← Behind the Bots
Behind the Bots
November NHRL Recap and Finals Preview with Golden Dumpster Winner Liam King!
01:32:12
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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 and the people behind the bots. I'm Jake.
- [00:09]
B
And I'm Brandon.
- [00:10]
A
And today on the podcast, our interview with commentator gamer buzzkill driver Liam King. We'll wrap up the show with this week's installment of Robots around the World. If you like our show, please rate us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Tunein, Castbox Player FM and Podcast. And follow us on Facebook at Behind the Bots. And tell a friend we appreciate your support. We love streaming, so it's a good time. What's been going on this month? Looking forward to December? Brandon, tell me.
- [00:44]
B
All right, so a lot of things happened this month. Big part that I was out of the country so I just came back.
- [00:50]
A
Welcome back, Brandon. Brandon was in Japan. He had a great time. He was sending me beautiful photos of Japan the whole time.
- [01:00]
B
Hopefully no one gets angry at me for that anyway. But as a result we kind of flew right by most of November with the main exception of November, nhrl, which we talked to Liam about. And so, and I want to recap and look forward to December. So for December we have a lot of robots fighting. Actually among all the open events in the United States, in Canada being the majority that we can view, there will be 397 robots competing in classes from 30 pounds to fairy weights. There'll be competitions in the United States and states such as Utah, New Jersey, Texas, Colorado, California, North Carolina and then Canada would be the one great big event that we all know and love in Ontario known as Bot Brawl. But come back to the United States, big highlight for the month is going to be G Scrolls Seasonal smackdown in Bridgewater, New Jersey where there'll be 128 robots in the Beetle Weight, Ant Weight and Plastic Ant classes outside of the open course. Outside the open classes for the month there will be the NHRA finals where we're we as it us three. We competing for the 3 pound, 12 pound and 30 pound titles with a prize pool of. I just figured this out via the math. $57,000. Jake, that's a lot of money. That. Oh my gosh, that's a lot.
- [02:21]
A
That would. That's a lot of money for throwing it away on robots. You know that's a lot of just cuz products right there.
- [02:34]
B
I found out that if I win a 30 pound division I will still be broke.
- [02:38]
A
But yes, yeah, no one is going black. That's true. And we're all in the red permanently.
- [02:44]
B
No we are all permanently in the red and yet we do it for the love of the game because we could not do it elsewise. But you want to check out the event, check out Intro's website obviously for further details and obviously check out their YouTube page for next weekend, December 6th I believe starting at I think somewhere between 9, 10am however they do it, their streams always late a little bit, but definitely check it out and get details on this event besides NHL and other events at robot combat events.com builders, db.com and bristolbotbuilders.com for events based in Europe and the UK. And now our interview with Liam. Liam King, driver builder at Buzzkill.
- [03:25]
A
Hi Liam, how are you?
- [03:27]
C
I'm good. How about you guys?
- [03:29]
A
Good. Good to have you on.
- [03:31]
B
Good final stressing as you know.
- [03:34]
C
Yep. No, yeah, I'm, I'm here at the honeycrack shop right before this doing the finals grind. Right after this I'll be continuing doing the finals grind. It's, it's real, it's hate week. Gotta make sure all the configs are prepped and all my, you know, loose ends are tied up.
- [03:54]
A
Yeah. Before we jump into robot combat stuff because that's, you know, what we're here to talk about, tell us a little bit about you. What were you doing before robot combat? How did you get into it?
- [04:08]
C
So before robot combat I did other robots, primarily FRC and ftc. Zoe's been in. I, I don't remember the number. Zoe's been my mentor for many, many, many years I think first when I was in like seventh grade and I did like FTC and Yeah, so that's how I kind of got started. And since then I went onto our FRC team here in Southern Maryland. Team 836, the Robo Bees. You know that's, I feel like that's where I've, I don't know, I have a lot of fond memories there. I definitely learned a lot. And that's where I like really, really fell in love with you know, robots and the sort. And then yeah, the. We've started combat over Covid. We just did like a one off event with like a lot of us and then the rest is history. Eventually Zoe went to NHL, started honeycracked. I was the first honeycrack student. Now I help run the show I guess kind of, well I'm kind of Maryland most of the time now but over the summer I'll, I'll, I help out a lot more with honeycracked. But yeah, that's kind of the Liam origin. Cool.
- [05:31]
A
How long did you do FRC for?
