Interview with Team Whiplash Captain Matt Vasquez!

Summary

Behind the Bots – Interview with Team Whiplash Captain Matt Vasquez (August 25, 2025)

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Overview

In this episode of Behind the Bots, hosts Jake and Brandon sit down with Matt Vasquez, captain of BattleBots’ Team Whiplash. The conversation dives into Matt’s journey in combat robotics, the evolution of Whiplash’s design, lessons from competing at every level, insights into burnout and balance, and reflections on the state and future of combat robotics. The tone throughout is casual, energetic, and packed with technical and personal anecdotes.

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Matt Vasquez’s Path into Combat Robotics

Early Beginnings and Family Roots

• Matt’s exposure to BattleBots dates back to childhood when his dad, a hobbyist builder, competed in the early 2000s.
• "My dad saw an ad for the 1999 Pay Per View BattleBots event... He wasn't like an engineer or anything. He was just kind of like a hobbyist tinkerer type... A few years later...he competed and built a couple of robots... He did decently well... took me there. I loved it.” (04:20)
• Matt and his brother got into building and competing with insect-class robots (antweights, beetleweights) around 2013, as BattleBots was off-air.
• First BattleBots application was submitted as a teenager, using Google SketchUp; later progressed to more advanced CAD with Fusion360. (05:20)

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The SoCal Combat Robotics Scene: SCAR

• Matt is a regular at SCAR (Southern California Area Robotics), competing and occasionally helping out with setup and teardown.
• SCAR has grown to host several big events yearly with over 160 bots registered in multiple weight classes. (08:14)
• “It's all run by volunteers and competitors... So we all try our best to pitch in.” (07:01)
• Discussion about the vibrancy and organic, community-driven nature of SCAR versus the more structured, grant-supported events like NHRL.

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Design Evolution: From ‘Splatter’ to Whiplash

Origin Story

• Whiplash’s unique hybrid lifter-spinning design grew out of Matt’s early beetleweight ‘Splatter’ – a four-wheel-drive hammersaw robot, inspired by classic bots like SOB (the same inspiration as Jameson Go’s Sawblaze).
• "...wait, the arm sticks out the back and like this is just like a perfectly functioning vertical spinner sticking out the back of the robot. Like, this should definitely be implemented..." (15:00)
• The concept evolved into a flexible, multi-mode robot: lifter, vert, and hammersaw.

Experimentation and Adaptation

• Technical breakdowns, videos of early fights, and lessons learned from both victories and failures.
• “This was the Beetle weight that inspired whiplash.” (17:37)
• Influence of technical setbacks and the importance of learning from breakdowns—“Honestly, those are probably two of maybe the three times this has ever happened... The old BattleBots era. This never happened.” (20:15)

Innovations Carried Forward

• Changes made in smaller versions, like beefed-up lifter spatula arms (stacked AR500 plates) for durability, being considered for the full-size Whiplash.
• “...the lifter spatula. It's just like several plates of half inch thick AR just side by side, just welded together... inch thick solid steel at the thickest point.” (10:50)

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Battle Tactics, Handling, and Driving Philosophy

• Matt describes a distinctive driving style enabled by turning off electronic braking on his robots, making for “fluid and drifty” control.
  • “If I let go of the stick, the robot coast crazy... I love how that drives. Most people hate that.” (31:01)
• Driving similarities and differences between Little Lash (30lb) and Whiplash (250lb):
  • “Little Ash is a little bit more squirrely. I try to keep him as similar as possible.” (30:38)

On Modularity and Configurations

• Flexibility is a theme: “I'm already like three different robot types at the same time and can kind of just like choose based on how the fight's going...” (22:16)
• Willingness to experiment, including running the robot in 'hammer saw only' mode (rear-facing attacks) and considering new weapons or configurations.

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Competition Reflections and Memorable Matches

• Noted rivals and dream matchups: Red Storm, Chonky, Megatron, Multiplier, etc. (24:55)
• The only fight Little Ash has lost was due to electronics failure, not defeat in battle—“So, like, I've never been beaten by another robot... they, like, outplayed me with Little Ash.” (24:55)
• On technical choices for horizontal spinner matchups:
  • “I think at OC Maker fair. I'm gonna try... no horizontal plow. Just run the standard config with, like, a more optimized front end on the lifter and just. Just see how it works with the spinner still on.” (27:28)
• On striving for exciting fights over safe driving:
  • “Part of the reason I want to try to wean off of this plow is it was really boring driving with the plow... If I'm flying all the way to Connecticut, my fights better be fun.” (29:18, 29:52)

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Materials, Manufacturing, and the Importance of Shop Access

• Emphasis on the strategic advantage of access to machining tools and waterjets, especially for jumping to larger weight classes.
  • “For 12 pound is up. It's like find the nearest water jet and just like... get access to it.” (66:41)
• On in-house versus outsourced manufacturing:
  • “Like every season, like you're not only buying parts, you're buying tools to accomplish the thing you need... Now... I mostly work out of my work right now. I've got sweet CNC access and we got like a water jet which is cool.” (66:32–66:41)
• Shop access or funding are critical—“The biggest limiter, you know, is as important as a football practice field is to a football team is like a shop is to like making a successful combat team.” (69:05)

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Burnout, Balance, and Motivation

Strategies for Coping

• “For me, I have lots of other hobbies... If I was just doing... engineering at work, and then engineering at home... I'd go insane. So I've got a. Yeah. You gotta have some balance for sure.” (38:58)

Identity, FOMO, and Longevity

• Personal and community reflection on how the sport becomes part of one’s identity and what that means for motivation.
  • “When you see it as part of yourself, you always enjoy connecting with that passion. And yeah, it teaches you to love that part of yourself too. And I think that's an important thing to find.” (41:14)
• FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is a bigger challenge for some than burnout itself.
  • “FOMO is a real thing... It would be pretty brutal getting prepared for it... But I think FOMO is strong enough. Maybe we would pull through.” (43:31)

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Community, Outreach, and the Future of the Sport

Open Sauce Event & Community Engagement

• Matt discusses Open Sauce, a maker/convention event where heavyweights ran demo fights: “...the fan base is definitely still there... a lot of people asking how to get started, which is like, a really cool thing.” (55:22)
• Anecdote about a literal hole in the San Mateo Convention Center ceiling left by combat robots, a fun piece of “deep lore.” (53:46–54:23)

State of the Sport

• Social media and events like NHRL are recognized for keeping the sport visible and accessible while BattleBots is off-air.
  • “There's still people there, want to do stuff. It's just, like, about garnishing that... honing it towards new builders to do stuff as well.” (57:12)
• Grassroots and collegiate scenes (SCAR, UC Cincinnati Makerspace) provide valuable entry points and practical experience.

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Fun & Notable Moments

• “If you, if you really hit us with a maximizer number that's closer to a humanoid robot, that's gonna be trauma.” – Lighthearted dig at robot building costs versus commercial humanoid robots. (65:00)
• “I would wrestle that dog in a heartbeat. I don’t like it walking around the pits. It needs to be taught a leg. And I don’t condone violence against living things, but I sure as hell do against unliving things.” – Jake, on NHRL’s robot dog (72:42)
• “Robots did that.” – Matt, on the infamous ceiling hole at San Mateo (54:36)
• Throughout, playful banter, technical rabbit holes, and a shared love for “fight highlights” and “making the highlight reels.”

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References & Timestamps

• Matt’s Entry to Combat Robotics and Early Days: [03:52 – 06:13]
• SCAR and Grassroots Competition: [06:13 – 09:01]
• Whiplash/Splatter Design Origins: [14:33 – 16:56]
• Driving Philosophy and Control: [30:38 – 31:23]
• On Burnout & Motivation: [38:43 – 39:43], [43:19 – 47:01], [48:56 – 49:24]
• Shop Access and Manufacturing: [66:32 – 69:05]
• Community Outreach & Open Sauce: [52:05 – 56:15]
• Funny BattleBots Lore: [53:45 – 54:46]
• On the Sport’s Future: [57:12 – 61:37]

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Conclusion

This episode provides an upbeat but deeply reflective look at building, innovating, and living the combat robotics life through Matt Vasquez’s eyes. Whether you’re a BattleBots fan, a builder in any class, or new to the sport, there’s something here for everyone: practical wisdom, technical deep-dives, and a passionate community spirit.

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For more, follow Behind the Bots on Facebook and join the conversation on the NHRL Discord!

Transcript

[A]

From Cincinnati, Ohio, I'm Bowie, Maryland. This is behind the Bots podcast that brings you the stories of the people behind the bots. I'm Jake.

[B]

And I am Brandon.

[A]

And today on our podcast, our interview with Whiplash Team Captain Matt Vasquez. We'll wrap up this show with this week's installment of Robots around the World. If you like our show, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Tunein, Castbox Player, FB and podbean. And follow us on Facebook at Behind the Bots. And tell a friend we appreciate your support. We appreciate you guys tuning into the stream. So Brandon, the calendar what is what is happening in Combat Robotics?

