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- [00:00]
A
From Cincinnati, Ohio and Bowie, Maryland, this is behind the Bots, the podcast that brings you the stories, the people behind the bots. I am Jake.
- [00:11]
B
And I'm Brandon.
- [00:13]
A
And on today's podcast, the I think the best commentator, hashtag Fire Kyle 2026. The best commentator that we had at October by long shot, fire Kyle 2026 put it in chat. Fire Kyle. And Dima Papasian was going to be on. Sorry. She is also known as the driver of Golden Dumpster winner, Turbofiend Demon Papasian. Commentator, gamer all around good person. We will wrap up the 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, Taskbox, Player FM and Podbean. Follow us on Facebook at BehindtheBots and come to the live streams. They're tons of fun. We enjoy having you guys in the chat. Hashtag FireKyle2026. Okay, Brandon, what's going on in the world of robot combat this week? Week?
- [01:21]
B
Sure. So around the Robot Combat Combat Robotics event calendar for this week, there's seven events occurring in the United States and five events occurring in the uk. So sort of like a macro view of all these events. This coming weekend in The United States, October 18th, there will be 87 ant weights, 57 plastic ant weights, 38 fairy weights and 34 beetle weights competing across the five US states of California, Texas, Washington, Minnesota and Colorado. The largest of these events is the Robot Smashing League at the Armory. As part of the ongoing Merca League series in the uk, there will be events occurring in five cities of Bristol, Gloucester, Lisbon, Loughborough and London. The biggest event of the weekend will be the Bristol botbuilders beetle champs. 50 of the best competitors from across the UK and Europe will be gathering to see who's the best. Check out the live stream at bbb gd/stream or follow Joe Brown on YouTube. Get details on these events and more at robot comedvents.com, buildersdb.com and bristolbotbuilders.com and now we head into our interview with the great, the powerful, the is stupendous. Dima Pahazian. Dima, how are you?
- [02:35]
C
I'm doing great, guys. How are you doing?
- [02:39]
B
Pretty good, pretty good. I managed to get a little bit of sleep. So, you know, huge after intrail events.
- [02:46]
C
Just a little bit.
- [02:47]
B
Only. Only a little. Not too much. I'd be a little too greedy.
- [02:51]
A
So how did you end up, like, starting commentating with NHL? Like how when did that Conversation start. And then how was your experience? How was it?
- [03:02]
C
I think the conversation started like probably just under a couple months ago, maybe closer to one month ago. Sam had reached out to me about potentially working the event. I think because I was not, you know, I was wait listed. I'm gonna mirror my video because it's backwards and it's messing with me. No, I got. I got it. I got it.
- [03:24]
B
You got it?
- [03:24]
A
Now I can mirror it. I can do it.
- [03:26]
C
Oh, yeah, mirror. No, you mirror it for me.
- [03:29]
A
Okay.
- [03:29]
C
Mirror it.
- [03:30]
A
Transform.
- [03:31]
C
Transform me.
- [03:33]
B
Oh, so I have to be in the stream.
- [03:34]
A
Guys here, do that too.
- [03:38]
C
I don't want that.
- [03:38]
A
She's a bat.
- [03:39]
C
Put me in. Put me in. Stranger Things. Yeah, I love. I love playing with frame. Yeah, I like playing with toys, camera toys. But yeah, I think Sam, everybody knows as the prime evil henchman of nhrl, I think they knew that I was waitlisted for the event and probably wasn't going to make it off the waitlist. I was pretty far down because I got lucky for the rest of the year and I competed at basically every event that I could so far. So he said, hey, do you want to. Do you want to work this event? And I was like, sure, just let me know what you want me to do because I love NHL. So I was going to work in any capacity. And they. Not only was I commentating that I was also concierging, which is a new sort of like role that they put together for this event, which is, you know, helps people know when their fight time is, checks to see if they're ready and potentially connects them with mentors in case they're not ready with the, you know, idea of having as many fights go smoothly as possible and not having as many non fights or no shows or stuff like that. So I concierged early in the morning. I ran a VIP tour at around noon. And then I. They had a time slot open for me in prelims. So I also commentated the very end of prelims, I think 50 minutes or so. And it was.
- [05:03]
A
It was some of the best commentary, those 50 minutes. Hashtag fire Kyle 2026.
- [05:09]
B
That's crazy.
- [05:12]
A
That's where I'm at with it. He knows I'm joking. Cool. So, okay, yeah, the concierge system. So this is, I guess this podcast is supposed to be a little bit of a recap of October and hrl. We were all there or something. So the concierge system was new and I did not expect that until we got there. What was your when you were introduced to that role, what did the behind the scenes look like as far as, like, preparation and stuff like that?
- [05:47]
C
Well, a big part of it was knowing your group. So kind of like the early pools that you were going to be running and getting a feel for where those people were situated on the builder map. So we did have access to a map of all the tables and we punched in where everybody was. There is a proprietary Nhrl app. I don't know how much I'm supposed to give away behind the scenes, but
- [06:11]
A
this is a tell all podcast.
- [06:14]
B
Deep lore, guys. This is Watergate, but, you know, kinder Watergate.
- [06:18]
A
Let's say
- [06:21]
C
we had an app where we submitted with bots or readied up or, you know, not readied up, or we check in with them as early as, you know, feasible and see how ready they are. You know, pools is only 3 rounds maximum per bot, 2 rounds a minimum if a bot goes 2, 0. So the idea being like, you track when a match is up, you track when a match ends. Basically you. You find out when their next match is going to be and who their opponents are, and you just keep it moving. I will say that because of my VIP tour, there was a moment where I had to sort of be like, okay, I need. I need somebody else to check in on on mine. But also I was a sort of a floater as far as the concierges go. I had a pool of bots to look after than everybody else, or not everybody else, but you know what I mean. And I was only looking after threes. And, you know, 12s and 30s are smaller. So other concierges were in charge of checking those bots in and out. And there was no, there were no bot escorts this time around, chiefly. So that's not part, that's not part of the concierge role. So I wasn't leading anybody down those staircases.
- [07:29]
A
And so, yeah, so for background, Brandon, you were probably around when. When did the bot runners, when did that start?
- [07:41]
B
The old, I mean, I mean, kind of depends on how deep you want to go, but I remember that all. So the big thing, the big thing is that bot running has always been like, at some level present. I first started know. Well, I started coming to ANELL in like February 2021, beginning of that season. And a lot of the difficulty is when you begin growing your whole sport, your event really, and your people become more spread out, a little hard to really contain it. I remember earlier on that wasn't as big of a deal because everyone's on like the same floor, not too much spread out once, I would say probably, probably 23 for sure. Maybe the later on 22, like finals or something, they began to get a bit more serious. Especially in 24. They got really serious about it as they sort of began having the exponential growth of the Beetle weight class and increasing that like push to condense it. Because way back when we had like the super late weird part of the night, like 2am Finish competition and that was hardcore, dude. Like you might have had some freedom in time because there wasn't like a, a huge cutoff or a real like driver saying okay, 10pm finishing time, but you were exhausted. And I think for like everyone's sanity as well as NHRL sort of scaling ability in the future, it really doubled down on it. And so a lot of this past year it really made like more concerted effort to really have like a bot wrangling system. I think a lot of that has resulted in probably a good amount of people ice getting like a bigger sort of better logistics going. I think a couple times now they've like hit like between 10, 11pm Finish time. So honestly pretty solid stuff. But I think also comes with that like the pressure like, oh, I gotta like really know what I'm doing because now if I don't, they actually can find me and my family and two like take us all out. They really had to. That'd be a bit harder to sort of hide away. I get Liam Neeson kind of taken kind of moment there.
- [09:45]
C
What are we doing here?
- [09:46]
A
I'm sorry. No, I'm looking at when I, when we wrapped up because I took a photo. Oh, but that's.
- [09:54]
B
That.
- [09:54]
A
Sorry, that's at the hotel at 12:30 in the morning.
- [09:59]
B
I mean probably like around 11, right?
- [10:01]
A
Yeah, we wrapped up at 11 because I was in the control room at 11:30.
- [10:05]
C
Yeah, that sounds right.
- [10:07]
B
Yeah, feels right. Right.
- [10:08]
A
I actually took this photo and sent it to Lindsay. I'll put this, I'll screen this photo. I took this photo on my way back up the stairs and sent it to Lindsay Bear. So this was Saturday at 10:42. So. Okay, so that, that gives you a wrap up.
- [10:26]
B
Okay, guys, it's Jake. Whoa.
- [10:28]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is, this is the level of sweat that you have after
- [10:35]
C
doing a little swag. You have.
- [10:38]
B
That's true.
- [10:39]
A
Nothing compared to Jaren Swagger Panda. Nothing like that.
- [10:50]
C
I, I deeply enjoy, I deeply enjoyed the commentators making note of the fact that Jaren did have his groove back.
- [10:56]
A
It was insane. That's what I'M saying it was crazy. He was moving on another level, that event.
- [11:04]
C
Yeah, Swagger Panda, they call it movement.
- [11:09]
B
As far as this movement, this movement was pretty clean, I got to say.
- [11:12]
A
Clean. Clean. All right, so do you feel like the concierge system was a improvement or not improvement over, over the previous system?
- [11:22]
C
So it's, it's hard to say, like, oh, it's instantly better because there's things that need to be ironed out about it and NHRL knew that. And partway through the event, the, the app was like a little buggy and stuff like that and everything still ran great as far as I could tell. From my perspective. I'm sure there are some people who might be like, well, I would have liked this or that, but I think it's a good system and I think what it sets out to do isn't necessarily clear to the more experienced builders, especially people who might like, already be listening to this podcast. But I think the concierge system is really great for new builders and first time event goers with the idea being like, you know, when your fight is somebody's going to check on you. Maybe your round one went great and that maybe you have no clue what to do after that and this is your first time repairing a bot that's been smashed or like, or like, you win your round one, you lose your round two, you're going into round three and you're like antsy and you might need access to a mentor. And the mentor system, I think is really closely tied to the concierge system. And I, I'm not a mentor and concierges aren't allowed to help. But there were, you know, people who were, who had offered up their expertise for new builders with the, you know, more experienced people being able to look after a bot and say, hey, this looks like a pairing issue or like, I would do this, not necessarily going to do it for you, but you know, sometimes it's in the heat of the moment, somebody, a second pair of eyes is all you need. A second pair of more experienced eyes. And nope, no one in my pool got handed off to a mentor or had a mentor come over. Like, I didn't, I didn't make that call and nobody seemed to need that call, which is just how my pool shaked out, I guess. I didn't have a lot of new, a lot of new engineers and I had, I think, two of my builders from the Shanghai team. And you know, I, I was ready to be like, connect them with a mentor if need be. But I'VE been. Obviously they had had plenty of experience from their own region and their own tournaments, so they didn't need me. Whatever.
- [13:26]
B
That's really cool.
- [13:27]
C
I. I asked. I asked, I asked. Everything going okay? And they said, yeah.
- [13:30]
A
So that's your job. This is job. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it makes sense. Yeah, it does seem like an attempt at a little bit more personable system, which I can appreciate. The only. My only criticism is, like, if you paired up two builders and sent them down to a cage, two builders that were brand new and had never seen, you know, the back end of nhrl, like, because the hope is you pair, like, a new builder with someone who might know where the fuck the cages are. But, like, if you pair two people up who are completely lost. Did anyone get lost going down to the cages, to your knowledge?
- [14:09]
C
No, to my knowledge, no. And I'm pretty sure that, like, some staff members said, hey, nobody got lost. Which was a big factor too, because, you know, they're like, there. There was thought behind that, and that's why there were those new labels.
- [14:22]
A
And they were great, by the way.
- [14:25]
C
Yeah, the labels are awesome. Not only do they serve a functional purpose, I thought they look cool as hell, and there's that. Plus, it looks like whoever is in charge of this, when you're in the cage and your bots, like blue corner and pink corner are labeled, it seemed like somebody was on top of that pretty well for the entire event. So if. Even if anybody was confused, you know, you walk down, there's two cages, you can see which one has your bot labeled on it. Whereas in previous events, that might not get updated until you're like, bots already in the cage or whatever. But it seemed like everything ran smoothly. And, like, we already made note of the event did not go over. And another goal of what the concierge system aims to do, which I didn't really mention, is they said this in the builders meeting. If there's delays during prelims, that time has to come from somewhere. So it just gets pushed off. It gets pushed off to prime time and the start of Bracket. And if prelims. If we put, like, extra effort in concierging and make prelims run as smoothly as possible, you know, bracket has the opportunity to have a little more wiggle room, and Bracket needs wiggle room and prime time needs wiggle room because of how, you know, heavy on the production side, it is. Yep, Yep.
- [15:37]
A
Yeah. My. Yeah. My only criticism is that, like, around midday, so, like, going into the Ko show, the 12s were getting, like, push back and back and back with, like. Like, I had a fight start, like, an hour late, and that was. But that was like, the only, like, super frustrating experience.
- [15:57]
C
Yeah, it's hard. It's gonna know how much of that. It's hard to know how much of that is due to the new change in system or that would have happened at a previous tournament anyway, so. But.
- [16:06]
A
Well, then that's the thing. It's always been like that for the twelves is that we always. Yeah, it's always been like that for. That's just, like, the reality. I remember Zach Knight at my first event going, oh, you built a 12. Get used to waiting.
- [16:22]
B
Feels like him. Feels like him a lot.
- [16:24]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can hear him saying that. So. Yeah, yeah. Good. Okay.
- [16:36]
B
Do you want to recap?
- [16:37]
C
So.
- [16:38]
B
So I guess that was part of it. So I guess alongside with that, too, like, on the production side of it. So now working with NHRL and, like, being in the concierge service and doing metacommentating, how would you say that compares the builder experience fighting there? How would you say they. They compare. Contrast similar, different, better, worse. How would you relate the two?
- [16:59]
C
That's a hard question, man. That's like saying, is eating at a. How similar is eating at a restaurant versus being a waitress at a restaurant?