- [05:33]
C
I did frc. My first season was my freshman year in high school when I played 2019. The game, it was like space themed. I didn't really have a big impact on the robot or anything, but. But it was the, it was just, I don't know, the. I love the, like the strategy behind everything and all the robots. I. I went on the team, I had ended up having a big role in like the strategy, which, you know, I guess kind of comes to help me in combat right now. You know, I'm planning out a lot of my matchups, but yeah, and then the just going to the world championship and being on a, you know, I'd say a pretty good team and then fighting against, not fighting against, competing against even better teams. It was great. And then eventually, unfortunately, I didn't get to be on FRC for as long as I had wanted during my time in high school just because of COVID But during my senior year, where we ended up winning like, like our district championship. That was, that was great. I ended up then kind of like over college, just kind of transitioning naturally into combat, primarily because, you know, I'm in college. And I think combat and FRC honestly pair pretty well together. A lot of our students that do frc, our like star FRC students are also, you know, stars on honeycracked. And just because, you know, frc, it's much more like a. It's much more of a system engineering project. You know, you got to make sure you work with everybody and you know, everything meets deadlines. Whereas combat honestly helps well round, you know, people a lot more because you're there for every step of the project. And you know, if something goes wrong, then it's probably was your fault. You know, there was no putting it on somebody else. So you got to kind of learn from your mistakes and you, you kind of become very well rounded. And I think that's honestly, you know, I said a lot of our high school members do it as well, but it's honestly pretty good for college as well. You know, at least me being at University of Maryland in a leadership position at the Leatherbacks, we see a lot of transition from FRC to college because honestly, I feel like that's a lot of what college is. You know, kind of get to see how far you go. You know, you're on, you're on your own and you get to, you know, really to discover yourself. And I feel like you can really. Combat really helps with a lot with that, you know, because everybody, no matter what, nobody starts out a champion. You first robot probably gets blown up multiple times. But, you know, you make your way up and. Yeah, I don't know. That's a lot of what we try to get our members to do. Yeah.
- [08:36]
A
What. How is the scheduling different for frc? So you guys compete how many times a year? And then what does the, like, the preparation for that look like? Because, you know, with Norwalk, it kind of feels like you're constantly growing, constantly improving. It's very much a rolling over event. Event, event, you know, improvement. Improvement. What is FRC like in terms of the.
- [08:58]
C
At first, it's kind. It's. It's different during because FRC has like a very, like an on season and an off season. The on season lasts for about, like, four or five months. But the. During the on season for frc, it's. It's way. I'll say it's. It's way more intense than combat on season. It's like literally every single day, going to the shop, pulling like, or at least like, as a student, that contributed a lot towards the team. Like, six to nine hours every single day. Like, late nights after school. It's definitely intense. I definitely say that it helps, you know, build very, very good students. Like, the students that survive this gauntlet and come out of it top tier, like, yeah, massive difference. Especially when I meet, like, students that come out on that. I know did FRC in college. Massive difference.
- [10:02]
B
But,
- [10:05]
C
like, yeah, it's. It's so intense. But, you know, I don't know. And then you also get, like, kind of a long break between, like, the seasons. So you definitely need that break. I. I like Joe going, like, if I were to do, like, the intensity of FRC that I do with combat, like, that's just not sustainable. Like, it's. You would go. I'd be even more crazy, you know, but it's like, yeah, I'm definitely happy taking a bit of a break from frc. Definitely. Whenever I. Whenever I graduate, there's a decent chance I'll be helping out with the FRC team because I do still love it, and I kind of grew up on the Robobees. The Robobees were there when I was in high school when I didn't have a lot of many other places to go. So that place is definitely my home, and I definitely would love to contribute back there, but right now I'm enjoying the combat, I guess, my new home.
- [11:15]
B
Well, I'm glad to see it, umd personally, yes, leatherbacks. The leatherback's golden age, currently. Man, what a rice. I remember the days where, like, Warlock was the only one. It got torn half every second.
- [11:29]
A
That's a crazy throwback.
- [11:32]
B
Yes. Old heads. No, Warlock.
- [11:33]
C
Yeah, yeah. Whenever we take. We have a little. Basically, M.D. they've got like a, A. Basically a large shed for a lot of the engineering, combat or I mean, engineering competition teams. And we've got a little space in there. And then sometimes, you know, you know, whenever we have like, new members and stuff like that, they'll see like the corpse of Warlock and they'll be like, what's that? And we're like, quiet.
- [11:58]
B
That's.
- [11:58]
C
Don't worry about that. Don't worry about it.
- [12:00]
B
It's.