[B]

Well, it turns out a lot of things are happening all the time. So we're going to do the this week August 23rd and then also August 30th next week. For this week we have events happening in the us, UK and Germany. In Colorado, the Bot Rumble at the Electric Ranch and bots, brews and BBQs are hosting fairy weights and ant weights in the plastic and full combat classes. In Oklahoma, the Tulsa Maker Fair is hosting 22 plastic and full combat ants. And in Walton, Massachusetts, Mass Destruction Resurgence 44 will be hosting 46 beetle weights and plastic ants, some of the best beetles in the US Northeast like Caldera, Mako, Prince and many many more. Heading over to Europe, we see beetle weights running in London as well for part of the Capital punishment as well as MMM Hanover in Hanover, Germany. For next week on August 30th there'll be events happening in the US and UK in Australia. In the US there will be events in Florida, Virginia, California and Georgia. Where in Stuart, Florida Robot Renegades is hosting their summer showdown with 66 robots in plastic ant, full combat ant and B2B classes. In Richmond, Virginia Rabid will be hosting a two day tournament with 30 plastic and full combat ants as part of the Immersicon in Valley Springs, California. West Coast Combat Robot League will be hosting 21 robots, 1 pound plastic full combat ant and 150 gram fairy weight classes in Georgia. Dragon Con Robot Battles returns, one of the longest running open tournaments in the United States with roots back to 1987, returns with even more fights in a 12lb sumo class, 30lb sumo ant weight and BE classes. Heading over to Oxford, UK, Orcs9 will be hosting 150 grand robots as part of their tap social movement. And finally in New South Wales, Australia, Robot Royale 5 will host 21 robots in the plastic and full combat 150 grand robot classes get details on these events and more at robot combat events.com builders, db.com and bristolbuilders.com now enter interview with Matt Vasquez. Hey, Matt, how's it going?

[C]

It's going good. Glad to be. Glad to be here. Yeah.

[B]

For the first time ever. It's so cool to have you.

[C]

Yeah. I've never talked to you guys before on a. On stream.

[A]

Listen, listen. We had some issues. It happens. It's okay.

[C]

It does.

[B]

It has learn and we grow.

[A]

We grow. Back with Mad Vasquez,

[C]

we got a practice round. Nothing wrong with that.

[B]

Exactly. We got the reps in building up the podcast. Now here we are.

[A]

We're all excited for you to be here now, that's for sure. So tell us about your background. How did you get started in combat? You're such a, like, legendary name, you know, you were on. How many seasons of BattleBots have you done now?

[C]

Basically all of them. The first one is an alternate that then I guess, like from the reboot of BattleBots, first one is an alternate. Second one was, like, barely on because we sucked that year. And then from 2018 through present, we've been on every season.

[A]

So it started in 2016.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

As far as actually being a competitor, but.

[B]

Yeah, Even before then, though, you've also been around BattleBots too?

[C]

Yeah. So, like, back in the early 2000s, when I was like, what, three, four years old, my dad saw an ad for the 1999 Pay Per View BattleBots event. I think it happened in. That was like the Long beach one in the pyramid. So we saw that and he was like, oh, that's cool. He's like, I want to try that. He wasn't like an engineer or anything. He was just kind of like a hobbyist tinkerer type. He's like, good at building stuff. So he's like, okay, I can do this. And like, a few years later, I think it was, until BattleBots season three in 2002. He competed and built a couple of robots. Built a lightweight and a middleweight, which is very ambitious. I would say two. Two big bots like that. And he did decently well. I don't think he made it to any of the TV rounds, but he had a lot of fun and took me there. I loved it. So I've been around it forever. Then by the time I was in high school and my brother, who's a couple years younger than me, we got super into building insect bait robots because I was like, BattleBots wasn't on TV. Like, Robo Games was happening but we, like, wanted to fight more often, so we started doing, like, ant weights and beetle weights. And this was like, maybe around 2013, something like that. Like, that's kind of like when SCAR began, I guess, like the SoCal combat robot scene. So, yeah, I feel like three, four times a year we would compete with our ant weights and beetle weights. And was. Until a couple Years later, the BattleBots came back and we're like, all right, we got to apply for this. We got to try to get in. Get in with something, dude. I think our first BattleBots application, because, I don't know, I was like, 15 or something. I don't even think I had, like, real CAD yet. I literally had, like, Google SketchUp and, like, made the application in Google SketchUp when I was, like, 15. Maybe I was 15 or 16 or something. Yeah, it's insane. But then, like, the next year upgraded to, like, Fusion360 and made it more legit. But, yeah, we've been around for a while.

[A]

The SCAR server loves me, so they're really happy that you're here. Right now is definitely my biggest fan group, and I love them so much, and they love.

[C]

Let's go scar.

[A]

Oh, yeah, they love themselves.

[C]

From Jake Maxweiser. SCAR is thriving right now. We have probably three pretty big events a year, and in between, it seems like every other month we'll have an event of some kind, whether it's just plastic ants, beetle weights, or just like a fairy weight event or something.

[A]

So do you promote Scar?

[B]

I mean, are you.

[A]

Are you volunteering for them or anything? Or are you just fighting there?

[C]

I go on it. Like, when I go compete, I'll definitely help with, like, arena tear down and every. Everything I can. But I do live, like, a little bit. Like, maybe an hour to get to the Scar space.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So I don't have, like, too much time to go down there, but when I do compete, I try because it's like, it really is. This is all run by volunteers and competitors. Right. So. So we all try our best to pitch in.

[A]

It's a very different vibe than what's going on at NHL in terms of, like, it's cool to see such a grassroots. Yeah. More organic format for the sport. I really love the formats that they've adopted and those little events over here on the east coast that, you know, kind of are the heart of the sport, you know, behind.

[C]

Yeah, it's really nice. Like, I mean, we got, like, a couple NHL grants from, like, you know, Calvin winning.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

You know, and all that. So that Was like a good. Yeah, yeah, it's Calvin. But that was like a good jump start to get like the big arena built because we had like a 12 pound arena that was like a, it was like an NRL arena. So it was like an educational 15 pounder box. But once we got that money, we upgraded to this box and we got I think some money from maybe a couple other places. And yeah, it's really been going great the last few years.

[A]

How many competitors would you say that

[C]

between all the weight classes for our bigger events? I think we got one in September and I think there's like 160 bots registered.

[B]

Something like that. Dang.

[C]

Between all the weight classes. So it's pretty big for like the Beatles. I think we cap it at, God, I want to say 32 and there's like probably a dozen bots on the waitlist, something like that. It's not like NHRA where you have 100, but 30s and 12. I think we've been getting like maybe 15 or so per event, which is pretty, pretty solid.

[A]

Yeah, that's huge.

[C]

And ants. All the inside classes just fill up immediately and the bigger ones don't quite fill up, but we have like nice full brackets so it's good. And that's part of the reason I like competing the bigger classes. I'm trying to like get more people to build bigger robots.

[B]

They are. There's so much fun, I'll give it that. There's like a little utopia because it's sort of like the bigger bots kind of self regulate because you know the intensity that comes with it. So kind of like the amount that can be made are kind of the amount that fills a bracket and it kind of like levels out. But at the same time you definitely get the vibe of like, okay, if you're doing like, if you're mastering the like a plastic ant or even like beetles, it might be worth a shot. Like try a little like keep pushing yourself to master the 12s and 30s because they teach you a lot of stuff especially like related to BattleBots level tech.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. And the whole idea with little Ash was like, I got the idea to do it during the last season of BattleBots. We filmed in 2023 and like, we were just having like a really tough time in the qualifying rounds and now it's just like, man, like it would be nice to have like a 30 pound version just to like practice with and test out new ideas. So that was kind of the, I don't know, the spark for wanting to do a little Lash and was still a couple years later, I actually, actually built it. But you know, with no BattleBots right now, it's proven to be very fun to have because it feels exactly the same. I could just take it, throw it in checked luggage, fly somewhere random and go, go fight with it.

[A]

So this is one of your fights with Little Lash versus Super Obliterator 3000.

[B]

So.

[A]

So while we're watching this fight, eventually there will be a BattleBots again. One day maybe. Probably not.

[C]

Yeah. What are you going to bring?

[A]

Yeah, let's stay hopeful. One day we will fight 250s again. What will you bring from Low Lash over?

[C]

I think the first thing I would do is like I go with Whiplash. The first thing, like for most of the fights we lose, the first thing to go is like the lifter spatula, like the floor scraping part on the lifting arm. And once that goes. Yeah, the victory. The victory dance is so fun.

[A]

That's crazy.

[C]

It's awesome.

[B]

It's so cool, isn't it?

[C]

Yeah. The big one wasn't really able to do that. So I don't know what it is about this one. At least not as insane as this one. But. But anyway, I think the first thing, like one of the big changes I made for a little ash is the, the lifter spatula. It's just like several plates of half inch thick ar just side by side, just welded together. So it's like essentially just inch thick solid steel at the, at the thickest point. So like if someone avert does hit that, they'll probably take a chunk out of it, but it's not going to get bent out of shape and it'll remain flat.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So that's the first thing to change for big Whiplash.