- [17:08]
B
Exactly. Is the food great on this side or that's.
- [17:12]
C
I like my. I like my shift meal. I'll say that I. I liked the experience of working at nhrl. You know, you're on your feet the whole time, and you're walking as a concierge, you're. You're walking back and forth and walking back and forth and checking your tablet and, you know, trying to stay on top of everything. I think I like not to toot my own horn. I think I did a good job. I didn't hear anybody, like, complain or try to, like, be like, hey, you need to be here and you're not there. And the Glenn who was sort of, like, head of all of us, he was like, leading me through concierge and others because it's a new system. Glenn Boxel, you all know and love him, he was checking on me being like, everything good. It's. Do you have any, like, questions or things you need to do change? Whatever. Everything. Everything from my end seem to be running good. But I will say, like, I don't know. It's hard to compare that to the builder's experience. The builder's experience. I didn't get to experience the builder's experience with Concierging? Yeah, I. I've only experienced it without concierging. And to that. We know that the PA system in the pit is not great. Everybody knows that. Everybody knows. You have to listen really close. We have to. You have to listen really close and be, like, on top of stuff. Like, you have to be listening for when your fight is. And you might not hear it over the speaker. So you might have to, like, be close to the desk every now and then, check in with the desk, say, did I get called? Or anything like that? Concierge system kind of fixes that. So I think I would have liked it especially early on. But I've also been lucky recently where I have a table with the pandas close to the pit. I mean, close to the desk. So, you know, who knows?
- [18:55]
B
I like that a lot. I think you've. You hit, like, really big thing on the. On the nail there, especially with the track of the desk. I remember especially, like, as you get later on the tournament. And robots have very varied names. It's kind of like, wait, that could have been a couple different robots that might have just said there.
- [19:13]
C
Let me.
- [19:13]
B
Let me, like, double check that. And sometimes you, like, have that flexibility, like, do that. But other times, like, oh, the concierge person's like, yeah, we called for you. Or you can communicate with them and ask them, did they call this robot? And that. That, I feel, was a good help.
- [19:28]
C
Yeah, there's. I. I know there's other robots that are gonna sign up with the name Turbo, so there's gonna be times when I have to listen closely and say, is that Turbo Fiend or Turbo Freak or what?
- [19:38]
A
I love Turbo Freak.
- [19:40]
C
Turbo Freak doesn't exist yet. He's an SCP and I'm not. He's not. He's unreleased. He's. He's lost. Media
- [19:49]
B
right here, folks.
- [19:51]
A
There are calls for WM going on in the chat right now. Absolutely the hell not, dude. WM sucks. Oh, my gosh. With the grand final. Here's why. The grand final. Yamnall fought huge three times in, like, a period of an hour and a half. I don't want to see that. I want a final. You know what I mean?
- [20:15]
C
I kind of do, but I get it.
- [20:19]
A
What you want W. Limback.
- [20:23]
C
No, I. I think the bracket is de facto better off without it. But, yeah, I come from different competitive backgrounds, which I guess segues into the interview portion. Like, I come from. Yeah, I come. I come from Magic, where you can lose. You can lose, like, three times in an event, and still be fine. Maybe if your breakers good and Fighting games primarily where it's double elim and if you get to grand finals, you still have an extra life. And also there's the, there's the hype of being in grand finals on the loser side and having to take down somebody twice and like you feel like a God when you do that.
- [21:03]
B
But that is true.
- [21:05]
C
That's just, that's good, that's just good for hype. It's also, it's also not good for like making a real grand finals where like, oh, we have to fight again. Better hope that like eight matches into a tournament you have another copy or can assemble. You're on your last weapon blade or something like, I don't know, I don't do it.
- [21:26]
A
It's too hard with repairs. That's just not exactly hard with repairs. Plus you add like in this 20 minute gap like actually in your broadcast.
- [21:38]
C
I think it's cool to see. Like, okay, let's run it back. Like that's. It's cool, but it's not, it's not feasible.
- [21:44]
A
Yeah, yeah, okay.
- [21:46]
B
Like I can believe. I think that makes a lot of sense with regards to the sport itself. Like you said, like if it, if this were, there were a situation, I, I'm maybe even like sportsman's. If you have the ability where it's on like, okay, you can literally do a run back of that fight in like five minutes because all you need is like charge the battery. You're like, you know, swap in and swap it out. But if the assumption is the robot's accumulating damage, or better yet, you have to give them the default 20 minute time, you have an audience that's waiting for it too. Remember we were talking to Jack about this before and that's part of why in their like New Zealand versus Australia bit of the robot rampage event, they had them like do quote unquote, like live repairs in the box in front of people. Because then even that downtime became exciting as you like get the camera view of the robot and like see, oh, it's falling apart in this way. You got to fix it that way and so on and so forth.
- [22:34]
C
But.
- [22:35]
B
And that's not the case in HRL because everyone has like their pit area they're trying to work on and it'd be really, really hard to get everybody like really, really intent about that for 20 minutes straight. So I just don't think it would work as well. I do feel it though on a competitor side because I too would love the Occasional run back if necessary. Just because it gives me a bit of more hope of potentially winning at all.
- [22:55]
C
There, there's. There is also the factor of, like, you're not rewarded for not losing at all in the bracket. Like, but that's that, like I say,
- [23:06]
A
like, you win the event.
- [23:08]
C
No, that's not what I mean. Like, you get to grand. You get to. You get the grand finals and you haven't. You haven't lost at all. Your opponent has a lot. Has a loss. Yeah, it's. It. You don't get a reward for doing a little bit better, but you do get a buy. So I'm kind of lying, like, yeah,
- [23:23]
B
yeah, in real time. Caught yourself. I like it. I like it. Self governance.
- [23:27]
C
I'm kind of like, as. As many brackets as I've done and as many sports that I've done, I'm kind of dumb about it sometimes where, like, I remember, like, oh, I gotta buy, or like, like, like, I try to understand how my seating works in basically everything that I do, and I give up. Like I said, I just take whatever seat I get and I'm just not gonna worry about it.
- [23:46]
A
So, okay, so you did. You did. You listed competitive things, but I'm. So you did magic and then what else have you done?
- [23:56]
C
Martial. Martial arts, basically. Only jiu jitsu and karate. As far as competitions go. I. I was too. I did MMA with my brothers. Was that while they were competing? But I was too young to. To have an official fight, amateur or otherwise. I was under 18. And then when I went to college. Screw that. Like, I'm not, like, taking MMA seriously during college. Hell no. But, yeah, nothing like a little CTE
- [24:24]
A
to really make the glasses stick.
- [24:26]
C
Dude, I. I don't. Don't even bring that up. I'm sad to think about how much that I have. I'll never. You don't. You can't ever know. But I was. But thankfully, because. No, you know what I mean? I wasn't.
- [24:41]
A
I love it.
- [24:42]
B
Yeah. Yeah, we got you.
- [24:44]
C
I didn't. I didn't tank a lot of bad headshots, but in terms in jiu jitsu and grappling, I didn't sit in a lot of chokes for way longer than I should because, like, the idea being. The idea being if you're gonna. If the choke's good, you're gonna pass out from it anyway, so why tap? Just let yourself pass out. And that's. That's just. That's just bad. Like, it's not good, I guess. Like, I did that in training. I did that in training, too. Like, I would sit and choke, like, bad chokes for, like, 10 minutes trying to get out. So, yeah, who knows how much CT I have? Probably a good amount. Let's not worry. Let's not think about it, though. Let's change the subject.
- [25:21]
B
What did you.
- [25:22]
A
So you're in college. What did you go to college for?
- [25:25]
C
Yeah, I went to school for English, and originally I was gonna trip. I was gonna triple major in English linguistics, a molecular and cell biology.
- [25:33]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [25:35]
C
But when I was doing my molecular cell biology major, my advisor was like, oh, you don't need Orgo one and two for this. Like, for anybody who's done, like, that. That sphere of science is like, you know, orgo is needed for, like, everything. So I was like, oh, I don't need Orgo. That's weird. But I. Okay. That kind of gives me a year. A year to do, like, my genetics specific courses and, like, my virology and evolutionary biology specific courses that I needed to do. And then, like, I'm getting into senior year, and she's like, you don't have Orgo. You can't take, like, the advanced genetics classes. You need to graduate. And I was like, well, it's too late and I can't afford another semester. My scholarship only lasts four years. So I took all those math and science courses for literally nothing. Like, it's not on my degree and it hasn't come up in my employment. And also, I downshifted linguistics to a minor, so my degree is just English major minor in linguistics. But that. I'm saying that because it doesn't give the whole. It doesn't give the full story because I. I studied a lot. I. I took all the hard cow courses.
- [26:38]
B
Very nerd. Very nerd. I believe. I feel that.
- [26:41]
C
Thank you. I did not party at all in college. I played melee and I studied. That's. That's what I did.
- [26:49]
B
And I'm glad you brought.
- [26:50]
A
You have definitely less CTE than I do then, because that is. That is an insane course load. So I don't.
- [26:56]
C
I didn't even finish it, man. But yeah, I was taking. I was taking, like, 21 credits every semester.
- [27:04]
B
That's insane. Respect, though. Super respect.
- [27:08]
C
There's a lot of stuff I wanted to study, man. I took a bunch of film courses, too. I really like movies. But, like, didn't go. It didn't go toward. It didn't go towards anything. Yeah, yeah. Like, I also.
- [27:20]
B
Good.
- [27:21]
C
Like, when you take linguistics, a lot of people have Like a few pet languages that they also enjoy. Like, like, I took two levels of American Sign Language asl, but I did not go through with it because it was getting too hard and I was like, I don't have time to study this and study my major. So it was, it was getting to the levels where I started to need, like, serious time investment.
- [27:45]
B
Man.
- [27:46]
C
Nice. Good job.
- [27:47]
B
That's incredible.
- [27:49]
A
Thank you. I learned from Bill.
- [27:53]
B
Jake also signed to the camera, by the way. So you audio listeners, you had a rewatch stream now to see what Jake says. Signed at True.
- [28:00]
C
I, I. As part of my asl, I was given a sign language name by a deaf person. But that was before I transitioned. So I'm not gonna. I would like a different one. So I'm gonna need to retake sign language at some point or get tutored in it.
- [28:18]
A
That's my sign nickname. Boy.
- [28:24]
C
I know. Yeah.
- [28:28]
B
But so earlier you mentioned melee and a lot of people are huge. Like one of the. What is it? A couple questions. All hit at gaming stuff. Yeah, so you've already mentioned melee, so can you like briefly sort of walk us through the gaming side? Because, you know, people have really been excited about that.
- [28:45]
C
My competitive gaming background. Okay, what is melee? Super Smash Brothers Melee for the Nintendo GameCube. Yeah, I don't play it anymore and everybody has gotten way too good at that game. But I used to be able to hang and nowadays my fighting game. I play a lot of fighting games now, but the one I'm most competitive with is Tekken, which I've been playing since Tekken 7. And now we're on Tekken 8. I really, really like Tekken and I. There's. There's some questions that people are going to ask, like how does, how does it relate to robot fighting? So I'll wait to get to those questions because I honestly think I can explain it pretty well. But yeah, fighting games are my favorite alongside one versus one puzzle games.
- [29:30]
A
So this just has like cult following. Like, like Smash does.
- [29:34]
B
I mean, because Tekken is.
- [29:37]
C
Tekken is new. So there's Tekken. Tekken 8 came out like a year and a half ago, I think. So it doesn't really have like a cult following. It. It. Okay, it's spelled T. Yeah, you got it.
- [29:47]
B
He got there. He got there.
- [29:49]
C
If you. I, I don't necessarily recommend that anyone search this because I don't like. It's not like I don't want the spheres to overlap, but I sort of do have a slightly different Persona when it comes to competitive video Games. My. My tag is gaming Anya. Like, gaming on you. Which I got. Which I. Which I got. No, don't Google it. There might be images of me. That's okay. But like,
- [30:15]
B
but all right, good.
- [30:17]
C
That's like. That's. That's like my tag. That is the Persona that I game under. Yeah, it's. It's an old funk song, but.
- [30:25]
A
Crazy.
- [30:26]
C
Yeah, there. I'm more of a villain. Not like a. Not like a. Not like a evil villain. You'd have to look up gaming Anya Tekken and see, I'm the first. I'm the first result anyway. Yeah, there's pictures of me at tournaments and stuff.
- [30:41]
A
Insane. Can I show this? Can I show this?
- [30:44]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [30:46]
A
Locked in.
- [30:48]
C
Those are some old picks. So I look a lot better. But yeah, I am. I am locked in. That one in particular was a really good set. I do a lot of online tournaments. There's a lot of footage that. There's a lot of footage that isn't on YouTube and stuff. Because I changed my name a lot to be funny. I also, I also went under the name. I've gone. I've gone under a lot of different names. I went under Desiccated Moldy Mummy for a while.
- [31:12]
A
Yeah.
- [31:12]
C
You pulled up my, My Start GG page, which is a list of every tournament I've ever done. I haven't been doing. I haven't been doing as well recently.
- [31:20]
A
Okay.
- [31:21]
C
But I. But it's. I, you know, I'm full time employed.
- [31:24]
A
You.
- [31:24]
C
There's.
- [31:24]
A
There's values you get. Yeah, you gotta pick something out of 63.
- [31:31]
C
That's not.
- [31:33]
B
I'm.
- [31:34]
C
That's notable.
- [31:35]
A
I'm writing home about that.
- [31:36]
C
When I, When I said a slump, I meant a slot. I meant a slump of like a month.
- [31:42]
A
You have done so many of those. Good lord.
- [31:45]
C
Yeah. So there's. There's online tournaments and there's offline tournaments. And offline. The online tournaments can be way harder because, like, everybody in North America, they're usually free to enter, and everybody who in North America who has the time is going to enter them. Yeah, that was, that was a CT GamerCon, the one you're hovering over. That was a big one that I won March of last year.