- [12:01]
A
It's.
- [12:01]
C
That's a. That's our past, you see, you gotta look forward. But yeah, yeah, yeah. No. So, yeah, leatherbacks have been great. I've been. It's been great, like working with a lot of the people there. You know, honestly, I've. I've met some of the, like, the best friends like I've ever had like that aren't like, you know, virtual. Like, you know, I, I love the greater community of combat, but, you know, just, I, I love, you know, going. Working on robots and then going to dinner. Especially now we actually have an apartment where like, the majority of us are leatherbacks officers. The, the Combat Robotics apartment, like college apartment. It goes so hard.
- [12:53]
B
Are there.
- [12:53]
C
We got like our tables.
- [12:55]
A
Are there pictures? Where, where can I. I can find pictures. Channels, right?
- [13:01]
C
Yeah, go. And. Oh, yeah, I can see if I can find one. But dude, the. So is great. We got our. We got our, like, you know, our, you know, RGB lights up and we got like all of our tables, all of our workspaces, and we got our 3D printers. We have a total of. Well, okay, we have like six printers on display
- [13:26]
A
in.
- [13:27]
C
I guess not on display like in our apartment, like, common area only like, like four of them really see use. You know, I got one roommate who just hoards a bunch of more printers, but whatever. But yeah, it's great. Especially whenever we need to like, mass produce parts for the leatherbacks. We have, we'll have like all four of them going. It's great. It's great.
- [13:51]
A
Would that be in school or in.
- [13:56]
C
Yes.
- [13:57]
A
Okay. Okay.
- [13:58]
B
Yeah.
- [13:59]
A
Oh, no, I definitely remember you sending a picture of the inside one. This apartment, this, this single apartment is going to be legendary. I already know it. Like, the, the people are going to look back in 10 years, they're gonna Be like you lived in Liam King's apartment together.
- [14:20]
C
The thing is, so technically speaking, you know, not all of us in the apartment are in the same like, oh yeah, here we're going to graduate at different times. So technically speaking. Technically speaking, if one. If like you know, one of us graduates and then we move in another. Leatherbacks officer. Oh yeah, that was the.
- [14:40]
A
There we go. So this is what. This is the plant in the middle.
- [14:47]
C
So that was the original
- [14:50]
A
shoved over to the side. Okay.
- [14:52]
C
Yeah. Oh, yes. We do have a test box as well. It's rated for. We can test plants and ants in it. We can do weapon spin ups for beetles. But like, no, like it's a bit sketchy to do driving.
- [15:13]
B
Sure.
- [15:14]
C
And also weapon. Yeah. Let me send you. Let me send you here. This is the updated picture. My roommate watching the stream just sent me this picture a little bit.
- [15:28]
B
This is awesome.
- [15:29]
C
So you can see. Yeah, you can see right there. Okay.
- [15:33]
A
This is so.
- [15:34]
B
Gosh.
- [15:35]
A
You can see.
- [15:35]
B
I mean it's perfect though.
- [15:37]
C
But also prime madness. We've got our wheel casting set up like in that round table.
- [15:43]
A
The wheel casting.
- [15:45]
C
We moved our cage to the corner.
- [15:49]
A
This is a couch that you're not using. So you've stacked.
- [15:53]
C
We needed to make more robots.
- [15:55]
A
That's so horrible, dude.
- [16:00]
C
We tried to see if disgusting Take the couch back.
- [16:04]
B
But that's crazy.
- [16:08]
C
Rhyme robot like building, you know, environment.
- [16:15]
A
This is like the fight. I don't think anyone house but robot combat. This is so gross.
- [16:20]
B
You haven't even mentioned like the effect of all of this because. I know, because of course I see you all and I get to, you
- [16:26]
A
know, suffer through all this.
- [16:28]
B
But the amount of grinding leatherbacks is done because of all this testing that you do both in your apartment as well as in local events like exponential rise. Like leatherbacks plants. Like you can. Yes. You know, talk about that growth even more there.
- [16:43]
C
How it feels to try hard plants. Oh my God.
- [16:46]
A
Yeah. Crazy.