[A]

Wait, they are on the little one.

[C]

On the little one stack side by side, just like little plates, like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So it was really kind of the easiest best way I could think. Yeah. This fight was sad. Pepe died in this one. Just totally.

[A]

I. I hate watching this.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

The second fight was much better of my comfort character. This is gore of my comfort character. Look how sad Luke is.

[C]

The finals was definitely a better match. But. But anyway. Yeah, so making that super thick front lifting spatula I think will be probably the first and most important change I make.

[A]

Okay, so you guys fought again.

[B]

It's a lot. Well, second fight. Yeah. For them between these two. Like I remember watching this fight at RCL where Pepe. Pepe's like not as fast as you are, but he's also Just like this box of death where you 100 know, like, if you touch the center.

[A]

I'm sorry.

[B]

Oh, same way. Never mind.

[A]

I, I.

[C]

There you go.

[B]

All right, all right.

[A]

Okay. This one has to be there.

[C]

I hope so far it looks the same. Again.

[B]

That would go crazy. Okay.

[A]

No, it's really hot, dude.

[B]

I think it's the exact same. Start again. It's the same fight, like, three times in a row.

[C]

This would be the first one I posted.

[A]

Oh, no, they're in reverse order. I'm stupid. Okay. No, there you go. Okay, this is the right one.

[B]

Here we go. There's his finals. On it.

[A]

I kept clicking on the. Sorry.

[B]

We got there, we got there.

[A]

Classic Matt Vasquez stream. Technical difficulty. Okay.

[B]

Box of death. Big death in the middle. You don't want to touch it, but you're also, like, very nimble. Little lash.

[C]

Dude. All my opponents lately have been having, like, electronics issues and, like, dying randomly. And, like, am I having the same effect on the stream? Like, I. I don't know.

[A]

Yes. Yes. And that's why you died in the final at Norwalk is because, dude, it is like a vampiric energy.

[B]

Wait, actually, think about it. That was before this, though. So, like, was that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, it hurt you, and then you're like, I'm hurt everybody else, and things all die. Exactly.

[A]

Okay. So, yeah.

[C]

Yeah. In the very beginning. I'm not sure if it was the hit in the beginning that did it or it just locked up, but either way, after the first, like, 20 seconds, you had one side down, and I made it much easier to. To pick and choose my shots.

[A]

Have you seen my plant, Pepe?

[B]

I have.

[A]

So good, dude. It's so much fun. I understand why Luke loves it.

[B]

Dude, he blew me up, like, twice. He tore me in half. He. He's like, the. He is the single most devastating rod I ever fought. Is. Is your comfort character.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

No, I.

[B]

Walking ptsd.

[C]

That's why normally, like, you've seen lots of my fights, probably, and normally I just go all out straight into whoever I'm fighting. The. This was quite the opposite. This was. Be very, very careful. Pick and choose every single hit. So when you've kind of only go for the sides, like there.

[A]

When you've kind of built up your. Look how excited you got in the reflection. So when you've kind of built up this style, where did it kind of start for you? Like, how did you kind of come into this? You know, you've got a vert, you've got a lifter. How did you kind of arrive at that?

[C]

Yeah. So back in like 2014, I had a beetle weight robot. It was called Splatter. It was like a four wheel drive hammersaw robot. So I had like a, like this long, flat kind of uhmw fork on the front. And it was just like a kind of classic hammer sawbot, just four wheel drive. And it was kind of like before that design was super popular, like in 2014. I think Jameson, he had done his little dustpan robot years before that. But what really inspired mine was watching SOB on like the original, which was kind of the same robot that inspired Jameson for Saw Blaze. So that inspired my Beetle Weight and it was a really fun robot. And we just able to pin robots saw through the top plate. I was like, wow, this is, you know, a really cool design. And then like when the BattleBots reboot came, we kind of decided like me, my brother and my dad, that that was kind of the robot we wanted to base it around. But kind of like as I was designing it, I was like, wait, I'm like, Because I didn't want the arm to sit on top, I wanted to sit inside of the robot. And I was like, wait, the arm sticks out the back and like this is just like a perfectly functioning vertical spinner sticking out the back of the robot. Like, this should definitely be implemented. It shouldn't just be a hammer saw, but. And then I kind of realized I'm like, wait, like I could just totally mount some little forks in the back. And then I'm like a lifter, a hammer saw and a vert. And like I just kept going down this rabbit hole, I guess. And like at the end I was like, all right, this is going to be, this is going to be mainly a lifter, mainly a vert. And if I choose to, I could turn around and I'd be a hammersaw. And it wasn't until like 2017 at Robo Games, where we actually realized we're like, wait, this is actually a good idea. For like two years. I was just like, maybe this idea sucks. I don't know. But it wasn't until we won some matches that we're like, all right, there's something to this. And it's not just a crazy design to get accepted on BattleBots.

[A]

You can totally see how you could go from this to whiplash. Like, it makes so much sense.

[C]

And if you go on YouTube, you go look up like Beetle weight splatter and like, you'll probably find some, some videos and see the, the Original inspiration.

[A]

Look. Wow.

[B]

You're the og that's great. You're famous. Interesting. Yeah. Davis actually made a good point. Because Davis is watching it. He's like, oh. So whiplash and solid ways kind of have the same design origin, and there's different versions of it. Yeah, they're actually brothers. You're actually like, cousins.

[C]

Like, splatter. Robo Games 2015. I think there's a fight where I fought my brother, and that was like, one of my best wins.

[B]

Let me see.

[C]

It's the.

[B]

It's the.

[C]

The second one. 2015, Jason Durant first splatter.

[A]

Splatter.

[C]

Or is that the. Maybe this is the wrong one.

[B]

That's hilarious.

[C]

When I lose and when I win.

[A]

Whiplash.

[C]

I think it's the one I.

[A]

The same design going in different directions. That's. Yeah.

[C]

So this was the Beetle weight that inspired. Inspired whiplash.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. But you're just driving it in reverse.

[C]

Exactly. So this was. The idea with this was be pure hammersaw. Honestly, the word hammersaw didn't even exist when I built this robot. It was just like, overhead saw blade.

[A]

Yeah. So is this your mom here?

[C]

No, it's just like a judge.

[A]

Wow. Oh, come on, dude. That's crazy. No, I. Okay, whatever. Okay.

[C]

She was probably the one filming, if I'm guessing. If I had to guess.

[A]

Okay, okay, okay, okay. I was gonna have a fun anecdote about how your mom was a judge there, but no. Cool. Okay, that's cool.

[B]

But it is, like, very smothering design, sort of what you see the modern hammer size.

[C]

So there you go. Right through the aluminum.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, it's just.

[A]

It's just reach out to Julian Moo for

[C]

no Mako. But it's funny, Mako, like, if, like, I had thoughts that if I was to rebuild this, that I would go two wheel drive just to, like, save weight and put it in. Put in other places. And Mako kind of just built what I would have built had I redone this.

[A]

That's cool.

[C]

I think I would have kept the arm longer. And, like, you can see how the arm. How the spinner is kind of like very high up. And that's nice. Yeah, exactly. To give that, like, nice angle to reach over the drum spinner or whatever's in front of me. But other than that.

[A]

Is that a four and a half inch saw on top?

[C]

Yes, whatever. The cheapest harbor freight saw blade.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

It's like, at the time, it cost like seven bucks or something. I don't know. Five bucks.

[A]

Yeah. That's all.

[C]

You just buy. Buy a bunch of them. And it was just bolted straight to the. To the outrunner. God. To get the bolt pattern. I remember I didn't even drill holes. I like, use a Dremel to cut slots for the. For the bolt pattern on the. On the motor. That was a fun robot. Yeah, that was a fun robot. That's funny. That was round one, that event. And then I ended up losing to my brother later on. And he fought his way, like, all the way through the losers bracket to the finals and got second place.

[A]

Oh, here we go.

[B]

So he's done a revenge. So he's on a revenge spree from that. He was like, gotta take him out.

[C]

Is this the second one? Yeah, yeah, this one, dude. Funny enough, this one. I also had electronics problems and just. I think I ended up just dying in this fight.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

I want to say.

[A]

Damn.

[C]

I know. Ten years. Ten years later.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Look at that. Wow, that's rough. I can literally see it, like, sputtering on and off. Clearly. The curse. The curse was already with you for years. And it's just been coming back ever since, dude.

[C]

Honestly. And this is something that. Honestly, those are probably two of maybe the three times this has ever happened to, like, one of my robots. I don't know what it is. Like the old BattleBots era. This never happened. It's.

[B]

That's good. That'd be. That would really suck.

[C]

That would suck. Yeah. I don't know.

[B]

It's definitely annoying. Yeah.

[C]

I think it's just cutting in and out. Some weird receiver issue or something. That's a little annoying.