- [32:04]
B
Oh, congratulations. All right.
- [32:05]
A
You said ct. I heard CTE gamer.
- [32:10]
B
Sorry.
- [32:10]
C
It is, it is when I win.
- [32:12]
A
Yeah.
- [32:14]
C
You know, fighting games can involve a lot of like coin flip situations and rock, paper, scissors situations. So, like, you play a lot of those online tournaments, like, they're not always the biggest judge of skill. With LAG involved. But offline is sort of like the real test of how things go. And I'm proud. I'm proud of my offline performance.
- [32:33]
B
I feel that I was.
- [32:36]
C
I was brief. I was briefly sponsored by an esports organization that no longer exists. Shout out. Shout out to crowns of valor. Haven't heard from the guy who runs that in months. And he kind of. He goes to all of us. But. Oh, yeah, there's a. There's a question later about mystery game, which I'll explain later. But not only am I a known Tekken player, I'm a known mystery gamer.
- [32:59]
A
What is. Oh, wow. Mystery gamer.
- [33:02]
C
Mystery game is a bracket that gets run at these larger fighting game tournaments where it's not just like, oh, you're going to sit down and play a rent. You're not going to sit down and play a random fighting game for the whole tournament. It's a different game every round of the tournament. And they're not all fighting games. Sometimes. Sometimes they're like racing games or it's like play this puzzle game for the Atari or like you're gonna one versus one each other and miss Pac Man. Or you're gonna like.
- [33:27]
A
It's.
- [33:27]
C
It's literally random and the. It's. Oh, my God. It's my favorite thing in the world.
- [33:32]
A
We played burial card in our frat once.
- [33:37]
C
Yeah, man.
- [33:37]
A
Very similar experience.
- [33:39]
C
It literally is. All right. You to take off my search D page because I don't like that the picture on top of mine and puzzle. Like, take that away. That is true. That is like a threat.
- [33:49]
A
Sorry. It's not. I'm. I don't have it live.
- [33:53]
C
I don't condone. I don't. I don't condone that thing that I put up like two years ago and forgot about.
- [33:58]
A
Impossible.
- [34:00]
C
Yeah. But like, you know, there's a lot of. A lot of results that I have on these online tournaments that are, you know, I got home from work and I didn't warm up and I just decided to sit down. But then there's a lot of offline tournaments that I'm like super proud of.
- [34:12]
A
And this one says, you won a hundred bucks.
- [34:16]
C
Yeah, I did. I gotta. Actually, that's. That's sitting in my Maturino from like three years ago. And Maturino is a website where like, you win these online tournaments and they kind of disperse payment from those websites and I gotta. I gotta go get like 600 out of Maturino.
- [34:31]
B
Oh, is it gonna be to fund something else? Very interesting. Like a potential 12 pound turbofine.
- [34:36]
C
It's gonna. It's gonna be funding, getting elaborate clown makeup for Halloween and then. And then it's gonna be Motors for £12 for Julian.
- [34:45]
A
Yeah.
- [34:46]
B
Honestly, pretty good idea. I like it a lot.
- [34:48]
C
It's the whole.
- [34:50]
A
So. So this factors into your combat career. This is so your. Your turbofiend is a logical extension of. Of what's been going on, is what you're saying.
- [35:01]
C
You mean, like, it's logical that I would go from fighting games to robots.
- [35:06]
B
Yeah.
- [35:06]
A
To combat robotics.
- [35:08]
C
Yeah. I gotta be honest with you. I probably wouldn't be doing this if not for my brother.
- [35:12]
B
My brother.
- [35:13]
C
My brother. Like an honesty about, like, my competitor's journey. I like BattleBots, but I didn't like it as much as him growing up. He's always been a massive, massive fan.
- [35:23]
A
And we.
- [35:24]
C
We played. Yeah, we played battle. We. We played Battlebot games. We played Robot Arena 2. But I also wasn't like an engineering type. And Julian is, like, flat out smarter with tech stuff than I am. And when he started going to nhrl, it was like he. I think he did one tournament without me, maybe two. But he was like, you gotta come. And I was like, okay. I didn't have anything going on, so I joined him and have been competing with him since. But I. I gotta be honest. Like, I probably wouldn't have known to, like, seek out a kit. Like how he did. Like, how he was like, oh, my God, NHRL exists and it's close by me. I gotta start doing this. And I was along for the ride. It's lucky how that happened. But, you know, Julian is my. Not only my brother, he's my best friend forever. So like I said, I probably it is logical that I go from fighting games to this, but still, the. The other side of the logic is I do it because my brother does it.
- [36:24]
B
That's so sweet.
- [36:25]
A
It's really sweet.
- [36:27]
B
Speaking of Julian, he has two questions for you. One.
- [36:31]
C
We're going to jump into questions. Yes. Okay. Awesome.
- [36:35]
A
All right, can we break before questions? Sorry, it's been 30 minutes. Sorry.
- [36:39]
B
Oh, questions.
- [36:40]
A
Sorry, I. I didn't mean to interrupt. We breaking the new questions.
- [36:44]
B
All right, we can break into your question.
- [36:46]
A
All right, thank you all. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. All right, let's pause. Thank you, guys. We're gonna be back with questions after the break. This is Jake.
- [36:59]
B
Foreign.
- [37:04]
A
Welcome back from the break, guys. We're here with Emaan Turbofiend builder commentator extraordinaire, fighting game expert.
- [37:14]
C
I guess as we've learned Tonight I'd say expert. I'd say expert.
- [37:20]
A
Expert. Okay. Well the match history seems to suggest though as well we reviewed.
- [37:26]
C
I play, I do play everything. I'm just really good at Tekken, you know.
- [37:31]
B
Yeah. Speaking of Tekken, Alexpic had a question about Tekken. How good are you at Tekken?
- [37:36]
C
A couple people did. So how good am I? How good am I? There is debate that pretty much most people in the know agree on that. So there's like 40ish characters in Tekken. I am the best in North America at my character Victor.
- [37:54]
B
Whoa.
- [37:55]
C
And like there's, there's ways, there's ways to deliberate about. It's like I'm not the highest rank and it's like, okay, but the highest ranked guy I coach and he's never beaten me. There's like, oh, well you don't have like the best placement but like I have kind of the most placements of any Victor. And like, oh, well, this and that. But like the other victors agree that I'm the best one. So I'm putting that feather in my cap.
- [38:20]
B
Nice. I respect it. I respect it. So then we're kind of mentioning it earlier as well and like how we related the games between fighting games and then robot combat. Obviously mentioned earlier with like Julian really big inspiration getting into it. So I guess sort of going back to that point and then moving beyond that point. Would you say that some of those gaming skills have been very helpful in growing the robot stuff like the hand eye coordination or even just like tactics during games strategy? How would you say those two have been overlapping?
- [38:56]
C
I touched on this in actually a short for nhrl. They did interview me about this. They were like, how, how does, how does it relate. How does. How does your fighting game experience like correlate to combat robots? I think the biggest thing. Well, like there's the obvious hand eye coordination. It's like I'm. I'm insane on any controller. Like a transmitter for robots that obviously they're. It's not the same. The sticks are different. But that's a video game controller. No matter how you slice it, like you hold it a controller, it's. You're playing with your thumbs and if you have buttons and switches on the top, you got those going. Like my hand eye coordination is good. Obviously I'm really good at video games. Sorry. Like I get, I get to be egotistical for a moment about this. But, but the, the biggest thing in my opinion is thinking on your feet. So like it matters more in robots, honestly. But In a fighting game, it's like somebody might have 40 things that they might do. Like if you're playing a classic game like Street Fighter, Immortal Combat, you're standing this far away from each other. He could decide to walk up, you could decide to jump at you, you could decide to throw a fireball, he could decide to throw a spinning kick that goes across the screen. All of that stuff adds up. And the, the things they do lead into the other things they do. And not only are you trying to figure out what they're about to do next, you're trying to prepare what you're about to do next, that those changes, things go on, you know what I mean? Like, oh, he's throwing three fireballs, he probably isn't going to throw another. Or he probably is going to throw another. In robots, it's like, oh, he backs up, he backs up too much. He's probably gonna back up if we, he's probably gonna put his back to the wall if we, you know, have a clash and we send each other flying. Especially like weapon to weapon or vertiver or whatever. It matters more in robots because it's not a video game with a, with a set amount of options and it's physics based. You know, anything can happen. If I hit somebody with Turbo Fiend and I'm trying to like, you know, juggle them, I'm trying to hit them again. I have to be really quick on my feet for trying to think about and be ready for where they're gonna land and be able to like, there has to be, and there has to be no thought process behind. Like, okay, turn, go. Like it just, it has to be really automatic and you know, that's, it's, there's, there's the reading your opponent thing, but like the playing the game itself, fighting the robot itself, a lot of it is just like, can you do these things automatically? Do you have, do you have an autopilot that dictates, like, I'm going to stay square and point my weapon and fork at the opponent. I'm going to turn on a dime if I have to. I'm going to go forward and to the side according to my gyro. I'm going to be conscious of things happening in the match. My weapon tire got chewed up, my drive is different. I'm going to be conscious of that. I'm going to, I'm going to know in the moment, like, I don't have practice driving with my tire chewed up, but I know how, I know how different my movement is going to be. And I'm going to be ready for like, you know, I go forward. I'm not going to go forward as smoothly or as fast or I'm going to be like my drive is listing because my tires out of whack or something happened to it. My, the pinion shaft got knocked around. Maybe my drive is intermittent. All of that are things you have to be ready for and you have to adjust not only what you're doing with your hands, but with your game plan on the fly. Last event, I said this on commentary. There was a lot of times when a robot's drive side would go down, just one drive side and they were crab walking at each other. You don't. Nobody really trains for that. Nobody really trains for like I'm going to turn off one of my motors and get to driving with gyro on and try to hit something. But that happens. What, are you going to be ready for it? Are you going to be ready to be like, here's how my hands operate the crab walking. Here's how my mental game changes for the crab walking, here's how my strategy changes and stuff like that. You know, it starts to get, it starts to get nebulous as I talk about it. But I think one of the reasons why me and Julian are so good at combat robots with such little time investment compared to some other builders is because we're good at competitors and we're good at figuring out like big picture macro ideas really quickly. So it's like I might not know everything about the physics behind a horizontal and I might not be able to like calculate what their force and their bite is like just by looking at a weapon. But I can like take all the big picture ideas into account and mix it with like my fast on my feet driving abilities and be like, okay, it's gonna go down like this and have really good prediction and react prediction and reaction skills. They're two separate things, but they both tie into each other and they're both really important. Predictiveness and reactiveness and like those big picture ideas. Okay, so I'm kind of getting in the weeds and you can tell them a little bit.
- [43:35]
A
No, no, this is dope. This is sick. This is sick. This is so sick.
- [43:38]
C
No, you're, you're speaking to me.
- [43:40]
A
Fundamental level, like I get it. I'm on board. I'm so locked in.
- [43:45]
C
The difference between Tekken and other fighting games is that Tekken is 3D. There's, there's other 3D fighting games, but Tekken is the only big one right now in Street Fighter, you can only move. You have the X axis and the Y axis, so you can move back and forth and up and down. When you jump in Tekken, you can also move side to side into the foreground and background movement is also free form. So it's not like, oh, I sidestep. And it takes a third of a second for the sidestep to complete. You can cancel movement at any point. So you can like move forward and backward on a dime, side to side on a dime that drastically. Also, move lists are way bigger. So as where a Street Fighter character might only have like 25 moves or so, a Tekken character can have 100 to 200. Yes. And that, that, that accounts for like their move list, but also things everybody can do. Like if you're on the ground, there's like 20. Like if you're on the ground, a Street Fighter, the only thing you can do is get up. Basically you can get up or you can do a reversal. In Tekken, you can get up, kick low, you can toe kick them, you can get up, kick mid, you can spring kick and like try to get up off the ground. You can do a kip up, which is like an acrobatic thing where you try to like get on your feet quickly. You can tech roll to the left, you can tech roll to the right. There's so many things you can do. So you can be as prepared as you want. But like the thinking on your feet and the big picture idea part is more important there than ever. It's not like he's gonna sweep me, it's. He's gonna do a low move to me and I have no idea which one it is. And you, you gotta be ready for kind of whatever. So you're thinking less about like the micro ideas and more about the big picture ideas. That, that is, in my opinion, why I'm better at Tekken than I have been at every other game that I've played. It's also why I was good at Melee versus like Street Fighter because of how free form Melee is. It's just that that was over a decade ago now and Melee has gotten a lot more optimized since then. Tekken is easier to optimize, but it's, it's, it's still pretty unoptimized. And it's like I can get away with not doing my homework or not knowing the properties of every move because you can't really be expected to know perfectly the properties of every move. Once you get to like the top, top, top level, which I haven't broken into yet. I have beaten some of the top players in the world a handful of times, but I'm not consistent enough to beat them every time and like, hang with the truly like big dogs. Winning the Evo tournaments in Vegas and, you know, traveling and stuff like that. I'm a big dog, but I'm not the biggest of dogs, you know what I mean? But the, the, the macro strategy and like, the big picture ideas are really important to how I drive robots and it's really important to how I play Tekken too. It's also why I think I'm a good coach in Tekken, because I do coach people and like, people get in the weeds about micro stuff. He's like, oh man, his jab is. Has this so and so frame advantage in tracking. What do I do? I'm like, man, just duck it. Like, just dip under it. You know what I mean? Like, you're thinking too hard. Like, if, you know, if you know something's coming, you know he's going to do this, you know he's going to do that. Think about the big picture of what you're going to do. And a concept that comes up in fighting games a lot is layers. Like, there's a, like layer one, we're just going to do our moves to each other. Layer two is like, we know what layer one is. So we're operating on like some level of anticipation for each other. Layer three is like, we know that there's anticipation and then it becomes like a sort of like cyclical. I know that you know that I know. So what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do with all that? And then it, then it becomes like a really like advanced, high level game of rock, paper, scissors. We're like, you know, I know that you know that I know that you know that I want to throw rock, so I'm gonna throw paper. That. I don't think the levels of layers go that far for robots because it is so free form. But it is very much like, hey, you know that I'm gonna go forward. What am I gonna do about that? You. I. I know that I know that you know how turbofiend fights. Does that affect my game plan at all? I think you see a lot of this with how people decide to do their box rushes. I think that's like the. I think that's the easiest. I think that's the easiest exam. That's the easiest example that I can point to. Whereas, like, you know, obviously, obviously you want to score first blood. You want to get the first hit. Blake, you know that they're going to go straightforward. You think they're going to go straightforward. She turn a corner. Should you wait a little bit? Should you. Should you, like, wait a split second turn, go and try to. Try to get around them. Try to get like a lucky wheel hit. There's. It's, It's. It's a lot of rock, paper, scissors games you're gonna play. And I think the box rush is like the, the best example of, like, are you gonna throw rock? Are you just gonna drive straight? Are you gonna try to get fancy with it? You're gonna try to.