- [16:48]
C
But yeah, we. Honestly, you know, I. I've really, I've been really enjoying going to a lot of the more local events with like plants and beetles and ants. Like, to be completely honest, I feel like it kind of like I. I was getting a little bit burnt out after like kind of like June ish of last year. But like going to a lot of the local events definitely like reinvigorated that spark and just kind of like competing with friends and people in the community. But yeah, I've been enjoying that a lot. We've definitely been, you know, picking up trophies. We have you know, quite the collection. Now we definitely need a shelf, you know, but. Yeah. Oh, and I guess I never mentioned it, but the. For those of you who don't know. So there's me and then there's Owen Liang. He is the builder of Equinox. And I don't know those of you in Maryland. His plant is Pachyderm. And then the other goober is Mitchell Woefler. He is the builder of redshift. He's also our glorious treasurer. He helps us, you know, buy things. So, yep, that's. That's the crew. We're definitely looking to go, you know, bigger. I think I've been recently been trying to convince Mitchell to build a 12 pound version of redshift, which I think he's been a bit active in the discord about. Yeah, well, okay. Yes. So this started. I mean, it's been in the talks for like a little bit, but I definitely pushed. I've been try. I tried to push him towards actually doing it a few days ago after he got back from SWORD because he had some issues with his hub motor on the Beetle. But it's like sometimes the hub motor works and he's got like, some fixes and he's like, I kind of want to do like a pulley setup for the Beetle. And I'm like, let's just spend the effort and make the 12. It'll be glorious. Saru, I really. The total would be great. Also, the. The big thing that made us want to do the 12 is seeing Xenomorph. Dude, that robot, I love that robot. Yeah, that robot's so good. Like, because the thing is that there aren't really any like power verts in 12s. Like for the most part, it's like the 12s. It's all been kind of like a lot of the verts are like the more square kind of form factor 4 wheel drive verts primarily, I think remnants or not remnants, but like, you know, a lot of people from bots IQ because, you know, you know, oh, geez, you got Promhetta and Yob and Carmen and them. But like. And I feel like in 30s and in 30s, it's been a lot of tower verts. You know, you got rid wars, but that hasn't really come to 12. But now you got Xenomorph here like a. Honestly, very. For like its first like two showings, a very competitive tower vert. And it's kind of like, I don't know, we may see a meta shift.
- [20:01]
A
Yeah. But.
- [20:02]
C
Oh, yeah. Yeah, we got xeno there.
- [20:04]
A
I was literally just about to prompt. Pull it up.
- [20:08]
C
I know this is.
- [20:10]
A
This feels like such a big. This fight. Like, watching it felt like such a big gift. It was so unexpected for a robot that, you know, has seen two events to, like, come out and hit so hard. I. I don't mean to, like, totally detract, but let's. Let's. Yeah.
- [20:29]
B
Do you know my first prom header?
- [20:30]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [20:31]
B
For those audiences out there.
- [20:32]
A
Yeah. So Xenomorph versus this was at the November event, which Liam ended up winning. We'll talk about that, but we'll get there. Yeah. I. I mean, do you want to dive down this rabbit hole real quick? I mean, we can.
- [20:46]
C
Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is just reach war. It seems like.
- [20:51]
A
Yeah.
- [20:51]
C
Xenomorph was just able to just, you know, has bigger weapon diameter than promheda was able to hit the certain parts that prom hada couldn't hit back. But, yeah, we're. We really want to capitalize or kind
- [21:06]
B
of like, oh, my gosh.
- [21:08]
A
Have you not seen this fight yet? Dude, it's crazy.
- [21:12]
B
Watch more of November, but I clearly did not watch enough November.
- [21:15]
A
No, it's crazy,
- [21:19]
B
dude. That's nut, bro.
- [21:21]
A
Yeah. And he gets him in this. In this, like, housebot triangle, which this is. This is.
- [21:29]
B
This is hell.
- [21:31]
A
You correct. This is hell.
- [21:32]
B
That's awful.
- [21:35]
A
Yeah. Stuck in that corner that. It's a perfect size because, like, the 30s can't fit back in that corners, but the 12 absolutely can get smashed in those corners, dude. So there's a couple things that are really helping this robot out. The first thing is, like, in my opinion, like, gear drive on it is so good. I've been running a gear drive for close to two years now, and it's just, like, rough, reliable. I mean, it just. It just takes hits, takes impacts because you're keeping the force off the motor even though the motor doesn't clutch out. Like, when you take an impact, you're not putting any stress on the shaft, the cans, the magnets the same way you are. Like when a pulley stretches, you know, a pulley can can put load on that. Right. This is its weakness, though. So if red. If he makes a big red shift, he needs to not do this. Like, what is happening right there.
