with spikes and 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:09.480 buzz saws and ramps, ramps and flying metal, some of 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.720 which gets very very heavy. Uh. It takes a lot 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:20.440 of pneumatics, UM, heavy duty motors, hydraulics, cydraulics, UM. These 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:23.240 these tools are very heavy and can do a lot 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:25.240 of damage to people, which is why the arena is 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:29.640 completely enclosed. UM, we're not talking about just the sides. 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:31.920 There's not it's it's not like you might see at 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:34.880 a race where there's a fence to a certain part, 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:37.640 but otherwise it's not enclosed. This is in a basically 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:42.360 in a square box a cage, so before they before 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:46.480 they compete. Um. So the thing is, though, these are 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:48.920 very expensive because not only do you build your body, 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:53.880 you also have to maintain the bot. Say you get 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:57.160 in this is this is an a tournament format. This competition, 0:09:57.240 --> 0:09:59.839 so you have many rounds of competition. So you get 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:04.439 a first round match and you are competing against another 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:08.280 robot with your robot. Let's say you're successful or you know, 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.240 the person's motor the remote control never works, or the 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:13.520 you know, battery burns out, let's say you are you 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:16.120 do actually work, and you go against one another. Well, 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:19.880 the other guy, the other guy's robot tore part of 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:23.000 the skin of your robot off with the buzz saw 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:25.800 that's attached to the robot. Well, now you have a 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:27.480 second round match. What are you gonna do? Well, you 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:30.200 have to refurbish that. Well, let's say the the hammer 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:32.720 on the top of your robot with the spike that 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:34.800 that pierces the arm or the other one and carries 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:40.440 it into the buzz saw that's in the the arena floor. Um, well, 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:43.800 you know the thing is it got stuck and the 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.360 motor burned out or if they're gonna have to replace it. Well, 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:50.880 this is expensive stuff you can't just jump in with, right, 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:52.800 I mean, and when you've got things like pneumatics and 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:56.440 hydraulics that may potentially be powering part of your robot, 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:59.000 You've got lots of tubes that can suffer damage, and 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:02.000 if there's a leak, then clearly your robot's not going 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:05.079 to perform up to what the standard was before and 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.439 you need to replace that in the middle. And yeah, 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:10.920 it can be very expensive. And it's not like there 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:14.320 are a lot of off the shelf parts for these robots, 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:17.000 although there are companies that are that kind of catered 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:20.080 to this this uh, this hobby now, and there are 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:23.000 some places where you can buy stuff that has been 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:27.120 specifically geared for use with robots. But especially in the 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.559 early days, this was a lot of do it yourself, 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.240 you know, building, taking various pieces from hardware stores and 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:37.079 motors and and RF controllers and that kind of thing 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:40.160 and making it all work together. Now it's really a 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:42.679 feat of engineering to build one of these things. Yes, 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:44.480 and it doesn't help to have a machine shop at 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:47.240 your disposal. So if you can't find the pieces that 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.640 you need, you can make them. Yeah, you can make 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:53.760 a custom built robot. Well they're all custom built, but 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:56.000 you can make one where it has unique parts that 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:59.560 you would not find anywhere else. So let's talk about 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:03.040 the competition as in itself. Sure, because I'm sorry, Oh no, 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.240 go ahead. So so let's say you you do have 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:08.959 a few thousand sitting around you want to go ahead 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:11.960 and give it a try. Um, first of all, it 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.280 would help to go to the battle bots website to 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:16.840 learn more about the competition. Now, on the on the website, 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:18.840 you'll find the rules that you need to adhere to 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:22.080 It's not anything goes. You really have to abide by 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.280 a certain set of rules of those specifications. Yep. So, uh, 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:28.400 you need to find out what's going on. You need 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:30.080 to find out when the competitions are going to be. 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:32.800 It would help to become immersed in the community, learn 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:35.200 a little bit more about Maybe there's a regional competition 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:37.640 you could go to to try your robot out, and 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:39.439 then you need to start thinking about the kind of 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:44.640 robot you want to build. UM. But let's sticking with 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:47.480 the competition. So you go to a competition and there 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.760 are several rounds. You're given a pit area sort of 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:52.600 like a race car might at a at a race, 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:55.160 where you can set up your shops. So you've got 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.400 all your parts for your robot. You've got your robot itself. Uh. 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:00.320 This gives you a place to put your tools in 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:05.760 your parts and do any necessary maintenance or tuning or UH. 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:09.160 If you've got a switch that goes from mayme to kill, 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:13.120 this is where you flip that switch and and you 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:15.400 you are allowed to have a pit crew. Though your 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:18.559 pit crew has to be a certain size. UM. You know, 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:22.240 there's no size limit on the team that uh, that 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.760 you used to build your robot. In fact, you can 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:26.520 have a team of one if you like, yeah, or 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:30.079 you could have a team of an entire campus if 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:33.320 you really want to college campus, it could be that big. 