[B]

But it is kind of cool. Like now sort of figuring out this deep lore in person of like, oh, Whiplash. Sawblaze have a similar core. But the directions because. Not to say that either one's even less control because both Sideways and Whiplash use heavy control in their matches. But it's a little. But it is interesting that because your arm and therefore your spinner are a bit more aggressive. Like they're always there in the front, then can be removed afterwards or like applied backwards. For a hammer saw versus in saw blades. It's like always attracted and then he has to apply it in order to do a thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good.

[C]

Funny. One of the best parts of that Beetle weight and what made it so effective. And I'm surprised I haven't really seen anyone else do. Or those two, like, static, like, titanium arms that you can see. I kind of like when I get my brother pinned, they're just kind of like hugging around him, not letting him get out of either side. And that worked really well. They kind of almost act as like second and third forks with like the main one in the center. So.

[A]

Surprised I have the idea.

[C]

Yeah, a little, little hug. I'm not gonna use it.

[A]

Thanks for the idea. Given what I given, given what I showed you earlier. Thanks.

[B]

So I guess another point as well I'm kind of curious about too. So when you're kind of thinking about like the lifter hybrid and you're trying to figure out configurations for it, are there any other ideas that you've had or tried out with it where you're like, this might be a good idea, you try it, or even better yet, you never even get to try it, but you think that might be an interesting way to apply it versus something else?

[C]

Yeah, I don't know. I've. I mean, I've had like some ideas like, like for example, like the. When I run the plow and don't have the spinner, just put like a flamethrower in the arm or something. I don't know, like dumb stuff like that. But as far as like spinner lifter, like, I don't really know. I mean, kind of the nice thing about how it already is, is I'm already like three different robot types at the same time and can kind of just like choose based on how the fight's going. Like where do I want to be at this given moment. Like do I just want to keep the arm down and play four wheeled vert mode, or do I want to, you know, be more controlling and just be a lifter? Or do I have them in like a really tough position and I could, you know, play hammers off for 20 seconds. It's a. I don't know, it's. It's pretty nice. There are definitely trade offs, right? Because I don't get to have that much armor having all this stuff going on. But yeah, I have lots of options.

[B]

You ever tried just like running it backwards, just outright, where it is literally hammersaw mode, where you like, you have like the forks in the back of the robot, the arms, you know, I guess back retracted as it is normally, but then it can like then sort of through the rear corralling, put itself forward and then you can apply the arm over somebody, like actually running like a true hammersaw version of the lash or whiplash.

[C]

I've absolutely thought about it. I think in the future maybe I'll try what I would really like to be able to do. Is is get the spinner like damaging enough to where I don't even put any ground game on the back and just drive it backwards and just go like huge style. Just go over the top of people with the spinner and just drive because that'll just totally neutralize like if you have ground game, who cares? Like I'll just drive backwards over your ground game on top of you and take out your top plates. And I kind of did try that once against Aethon at a Scar event. Sadly my spinner ended up dying like quickly and I think it was like Little Ash's second or third fight ever. And I had some issues with the spinner dying, but I don't know if I could get some good armor on the back. That's not a terrible option just because like no one, I don't know, no one's planning for that. And even if they are planning for it there, you have to make a sacrifice to be prepared for that.

[A]

Right.

[C]

So it's not the plan is not totally surprised and with some new idea, it's that you're going to have to think about. You might have to expect this and what do you have to do to plan for it.

[B]

Yeah, that's even more horrifying because you got qualified for an HRL finals, so you're chilling in that level. So you're looking forward to that. Are there any robots NHRL either that you've seen that you fought against or even bots in the west coast that you know are pretty cool, where you think they're interesting to fight doesn't mean they're better. Like they're hard for you to fight. If you prefer fighting them because you advantage or even just like have good fights with them or any sort of bots like that with little lash that you may run into.

[C]

I mean I would like to fight Red Storm. That would be very fun. We wanted to fight at BattleBots and that kind of just never happened. That would be an incredible 30 pound match. I'm really hoping that happens. I think that's like a good maybe 50, 50 match on who. Who would win that one? Who else do I want to fight? Is like I looked at the lineup of qualified bots. They're all just very, very tough opponents. Obviously you got like chonky in there, you got Megatron, you got Multiplier, you got all the, you got like the Waddles in there, you got Ares in there. So all those robots can just, if I screw up will just obliterate me. But I don't know, I'm excited to see what happens, because, funny enough, Little Ash hasn't. The only fight Little Ash has ever lost was against a robot I had already beaten in a finals match when my receiver stopped working. That's the only fight I've lost. So, like, I've never been beaten by another robot. As in, like, they, like, outplayed me with Little Ash. And part of that is just, like, only going to local events and only going to that one NHRL event. So I don't really know what's going to kill Little Ash. And there are so many different options at finals for what can potentially just, like, obliterate me. So I. I don't know.

[B]

Yeah, like, when you say that, you have, like, an interesting quandary of, like. Okay, yeah, my robot has never had the test jaw, per se. Like, it's definitely, you know, fought people, but it's not. Okay. Someone's now prayed. Like, someone's now found a weak point and, like, crushed it in. How does it handle that? You know, those kind of things?

[C]

Yeah, because part of me, like, when I fought Pepe, I was expecting. I'm like, if any robot's gonna, like, kick my front teeth in, like, it's gonna be this one. And then, like, quickly in the fight, either I got a good shot or just got really lucky. And, like, he lost half drive. And I'm like, wait, I came out unscathed. What is happening? That's not supposed to happen, so. But I'm going to. I'm going to OC Maker Fair in September. And I know, like, there'll be, like, Super Obliterator will be there. You fought them. You know how hard they hit.

[B]

Brandon, man.

[C]

Man, they're going to be there. Kablooey. Tango will be there, which I'm very excited to fight, so I'm sure I'll get to fight them at some point. And I think that'll be a very good test for, like, a tried and crude horizontal spinner.

[A]

Yeah, you have, like. Oh, yeah, you do. Sorry, I just pulled up the breath zone of your fight with anxiety from. Since we were talking about NHL. Yeah.

[C]

Is this the first fight or the finals?

[A]

This is the first fight, so first fight. Okay, so you've got a large front one. Is this all AR? Is this.

[C]

It's all 8th inch AR. I think it's like, hard ox 450, actually.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

But it's basically just AR 400 pretty much.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

But. But anyway. Yeah, I used the plow in this fight, but I think at OC Maker fair. I'm gonna try to run even if I fight, like, a horizontal. If I fight kablooey, tango is run. No horizontal plow. Just run the standard config with, like, a more optimized front end on the lifter and just. Just see how it works with the spinner still on.

[B]

The spinner's still on. So you. You're inviting that catch point there.

[C]

I am inviting it. Just. I want to see what happens. Part of the reason was that, like, when I. Because I did win this.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

It's very bold. We'll see if it works. If it works, I'll try to nhrl. If it doesn't work, maybe I won't.

[A]

Are you just hoping that that spinner's sticking out so far that you make weapon on weapon contact and win before you get hit?

[C]

I mean, I'm looking back to a lot of Whiplash's fights at BattleBots, where I did fight horizontal spinners before we did the plow config, and the only one we really lost to was Tombstone.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And that was just a matter of our front armor not staying on the robot. It wasn't a matter of, like, weapon. Weapon hits. We couldn't handle them. We could handle those fine. It was just. It was nice. Like, the big plow is nice because we're connected. It's connected fully across the front end of the robot. Rather than having two separate pieces of armor that have, you know, half the hardware and half the, you know, surface area clamp, too.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So if I can keep my front armor on, I think it might be the move. And, like, even in this fight, like, when they do put their front forks, to me, it is pretty good at neutralizing that plow.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I think there will be some robots that could maybe take advantage of that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They're having the same problem that I have, though, which is as soon as you engage from them side, the forks are bunk and you're able to get around the side, so. So.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And.

[C]

And to be honest, part of the reason I want to try to wean off of this plow is it was really boring driving with the plow. Like, it was not that fun. I'm being totally honest. Like this. It was. It was like, a decent fight, but it was just, like, there. Yeah. Then I. And I'm also more prone to getting stuck with the plow as well when I have the spinner on there and this.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So that is also very scary. Like, with the spinner on in the classic configuration, there's really very few ways I can get stuck, which is.

[B]

It is like you crave violence, and that's what it takes away. We have to use the world alone.

[C]

I think it does. If I'm flying all the way to Connecticut, my fights better be fun.

[A]

You know,

[C]

I feel that. I feel that, but I don't know. I feel like there's less. Yeah. I don't know, because the fork loophole is there when I run that plow. And I think anxiety might have been having some, like, drive issues this fight. Like, you hear they're moving very, very slowly. And I don't know if I don't think that is normal. Yeah, I think there are definitely some people who would be able to take advantage of that. And you want to make the highlight reels, you know?

[A]

So you've driven. You've driven a few robots. How does Little Lash and Whiplash, since they drive so similar? How did those. You know, how's the handling on them, you know?