- [22:33]
B
To be fair, I think, like, every other tower vert kind of has better answer to it. I think just because David's just has a new robot, he just hasn't gotten to that point of it yet. 100 guarantee like, version 2 is going to be monstrous. I. I think for what is it? Redshift 12 you to get mirror match against Xenomorph. Probably imagine they're both gonna evolve very similarly. Super wide stance, tall weapon, and four wheel drive with something to keep off the deck.
- [23:01]
A
I didn't understand how good it was until it took a chunk out of my tail. I'm turning off. Yeah, real quick. Let me pull up a picture of it.
- [23:13]
B
Sorry.
- [23:14]
C
Yeah, he also. He took a. He took a massive chunk out of my Thai wedge too. I ended up giving it to him. It was. I was very scared.
- [23:24]
A
Yeah,
- [23:27]
B
well, yeah, like. Yeah, good.
- [23:29]
A
Now you go. I'm looking for pictures.
- [23:31]
B
I was gonna say, like, by the bite alone of that tooth gives it a huge advantage over, I think, most verts in that class just because, like, it's sort of a huge moi. But looking at the geometry of it, sort of the emulsifier type, giant snail shape. Yeah. Probably like an inch or. Or more tooth depth, which means he just has all that ability just go in and just hook to an insane degree, which is really bad for, you know, plastics like this, where it's softer and biteable. Yeah, yeah, that's a ton.
- [23:59]
A
Yeah.
- [24:00]
B
Material.
- [24:00]
A
Yeah, that's. Damn me. So that's. Yeah, that's him coming down on top of me. And that's. It's like a. It's like a bullet wound.
- [24:18]
C
Yeah, this is.
- [24:19]
A
This is the entry over here. And it mashed the material over into the belt, and then this is the exit. Like, if I had not gotten over, like, that's literally the path that it took. If I had not.
- [24:31]
C
Like, that's insane.
- [24:32]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. So this is all to say, going back to the original subject, like, a huge, like, tower vert would be so, so cool. Like, the way that redshift is built. That would be so cool. Yeah. Yeah, that would be so sweet.
- [24:48]
C
Yeah. I mean, we'll see what happens. I mean, the robot was. I mean, looking back at its two runs, it was beaten by two undercutters, which are arguably like a. A pretty good matchup against this style of robot since it. Most of its weight went into just being so big. So, yeah, I guess he couldn't really have a wedge, but, like, I could see this style of robot or just tower verts. You know, if they. More of them start to show up, then they could start to, you know, wreak havoc against a lot of the other styles of robots.
- [25:19]
A
Do you want to review this fight here? So this is. This is actually One of Liam's fights. Not. I guess we should watch your fight.
- [25:27]
B
So, okay, funny was like a preamble, like, xenomorph. And now, like, okay, now we know who he is. Now we get it.
- [25:32]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [25:33]
C
Great.
- [25:33]
A
No, this way.
- [25:34]
B
This story.
- [25:34]
A
We're storytelling here. We're storytelling here. Okay, so. So before this fight, it's funny. We were. I always feel bad for David Dreyer because he never brings, like, a picker or anything. I'm like, buddy, like, you know, let me know, and I'll, like, I'll always go down in the cage with you. And so he was like, yeah, dude, I totally want that. So November was cool because I got to be cage side with David for two or three of his fights, which was tons of fun. Super nice guy. Super awesome. He's from Northern Ohio, which. So there's a little bit of a bond there. And so we're walking down, and it's me, David, Liam, and then Zach walks up, and we realize. We're standing there, and we realize that I'm on the side with the vert, and Zach's on the side with the horizontal, which makes no sense. It's totally reverse. So the people who are advising or who are the cage side managers for this fight made. Made zero sense. And it was such a funny moment between the four of us.
- [26:39]
B
As vert master and horizontal masters, you both could do absolutely. Tons of good info.
- [26:46]
C
Hey, well, we need to know how to beat the other style of robot. That's why we have.
- [26:50]
B
What would you do right now? Tell me.
- [26:51]
A
I don't know what the. What the hell do I know about driving a vert? I literally go, can you try to hit him? And he goes, I'm trying. I literally. That was the best. That was the best call out, but that was the best call out.
- [27:06]
C
I had him.
- [27:07]
A
But Zach's coaching. I'm coaching. We both. Neither of us know what the hell we're talking about. Nobody knows what we're talking about.
- [27:15]
C
But, yeah, dude, look at the beginning of this fight. Like, I try to get around him.
- [27:19]
A
No. Yeah.
- [27:20]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [27:21]
C
Dude. And I get scared. I'm. Dude, right here. So scary.
- [27:25]
B
I can imagine. Yeah.