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:37.280 But your pit crew, of course cannot be big. Now 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:40.600 there are several divisions. Um there's a high school division, 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:43.200 in a college division, and the pro division, which is 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:46.240 I don't think necessarily you're a professional robot builder, but 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.480 I think they mean any age group, right, and uh, 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:52.320 you can you can even get sponsorships, which helps for 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:54.840 that expensive part of the game of playing this game. 0:13:55.280 --> 0:14:00.280 There are two basic variations on robots recognized in battle Bots. 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:04.400 There are non walking robots, so essentially anything that uses 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:07.559 wheels or treadmills, that kind of thing treads or snakes 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:11.040 along the four snakes along the floor. Yeah, anything that 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:13.760 is not is not actually lifting a leg and putting 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:16.640 it down in order to move, uh, that is considered 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:20.920 a non walking robot. And the weight designations for those um. 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:23.560 And if you are competing at the high school or 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:27.600 college level, your non walking robot can weigh a maximum 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.840 of one pounds. If you're a professional, that goes up 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:35.240 to two hundred twenty pounds, so the walking robots also 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:39.400 called stop butts, uh those that they can get a 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:43.800 little heavier, So in high school or college competitions it 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:46.400 can be up to a hundred sixty pounds and for 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:49.800 a professional whopping three hundred pounds, So you can have 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:53.200 a three hundred pounds stomp robot if you are competing 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:58.400 on a professional battle bots team. Now and a little scary. 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.560 The the whole goal here, I mean we we've alluded 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:03.120 to it quite a bit, but the whole goal here 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:06.160 is that you you face off against an opponent. You 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:09.040 know it's been in both cases. Your your robot is 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:14.480 normally controlled by remote controls. Normally you would you would 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:17.240 be under you know, each robot would be under human control, 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:19.960 although there are rules for autonomous robots which we'll talk 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.280 about in the second and they're pretty fun. But the 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:24.800 idea here is that you go into a competition. There's 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:29.320 a set amount of time for the round, and your 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:33.560 goal is to disable the other robot within that time, 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:38.840 or to inflict more damage or show better strategy. You know, 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:41.280 your your your rounds are you The round is judged 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:44.120 on various criteria like how much damage did you inflict, 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:46.960 how much damage damage did you receive, and what was 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:49.040 your you know, how strategic was your attack. If you 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:50.840 were running away the whole time, you're not gonna be 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.880 judged very well. But if you if you are able 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.120 to disable the other robot, or you inflict more damage 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:00.800 and play a better game than the other team, then 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:05.200 you would go on to the next round. So, uh, 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:09.600 that's that's the general idea. Now we can get down 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:14.840 into some more specifics, like what what constitutes your you know, 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:18.440 your robots weaponry. There were some robots that the weapon 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.320 was essentially the fact that the robot itself was shaped 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:25.720 like a ramp. It was designed to scoot under the 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:29.000 opposing robot and flip it over in the hopes that 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.600 by turning a robot upside down you have rendered it 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:36.440 useless because it wasn't designed to move upside down. Uh. 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:38.840 And then that we saw a lot of robots early 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:40.800 on that that was the basic design. It was just 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:43.720 essentially a ramp. It might have a little wheel or 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:46.960 a treadmill on the ramp to help propel the robot 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:50.160 over it, you know, the the opposing robot over it, 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:52.760 so it can flip it over and then we saw 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:55.640 a lot of robots pop up that could work either 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:58.920 right side up or upside down. So you know that 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.760 that weapon is a useless but you're supposed to have 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.639 some sort of weapon, right, That's right, that's it's a 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:10.000 requirement that you do have at least one active weapon 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:13.879 on on your body, and you can you can participate 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:17.640 even if your weapon is disabled. I mean you could 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:19.320 have a giant spike on the front of it and 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:23.399 that that counts. Uh. But say you have a you know, 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:27.120 an arm on your your bot and it doesn't move anymore, 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.200 but you move on and you can't get it repaired. Well, 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:32.679 as long as you still have the weapon attached to 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:36.080 the bot, if I'm reading the rules correctly, it's still 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:39.639 allowed to continue to compete it just maybe at a 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:42.600 sincere or disadvantage the next round. Sure, let's see. I've 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:45.040 I've seen a number of different kinds of bots. There 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:47.320 are kinds, as I said before, that might have a 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:51.280 saw built into them which attempt to uh to destroy 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:54.879 pieces of the other body. I've seen um uh bots 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:59.760 with a hammer or or a hatchet um as. If 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:04.399 I'm not mistaken, grant of MythBusters. Oh he's built several. Yeah, 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:06.520 I remember the one that that that I saw of 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:08.919 his was one of those that had a basically a 