[C]

Yeah. Little Ash is a little bit more squirrely. I try to keep him as similar as possible. Like, one thing I do on Whiplash, and I honestly, I think if a normal person, like any. Like, if either you guys or someone else were to drive Little Ash or to drive Whiplash, I think you guys would hate it. And I think the main reason is that I like turning off the brake on all my ESCs. So if I let go of the

[A]

stick, the robot coast crazy. That's crazy.

[C]

I love how that drives.

[A]

Most people hate that crazy.

[C]

That's so.

[A]

I think that.

[C]

So that is how I set up all my robots. And I. I don't know, I try to use it to my advantage. Like, my driving is very, like, fluid and drifty. And that is how I like to do it. I like, if I let go of the stick and just instantly stop, like I hit a brick wall. Like, I just don't do well with that. I like having some of that.

[A]

So that.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, some of that. Little.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Little. Yeah. You know, now that you say it, I totally see, like, I totally see it in the way that the robot moves. You know what I mean?

[C]

Yeah. Like, I like doing big circles around my opponent trying to get drifty and.

[A]

Yeah. So how's. How heavy is the spinner on. On the 30 and. And on the 250. Respect.

[C]

So the 250, I think it's like 22 pounds, something like that. And on the 30, it is a whopping 2 pounds.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

Dude, it is a tiny spinner, but it's a. It hits. I guess, like, I thought it would.

[B]

Yeah. About to say if it's applied correctly, that might still be fine because it's a very, like, it's a disc. Your moi is being more focused. And also if you hit the right spot, then £2 speed is fine. Oh, there you go. There's the Hammer song.

[C]

Dude, I'm so happy about this fight because I did like, my little, like, NHRL interview thing where they take you back in the room with the green screen and all that, and they were saying like, yo, what's your plan? And I was just like, all right. My plan is like, get someone pinned on the wall. And when they're pinned on the wall, Hammer saw them. And this fight happened like, I don't know, two hours after I said that, and I was just like, heck, yeah, it actually happened. And then it was perfect because they. They made that real. They, like made like an Instagram reel out of it. And like, they. I think they got me saying that. And then they put this fight in. I was just like, oh, yes. I may have only had one good fight at any trail, but.

[A]

But I did what I said I was gonna do. I delivered.

[B]

I delivered territory. All I'm saying. Oh, wow.

[A]

Oh, wow. The uprights are like totally bent and twisted into that spinner.

[B]

Well, okay. I mean, that's what I'm saying. Two pounds, but it's right place.

[A]

Yeah, two pounds. But I mean, Megatron is probably two pounds. Jamo. How much does Megatron. I think.

[C]

I think it's heavier.

[B]

If I remember, it's also bigger diameter. It also definitely has more power in

[C]

it and his arms.

[B]

It will thump stuff.

[A]

It just. It makes sense, you know, when you consider it, when you consider that your design is, you know, a hammer saw lifter combo, that two pounds starts to make sense.

[C]

Yeah. And it's been pretty fast. I think we. We tacked it at like 218 miles per hour, so it's been spinning pretty fast. Yeah, he got his fork stuck in my dry belt here, and we're just totally stuck together.

[B]

Love me some entanglement.

[A]

This is okay.

[B]

But, yeah, it's. It's definitely cool seeing you get to do all the things in this match because, like, little lash is going against Alan. You're able to, of course, directly go nose to nose. You get the shot, the four wheel drive for because you get the weapon able to get a glance on them, able to lift tee them up and put them on, like, the wall and then back up in Hammersaw. So yeah, for a two pound weapon that. Oh, that's crazy. Again, mashing it right at the same time. Like the. For a two pound weapon that's able to do three different activities like that, where in theory it could hit the front sides on top of a robot bottom. If the right things happen, then you have a lot of potency. And so it's also curious because you have like, it was all black, so I'm guessing that's like a TPU front as well. So like little.

[C]

Yeah, tpu.

[B]

Interesting. How's that been working for you?

[C]

It's been working great. It's a Stuff is magic. I designed some like AR armor for it for the first event it competed at. And I like did like the classically AR with forts forks mounted on it. And like, I don't know, it just. The TPU is just like it absorbs hits so well that I think I'm gonna definitely continue that in the future. And it's nice because I don't need a hinged fork. It's just like compliant enough where it just kind of just barely presses into the ground. And it's honestly kind of inspired by like the full court forks. Just TPU forks.

[B]

Oh, just nothing changed.

[C]

I said the name. I said full court. You said the name, I said the name.

[A]

Freaking out on stream asking it.

[C]

But in all seriousness, like the fix, Tim, the fixed TPU fork is pretty, pretty solid way to go, I think.

[B]

Interesting. Yeah, because I actually moved away from that because I remember I fought B Force and Baleen in June of last year. My steel fork table just like really pressed through it because of the force of the interaction. I was curious. Like yours seem a bit beefier and that's resisting better. At very least. It's still, you know, doing ground game things, but yeah, it's not gonna be consistent that well.

[C]

It's not gonna be the best ground game. Like even in that fight against Alan, like, you see that first hit, I go head to head just to kind of like test what happens. And he does get underneath me and he gets a good shot on me. So that's true. It's pro, pros and cons.

[B]

So Jameson just said 3 pound of spinning mass on Megatron. Interesting. So yeah, ballpark is right. I think you just like the once again classic case of like the applied the way you use it. There's a lot of the explanation of like how well it does.

[C]

I think that is very true.

[B]

Which is why the house plat ramming you into the wall and are already dead Robot is probably not gonna be so sad.

[C]

No, it's so funny. I was tempted in this fight after the first time because I got anxiety pinned on the wall and they got, like, their free unstick. I was, like, so considering just, like, trying to, like, stop Brett and just act as, like, a roadblock. But, like, stuff started going wrong, like, right before I had the chance to do that. So maybe had I had, like, maybe 10 more seconds of life, I could have just sat in front of him and maybe gotten him high centered. But who knows?

[A]

Come back, we'll talk about whomper.

[C]

Yeah, sounds good.

[B]

Foreign.

[A]

Welcome back to behind the Bots podcast that brings you the people behind the bots. Before we get into talking more about Matt Vasquez, Brendan and I, we read the entire NHL discord. I would say we between us, I mean, do you read every channel?

[B]

I've probably muted one or two of them, but I definitely have more HR Discord.

[A]

Hashtag threes and hashtag ones. Calling it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

He.

[B]

That's. Yeah,

[A]

I. I know. I know. Like, there are other builders who, like, who you wouldn't expect, who read. Who read everything. And I will admit I read everything. And this was a. Was a question that came across in the general chat, and I just wanted to like. And the question was, how do you manage burnout? You know, we're. It feels like Combat Robotics. It can be literally a second job on top of your first. First job. How do you manage burnout? How do you stay excited about the sport? Most importantly, how do you stay having fun?

[C]

Yeah, that's a tough one because there are, like, some times when, like, I'm sure everyone has periods of just, like, uber motivation where you're super motivated. Like, you can, you know, go hours and hours on cad, whatever, just go weeks building your robots, and then, like, that only lasts for so long.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So I don't know. For me, I have lots of other hobbies. So, like, I'm not just doing combat robot stuff. Like, gosh, like, I like, like tennis a lot. Like, in college, played a lot of tennis and, like, club tennis. I'm doing, like, a lot of running lately. Don't like, a couple half marathons, Stuff like that. Yeah, I don't know. Like, I play some music, like, play, like, guitar and bass and, like, have some friends I do that with. But, yeah, I don't know. Other hobbies helps quite, quite a bit, in my opinion. If I was just doing, like, especially since I'm working, like, an engineering job. If I was just doing, like, engineering at work, and then engineering at home like every day forever. Like, I might go insane. So, like I've got a. Yeah. I don't know. You got to have some balance for sure.

[A]

What's your, what was your half marathon time?

[C]

What was my time? I think the last one I did was maybe four months ago or something. God, it was like an hour 45 minutes, something like that. I was like pretty happy with it. Yeah, I got like, my pace was like 8, 8 minutes, 11 seconds or something. 8 minutes, 15 seconds. Something, something in there.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So it was, I was pretty happy with that. But yeah, doing stuff like that is a lot. Why do you run, Jake?

[A]

I. Well, okay, I'm, I'm too thick now to be a runner. There was a time when I was in high school. Yeah, I ran, uh. Okay, I ran distance. I ran half marathons too with my, with my, um. I think I, I think I did one in 1:40. Not to like, I'm not trying to like, oh, five minutes faster than you, but, but no, but I weighed, I weighed 135 pounds. So you just, you just go when you weigh, you know when you're 17 years old and you weigh 135 pounds, like, guess I'm gonna run 50 miles this week. So I was, I was running like 10 miles a day. You know, like dumb, dumb stuff like that. Yeah, but, yeah, and like, I think especially doing that at like a young age, it taught you how to make something, your identity. And when you, when something is a part of your identity, you don't really get burned out because you kind of, you kind of see it as, you know, it's like eating food, you know, or like breathing at that point it's like, this is what I do. And so, you know, it's never, it's never a question like, I'm going to get up and I'm going to work on robots. And maybe that's not the most healthy mentality, but when you see it as part of yourself, you always enjoy connecting with that passion. And yeah, it teaches you to love that part of yourself too. And I think that's an important thing to find.