- [27:27]
A
Yeah.
- [27:28]
C
But then I start to get around him. Yeah, it's always. It's always the beginning of the match. It's like, dude, but you gotta get into neutral. It's like. I like to think about this like a. Like a fighting game. It's like you have. You know, you got neutral and advantage and disadvantage. It's like, just gotta start. For me, it's like, just start the fight, get out of the corner, get into a neutral state where you're just trying to either dog fight or maneuver. But it's like, if you can, if you choke in that corner, it's. It can be bad.
- [28:00]
A
I've done that tons of times. And so punishing.
- [28:04]
B
Also, it's so.
- [28:05]
C
Yeah, right there, that's where he just gouged out my, My wedge.
- [28:12]
B
Throwing. Yeah. But also, Liam, people did ask at least, how do you shark so. Well, it's like a number one question.
- [28:21]
A
Yes.
- [28:21]
B
I've been having for you because even in this case, when you were being pinned at first, you still got around him, began doing a lot of sharking, a lot of maneuvering around the robot.
- [28:31]
C
So a lot of it is one practice. I do get a decent amount of practice at the Hive, and it definitely helps a lot just to make sure that, you know, the, you know, being able to dial in the robot or to make it. Sure it drives the way I think it does because, you know, for the most part, a lot of people don't really get to fully see their robot's capability driving with the weapon on specifically, like until at competition. But that's been nice for Buzzkill. Oh, yeah. That was the big hit right there. My weapon stopped spinning. I got very, very scared. I was also very, very scared because I'm like, I don't want to land inverted because. Because, you know, self fighting is a bit one of my issues right now. So.
- [29:16]
A
Yeah.
- [29:18]
C
Yeah.
- [29:19]
B
And of course, just a blade that big, grabbing your weapon and pulling it, you know, without all support the weapon, just the blade.
- [29:27]
A
Sorry. Oh, yeah, you're not spinning yet.
- [29:30]
C
I run into the wall. Yeah.
- [29:32]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah. Because you're not spinning at all there. And so he.
- [29:37]
B
That feels so small.
- [29:40]
C
Yeah. Buzzkill is very compact. I, I big fan of compact robots. Being more compact means that you can put weight into just being tougher. Anyway, as we're talking about the shark circling, the other big thing that helps a lot with the shark circling is the cleats. I mean, I know you and I have, we've talked a lot about cleats and how to make good cleats, but like, specifically on a two wheel drive robot, cleats are really good because. Oh, yeah, I should have. I should have done. Look at the camera and point.
- [30:18]
B
Yeah. Poor Xenomorph just got caught fire dogged on again.
- [30:22]
A
The same thing happened. My fight. Yeah.
- [30:26]
C
Huh? Yeah. But anyway. Yeah, so cleats, you know, you Got a really good. On two wheel drive robots because, you know, all more of the pressure is on two wheels when it probably four wheel drive robots. The pressure is being spread out amongst, you know, four wheels. So I think it's a lot better on two wheel drive robots. Also, you got to make sure that whenever you're designing your cleats. Don't have too many cleats. You know, one of my, you know, things whenever somebody posts in the discord, their. Their cleat pick and it just like the entire wheel is just covered in spikes. I'm like less cleats. It's just like wep. It's just weapon design.
- [31:07]
B
Yeah.
- [31:07]
C
You got to. Your, your cleat spike needs a certain amount of bite in order to bite into the ground.
- [31:13]
A
Let me see if I.
- [31:13]
C
That's why. Oh, yeah. And then slowly, like the cleat meta started out with like, you know, two spikes either direction, really close to each other. I think that's what I still run on Buzzkill. But, you know, you, Jake, you've definitely like started the, the split spike. Yeah, I made my own split spike cleats for some of my other robots and they do work real well.
- [31:41]
A
Yeah, I just cut some. I'm gonna have to cover one set up when I, when I screen share it because one sets a secret. Oh, one sets a secret.
- [31:55]
B
I'm gonna stream people.
- [31:58]
A
Oh, in case I accidentally stream the secret. I don't think so. Okay, so these, this is, this is the cleat profile. So for those of you watching who like to design robots. Yeah. Liam and I have done a lot of back and forth and, and big shout out to being able to test at the Hive. That's huge. Because these were actually developed when I went to the Hive to test these. So basically I started with pleats that were like that. And what I found. And I had eight of them. Okay. And what I found is that we needed to get more bite out of them. So I went down to four. Okay. So 1, 2, 3, 4. And what I found was even though I was getting front door, even though I was getting better bite out of having less, it was so bumpy because. Because, you know, you're. You're having to go over this one and simultaneously over this one. So what we did is we split them and now this is what drives Maximizer. And this is also, I assume you're running a very similar profile on buzzkill, right?