- [48:21]
A
Something every time. Slap and rock down. Let's go.
- [48:26]
C
Eruption. Eruption is always.
- [48:30]
A
He's always gonna do it. He did it against hook him.
- [48:33]
B
He did it.
- [48:34]
A
He does it every time.
- [48:36]
C
We call those robots rock throwers. And that's funny, we call them that in fighting games. And I guess. I guess it's true of robots as well. And there's definitely paper throwers and there's definitely scissors throwers, but interesting. Yeah, box rushes. Box rush as hard as you can. Every time somebody says, fight, robot, fight. That's. That's a rock thrower. Interesting.
- [48:57]
A
Okay, I'm gonna start. That's.
- [49:00]
C
I got a new word.
- [49:01]
B
I love this.
- [49:01]
C
I might.
- [49:02]
B
I love the framing of it.
- [49:03]
C
Yeah, I might have. I might have explained it a little too hard without examples in front of me. Maybe I'll make my own YouTube video where I pull up some examples. But if I had. If I had a whiteboard back there, I would have drawn something. But I just moved into this apartment, so I don't have one yet, but I would have been like. I would have been doing like Madden diagrams with like the circles and the arrows and stuff like that. But yeah, that's. That is, in my opinion, the biggest way in which fighting games relate. Or at least that. That's the biggest way that I can explain why my skill set relates not.
- [49:35]
B
This is actually the kind of thing I. I see as well. I really enjoy it. Like, one thing I really enjoy doing is playing a little bit of my case, Dragon Ball Fighters, because I'm much more of a light lightweight on fighting games by doing that before fights because it gives you an idea.
- [49:49]
C
That game is so hard. That game is so hard.
- [49:52]
A
No, it's.
- [49:53]
B
It's fine. You hit him with the beams and you're able to kill. You just get some. Get some touch of death loops and you're gonna Be fine.
- [49:58]
C
But guys, he's downplaying it. It's a tag fighter. Tag fighters are like a total nightmare for me.
- [50:04]
B
They're great. It's fine, I promise, I promise. But, but, but what I will say is because, because the nature of fighting games play that level of thought. Because whenever I'm going into like a ranked match online, you always think, okay, well, we know each other's characters enough to know what the moves are going to be. And we know that if you want to, you have this other two characters, you can tag in with it, they can combo a certain way with it. And so you kind of have to read more. The tendencies, like the biggest teachers. And I think that's like even you get back to the idea for fighting robots. Like, reviewing the tape, you sort of learn tendencies of people. Like you mentioned, like, Brian likes the box office of the Eruption. You're trying to learn him. Not because you think, well, I know what Eruption. I don't know what Eruption can do. Eruption, big beater, punch hard. But if you know what he's going to do, like you're sort of layer one known there, you're layer two, then you're layer three, like playing that mutual game. That's when you get it. So I love that framing of it because the exact kind of thing I always think about going into fights. And it's one of those benefits where I'm sure people over time study tape or have been able to fight a lot of times begin learning that about it. And I think fighting games, like the most dynamic way of showing it, especially, like you can bring it with you before a fight. And I can sort of, let's use like sort of train your brain to do that too. So I love the framing of that demon. That was, that was so good.
- [51:24]
C
I love the way you framed it too, because it's like you're playing Street Fighter. I'm gonna use like a classic example, like everybody knows or most people know, like Zangief, the big wrestler guy, he was in. He was in Wreck It Ralph. So if you've seen like he's. He's been in. He's been in a popular animated film. You know what he wants to do? He wants to grab you. He's a wrestler. He wants to get close and grab you. He cannot do anything to you if you're far away from him. Like you, you know, the archetype of grappler. That's what his archetype is. Robots have archetypes too. Like, you know how avert fights you know how a horizontal fights, you know how a top attack robot fights. And then you get further into the weeds of like, okay, there's, there's verts, there's two wheel drive wide verts, like turbofiend, and then there's compact four wheel drive verts like links. They fight differently. There's, there's different top attack robots. There's hammer saws, there's power of friendship. Imagine those as like different characters. And everybody, everybody gets to build their character in this, in this, in this sport. So there's that layer and then there's the layer of like the person themselves. And everybody is going to drive that character differently. If I, if you hand me Eruption, I'm not going to drive it like Brian. And part of that is the experience. But even, even if I had driven it in the box for like 10 hours before a tournament, I'm still not going to drive it like Brian. Everybody drives, everybody's going to drive differently. It's like style your thought process behind strategy and stuff like that. And a lot of this, a lot of this comes down to homework, right? Like we do homework in robots. We, we watch who's going to be in our pools. You know, you, who, who was going to show up at nhrl is basically a known quantity before the event. You watch videos and stuff. You, you look at cads of bots if it's available or very least a picture of the robot. And I guess this feeds into one of the questions that is for me, which is Gwen's question. It's like I was gonna ask that.
- [53:18]
B
Yeah, good one.
- [53:19]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [53:20]
C
So Gwen was like, you've gone to a lot of tournaments with little to no driving practice or experience on your robots. I forget how this is, I forget how this is worded. So I'm gonna actually, I'm gonna pull up all the questions and I'm gonna answer them.
- [53:35]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead. Why is everyone reacting with Christmas trees? I'm confused.
- [53:39]
C
That's just, that's, that's me. And then, then some of the questions are about Christmas. So we'll get into that. But I'm gonna get there.
- [53:45]
B
We'll get there.
- [53:46]
A
I'm gonna answer, man.
- [53:47]
C
Why is it, do you guys mind if I do this? I read all these at work. So how about I answer Gwen's, I answer Gwen's question and then I answer them all rapid fire.
- [53:56]
A
Sure.
- [53:57]
B
You got this.
- [53:57]
A
We, we're, I'm all about.
- [53:59]
B
We're here, we're here to serve you.
- [54:00]
A
I have one ad which is. I was just at a. Like, a corporate event, and we brought our robots to it, and someone asked me, like, what makes. Like, how much of it is design and how much of it is driving? And I had a really hard time answering that question. And I kind of said to him, I'm, like. Not to sound like a dork, but you kind of got to have, like, a killer instinct. But you put it very. You. You had to. You put it very well. It's a relationship between perception and reaction and how quickly you can tie those two things together. That's a fascinating way to frame it, and I. I really appreciate that ad that is. That has changed the way that I think about what I'm doing.
- [54:43]
C
Dude, you're so. You're so right about the killer instinct thing. Like, there can't be a second thought of, like, is the robot. Is the robot dead? What damage is there? Like, it. You just have to be like, go, go, go, go. And that's why I. I do encourage people who are competing in the sport to, like, understand that, you know, these robots do cost money, and we. We are trying to have as much fun as possible. But, like, once you put me in the cage, like, it's not like, oh, I see red. I'm just. I'm just trying to win. It's like, I'm going. I'm going until the fight's over, and, like, unless you're, like, really clearly knocked out. And even then I'm gonna hit you until the fight's over. Like, I'm not gonna, like, let you breathe for a little bit and then see how you're doing and then come back to it. And that's.
- [55:24]
B
That's.
- [55:25]
C
I probably developed that killer instinct for martial arts, right? Like, I don't hit you and then back up and then see how you're doing. It's like, I hit you, and then I keep hitting you until one of us is on the ground. But anyway, Gwen asked me, hi, Dima. Oftentimes, you. Me specifically, end up rocking up to a competition the morning of and driving your particular robot for the first time that day. Sibling rivalry. Turbo friend slash Fiend Boost was given as an example. What tips do you have to share for picking up different robots so quickly? Also, what's my hair care routine? So, tips for picking up robots quickly. It's kind of a hard one, but I think when you're driving the moat. Besides, like, Julian will tell me how to maintain the bot. Slash, help him maintain it, because he really is chief engineer, and he knows what he's doing 10 times more than me. Like, like I am clued into the design of these robots and we do like, I do have tons of input on how a bot, how our bots are designed, what decisions we make, stuff like that. But he really is chief engineer and we go like, we, we spitball ideas together, we brainstorm and we think this is going to work, this is not going to work. And in a lot of our iteration we've thrown stuff at the wall and seen what's going to stick and then not stick and like abandon it. But he's, he's the designer, he's the engineer and like I think for driving like picking up a robot quickly, dialing in your turn speed, being aware of your acceleration with weapon off and weapon on, being aware of what weapon speeds you want to spin at and what the effects of a hit at that speed is going to be, that gives you basically all you need to know to develop that like layer one. What do I want to do? Game plan. And then everything, everything after that emanates from that game plan. Like if you know, if you know how, how to move the stick to turn your robot. I move the stick this much and the robot turns this much. I move the stick that much and it turns that much. If you have a handle on that, you can navigate the cage space effectively no matter what the other robot's doing. Like you send them flying, you know how much to turn and you just like, you just lock it in and you, you like have the, the brain to hand memory even if it's not perfectly autopilot muscle memory. You just know like turn this much. Go. Accelerate. Go. Don't accelerate too much if it's going to flip me over. You know. Happens with turbo fiend. He is deceptively like for as simple as the two wheel drive vert robot is, it's deceptively hard to play with. And sibling rivalry was is a multi bot that me and Julian ran at Masty that was a beater using Seth's scarab drum as one of the halves. And it's, it's not been an NHRO yet. And the, the other half, the other half is a modular robot between a lifter, a soldering iron and a mako saw. And sweet the, the like I've never used a soldering iron before. Who has on a robot? So I didn't have. There was no like idea of like oh, if I am digging it in, here's how long it takes to melt or whatever. So all of that was Based on, like, my quick on my feet instinct, which I, you know, it's, it's. It's hard to say, here's how you develop it, but like, being aware of quick on your feet instinct is really important. So for that robot, it was like, I get somebody into the corner. I dig. I dig my iron in. What the hell now? Or like, I don't really know how much the lifter functions. I just know I just have flipped it around in the test box a couple times.
- [58:56]
A
I.
- [58:56]
C
You just have to. You just have to like, be ready and be ready to be quick on your feet. It's like I lift them up or here's how much lifting it takes to flip them or here's how it's going to interact if I just sort of like, run my lifter into their weapon. A lot of that comes with time. At this point. I've done. I've done plenty of events. Not as much as some other people, but I, I have plenty of fights under my belt. And like, some of those things you just know, and they become automatic and you just know, like, if I run my weapon into. Into here, this is going to happen. But the other half of that is I don't know. I don't know these robots day of. Or like, I have very little experience with them until. Until that day, I have a really bad habit of not doing my homework. And this goes for NHRL and Tekken and life and. And school. School. When I was. School, when I was in school, I have a bad habit of not doing my homework and not getting my driving practice in. Don't be like me practice driving your robot. But the other half is like, I don't need to because I'm so good at being quick on my feet that I am like, okay, here's. Here's how much soldering iron it takes to melt you. Here's how many seconds of soldering iron in your robot it takes to melt you. Here's how, here's how slow I should drop this. The Mako arm. If I'm. If it's spinning at full speed, do I want to, like, slap it in with as much bite as possible or do I want to try to dig it in slowly? I just am quick on my feet enough to know that. I guess I should have answered this earlier, but, like, I'm a. I'm a business developer and salesperson by trade, specifically business development right now, but I did cut my teeth on sales and like, being, Being quick on your feet is flat out the most important aspect of that job. It just flat out is because you're taught you're.
- [60:32]
B
Who.
- [60:32]
C
No matter how many people you talk to a day or, like, who you're trying to sell to, you have no idea what that person's personality is unless you already know them. And you have no idea what their mood is like that day. You have no idea what questions are going to throw at you. You have no idea, like, how they're going to react, the answers to those questions, and how you're supposed to spin everything. You just have to, like, be quick on your feet. And there's. It's like a. It's like a live puzzle that's shifting, and you want to answer the puzzle of getting them to buy your product or getting them to partner, getting them to strike a partnership contract with you or whatever. Like, being quick on your feet is the most important thing. And it's. It's a really hard thing to train, but it is trainable. Sorry, that. That question was really long, but it kind of. It kind of fed into my other answers.
- [61:15]
A
Yeah, no, totally.
- [61:17]
C
She does say, secondly, what's your hair care routine? I just shampoo and condition. I shampoo too much. I basically shampoo every shower. It is. I condition, and then I scrunch dry it because my hair is curly. I just, like, scrunch the water out once, and then it air dries for about an hour when I drive to work. That's all I do. I don't use any product, and I do have. I do have frizz problems as days go on, but I like to. I like to keep it simple, and I don't like having to, like, dig product out of my hair after, like, months of using it. And my hair is super finicky. So when I try to use curl. When I try to use curl products, sometimes it gets blown out, and I look like I'm from, like, the 1800s.
- [61:56]
A
Okay, so, okay. Why, Chris, what's. What's going on with the Christmas.
- [62:01]
C
We're gonna. I don't understand. We're gonna. Okay, I'll. I'll answer that first. But it is a question I'm gonna get to because I was gonna do that thing where I go through all the questions one by one.
- [62:09]
A
Okay. Okay, Dude.