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.720 spike that would come down and basically try to impale 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:16.280 the other robot. They have that the wedges. I remember 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:19.560 one that didn't have a weapon that would necessarily try 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.320 to destroy the other bot, but would try to capture 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.240 it so it could pick it up and and take 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.040 it into the hazards, drop it off there and let 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:31.399 the let the board do the rest. Yes, yes, um so, 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.800 and and the box hazards included um saws that were 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:38.399 mounted underneath the floor, so if your robot happened to 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:41.680 pass over this basically the hole in the floor where 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:45.320 the saws come up, the box might send the saws 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.119 up through there and cut your robot. Yeah, it was 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:50.919 very much like an Indiana Jones movie type thing, like 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:53.640 spikes could fly up out of the floor or not. 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:55.280 When I say fly, I don't mean like they would 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:58.359 actually be projectiles they did stop. Yeah, there was the 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:00.800 spikes would pop up out of the floor or and 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:06.280 the spikes wouldn't necessarily impale, but they would often overturn robots. Yes, yes, 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:09.240 and there was a spike strip on the side now, uh, 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:13.359 there wasn't any anything necessarily that would you know, it 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:15.760 didn't pop out of the side of the floor, but 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:18.320 and it wouldn't necessarily impale your robots. Say you just 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:20.880 bumped it into there. Well you might think, if you've 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:22.199 never seen this show, you might think, well, it's a 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.240 big deal, right, Yeah, I can get away from that. 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.360 Well not. If the other robot manages to wedge one 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:30.520 of the spikes into a tread on your robot or 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:34.639 hand escape, then you're a sitting duck. Yeah. One of 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:37.160 the rules of battle Butts is that your robot must 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:40.160 be able to move at minimum two ft per second 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:42.760 in a straight line. And if your robot is at 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.960 some point uh disabled enough where it's unable to move, 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:49.200 like let's say it's just stuck moving in circles, then 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:53.240 the round maybe ended prematurely, and you know, the victory 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.960 given to the other robot because you know you at 0:19:57.000 --> 0:19:59.480 that point, really there's no way for you to to 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.040 when unless the other robot suffers a failure, and in 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:05.879 which case that's not kind of a hollow victory. Um. 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:10.880 There there are certain things that are specifically not allowed. Yes, 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:16.600 projectiles are not allowed unless they are tethered to the robot. 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.560 I would assume this is probably a safety precaution because 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:25.400 while the the battle box is enclosed, enclosed, and it's 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:28.359 likely to protect you from a piece of flying shrapnel 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:31.000 that might spin off of a robot during a collision, 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:35.800 if you had a machine gun mounted on your battle bot, 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:39.600 it probably would be you know, it could be depending 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:42.280 on where you're using, strong enough to pierce the box 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:45.240 and injure the the spectators outside. This is why I'm 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:49.120 never allowed to compete. There's no fun in that. Yeah. 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:52.040 So you can have a projectile if it is tethered 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.399 to the robot, and the project the tether has to 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:58.119 be eight feet or or less in length. Um, you 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:01.679 cannot have anything that goes beyond that. You you are 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:04.760 allowed to use covering weapons, So weapons that could cover 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:08.840 a uh AN opponent, but they must have the covering 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:11.840 must be either rigid or semi rigid, and the the 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:14.960 attacking robot must be able to remove the cover at 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:17.159 any time. So, in other words, you can have like 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:19.840 a solid not a net, but like to say, like 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:22.760 a little cage on a lever come down and and 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:25.960 encapsulate an opponent, and then you drive your opponent into 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:28.439 a pit. You could do that, but you could not 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:32.120 shoot a net at a at a robot and then 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:34.760 foul its wheels that way. In fact, you're not allowed 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:37.800 to use any weapons that were specifically designed to foul 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:43.040 a a a robot's wheels or treads just by getting 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:45.879 tangled in there. So you couldn't drop like string or 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:48.760 rope or um. They talk about. You can use balloons 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:54.080 and air bags to push a robot, but you can't 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:56.520 use them in such a way so that they come 0:21:56.560 --> 0:21:59.919 off your robot, deflate and then become a fouling hazard. 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:05.239 Not intentionally anyway. Yeah, if it happens by accident, you 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:08.680 you you know, that's that's another matter. Electro Magnets are 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:10.960 there's a there's a very specific use, so you can 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:14.040 you can have them mounted on your robot and use 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:15.960 them that way, but they are not supposed to be 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:18.960 designed to interfere with the radio frequency signal that's sent 0:22:19.000 --> 0:22:22.400 by the remote control and uh, you can't have like 0:22:22.440 --> 0:22:26.480 a cattle prode or uh, something that's going to essentially 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:29.760 create an electromagnetic field that's going to be so powerful 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:33.480 that it just causes a robot to you know, go 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:35.600 down you can't do anything like that. Like, you know, 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:39.000 that also destroys my plan for my e MP robot 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:41.399 that was building. I can't do that anymore. And I 0:22:41.480 --> 0:22:44.239 was just about to figure out how I could do 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:47.679