[C]

Absolutely. And I think it depends what era of life you're in too.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Because when I was in high school, I look at all the 16 year old NHRL dudes that are just out there killing it, and I think back to that time of my life, what, ten years ago at this point. And I think I was totally open to, if I wasn't going to school, I would just all day, every Day just be building combat robots. Right. It totally depends on. But then once you start. Yeah, I don't know. And even in like college, like I took a break from like doing really any small robots for most of college and was. Because that was like when we were super heavy on BattleBots and like that was just hard enough doing that every year. So, like, for that period of time, I was pretty much only doing battlebots for combat robot stuff. But now it's kind of like a nice period. Like, you know, it is a bummer that the show's not on, but like having time to go do NHRL and do all these SCAR events and, and just like. And if I don't want to go compete in an event, like, there's really no deadline for me to finish my robot. There are lots of events happening all the time. You know, we don't have to be managing having, you know, getting all this funding to build this uber expensive robot. So.

[A]

Yeah. I don't know.

[C]

Kind of a nice.

[A]

Yeah. For me the real struggle is FOMO is like, it's like. I know. So like, I miss Hive Hysteria. And like, I knew I did not want to drive to Maryland and back, but it was like, oh, you gotta. You're all your friends are there and they're fighting robots.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that was. Hive Hysteria was hard. That was a hard miss for me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, yeah, for sure. That's harder for me than Burnout.

[C]

Yeah. FOMO is. It's a real thing. Like, like we competed in pretty much every season of BattleBots. It's been on TV. Like if it was to come back tomorrow, like, it would be pretty brutal getting prepared for it. Say they said in three months we have a BattleBots event. It would be like really gnarly preparing for that. I have to do so much design work, so much making so many parts, but I think FOMO is strong enough. Maybe we would pull through.

[B]

I don't know. I follow Matt very closely on a lot of it. Like, especially the battlebot side, I'll start from there and work my way back. But the battlebot side, that's literally what happens. And it's what we all went through in the stretch before the. Before 2023. Like literally the post Covid stretch at BattleBots teams being like, I'm going to absolutely destroy myself, but all the friends are going to be there for a two week robot boot camp. And I be there too. Like people were hopping on teams. You're pulling basically all nighters trying to get your robot ready. And then when you get shift out. And then, dude, when you're in Vegas and the time that you're actually there, you're. Everyone has the mentality of like, oh, we have dark days. I'm gonna be able to, like, go to the Strip, go to Hoover Dam, go to the other cool stuff Las Vegas has. That'd be kind of fun. But in reality, you're like, but no, I need to make the robot cool. And then everyone else kind of ends up doing a lot of that too. And ultimately, by the time BattleBots is over, you're like, dude, I had to do it again. Like, one, because they have the robot ideas, but also because you're like, all my friends are going to be there. Like, I know I'm going to see Rey again because Tombstone's not dropping out, so I gotta see Ray. And then you're like, well, I also never. I'm probably never gonna see a lot of these people very often because they live in different parts of the country, you know. Yeah, it's like the northeast block, but different.

[C]

Yeah. It's funny you say about, like, oh, I go and visit in the Strip and doing fun Vegas stuff while you're at BattleBots. Like, for me, I was just like, I want to get like, all the rest I can. I did not do that much when I was in Vegas. Like, like, it's funny. Like, I had this conversation with like, Aaron hill maybe like six months ago. And because, like, it was funny. Like, BattleBots, they would. Because they put out like the fight card matches, right? And, like, I don't think for most of the seasons they wouldn't put them all out at once. They give you your first round and then like a couple days later, they'd release the second round of matches. And they would always. And then, like, especially for the bracket, that's like the big one where they release either around 16 or 32, but every time they release your next match, it would be at like three in the morning because they are like. Because they're basing it off of what happened the day before. And they have to, you know, do all this 3D chess to decide what. What matchups they want to happen.

[A]

Right.

[C]

And all the rankings and all that stuff. So there's like two types of people. I think most of them were this first type that would stay up till 3am the night before to see the matchup, so they could think about it the night before. And typically what we would do is just go to bed at like 10pm and wake up the next morning and just to see what they were. But I was talking to Aaron. He's like, yeah, he's like, our team, like, we would always, you know, stay up real late to. To wait to see the matchups. And I was just like, no, man. Like, we just go to bed. Like, we just want to rest. Like, the next day we'll see the match when we see it. And, like, whatever happens. And then he's like. He's like, but we have a giant nut. And I was just like, you're right. We only got second place.

[B]

That's crazy. I can't leave pulled rank on you like that.

[C]

I was like, listen. I was just like, second place.

[B]

That's crazy.

[C]

And we got second place. Not quite. Not quite first,

[B]

dude.

[C]

That's crazy.

[B]

Like, that.

[C]

It was so funny.

[B]

But it's on, like, it's 100 true. Especially BattleBots. And then, like, even, like, working my way back. This nhrl break that we've had or the summertime was, like, free. That ended up it.

[C]

It felt so good.

[B]

Similar to BattleBots where you've had, like, wait, the grass. I touch grass. I feel like I've, like, I've smelled the flowers. Like, I've felt the sun. This is crazy because. Yeah, like, because of that break, I, like, phenomenon's been sitting in the garage, in the basement, in the garage for, like, a couple months. I've kind of, like, a little bit of testing on it. More so because it's just, you know, I have a robot I can destroy stuff with. It's kind of cool, but I've not even touched it. But instead, I'm like, you know what? I need to, like, intercept with other people, too. Insects. Like, like, Hydia was literally me thinking, okay, let me, like, build a beat away back again. Because it hasn't been beat away things in a minute, not since, like, robot ruckus, like, November. And like, what is it? Playing flag football? Play video games again? I'd not play video games in a minute because of all the work I've done on, like, the robots getting me framed, Terrell's and little things like that. And I'm like. And I had saved money. I was like, wait a minute.

[C]

Like, oh, my God.

[B]

And because of an engineering job, I have, like, all of this time in engineering anyway, like, Matt already said, so I'm already having to use the math and physics part of the brain over and over again when I come home. Like, I said it before, like, in high school, 100 did that, like, wake up school, whatever. It's boring. Cool. Thing, the evening robots, whatever. But then as I'm older, I'm like, I've been doing this like 18 hours straight every day. I probably should like breathe. And so it's already like a little example of that break time. Changing things already.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I think burnout is really important to think about, like, not only from like the EOs, like a perspective and from like the builder perspective because like you want like longevity, right? You want to like do this for a long time. You want events to go on for a long time. So like, I don't know, I'm all about like, you know, not, not pushing yourself too hard and, you know, support your local combat robot event. And if you're doing those two things, you're probably doing pretty good.

[B]

Yeah, you gotta keep things balanced. Yeah, like, like what is it? Like we're like, you're a full human being. Human beings can't just run like robots. You can't like do the same thing over and over again, like smash your eyes all the time. You gotta like, gotta give some rest buys. Gotta recover. Mind's gotta recover. FOMO does hurt though. I will 100.

[A]

Almost so much harder than FOMO is incredibly hard to deal with when there's

[B]

like a straight up break. Like a straight break. It was like, okay, there's nothing that's gonna force FOMO on me. Then it kind of lets you realize that. And I think that's what the summer break rancher l did. Other adventures still cool though. It did sell those, but like a lot less intense.

[A]

I think. One thing, one of the coolest things about like not just combat robotics, but just like competition in general, because I've done, I've competed in powerlifting, you know, I ran casually in high school and then, and then now I do. Combat robotics is like, it's consistent effort with no reward for an extended period of time. Like you're working toward an abstract goal. No, without any sort of feedback or reward for a very long time. And how, yeah, and how, how exciting is that to be able to like teach young people like how to work toward an abstract goal and like it just forms your brain in such like a solid way. And that's, you know, I'm not just saying that about combat Robotics. The fact that we do combat robotics is, you know, it is what it is. But. Yeah, what an exciting thing for a college student or a young person to be able to work on something and develop that part of their brain where they can invest in a long term goal, you know, without any reward. Well, well, There is a reward at the end, but it's a very long way out. And the reward is like, oh, my gosh. Salivation, dude. Salvation. I can't. I'm sitting around. We've had it all summer off. I'm sitting around with a finished row, effectively a finished robot right now. I don't know what I'm gonna do for the next 46 days. If I don't get into October, I'm going to. If the summer break gets extended, I'm gonna scream because I'm ready to fight again. I'm so ready to fight again.