- [62:10]
C
I just. I just have the Christmas spirit. Like. Okay, so first off, I do believe in.
- [62:15]
B
I do.
- [62:16]
C
I do believe in magic a little bit. And hilarious.
- [62:21]
A
What level of magic? Like, flight?
- [62:24]
C
No, but hilariously. Hilariously. When I won my dumpster, Kyle said, like, point one, magic is real. And the underdog can win. Like when I won that dumpster. That was underdog magic, you know what I mean? That's a kind of magic. So I personally am proficient in holiday magic, especially Christmas magic, wish magic, like making a wish, puppet magic, like voodoo dolls. But I don't claim to be a practitioner of hoodoo, which is a real religion for some people, and blood magic, which is mostly just like when I get my blood drawn, I grow my blood black my blood back. But I think everybody does that.
- [63:03]
A
I pass out usually, but.
- [63:05]
C
Yeah, well, I don't pass out because I'm proficient in blood magic. I don't faint ever.
- [63:10]
B
Good Jake.
- [63:10]
A
It's, it's always funny because seeing me faint is like a spectacle because like I'm usually. It's like old people, you know, so they always get all the nurses to come in and look at my limp body.
- [63:24]
B
Always funk status now.
- [63:27]
C
But go on Julian's question, his robot question is, would you consider commentating full time over competing if you were given the opportunity? Yeah, that's, that's a dicey one, man. Because like I love robots and in the capacity I have commentated, I was still able to be down there for Julian's fights. Like I was able to go coach him for Mako that he was running that day and for. I wasn't, I wasn't caveside, but I was watching for when he was piloting Boost for some of the event. But I. Boost is loose. But I.
- [64:01]
A
Sorry.
- [64:02]
C
Like, like, not like nonchalant. Like of course Boost is loose. But I, I don't know. I really love nhrl and I really love working at and for nhrl. But you know, I'm a competitor at heart, so that's, that's, that's, that's a really difficult question to answer. So I'm just going to leave it like, I'm just going to set my answer to like na right now. Like I'm just gonna. This was the sat. I'm just leaving that one blank. You don't mind? I, I would consider anything, but I love competing so much so I don't know. I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say like, oh yeah, absolutely I would. This way or that way? Because that's, that's also not like something that like I'm like discussing. So it's hard to be like, even in this hypothetical, like, would you give up competing? I don't want to. I don't want to do this hypothetical. Cool. His non robot question is, why'd you eat the Entire chicken parmesan, which is a story he won't shut up about. When I was, when I was in like seventh grade or something. When I was in like seventh grade or eighth grade, he was already graduated from school and he was working at a sports good sporting goods store called Olympia Sports and he microwaved a chicken parmesan family sized dinner and left it in the microwave for like, for what he planned to be like an eight hour shift. And I ate it because it was sitting in the microwave for several hours and I didn't know that he was going to microwave it and then come back to it in eight hours because why would he. That's not. I don't think that's my fault.
- [65:29]
A
That is insane behavior.
- [65:31]
B
That, that does feel a bit psychopathic.
- [65:33]
A
Yeah. Why would he leave it in the microwave?
- [65:35]
C
Yeah, because he wanted to come back to it. So maybe eight hours later.
- [65:40]
A
So that's gross. After.
- [65:42]
C
To be fair, I'm not giving him his side of the story, which is it was the last one. Maybe he didn't have time to eat it. Maybe he simply forgot and just wanted to come back to it. And then when he came back from his shift it was gone. But I'm. If anything I'm the hero of this story because I saved him from food poisoning. Because you're not supposed to leave out chicken for eight hours.
- [65:58]
B
So bad.
- [65:59]
C
Yeah, it will.
- [66:00]
A
Thinking. Yeah, this is. I'm. I'm on your side with this one. This you shouldn't ask slander going on here.
- [66:07]
C
He shouldn't ask that question because.
- [66:08]
B
Yeah,
- [66:11]
C
I get to paint myself in a positive light.
- [66:13]
A
Yeah. No way. It was eight hours. He's actively fighting back in chat right now. I don't know if you've got the chat open.
- [66:21]
C
No, but I don't have it.
- [66:23]
A
I've got it open on my phone because I'm.
- [66:27]
C
Ignorance is bliss.
- [66:28]
A
I like my laser. It was an afternoon shift with the.
- [66:32]
C
Does that mean it's BS because I got home from school like 3 and you weren't home for several hours later.
- [66:40]
A
It's unsafe after two hours.
- [66:43]
C
I'm not entertaining this. We're moving on Matt Landry from Team Pandemonium White Yeti says, what's something you like about announcing and something you hate about it? I don't really hate anything about it. I don't really hate anything about announcing. I guess the only thing I hate is like, I don't know, like I've commentated outside of NHRL with in fighting games, although not to the degree that I'VE done at nhrl, which is like, you know, a very high end broadcast production. I've done a lot smaller broadcast productions for fighting games and sometimes people are just impossible to bounce off of. You know what I mean? Like they're either really low energy or they like love to interrupt you. Or like you, you like say now what do you think about that? And they like kind of ignore you. Like so when you're commentating and it's not just you and you're doing it with others, like, you gotta find the rhythm. And I think I'm good at finding the rhythm. But, you know, not everybody is. I don't, I don't mean we're leading
- [67:39]
A
your own interview right now, objectively.
- [67:41]
B
So, yeah, we had the best seats in the house though.
- [67:45]
C
I don't, I don't mean to sound, I don't mean to sound rude about it, but like that, that is, it's not something I hate, but it's like the hardest, it's like the hardest task is like, you know, I just talked about thinking on my feet a lot and part of commentary is thinking on your feet. You know, like, that's a, that's a skill set of like this is happening. What are you going to say about it? You don't have something pre canned because you don't know what's going to happen. The other person might not be as good at thinking on their feet as you, but regardless, something I like about announcing is I like the, I like the filler in between fights when you kind of get to do like a little bit of like, you know, something to keep the audience interested. Where I do talk about these big picture ideas. Like I brought up bug fights when I was commentating NHRL in between matches because it was, it's something that occurs to me when I talk about robots is what is it similar to? And I find it similar to like Beetle Wrestling, which I'm a fan of. I like, I like Japanese Beatles and how they put them in wrestling matches. And Sam was great at bouncing off of that. He was like, it's like, what are you talking about? A little bit. But he was like, no, I see the vision. He's like, they're small and they're really strong for their size and like it's fast movements with like quick kos. And I was like, man, you get it. Plus the, plus the fact that, you know, I, I've never been diagnosed, but I'm pretty sure I'm autistic and I think that I have a tendency to Anthropomorphize bots. I absolutely have a tendency to anthropomorphize bots. Like Turbo Fiend is a little guy to me and so his friend and I kiss them before matches. But like I. You sort of, you could sort of like anthropomorphize or like zoologize robots where they like look and feel like animals a little bit. Especially when you see some of the photographs that like the NHL photographers take in the middle of like they get interactions. Yeah, they get perfect pictures of like these big interactions and clashes and it looks like, it looks like wildlife photography to me, man. And. And then in the station, in the staff room they had that they had Nat Geo playing, which even further reinforces what I'm. What I'm thinking of. So Matt, Matt, also ask, what's something you think you bring to the table that other announcers either don't do or that you feel you do in a different way? So that is, I think what's special about me is like I have a lot of different competitive hobbies and I think big picture about all of them and I think I'm able to relate like big picture concepts from, from like one sport to the other or like from one concept to the other. That I think is like something I've always been good at in sales too, which is like my career, which is like we have these really complicated concepts happening in front of us, really complicated physics concepts, really complicated like driving in competition and repair and explaining how a robot actually functions. And when you're commentating, you're not commentating well, you are talking to like other NHRL builders and competitors because they're going to be watching. But you know who's really watching is like fans at home. That's the bulk of the audience, right, is is non builders. So you have to explain these really difficult or like high level concepts to them easily. And you have to, you have to break it down simply. I think that's what I'm good at. I think that's like. I think a lot of commentators are good at that, but I think my strength is being able to relate it in certain ways. And I think that that happens when I coach too. Like I, when it's. When explaining matchups, I talked about Magic the Gathering earlier. Sometimes matchup matchups in robots can very much feel like matchups in robots. Robots and card games are the same thing. Sometimes like, you know, you bring a hammersaw to an event and the opponent has crazy strong top armor that you just kind of are never going to get through. So you have to play around the fact that you are never going to win off of your basic win condition. They sideboarded against you, basically. For those that. That play card games, like if you're playing like a combo deck. Okay, so I'll rewind even a step further. Mako, for example, is kind of like a combo control deck. It's trying to play the control game with its forks and its width and push you into the corner. And then once it gets you into the corner, it's not trying to. It's not trying to get you into the corner 20 times like a lifter does. It's trying to get you into the corner and then kill you. Trying to kill you in one hit. Which is basically what combo decks do in card games. They try to assemble a combo and win in one turn. It's like. It's like a. It's like a mix. And then there are. There are control combo decks. So they're trying to stop you from what you want to do for some amount of turns. And then while they're doing that, they assemble a combo and just kill you. For those that play magic, Splinter Twin is like the example which is like, it like counters your spells, removes your creatures, and then like, oh, you can't do anything about this. I'm going to make a million creatures and kill you.
- [72:31]
B
Just.
- [72:32]
A
Oh, yeah, sorry, can I cut you off? I'm going to push you a break real quick because it's been a half an hour.
- [72:40]
C
Okay.
- [72:40]
A
Is that okay? Yeah, sorry, I don't mean to cut you off. Let's push a break real quick. And when we get back from the break, I'd like to watch some fights that you found interesting from October.
- [72:56]
C
Okay, Absolutely.
- [72:57]
A
Sound good?
- [72:58]
B
Yes. Okay.
- [73:00]
A
We'll be back with behind the Bots Demon Pasion after the break. Thanks, guys. Hi, all. We're back with Dima Papasian, fighting game expert, robot expert and commentator hashtag Fire Kyle 2026. We're going to be watching some fights from October.
- [73:44]
C
Fights that did not make the stream.
- [73:47]
A
That's right. We're reviewing those rare gems, those little guys, those little nuggets of content that did not make the stream. This one did make the dream, but these two did not make the stream. We got three fights to look at. We're going to be looking at Sievert vs. Leviathan, Prince vs. Happy Birth Slay Interruption vs. Book Em. Yeah, that's right. We're saving the rage bait one for the last one, baby. Let's Go. All right, while that is going on, we, we're gonna have Demon Papasian answering questions from the Discord. Why? So, okay, Sievert versus Leviathan. And both of their weapons went down?
- [74:25]
C
Pretty sure, yeah. I, I, I, I picked this one as a good example of what I was talking about. Like, you practice driving all you want, but you gotta be ready to drive without your weapon when it goes down. And I think that's also a good opportunity to be like, showcase how they approach these decisions, which is, you know, it's a push match, but what does that actually entail? It's not just going, it's not just going forward. And while I do that, and while there might be some blank space during the pins and the, the pushing, I answer all the questions. Rapid fire, one sentence.
- [74:56]
A
Okay. Okay. First off, the wedge on Leviathan is good, but it's a little low. Like you can tell it's for an undercutter. It's not exactly the perfect. That's insane. Oh my gosh.
- [75:13]
C
It's putting in work though, isn't it?
- [75:15]
A
Yeah, it is. It is right now. Yeah.
- [75:19]
C
Look how, look how freaking. Look how huge Leviathan is.
- [75:24]
A
Yeah.
- [75:24]
B
Matches the name.
- [75:26]
A
Hey, I'm gonna be real. If I fought any of the top attack robots, I would have been, I did not have a configuration ready for those. So the wedge is dragging on the left side here, but Julian's able to kind of compensate for that pretty, pretty easily.
- [75:41]
C
Yeah, he's, he's skilled at compensating for drive. Okay, questions, questions. 12. Brian CT from Titanium White asked 12 pound turbo fiend when the 12 pound turbo line is going to be called Turbo Freak. And the whenever I am confident in the data of how much TPU we're going to use in 12s, that's when I will pull the trigger on that. Because Leviathan is a massive TPU robot, We got a lot of data.
- [76:08]
A
Swap it up.
- [76:09]
C
I love Alex Pick. Unrelated, have you thought about any robot designs you'd like to design or build without your brother? Yeah, there's a stupid robot that I want to do that is codenamed Joust in my head. It's dual action. It's dual action lifter. And I don't mean just up and down. I mean it's two lifters on either side and one side is forked and one side is a wedge. It's kind of pointless, but I really like the idea anyway. Evan from Robojacket Anxiety, what is your least favorite fighting game that you've played instead of least Favorite. I'm just gonna say worst and the answer it's my favorite worst is Taofeng something of the Fist of the Lotus or some shit for the original Xbox. It's not very good, but I love it to death. Seth from Just Cause Robotics My question is somebody who's exclusive exclusively a PC gamer, how do you feel about Mortal Kombat? Even though he spelled it with a C. Any favorite games that aren't side scroller fighting games? Mortal Kombat kind of gets dogged on by other fighting game communities because it's the only American made fighting game and it shows. I'm a really big fan of it. I think it's deceptively good and I still play it every now and then. I like it. Any favorite games that aren't side scrollers fighters? Yeah, tons. I'm a big gamer though I haven't as much time recently. I love a lot of indies so right now my answer is going to be. My answers are Cruelty Squad and Dwarf Fortress and Age of Mythology. The RTS J from TD Chief. It says TD Chief propagandist. What's your favorite Christmas song? Sleigh Ride with no vocals by far. Neko Mizuki says, if you could take the gaming mystery bracket that I mentioned earlier and make it a combat robots comp, what is your vision for that? What would that be? It would be something where the format is different every fight. So you might have to do a drag race or you might have to do. You might have to do like a Mario Kart style race. You have to get some out of laps. Or it might be King of the Hill or it might be Oddball where you have to put your. You have to put a ball in a goal and keep it there. Or you might have to be soccer and you have no idea what the formats are going to be before you step in the cage.