- [33:05]
C
I don't have that one on Buzzkill yet. Just because I'm still using some of my Other. But Zenith. Zenith runs them.
- [33:13]
A
Yeah.
- [33:14]
C
And some other robots run them, but. Yeah. Yeah, good. And then the other thing specifically with that, a benefit to cleats with buzz kill. I don't think this is as big of a deal with maximizer is honestly, this is probably one of the biggest things that helped the Shark Circle is that cleats, not only are they good at providing, you know, extra traction, you know, forwards and backwards, accelerating forwards and backwards, but they also provide a lot of, like, traction side to side, which specifically means that I can turn on a dime and I don't, you know, go drifting. So, like, I can. I can, you know, have all my momentum forward, and then on a dime I can just turn left or turn right because my cleats are preventing me from drifting.
- [34:04]
A
Interesting.
- [34:05]
C
And that's, That's. That's what helps a lot of. Yeah.
- [34:10]
A
I know this is the last time you won a dumpster, but for me, like, when I really saw your Shark Circle, like, like the patented buzzkill Shark Circle was.
- [34:20]
C
Oh, yeah.
- [34:20]
A
When you won your dumpster against who again?
- [34:23]
C
Oh, my God.
- [34:24]
A
Do you mind sharing?
- [34:25]
C
I was driving so well.
- [34:26]
A
Yeah, you really were.
- [34:27]
C
Oh, yeah.
- [34:28]
A
Let me get it started. Do you mind sharing? For any beginner builders and drivers which, like the directional choice, like clockwise versus counterclockwise based on when it comes to
- [34:43]
C
Shark Circle, so whenever, like, I mean, you'd think that you'd want to do it depending on which way the weapon's spinning. Definitely. Like, usually you want to Shark Circle the direction that, like, you're. So your horizontal blade can hook around. But I honestly find that I just, I Shark Circle whichever direction I need to given in the match. I just, I. I usually don't think a whole lot in the match. I just kind of drive. I drive usually, although. But one of the times that I do, you know, you do gotta think this is actually very important here. And I didn't fully realize this until somebody pointed it out afterwards, but if you're ever fighting a vert and one of their drive sides goes down, this
- [35:23]
A
is what I wanted to get.
- [35:23]
C
You should.
- [35:24]
B
Yes, yes.
- [35:25]
C
That's what I wanted to win that match 100 of the time. Because you just need to circle them on the side. It says sounds counterintuitive on the side that their drive side's already dead. Because a lot of people, they're like, oh, I gotta kill the drive side. That's not dead. So I want to go to that side. But they whenever, you know, avert tries to back up their one side Lifts up. So you gotta circle them on the side where their live side will lift up, which is the side that they're dead drive side. So circle the side that they're.
- [35:58]
A
Me. Grab my.
- [35:58]
C
Yeah. Circle the side that has a dead drive side. And it's much, much more difficult for them to keep up with you. They almost have to circle around you the other way in order to try and keep up. Because every time they're, you know, they try to keep up with you, their live drive side lifts up. So.
- [36:17]
A
So okay.
- [36:17]
C
Yeah, that. That's my big advice for fighting verts. So especially as a horizontal.
- [36:21]
A
If he's down, which side is he down on?
- [36:27]
B
Come on, red zone. Come on, red zone.
- [36:29]
A
Yes, I'm trying. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
- [36:33]
B
Oh, no.
- [36:34]
A
I accidentally hit download. Oops, my bad.
- [36:38]
C
No, it's all right.
- [36:41]
A
So if he's down on this side, you're saying you need to go this way.
- [36:47]
C
No, if he's down on. So if the other way. Yes, you're going towards. So it's almost like as if you're trying to attack the side that's already dead. And that's why it's counterintuitive because.
- [36:59]
B
Oh, if you attack him here. Yeah.
- [37:02]
C
While you may not be able to take out the live drive side, still you're going to be winning every hit. You're going to be hitting him again and again and again. I'm trying to think of a fight
- [37:14]
A
after this because I didn't realize you're going to the left right now.
- [37:18]
C
Yeah. And look at how he can. He can keep up because his live. His. Yep. And now look at when I go the other way.
- [37:25]
A
Oh, so you want to go. Okay, I have this drawn, right?