[B]

Yeah, 100%. Like Matt, you mentioned as well, like other stuff as well, supporting stuff too. So one really good example of how you've been doing stuff that's comet related. We're not like directly fighting related per se, is Open Sauce. That happened like, I think a month ago now. Mid. Mid July.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, it was a few weeks ago. Open Source was awesome. It was a. It's just like a very fun chill event. We like Nick Dobrikov from a Manta brought his like 12 foot by 12 foot arena, which is really cool. It was the same one that we used for like the. The Kaisanat Stream. But it was awesome because, like, that arena is robust. So they ran heavyweights in there not fighting each other, but just like destroying like furniture and appliances and stuff like that. So that was awesome because like every time someone heard like a heavyweight robot spin up, you know, of course, you know, 100 people run over and the arena is just like totally crowded. Half people can't even see what's happening. So that was. That was really fun. And like we fought like sportsman class 30 pounders, which was cool. So I just like slapped a saw blade on little ash instead of the spinner. And that was a. That was a good time. Yeah. And it's funny. Open Sauce, it took place at like the San Mateo Convention center, which funny enough is where Robo games used to take place. So that was kind of like a fun, fun throwback.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And it's funny and full circle. Really. It really was a full circle moment. It'd be cool. It'd be cool if we can get like a legit combat like event to happen at Open Sauce every year. Because that would be a pretty sweet, like, reoccurring California event that I think people would. Would travel to.

[B]

But yeah, I would. I probably consider that like a midsummer trip.

[C]

Yeah. But it's funny at the, at the Open Sauce venue at the San Mateo Event center, if you like, at so, like, the. The venue is like, pretty. Pretty massive. It's this giant hangar. The roof is like 40ft high or something. And, like, if you look at the roof in this one particular spot, there's like a hole in the roof. Like, it's like a wooden roof. And like, you can see this little hole is just blasted through the roof.

[B]

And.

[C]

And what that hole in the roof was from was in 2015. Like, I think it was Toro Maximus at Robo Games, yo.

[B]

Wait.

[C]

Yes. Like, yeah. So currently Minotaur, formerly Toro Maximus, fought this, like, mild steel wedge bot, this like bright pink Wedgebot, and it ripped a piece of steel off of it, blasted through the ceiling of the arena and then through the ceiling of the venue. And that hole was still in the ceiling from 10 years ago. So it was crazy going to that venue. And I think it was. Gary Jane, like, pointed it out. He's like, hey. He's like, check it out. He's like, the hole still there. It's just like, oh, my gosh.

[B]

The deep lore.

[C]

I know, that was pretty cool lore. Every time, like, someone would come by, like some BattleBots fan wanting to talk about robots and be like, hey, see that hole in the roof? And they were just like, no way.

[B]

We did that. We disaggre this place, guys.

[C]

Robots did that.

[A]

They did that.

[C]

They're in Brazil.

[B]

Don't try it. That's pretty cool.

[C]

Yeah, so that was a funny piece of lore.

[B]

Yeah, that's a really cool lore. Cause, like, I've been seeing. I mean, what is it? It's like with my feed, being an engineer, like, maker sort of thing in YouTube, I get a lot of the. The open sauce creatives all posting about it. That was already pretty cool at one level. But, like, it's cur. It's cool to see BattleBots. We come at robotics. I intro did it like two years ago, I think, like a maintained presence in open sauce. So when people came around to like the BattleBots area, how was that, like, for both, Just like outreach purposes or even just like for you guys seeing all the stuff there?

[C]

It's really cool. Like, we. We didn't bring like the full on heavyweight whiplash. I just wanted to fly out and not drive this time around. So I was like, I'm not gonna. There's no way I could bring whiplash. But most of the teams had their heavyweight robots. There were probably like a dozen. You had like, you know, Tombstone Bite Force, you know, like Valkyrie and, you know, Scorpios and a bunch of others. And you had, like, the whole seems Reasonable crew there with, like, Blip and Tantrum. And so, yeah, there were. There were a lot of very enthusiastic fans, which is really cool. Like, the fan base is definitely still there. And, I mean, just a lot of people asking how to get started, which is like, a really cool thing. And, like, Palm Beach Bots was there, which is, like, a fantastic resource for, like, beginners. So I was like, walk three booths that way and, you know, there's the guy who going to tell you what you need to do to build a robot. So, yeah, no, it was cool. There was definitely a relatively large, like, a presence of BattleBots fans.

[B]

That's good because I think with all the robot stuff going on and we kind of know it in the Northeast, like, some people get interested over time with nhrl, especially, like, as it does its media stuff and whatever, but there's always a prevailing feeling of like, oh, BattleBots isn't doing its thing because it's not on television and there's some media presence and there's probably, you know, some word of mouth that also goes around too. NHRL does its thing as well. It's always kind of tricky sort of gauging, like, what is the general public interest or knowledge of the sport, because most people tend to get an idea about. I remember this thing from the early 2000s, or maybe I remember seeing this on TikTok once, and I just didn't. Yeah, like, see it ever again. Not really sure what it was, but I feel like that gives, like, an indication of, like, there's still people there, want to do stuff. It's just, like, about garnishing that. I mean, I guess money on one level, but even just, like, the. The interest, like, honing it towards new builders to do stuff as well.

[C]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

No, and there's, like, still some, like. I mean, obviously NHRL has been doing a pretty great job with social media, and I think that's. I think that's fantastic they're doing that. It's really funny.

[A]

I.

[C]

Like a co worker, he, like. He, like, knew my brother because my brother interned here a couple years ago. But. But anyway, like, 00 got. They did, like, a little Instagram reel for Jason and 00. And like, one of my co workers, he's like, yeah, he's like. My friend, like, sent me this, like, reel on TikTok or something, and he's like. And it was your brother? I was just like, wait, what? Some random guy sent you this reel? And it was my brother. I was like, no way. So yeah, Their stuff is making the rounds. When you hear random people, you know, finding these videos, that's a, That's a good sign.

[A]

Just today, actually, funny enough, I was working in. Totally unrelated, I was working in the makerspace and a dude came in and saw Maximizer just sitting on the table because I was working on it. And he's like, yeah, do you know Will Bales? And I'm like, I know of Will Bales, certainly. I'm like, how do you know Will Bales? He's like, oh, I used to do bots IQ you back in. Back in high school. He's like, I recognized what it was, you know, that it was a combat robot from across, you know, because it's kind of like once you know what they are like, it's, it's pretty easy to identify what something is. So. But he lives in the Cincinnati area now. Hopefully he comes back to the makerspace. We can build some plants or something. Yeah.

[C]

Oh, that's pretty cool.

[A]

He's like, there's. There's weight classes that aren't £240 exactly. Yes, yes. Check out how easy this is. You know, so.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

I find that once people interact with the sport, you know, it's like, okay, this is pretty cool. You know what I mean? So it's just like get as much of the sport out there as possible. You know, NHRL Take Based Economy. I got a clock into the take factory. They just did their deal with Cheddar where they're like, they're. And Cheddar isn't not, you know, it's no cnn, it's not ESPN or anything like that. It's not a high tier network. But, you know, it shows that they can maintain a, maintain a network deal and continue to push their content to more people and maybe that folds into a larger deal. I respect NHRL for doing like new media instead of, um, instead of, you know, someone in chat said BattleBots. Is that, that's extreme. But yeah, it's never, it's never going. It's. One day we'll fight heavyweights again. I've never, you realize, I've never seen a heavyweight fight. It was, it's kind of like after my, It's. I've never seen a 250 fight ever. It's kind of after my era or like before my era. You know what I mean?

[B]

Even like a zoomer. Yeah.

[A]

Is it because I started, I, I started in, I started in 22, which was after season, the final season.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Of BattleBots.

[B]

Yeah. Right. When we did filming for that.

[A]

Yeah. So I didn't, you know, I didn't go to BattleBots.

[C]

It's crazy.

[A]

Isn't that wild? It's been three years now. You know, I've had an entire rise and fall,

[C]

dude.

[B]

Maximize.

[C]

You're still in there.

[B]

You're still. You're still at night, dude.

[C]

It is pretty cool though. There are like, some people who are like, kind of like staples in the sport now who have only been around for like three years.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Never seen a 250 fight ever. Yeah, like legit.

[B]

Exactly. Because, like, I like Matt and I basically grew up in the early 20s. Like the 2010s. Like, we're doing the local events. There's no BattleBots. The biggest thing is like, NERC in the East Coast, I guess. You know, even RFL Robo Games, especially in, like in the west coast. And we're like, that's basically it. Like, that's, that's the stuff. Like, I went to Moto and that was the biggest event for a long, long time. And if you told me between, let's say 2013 to 2016, there isn't a enormous change in what's going on per se. There's a bit more because BattleBots is now, like, creating more interest, but in terms of like, people who are competing, it's not very big. 2010 to 2013, the same. There is not. There's not a big hiccup there, but like 2022 to 2025, it's like giant, like enormous increases happening across the board for everybody.

[A]

It's.

[B]

It's incredible.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. No, it's pretty cool. It's. Combat robotics lives on.