- [78:12]
B
I love that.
- [78:12]
C
By the way, Camden from Impact Lab says, as a spectator and or commentator, what kinds of fight do you most notice, enjoy watching or talking about? What matchup would you like to see or see again? I love it when robots score big hits on each other but nobody's KO'd and they're kind of like they're, they're limping at each other. But the weapon I. But the weapons are still working. When weapons, when, when weapons never fail and they're. It's. It becomes like Rocky 4. That's my favorite kind of fight to watch and commentate. What matchup would I like? Would I like to see or see again? I want to see Mako versus Jelly Baby because Jelly Baby has been on an absolute terror. And when I was talking about matchups earlier, sometimes you take your burn deck to an event and you don't encounter any life gain and you get to just kill everybody by doing 20 points of damage. Sometimes Jelly Baby doesn't encounter top attack robots for an entire event. And Jelly Baby has fought Mako once but make out electrical gremlins and had no saw. I would like to see. I would like to see Mako versus Jelly Baby. Sorry, I'm a little biased. Even though I love Paige.
- [79:10]
A
What? Paige? Shout out Paige.
- [79:13]
C
Camden also asks, any particular robots out there other than your own? You'd really like a chance to drive sometime bean supreme. I really like dual action lifters, and I like the sort of combination wedge lifter that it has going on. Rozzy is a great driver, and I don't think I'd be doing as well as him because I don't have experience with that bot, but I think it's really interesting. One nick from Phantom four and Thumb War says, hi, demo. We've seen red Mako. Are we ever going to see yellow Turbo Fiend? Yes. What color would you make the bot? If the world.
- [79:37]
A
Right.
- [79:37]
C
If the world. If the world ran out of red tpu. I think black Turbo Fiend would look.
- [79:43]
A
Crash out. Turbo Fiend.
- [79:45]
C
Yes. Or some variant of like a. Like a. I want to make like a brown Turbo Fiend. I really like making bots. I like making bots look like organic or gnarly. Like crumple Still Skin is one of my favorite bots. Aesthetically, I would love doing that. Okay, so now we're. Now we're going to see Xenomorph. Absolutely total Leviathan. So just enjoy that. Just enjoy that visual.
- [80:07]
A
Did the blade fall off of Leviathan every time?
- [80:11]
C
I don't. I didn't. It didn't fall off this time because it was the AR Blade, but other than that. Yes.
- [80:16]
A
Nice.
- [80:18]
C
And you see the first hit. It hit the boss.
- [80:20]
A
Wait, did you see that still? Holy moly. Wait, the camera, like, glitched out and you could just see it turn into
- [80:29]
B
a C shape, like a giant banana.
- [80:33]
C
No. Yes, Though. Yes, I did see that. But also. No. No. It's my baby. Oh, my God. Hell, yeah. That's my nephew Molly. Molly, who is a prospective builder, asks, hey, Dima, why do you like Christmas so much? It's a day where happiness is guaranteed and nothing bad can happen. And even if something bad happens, it's still Christmas. Also, Christmas is every day. If you're a master of holiday magic business Cat asks that.
- [81:01]
A
Wait, is that okay?
- [81:02]
C
So with the it's a Christmas thing going on. I don't understand. I just love. I just love Christmas to death. I am a Christmas freak. I have the. I have the Christmas spirit and I just.
- [81:12]
A
It's.
- [81:13]
C
It's who I am. I've compete. I've competed in Tekken under the name Christmas Fan15 and I will use that name again. I also at a, at a tournament in July at a, at a large tournament where I got second in mystery bracket and like 16th or something in Tekken, I was dressed as Santa for the entire event. Girl Santa business Cat asks, at what point is yellow no longer yellow? Man, we're gonna get into the pantone weeds. Maybe we can say that it's sexist to ask a girl questions about color differentiation because they're better at it. Is Mako yellow? Question mark. Mako's green in my opinion. Answer that free of outside influence, even from Julian. That's hard. But I think Mako is greener than yellow. But I say lime green and there's a. I also say yellow green because that's the, that's the color that it was labeled. The Crayolas that I used to use that were the same color. White Yeti Matt Landry again says, when will you make a cheese themed ants to become involved in the Cheddar Goblin extended universe? For those NHL who don't know because they, they may not know our ants, Julian has a lovely torque walker named Cheddar Goblin that, you know, he has some theming around and we love cheese. I guess. So maybe I will make my dual action lifter as some sort of cheese jouster as soon as I figure that out. Anthony from Anubis, the driver of Anubis says, what are your opinions on wheelie Big Cheese? I love Wheelie Big Cheese. It's one of my favorite classic bots. When I die, I wanted to. I want to flip me into my casket and then flip the cat. And then flip the. And then flip the casket into the hole in the ground. It's like a sick kick flip, like
- [82:54]
B
twisting in the air and lands perfectly flat at the bottom.
- [82:57]
C
Yeah, that's what I wanted.
- [82:58]
B
That's a beautiful.
- [82:59]
C
I want Wheelie Big Cheese to do Tony Hawk tricks with my casket. I also, that's a good. I also, I do love coffins and caskets because my custom built fighting and controller, which is going to be on the little camera on the top left is actually a wooden coffin that I, you know, stuck electronics and buttons into. And I'm very proud of it. And I've run it for, like, two years, and I need to replace it soon by making another one. But anyway, that's all the questions, so sorry about that, folks. We can focus on the fights. We focus on the fights.
- [83:24]
A
I've just been rolling Leviathan death comp.
- [83:27]
C
Yeah. So Leviathan, it's fun to watch, man.
- [83:31]
A
Julian, it's because it's big.
- [83:32]
C
Me and Julian, we make robots that win or lose are amazing to watch.
- [83:37]
A
Yeah, I like it because it's big. Also, xenomorph. Xenomorph is insane. So. So David Dryer, he fought me with Kilojoule back in, man. When was that? May. And just after the fight, he goes, I'm retiring this thing. And so he came back with Xenomorph. That thing is horrifying. It's so big. When it hit me, it got me on my tail, and it absolutely destroyed the tail that I had. Hang on, let me turn off my camera real quick and turn on. Let me find the chunk that he took out of my tail. Did I take a picture of it yet? The thing is so scary. If he can make it, like, move around the box effectively, gonna be frightened. Yeah. Here. This too.
- [84:38]
C
Like, we know Julian is an excellent. As an excellent builder, but he needs, like, this is. This is his literal first foray into 12s with Leviathan, too. Like.
- [84:46]
A
Yes, totally.
- [84:48]
C
My October recap is that this is Julian's first foray into 12s. He did super well for his first foray and for how little machining capabilities we have as builders, we're like, you know, gonna learn more and more how to use new materials, how to incorporate different design elements. Because, you know, you were making jokes about TPU slop earlier, but, like, I did jokes only. Oh, funny little Easter egg. Somebody just pointed out to me is that this is behind the bots 236, which is how the number pad notation is written for Hadouken motion in fighting.
- [85:27]
B
Oh, really?
- [85:27]
C
Oh, no. I love that so much.
- [85:30]
B
Thank you.
- [85:31]
A
That's right.
- [85:32]
B
You've made this so much better. Thank you for telling me that. And also, I fully agree about the TPU designing of Leviathan. I personally really looked at this with interest because I know with how big it is, it's dynamics can be different. Like right now, we're watching it fight blue marlin. Blue marlin is plastic, but also has a lot of steel bracing from its wedge and its Back plate and that kind of stuff. Leviathan, you can clarify if I'm wrong. Mostly tpu, maybe like a H and W bottom plate for some stiffness, maybe some like internal stuff, but mostly TPU and like volume, I assume.
- [86:03]
C
Yes, it's. It's basically all TPU outside of the bottom plate, which is, I think G10.
- [86:09]
B
Interesting.
- [86:10]
C
I, I might be misremembering, but yeah, I, like, we, we, we know the flaws of this in 12s. Like we know the strengths. We know the strengths of it in threes and we know the flaws of it in 12s. But this is data gathering. Slash, send it. Slash.
- [86:28]
A
It was fun to watch. It was. I was, it was fun.
- [86:31]
C
Like I said in the early part of the podcast, we competed at basically NHRL this year. I wasn't, I wasn't in this one, but like Mako didn't get in. So build a 12. You know what I mean?
- [86:41]
B
Sure, I respect that. This is, that's a very natural progression.
- [86:45]
A
And listen, you guys made it to the box like that and for your first 12 and just make it to the box and then worry about shit later. And I say that to new builders all the time. When they're like, you know, you see them at 3 o' clock and they're knocked out and they feel bad and it's like, did you make it to the box with, with a robot that work? And like if the answer is yes, you have nothing to feel bad about. Like, if you tried your best, go have fun, go watch fights. It really your success and how you feel, I know how correlated those are, especially if you're competitive. But your self value should not be tied to your success. You should always value how you feel as a person and you should be proud of yourself if you've tried your hardest. And I think that for your first 12, if you just got it to the box, like that's what's important. You know what I mean? So don't get lost in the sauce when you're building a 12. It's the hardest weight class. It's the biggest weight class for your biggest cage. Side weight class. Sorry, sorry.
- [87:57]
B
That's what.
- [87:57]
A
There you go. Biggest cage to weight ratio. So if you get something in the box that drives pretty good and shit, it beat Blue Marlin, dude. So that's, that's a lot.
- [88:07]
C
That is a lot to be fair. And this isn't a, this is a knock on Julian, but Julian also knew this. We talked about matchups earlier. Blue Marlin is a good matchup for Leviathan So it was kind of nice. It was kind of nice to open on that as like, first. First fight of the day. There's some level of confidence.
- [88:27]
A
Yeah, yeah, sure.
- [88:30]
B
Like what you know can be proven. And the fact that you have that, your fundamental down there was helpful to go forward from. Yeah.
- [88:37]
A
Talk about a robot that drives differently with a different driver. So angel drove. What are we calling that one? Procyon? Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry, Pyro. I've been calling it Pyrocron in my head.
- [88:53]
C
Pyrocron.
- [88:54]
A
But, but, but this, this Pyrocron is just prom. Had a V5 that Zach gave to angel, but it drives completely different with Zach on the sticks. And honestly. So as more three pound builders come up into 12, they have a specific way of driving where they feel like they. And I'm not knocking you guys. I'm happy you're here. Love to see you guys. But you all drive like, one hit can't completely destroy your life because, like at 12, 12 is like where it starts to get like one bad shot will just like kill you for no reason. And it's, you know, watching Boost get roofed over and over and over again. And then me kind of like realizing that it wasn't gonna die was kind of like an insane experience for me. But like equally insane, I think, for angel was like, oh, you can get hit wrong once and your day can just like end. You know what I mean? The consequences are so high. So he, like gets his wedge ripped off here and he's still like full bore into Nightcrawler. And that's something that, you know, a 12 pound builder I feel like would be a little bit more hesitant about.
- [90:11]
C
Between the, like, cage size difference and weapon strength difference. Threes and twelves and 30s are all different games.
- [90:19]
A
Games.
- [90:19]
C
Yeah, they're like, you can be good. You can be good at fighting games, but those are three different fighting games being played at the same tournament. You know what I mean? They're. They're fighting games. They're fighting games where you can afford to make five mistakes. And there are fighting games where you can afford to make two mistakes. And there's fighting games where you can afford to make one mistake. And there's fighting games where you can afford to make zero mistakes, which I guess is. I guess is there. I guess it's 30s where you will.
- [90:40]
B
Yeah, this is 100 correct in 30s. Like the way I like to describe it is 3 pounds have excess energy because their energy level is so much higher than their inertia. They just Move out of the way. In 12s, you finally get, like, seven. Physics begin to kick in sort of a half and half, because you can have, like, a TPU bot like Leviathan, but also like a Procyon Brahmheta type, where it's like, big punch can kill everything. But in 30s, it's like. I fought Toro, for example, in my first fight. And I knew for a fact if Toro got to the back of my robot and hit the. Hit the back plate, it would have crumpled the drive and instantly killed their whole robot. 100. No question. So, like, I had to drive every single moment of that fight with the nose towards Toro. Or, like, rapidly escape, like, just flee for my life. That will 100 happen. And so it's funny sort of seeing that between, like, different weight classes, builders doing that. It's kind of why it's interesting seeing people think of like or, like, with Jameson having his three different robot types. It's interesting seeing him because he's fought, you know, for years, obviously, but, like, he drives Silent Spring versus Psycho versus Megatron differently because you can feel the level of fear being a little higher. Megatron fighting Emulsifier versus, like, Silent Spring fighting Cold Snapper, something like that, because he knows the physics can be a little different between two of them. But it's really cool seeing that in play.
- [92:06]
C
Were you trying to pull up, like, the multiple angles?
- [92:08]
A
No, I want the single angle. It loads.
- [92:12]
C
Yeah. I want to shout out happy Birthday because I did say this commentary so nice. Not only are they so nice, like, I did say on commentary, like, I love cute robots. And that doesn't. That doesn't just mean googly eyes or there's a face on it like this. Look at the. Look at the theming and how colorful this robot is and, like, how unified the theme is. And it's still, like, competent and terrifying of a robot. And this is sort of big vert to big vert. But I also picked this fight because I wanted to highlight the bot Barons, Jillian and Linden, because they are at every event with multiple robots. And all of the robots are a treat to watch because they are the kinds of builders who will slap the biggest weapon possible on whatever they're building.
- [92:55]
B
Yeah, they horrify me. I'm. I dread the day I had to, like, pull Overlord or Emperor and Bracket. I've been happy enough to dodge them so far, but, like, Prince has been on tears between G scrolls and HRLs. It's always so funny thinking about, like, how many times it's fought. And you Realize. Oh, it's like the dozens at this point. Like it's has essentially like full lifetimes through the robot already.
- [93:15]
C
No. Yeah. This is a force. It like by like a year ago. By this point it had already fought mega like three times in a row at G Scroll.
- [93:26]
B
This.
- [93:26]
A
This family's super nice. The. The kid's name is Rain.
- [93:30]
C
I. I wanna. I'd be slay. Shout out holiday magic. Like I just mentioned, I'm a big holiday fan. I just, I want to also holiday.
- [93:43]
B
Yes, it's your personal one. Yeah, it's your personal one is Jesus's holiday.
- [93:48]
C
So Jesus's birthday and Santa's.
- [93:52]
A
Is Santa born on Christmas? Is that true?
- [93:54]
C
He's not born on Christmas, but it's clearly his holiday.
- [93:57]
B
Oh, saying nick's little.
- [93:58]
A
Okay.
- [93:58]
B
St. Nicholas lore. Iceberg's a little different, but I got you.
- [94:02]
C
So they're. They're. This also illustrates what you just mentioned. Like they're taking a lot of hits and like. Yeah, I can still. The weapon's still on and they took a lot of hits upside down and they're still driving.
- [94:11]
B
Yeah, it's great.
- [94:12]
A
Yeah. That's insane.
- [94:13]
B
I love it from new people. Exactly. Like what Intro wants to see.
- [94:16]
A
Yeah.
- [94:17]
B
And they.
- [94:17]
A
Yeah.
- [94:18]
B
Race up on Prince too.
- [94:19]
C
Okay. We talked about driving a lot on this podcast because I'm known for my driving skill. Etc. Can I give a shout out to the kid drivers at nhrl because they're, they are. They are so skilled for how hard this is and there's a lot of. There's a lot of factors to that. Okay, there. A wheels. A wheel's coming out.
- [94:36]
A
Oh my gosh. Yeah.
- [94:40]
B
I mean, yeah, but that happens. We could keep going.
- [94:42]
A
Yeah.
- [94:42]
C
You're saying they're like. I don't know. They're. They're. They must have like an access to like some secret fast on your feet thought process that I just don't know. I just don't know how to explain. Like they also just, they, they send it. You know what I mean? They, they send the heck out of stuff.
- [94:59]
A
Well, because they don't know the cost of a dollar. But also, have you ever been. Have you ever been skiing?
- [95:06]
C
No.
- [95:06]
A
Have you ever. So if you go skiing. Kids on the slope. Demons. I don't know what it is, but if you get run up on by like a 6 year old, don't act surprised. I mean it's, it's. Kids are kids because their brains are soft, can pick up skills so easily and it just shows like when they drive or like, do stuff. So, yeah, if it's a kid on the other side of a box, you're hosed.
- [95:34]
C
There's a lot of. There's a lot of kid driver. I've been at this for. I've been at this for a couple years now. There's a lot of kid drivers who I've seen like, grow alongside me who like, started kind of at the same time that I did. And they've been demons the whole time, but they've just become more demonic. And this, this is said positively as, as somebody who pilot. Somebody who pilots turbofiend. I just want to know for anybody watching, I mean, I mean, demon, as in, like, you are a fiend. You're so good at the sport. But like, But like, I don't know, like, I've. I've seen kids grow in the span of that two years and they just get. They just get better and better because they have that same like zero fear instinct and, and the killer instinct where they're just playing the game and they just want to win. They just, they're just fighting. Powerful drug robots are toys also, like, we, like, people talk about, like, how it relates to like RC cars and stuff like that. We are building some of the coolest toys that have ever been built. We're building personal toys and then fighting them. Yeah, that's, that's in a way, conceptually like a theory of what we're doing and like, who is better, who's better at fighting toys than like, kids, you know what I mean?
- [96:45]
A
All right,
- [96:48]
B
I also want to shout out Jack and honeycracked. He got third at this past weekend's event in Water's Edge.
- [96:54]
A
Oh my God.
- [96:55]
B
North of Baltimore, he fought two leatherbacks, Equinox, who defeated Impact in a barnyard brawl. So very good robot. And then Liam famously with Buzzkill, made three pound Zenith. Also sort of like a very control horizontal. The only, only two that beat him. He's very, very good. He beat very seasoned three pound builders in his run. So shout out to Jack on honeycracked. He did excellent job there and he's a great example. He's like, like, I think eight or nine. And he drive. He drove exceptionally well against very good machines. So once again reinforcing the idea of the kids being really, really good.
- [97:31]
A
Absolutely. This is, this is the rage bait match. So, okay, we have full rock. Is this what you. What is the phrase?
- [97:40]
C
Eruption. Eruption is throwing rock 100 and hook. Hook Em is absolutely throwing paper conceptually.
- [97:46]
A
Okay.
- [97:47]
C
Also for anybody listening, I don't want to be derisive about the toy thing. I don't. I don't mean it like that. And I don't mean to be diminutive about the sport that I hold extremely near and dear to my heart. Cars are toys too. And like, if you've ever seen a mechanic, like, get really excited about a car, it activates the same thing as, like, getting really excited about a toy on Christmas.
- [98:06]
A
On Christmas. Be sure to throw in the on Christmas in there.
- [98:10]
C
I had to.
- [98:11]
B
It is cohesive.
- [98:12]
A
How do I.
- [98:13]
B
How do I.
- [98:14]
C
It coheres.
- [98:14]
A
View it. How do I not view it in this way? I want to not have the multi angle viewer. Am I stupid? I was able to.
- [98:23]
B
Tech support doesn't defeat it.
- [98:25]
A
I. I was able to use it. I don't understand. Multi angle wasn't there to go back to the other.
- [98:37]
B
It's fine. He's uncle. Let him do it.
- [98:40]
C
He'll get there while you figure this out.
- [98:42]
B
You know how to do it? I don't know myself. No. What were you saying, diva?
- [98:48]
C
Just one more shout out to a youth driver. The. The family who drives the family and the children who drive Sir Spinny and Sir Slicey.
- [98:56]
B
Oh, yes.
- [98:57]
C
Seen them at G Scroll, I think. And definitely mass destruction and definitely nhrl. And they are terrors. Like those. Those robots. They have. They have that killer send it instinct. They will Mess you up 100%.
- [99:11]
B
They've done pretty solid.
- [99:14]
A
I want to go back to the old single cam viewer, but the button is gone now. Thank you, Austin Ford.
- [99:24]
B
Is it just that you have a. Does it take longer to load it up? Is that the issue?
- [99:28]
A
Yeah, it just takes longer to load and I can't full screen it.
- [99:33]
B
Let's see.
- [99:36]
A
Oh, I'm sure by clicking the red bot. What Red Bot?
- [99:40]
C
Like the. Like there's like Red Bot, Blue Bot for the corners. Like, try clicking the name of the red bot. I think so.
- [99:46]
B
I came to. Oh, I see.
- [99:48]
A
Yes. Yeah.
- [99:49]
C
I click Eruption. They click the name on the bottom when you. When you. When you already click Eruption. Like, can you click that? No.
- [99:58]
A
Never mind clicking everything.
- [100:03]
C
Trying going nuts on that left mouse button.
- [100:09]
B
It's fine. I'll. I'll try to slim it down.
- [100:12]
A
It. Let me do it on the other ones, but not this one. That's really weird.
- [100:17]
B
All right.
- [100:17]
A
Rage bait. All right. Throne Rock.
- [100:20]
C
This isn't. This isn't right. This isn't Rage bait. I think this is a perfect opportunity to discuss the merits of both lifters and multis and TPU, which are three hot topics right now.
- [100:30]
A
Yeah, yeah. I love all three of them.
- [100:32]
B
I love all three of them. No, you're 100, right. This is a big discussion point post event and especially observe with Jelly Baby winning. Congrats again to Paige. Solid stuff. Because we saw I think more the low angle TPU control lifter robots at this event than we have in other events prior. So it really became sort of very poignant with that one alongside a WWE's victory too. It's like in this fight we're seeing a lot of that happening right now with Eruption getting pinned. But the 1/2 of the hook em multi bot, you really say you really see that control happening as you can hold in there for a while. They release the pin.
- [101:09]
A
Geez. Something that I have done as robots have gotten softer is gone sharper and sharper on my blade and yup, you know, when I started with Max, I had a 15 mil key. I've gone down to 38 and now I am sharpening my 38 blades just because the damage multiplies kind of that
- [101:35]
B
like 10 mil, I think.
- [101:38]
A
10 mil. And then I sharpened down to an edge.
- [101:42]
C
So I'm. I'm not on 12s but three pound on turbo fiend. I'm a wide bot like Julian. When we get pins because. Because we do get pins. It's not like it's not like a links for where I just knock you around a million times or like corruption. I get a pin and I spin the blade up to 100 and try to use the impactor to grind through. And that works kind of a lot.
- [102:02]
A
Yeah.
- [102:02]
B
Nice.
- [102:03]
A
But you've got a thin blade on Turbo, right?
- [102:05]
C
Yes. Tiny blade and tiny blade. So that's absolutely like part of the design.
- [102:10]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [102:11]
B
It's a severing tries to cut through.
- [102:14]
C
Not to be fiendish, but I absolutely am devil's advocate about TPU and lifters. Maybe not so much the multi bot bonus piloting sibling piloting sibling rivalry at MassD. Without ever having driven that bot before the test box and not dropping a single match and beating Jackalope and Caldera and Power of Friendship. No offense to those drivers, but I feel like I sh. I feel like I should not have won those fights. You know what I mean?
- [102:43]
B
Yeah.
- [102:43]
A
And I. I don't.
- [102:44]
C
I like, listen, that's. That's like a huge statement. Like all credit to Julian as. As an engineer and all credit to us as drivers. But like how. How much experience does Glenn have under his belt versus how much experience did we have with Sibling rivalry, you know what I mean?
- [102:57]
A
Yeah,
- [103:02]
B
it's a hard scenario. Good.
- [103:03]
C
Yeah, we did, we did win by making him do the thing, if I recall correctly. So that's, that's a little bit different also.
- [103:09]
A
But
- [103:11]
C
I can see our, I, I, I was not to be, not to be fiendish, but I play devil's advocate a lot in this sport. I play devil's advocate, especially about lifters because I talk about matchups and archetypes a lot. What you're seeing is, you're seeing is a control deck. It doesn't let you do anything. And just like Matt, just like, like magic yugioh, whatever. People hate that. It's not fun for them.
- [103:30]
A
Yeah.
- [103:30]
C
But like if you re, if you really love the sport and you really love the art of it, you can see you can get a lot of enjoyment out of that. Right. Like people get bored during lifts and, and stuff like this and these like sumo style pushing matches. I love it man. I love it so much. I just do think the multi bot bonus is op as an opinion. I'm not on commentary, I wouldn't say it on commentary but like off off commentary. My personal opinion, I think the weight that you get is a little unfair because there's not a drawback to being two. You get a, you get a bonus for there being two of you when instead it sort of defeats any natural drawback. There would be as in like it's easier to die. You, you can't generate as much power, you can't armor as much.
- [104:13]
A
Oh you, I think I see what you're.
- [104:15]
B
I think that's like the, I think it's like the prime example then of like sort of optimizing around the rule at that point because you have these robot archetypes that are meant to be unkillable have essentially excess durability because they, they do not need extra what pound you take away to make it a multibot. But you still have all the functionality that goes with it. So you have the full litter mechanisms in there. Your drive, your structure. All that's pretty well maintained with two robots. And that's like I would look at this and I would look at the dual multi 3 pound TPU lifter and I would say it's probably one of the most effective scenarios of dual like a multi bot playing out. Because I know repeater is I think the reigning champ and they're two basically like mini links is two really good egg beaters, but I kind of think it'd be really funny then he put them against each other. Like put those two against these two. Hook them against repeater. I think pound per pound you probably end up with probably even more like smothering fight with the hook em matchup against robots versus even repeater does other robots just because I think repeater excellent as it is still has to worry about the damage part of it because it's still like a. A neck beater robot. But like with the hook them because they're two essentially infinite sponges with only the fear of like a you know, saw robot or maybe like a very deep cutting bird. They really get a lot more of that bang for buck you could say for that kind of multi out bonus kicking in there. I think that's. I think it's. I think that's seeing the rule evolution playing out in real time with these guys. I think that's probably the interesting bit about the multi battle rules which I'm curious to see Van Terrell. They're probably like last to change rules on it. You tend to. Tend to not want to limit stuff if you can. But I do imagine it'll have an impact on future £3. You have to consider that or increasing in them as it proliferates. People have to think of the counters for too now kind of plays together for it.
- [106:12]
C
Absolutely. Like the meta.
- [106:14]
A
Sorry, you're telling me if I can get max down to eight pounds, I can get another max? Because we're telling you the multi bot, the mine and puzzle are the multi bot. Max right now is 9.1. So all I need is another pound out of it and then I can get a second full.
- [106:35]
B
I mean that's what the. That's the my. That's the Mayan puzzle strat right now.
- [106:39]
C
Yeah.
- [106:39]
B
So that's not too far. Yeah. Not as like you're gonna say something else. Dima.
- [106:44]
A
Sorry.
- [106:45]
C
Like not to. Not to say too many ridiculous. No. Why's you're bad. I've been dominating the conversation. But regardless, like I'm aware of that. This is I. This is. This is my episode. But like how do I put this? There's a meta that evolves naturally in every sport but robots especially, right. And we only get so. We only get so many events a year. Right. There's only so many times that you can see responses to a meta and that is insanely dictated by how much time, resources and money that these builders have. You know what I mean? So like if TPU lifters, if Jelly baby likes are. There is plenty of this event if they are everywhere. You know what I Mean, then it's going to take a couple events for people to start building top attack robots or for them to adjust their blades or otherwise drive strategy to beat it. So then it becomes like a matter of, like, how much do we want to let the meta evolve around this multibot thing? How much did we want to let it evolve around mini bots as multibots? You know what I mean? We did let it evolve and then we decided we didn't like it collectively as a sport, but also NHRL as an organization. I think that might be true of the multis as well. I think the multi bot bonus is really, really, really, really, really strong. I think if given more time and resources, a lot more builders are going to build multis. I think if a lot more builders build Maltese, things might get boring in a way of, you know, people stop liking it. I love power of friendship. We all love power of friendship. If power of friendship was 2v2ing every fight, we might like it less.