[A]

All right, we're going to push you a break real quick. It's been half an hour and then when we come back, we'll figure out what we're doing. More with Matt Vasquez after the break. Foreign. Welcome back. After the break, we're here with Matt Vasquez. We're gonna be wrapping up the stream here. Little robots around the world. Some final questions for Matt Vasquez. Drop your questions in the chat. We read everything. It's kind of a problem. We probably shouldn't do that. Every comment we read it, we moderate

[B]

it as appropriate, 100%. So time now for robots around the world. So first of all, thanks to Jameson. Go for dropping this Nanjaro discord, which you can find the behind the Bots channel in and give questions for our, for our guests as well as just interesting stuff. Again, please keep it wholesome. But in this case in this past week, the World Humanoid Robot Games. Not if you consider robo games included. In Beijing, China with more than 280 teams from universities and companies from 16 countries gathered to compete in markedly human focused competitions like sprinting, boxing and soccer. But robots, most competitions require operators to help the robots with some events like in boxing which are a little less exciting due to them having to you know, get, fall, fall over and get helped again. But optimists see it as a critical step towards a world like real steel with much more human similar activities robots can do without having to put any humans in direct line of danger. So Matt and Jake, what do you think?

[C]

I know this humanoid fighting robot thing is. It's becoming a thing. They just said that thing in San Francisco last week. That was, that was something. I had plenty of people sending that link to me going like do you see this exists? I'm just like yeah, I've seen this. But like wait, Robot, robot guy. I know robot guy. Robots fighting. I don't know, it's like cool. I don't think it's going to be super exciting at this point. I think it's like a novelty at the moment. But I don't know what your guys opinions are.

[A]

I don't. I'm not smart enough to work on a robot like that.

[C]

I really.

[A]

And also I'd kick his ass. Like a humanoid robot would get its frickin limbs shredded, dude. By we would finally answer the question is what if you touched a robot, you know, a 30 pounder spinner. We finally get the answer and that is your hand becomes.

[C]

I don't know. Yeah, like I mean honestly at this point like not even like whiplash or little ash. Like I think like I could probably take on one of those. The humanoid fighting robots.

[A]

The humanoid robots are only $6,000 dude.

[C]

Shockingly cheap.

[A]

Wait a minute,

[B]

wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

[A]

That's kind of curious I got going on right now.

[B]

Oh no, I can't. If you, if you really hit us with a maximizer number that's closer to a humanoid robot, that's gonna be trauma.

[A]

Well there's always like oh here's a question that I had for, for Matt. Sorry I forgot to ask this. Where do you work out of? Like where do you all are you garage or.

[C]

Oh like building my robot. What do I work out of? So for the most part like back in the day and for most of the battleboss seasons it was just like my parents garage. So we kind of started off like my dad had like a bandsaw on there, drill press, like some basic stuff like that made like a tiny little harbor freight mill that we could like barely fit most of the parts we needed to on it. And then as the seasons of BattleBots kind of like progressed, like each season we got some sponsor money and. And like every season, like you're not only buying parts, you're buying tools to like accomplish the thing you need to accomplish. So we slowly kind of built up the garage and like eventually we got like a whole ass Bridgeport in there. We got like a lathe in there, so it's like pretty decently equipped. But yeah, most of whiplash was like done in there. And then like a lot of like water jet stuff was sent out. Like a few CNC things were sent out, but not a whole lot. But these days I pretty much work out of where I work, my workplace. So we've. I'm lucky enough that they let me use, you know, all the machines and stuff here. So I got like sweet CNC access and we got like a water jet which is cool. Can just go and cut some parts. So yeah, I mostly work out of my work right now.

[A]

Dude, for. For 12 pound is up. It's like find the nearest water jet and just like, oh my God. Find. Find someone who has one.

[B]

So true.

[A]

Get access to it. It's just like if you, if you, you want to make that jump from a 3 pounder to a 12 pounder or 30, just like get a water jet as fast as possible. And it's so key to just processing pretty awesome quick, big parts. Quick. Yeah, it's cool.

[C]

Yeah, but it's funny. Like the last version, like this current version of little Ash, like every single part on the robot, I made every single part. I didn't send anything out. Like anything that was CNC to imachine anything that was water jet. I water jet cut. And like the amount of hours put into doing that, part of me is just like, I should just send this stuff out. It is a lot of time to do it all yourself. Like I know JQ machine audio your own stuff.

[A]

Well, so. So my day job, I am a machine. Yeah. So.

[B]

So.

[A]

So I'm a machinist for the University of Cincinnati at our makerspace. So the math is, is I make so much money an hour. If it's less money, you know, for me to make it than it is to get it sent out, then I make it myself. Otherwise. So it's a very strategic thing where I get things quoted and then I decide how quickly Can I run it out on our hospital? And so it's a balancing act. So like I have gear components that no way, no shot am I am I going to machine. But like I have aluminum bits and bobs and it's just like those, you know, we're tossing those out.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

And I, I, we also have a water jet at the makerspace. So like all of my cleats, if I bought my cleats from 10 cuts and they'd be like $20 a piece. If I water jet them myself, they're like $2 a piece.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

There's like some stuff only way this is possible.

[C]

Like if like, like Senka send incredible for life. Only you senkasend one time for robot parts. But like getting like AR stuff made from them so cheap it's like just freaking do that. It's cheaper than buying the material. But like if you want to get like a little titanium piece made, it's like a hundred bucks for like a 8 inch diameter 1 millimeter titanium thing. I'm like, all right, I'll just buy ebay or finger tech tie and cut it for free. So picking, you gotta pick and choose, you know?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And man, that is the biggest limiter, you know, is as important as a football practice field is to a football team is like a shop is to like making a successful combat team. And like yeah, the, the, the UC team would not have the success that it has. You know, I'm not, no, I'm not glazing the place that I work. Like that would but like it literally would not be possible with like an open and accessible makerspace where they could go in, get trained on the tools and, and figure out what they're doing. And so, and so when people ask me like how do I hop up from a three pounder to like this bigger weight classes, it's just like get tool access like or get money. And it's like pick one of them.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

100% or get money.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. You're either rich or you have tool access.

[B]

This had exceeding amounts of money. And like, like in my case actually it was really good because during the pandemic when we got like the, what is it? The COVID relief money. I spent it on China and got a CNC router. And then that was like the way I was able to make the big bots for a minute because like my school had like I worked in makerspace for my school, but they only had like a 12 by 12 little water jet and like a little like a CNC but people are always using it for, you know, actual things like research. So I couldn't use all the time, but literally, I designed all of the bots since then to use that little CNC router for everything I've done. Like, I could make a flat. Like, I could get flat packs of material machine down the router. And that's 100% how the robots work. Because if I don't, then I have to pay for it all engineering money is nice, but I also have to pay for, you know, living. And then even next to that, you got to pay for your time. And sometimes my time is free enough or, like, it makes more fiscal sense to just do that instead of. And that's really critical. And I think about, like, the, like, in this case, the unitary robots here with the humanoid stuff, if you. Two things. One, they are still way, way weaker than any robot NHRL could put out per mess. Like, even in real steel, those robots are really, really strong. But for the weight, like, I don't know, they weigh like a ton. Let's say for one of the real steel robots, a ton. For a tombstone, that would get you an absurd level of power and that would just take anything out. And then two, you probably couldn't make them rapidly either because, like, they're. They're complex. And our fighting robots are more powerful and simpler to, like, do stuff with.

[C]

So my brother had a good idea. My brother, like, has done some, like, humanoid robot stuff at work, and he's like, the humanoid boxing robots need to open up for BattleBots or like, NHL or whatever. I have, like, a humanoid fight to, like, hype it up. Then I'll get some, like, normies who they're like, oh, cool boxing robots to show up. Then after that happens, you do like, an actual round of, you know, classic combat robots.

[A]

You know what I do? So. So NHR's got one of those robot dogs. I would wrestle that in the cage. So I'm putting out the call. Austin McCord, let me fight the robot dog in the cage. I will wrestle it by hand and we'll see who wins. I bet I can do it.

[B]

That that's what you can do before your match, too. So, like, I could imagine a Jake strolling into the box wrestling, beating up,

[A]

spot wrestling the robot dog.

[B]

Exactly. And then once you've dragged its corpse out, you just, like, fight with Maximize and they're kind of like, oh, that's the gap.

[A]

I would wrestle that dog in a heartbeat. I don't like it walking around the pits. It needs to be taught a leg. And I don't condone violence against living things, but I sure as hell do against unliving things.

[B]

So that's going to be the first podcast shirt right there.

[A]

Yeah, sure. All right, well, that's about it for us today. Thank you for joining us on behind the Bots. This has been Matt Vasquez, one of the chillest people in the sport. It's been great talking to you for the first time, Matt. I'm Jake Hoffman.

[B]

I'm Brandon Young.

[C]

I'm Matt Vasquez.

[A]

We'll catch you guys next time. Thanks.