- [108:29]
A
Yeah, well, that was the problem. That was, that was literally the problem with the old system.
- [108:35]
C
Okay. I play devil's advocate all the time. Another. Another really big cons. Another really big concern with a constant 2v2 is like. How do I put this?
- [108:46]
A
How.
- [108:46]
C
How you can't count two pins at once. There's only one breath.
- [108:49]
A
Yeah, yeah, it's.
- [108:51]
C
I've seen them try. Do you realize how hard it is? Two. Two people are locking. Two people. Yeah, two people are locking each other in pins. Somebody in chat says, I've never seen an effective mini pot. Hold on.
- [109:02]
A
Respond to that chatter. I was gonna respond to that chat. No, I'm.
- [109:05]
C
I'm responding because I. Because I demand to say it. With, with one of Julian's first tournaments, we ran a mini crash fest like, called Boya War, as in man of war. And it was okay, small TPU robot with metal forks and a lifter. And it could. It could not only tank hits with the metal forks, it could actually push and lift as a 1 pounder. There are, there are, there are effective mini bots. And I mean, even this, even discounting, like the idea of like a mini bot might need to have an active weapon and. And ramp. It's right. Yeah. The rage rate is wild. The rage rate is wild because chewing
- [109:42]
A
on it, she can't spit it out. Demon spit the rage made out.
- [109:48]
C
He got us. I'm a fiend. I'm a turbo fiend. I play devil's advocate and not. Not to say that the mini bot bonus needed to stay. I get why it's gone and maybe the multi bot weight bonus should be gone too. But like NHRL wants to have the coolest robots and the best matches possible. And there are, there are multi bots to be built. You know what I'm saying? There are multi bots to be built and we'll see like how fun the sport will get when that happens because like also shout out Titanium White's cousin. Like people are way less mad about flashy multi bots. I think the, the problem just gets exacerbated with hook em because you know, people also have their fair. Like, like I said, like control decks and lifters. People just don't like them. They don't like losing the lifters. They don't like watching them. But I think if you're a true fan of the sport, you see the appeal of like pacifist and super defensive robots, right? People get less mad when it's non lifter multibots like their flamethrowers or their cool drills or their, you know, repeaters. Really fun to watch because they're juggling and doing combos with each other. Matt and chat says any event within five fights you'll see the problem. I think if we saw, I think the more multis we see, the more problems we'll see with pins and pin releases, with, you know, like overly clumpy shoving matches. Like a Masti power of friendship fought sibling rivalry. It was a 2v2 and it was awesome because Mast D had a pit that sort of broke up the four person engages. NHRL doesn't have that. And I think the four person engages might get confusing after a while for, for viewers and for competitors and for refs and for judges.
- [111:27]
B
Understandable.
- [111:29]
C
That's all I will say about that and that rage bait. But if
- [111:35]
A
I'm doing it, you spit out the rage bit. It's paid, it's paid, it's paid.
- [111:41]
C
No, I don't know. Don't, don't we want engagement on this podcast?
- [111:47]
B
You're not wrong. I, I will, I will only add the one level to it and that we are, namely we're mainly focusing on the 3 pound and 12 pounds. Possibly 3 pound, especially 12 pounds, possibly potentially in 30s with kaza, but less so. I mean, obviously, let's put, you know, let's say with the flames in it, let's say that first of all, just because of the physics, just because the, the physics on each of them is a little different. Like I, I would still hold that he made it less like, what is it like beef B force B Force. B Force and Kazalite are still fighting more uphill battles than they are like the downhill versus like Hook Them does against Eruption. That when you kind of look at. You're like, yeah, Hook Them can definitely have that control on there. They have the ver. They have the more effective answer. But in like the like a B Force versus a muscle fire fight, like I'm great as B Force is. I'm still looking at it and thinking all it takes is the muscle fire hitting one of them at an angle and killing it immediately, then hitting the other one, killing it immediately. And you hear, look at them. You look at that scenario a little differently. So I think that's where you get like the interesting game and Charles to play. Because if you could you sort of subdivide down, you could pre. You can definitely see why it's really big deal in 30s, but less of a deal in 30s because you play with both of them at the same rule set. That makes it a bit trickier. That's kind of why I'm more expecting a more like the builders themselves, archetypes themselves trying to answer that as opposed to like NHL rules. The HL probably say maybe, but we also don't want to ruin that part of it versus, you know, builders who are like, you know what fine overhead botany's like doing what Jake shown here at Boost.
- [113:31]
A
Yeah, I just. I wanted to show this is exactly
- [113:35]
C
what you're talking about where it's like
- [113:36]
A
a three or four robot pile up. And yeah, you know, it's. It's the maximizer team's fault that this pile up happened because Boost got behind and then it got pushed onto it. And now like I'm broadsided on it like a whale. But like. Yeah, no, I totally see what you're saying with like these big pile. Because like this sucks to watch. Like you don't want to watch three robots get well unstuck from each other. Like this is not sporting, you know.
- [114:06]
C
Yeah, but like devil's advocate from a perspective of somebody who's commentated nhrl, it's all about. It's all about. That's the fights. It's. It's the fights and the action. It's the action. Not like the destruction, the chaos, the action.
- [114:20]
A
And like, yes, yeah, right.
- [114:21]
C
It's like, like, sure, we can argue about multis and minis all we want, but there was action there because Boost is awesome. I think. I think there's a case by case basis to be made. I think in a sport like this, there's going to be fights that are simply different from other fights. But I think from like the organization's perspective, it's just like what level of action do we like and want? That was this thing I was saying about the meta too is like if there were Jelly babies everywhere, they'd be getting cut in half all the time. You know what I mean? We've had, we had one Jelly Baby style ramp buddy style hook em style meta tournament and that was this last tournament. Is November going to be different? You know what I mean?
- [115:05]
B
Yes, exactly.
- [115:06]
A
Everybody, everybody, everybody freaks out when, when someone wins, you know what I mean?
- [115:14]
B
That's true. There's also back win.
- [115:15]
A
There's always. I feel like this happens every tournament where we're like this robot that won is now the overpowered meta and it's just always like a conversation always shifts to the next thing, you know what I mean? So I feel like I've been, I feel like I've been in the sport
- [115:34]
C
long enough where, where it's of kind,
- [115:36]
A
kind of like, come on, relax. Like, it's not, it's not gg that's so funny.
- [115:40]
B
I mean every event, people are just like, every event, the, the last robot
- [115:45]
A
that won is overpowered. Actually, here's why there's never a clean winner, you know what I mean? And it's just like, come on, relax there, you know, everybody, everybody deserves a spot in a some point.
- [115:58]
B
Yeah.
- [115:59]
C
Turbo Turbo Fiend was overpowered for one event until like, and then it wasn't. It had more fights, its weaknesses became more clear. It had. There's only so many fights that can happen. Anything can happen in the cage. Like sometimes it's like, how many times have the dice been rolled? You know what I mean?
- [116:16]
A
Yeah.
- [116:17]
C
What is our, what is our sample size of fights? Etc? So before anyone wants to argue about lifters, tpu, spam, multi bots, whatever, get your data right, you know? You know what I'm saying? Like, and, and, and we'll, we really look at like how many uninteresting fights there were and there's a quantitative and a qualitative aspect of it. But like I'm devil's advocate for like it's, it's. Until we as like a group, as a community and NHRL as an organization decide like, okay, now is a time for a change and the rules have been updated plenty. But like, I think people jump the gun too much and I think people rage bait each other. So maybe this wasn't, maybe this wasn't a rage based situation. This was like, look how sick boost actually is. Look how much the meta can change. Like you can, you can cut a jelly baby in half with a three pounder. There's, there's things to, there's things to do about what's happening in front of you as a competitor. And for the non competitors, like bug fights are awesome. Even when the, the Hercules beetles and the rhinoceros beetles are just lifting each other. Isn't, is it, isn't sumo wrestling fun? Like, aren't pushing matches fun in their own regard? But maybe that's just me and I get it if that's just me. But I love the sport, honestly, no matter what the fight is. I love, I love even the pushers and the tiny baby lifters.
- [117:39]
A
Okay, let's wrap up with a little, I love that too. Let's wrap up with a little robots around the World and then we're going to say goodbye to our good friend commentator. Fighting robot expert. Fighting game expert.
- [117:57]
C
Martial arts expert too.
- [117:58]
A
So just like expert and one of the best thinkers. Hashtag fire Kyle2026. All right, Brandon, what's going on in robots around the world?
- [118:10]
B
All right, so for robots around the world. So this coming weekend. So this is October 14th recording. So October 18th, coming up, there'll be an event called Robo Business that will occur in Santa Clara, California. As you can probably guess, it's themed around robots in all fields of business. In this conference they'll be discussing all potential future applications and newest updates to prominent systems. Sort of like a Robocon you can imagine. So one notable update is expected. Updates to the DaVinci 5 robot surgical system made by Intuitive Surgical. So one big update expected to happen is one real time force gauging feedback from the hands and, and second one is real time replay so surgeons can actually rewind and look at their previous moves all at the same time while they're doing surgery in case you need to track their steps. So in a departure from other robots around the world where we sort of more looked at the dystopic view, this one's more utopic view. I'm trying to look at sort of the brightest, brighter, brighter future. Thank you. Brighter future.
- [119:11]
A
Thank you.
- [119:11]
C
You.
- [119:11]
A
Thank you.
- [119:12]
B
Tried to have a little bit of, a little bit of sun shining in there, but yeah. What do you think about the advancement in surgical robots allowing real time feedback and real time replays?
- [119:25]
C
Yes.
- [119:25]
B
And me or just the room, everybody? I mean, you're in the room, so there you go.
- [119:29]
A
Yes.
- [119:29]
C
Yeah, it's true. There's only three of us, I think. Okay. So I've read about robotics. Even though I kind of was like, I'm in this hobby because of Julian, but like robots absolutely fascinate me. The, the fastest. Like point A to point B. Examples we think about, like, how can we use robots in society is life saving technology. And it's like surgery and it's saving people in wartime. It's like saving people from rubble and under earthquake buildings and stuff like that. And I think surgery is a way easier application and a way harder, way easier application to visualize and way harder for them to build. So it's really, really, really, really cool to see these sorts of advancements happening. I think medical technology is like, I don't know, it's really fascinating and it makes me smile to think that like there will be less chances of human error in surgery or there will be more opportunities, there will be more tools for surgeons and life saving doctors to have at their disposal.
- [120:31]
A
I think I want to put a feedback in the max tail and put it, hook it up so that I get shocked every time I make a bad move. I think that's the real application for
- [120:42]
C
four sensors injection already. Injection. Already did that. And there's nothing new under the sun.
- [120:47]
A
Okay. Oh, is that. Oh yeah, that's right. Oh yeah, Pearl did that.
- [120:52]
B
That's a good poll.
- [120:53]
A
What did they put a shock collar on? I can't remember.
- [120:56]
C
It was like a vest, I think. Like a, like a. Yeah, it was like.
- [121:01]
B
I can feel the pain of the robot was definitely the big, big idea. That was huge.
- [121:05]
A
Yeah.
- [121:06]
B
Going to the point as well. I need it.
- [121:08]
A
I need a bark shot collar because last week I threw my damn voice out for like five days. So that's what I'll be rocking at the next in hrl. That's for sure.
- [121:20]
C
Yeah. I threw my voice out cheering for you, Jake. Not ashamed, not, not ashamed to admit that.
- [121:26]
A
Thank you.
- [121:26]
C
It means a lot. I was cheering for everybody. But the boost was literally loose.
- [121:31]
A
So like if the sauce split, you must have quit. I mean
- [121:38]
C
we stop it. We stop at that layer.
- [121:42]
B
Yeah. Like I agree as well with the surgery robots. I think it's pretty interesting. I, I imagine the applications load.
- [121:49]
A
Let's see.
- [121:49]
B
Because I figure that a lot of hospitals likely hope to have surgeons on hand. So on one level, I still kind of think it's not gonna be a case of like actually we're gonna book the guy who's like, I don't know if we're like having a surgery in California, we want to book the surgeon who's in Boston. We want to have them do a surgery for us. And you still want to like have the person there doing surgery if possible. I do think it's like probably one of the best like pot backup systems for a hospital to have. Like if there's a case where they don't have a surgeon there and they're like, we just need this done and we could, you know, get a guy like that expert from somewhere else because none of our people here are able to do it. I think it'd be like a very good application for that, especially because of the potential life saving implications of it. Because again, want to think about like a good future for robots then helping people stay alive is a good outcome for it. And then the force gauge feedback, of course, pretty neat. I figured that's probably something that probably matters in doing surgery, but.
- [122:49]
C
Well, especially, especially in the conversation because of AI, people think about machinery and robots as replacements for humans. And like I, I even like stop myself when we started talking about this is like whatever these robots are, even if they're the ones physically performing the surgery, who makes the call? It's people. And like it's, it's a development of a new medical tool. If you want to think of it in another way. Like if you want to change into a big picture idea. So it's exciting to see like, oh, new life saving technology. No matter how you slice it, even if robots scare you as they scare some people, like it's, it's a tool for humans to use to save lives. It's exciting.
- [123:26]
A
Kind of a cobot situation instead of real placement.
- [123:30]
B
Yeah, that's a good way to say it.
- [123:31]
A
Yeah. Okay, I think that. Does that do it?
- [123:45]
B
Yeah, I'm good.
- [123:46]
A
All right, well, thank you very much, Dima. I appreciate it. This was so fun to learn about you learn about your robots, everything you got going on. Fighting games, education, background commentary, hashtag fire. Kyle 2026. Thank you to our chat, our viewers, everyone listening. Sorry, what were you going to say?
- [124:09]
C
I was just going to say we talked about a lot, but thank you for having me.
- [124:13]
A
Of course, of course, thank you. It was our pleasure. Until next time, thank you guys.