- [37:29]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [37:30]
A
No, I have that draw drawn. Right.
- [37:31]
C
Because it's easy. Trying the drive side.
- [37:34]
A
I got it now.
- [37:35]
C
Still. Yeah. The drive side that's still alive is losing grip because it's lifting up. So.
- [37:42]
A
So if they're down on the left side, you want to go clockwise or counterclockwise. But if you're.
- [37:52]
C
Maybe I'm trying to think about in my head, just go circle the side. Go towards the side that has a dead drive side. Also crazy self. Right. Right here. I don't. I don't. I. Every time I self right. I don't know how I do it. I just kind of like, you know, go into the Avatar state and somehow self. Right. But then sometimes I don't. So, you know, if I self right,
- [38:15]
A
you're going clockwise here. And he's able to back up and keep up. But then you. But then you switch it on him, and he's. You can't do anything, see, because he can keep up. When you're going clockwise here.
- [38:29]
C
Yes, Correct.
- [38:32]
A
Interesting. So left side counterclockwise, right side clockwise. Remember that chat. That's huge. That's huge. You're getting advice from someone nominated for Best Driver of the Year right now. Two times, actually. You were nominated last year. I. I wasn't. Yeah, you definitely were, because I definitely was.
- [38:53]
B
Because the Shark, like, the big moment that wants to have things like this. Yep.
- [38:58]
C
Yeah. Dude, once I. Once I. I pulled out the Shark Circle at this computer, dude, it was over. I'm like. I'm like, this is it, wasn't it? I felt like it. This was my peak. It was not. Oh, dude. Oh, this is. This is one of my favorite buzzkill fights.
- [39:13]
B
So this is Psycho.
- [39:15]
C
Yes.
- [39:16]
A
Probably the two fastest robots, dude. On the. Yeah, on the field. Yeah.
- [39:22]
C
I was looking forward to this fight. Well, part of me wasn't because I was really scared, but, yeah, dude, this fight, it's a. It's a dog fight. We got two F18s here.
- [39:33]
A
Interesting.
- [39:34]
C
Trying to each get an edge on each other.
- [39:36]
B
So you.
- [39:36]
A
You pull. You. You pull out of the box here, and you immediately go into what you're calling a neutral stance. I can. I now that you pointed out, like, in your drive style, like, this is. You're at neutral right now. You know what I mean? And now you're going into, like.
- [39:52]
C
Because the thing is that I try to, like, it's really easy to accidentally just lose a match at the beginning of the beginning of the match against Avert, because, you know, whenever a vert hits you, you go into the air. And then once they're in advantage. Verts keep advantage very easily. They can ride the momentum.
- [40:12]
A
Yeah.
- [40:13]
C
So you just have to not let them get the momentum at the beginning of the match. And usually at the beginning of the match, it's like, God, yeah.
- [40:21]
A
Oh, I cannot believe. This isn't special.
- [40:25]
B
Fed up. Yeah.
- [40:27]
C
Oh, my God. But, yeah, so, like, you're basically, for me, I'm just waiting for them to make a mistake in the typical Shark Circle tactic. The. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. So, like, at the beginning of the match, usually, it's like they have in their head. It's like, all right, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna, you know, wait for this. And, you know, they got their strategy in. In your mind, but, like, so that's usually why it's easy to lose at the beginning of the match, but, like, once, you know, we're zooming all over the place, dude, you're just focusing on staying alive. So it's a lot easier to, you know, spot out whenever they make a mistake. And here it's like, luckily, I did not make a mistake this match. But as soon as I saw that psycho presented his side to me, it was. Yeah, how do you. How do you.
- [41:17]
A
I had to take that, man. I still. Oh, my gosh.
- [41:20]
C
I don't know.
- [41:22]
A
Yeah, but right.
- [41:23]
B
Once you're locked in enough, you see the other thing.
- [41:25]
C
Yeah.
- [41:26]
A
Yeah.
- [41:26]
C
I mean, I don't want to give really what my secrets, but, like. Like, the other thing is. Oh, I almost messed up there. That was. That was almost bad. But the other thing is, whenever you're driving really fast and just maneuvering really fast, you kind of fighting a vertical, you kind of give your opponent, like, two options. They can either, you know, double down and keep the weapon speed real high, or they can try to spin down in order to keep up. But spinning down means I can win more weapon on weapon engagement.
- [42:05]
A
Yeah. Then it's safe to engage with them.
- [42:07]
C
Yeah.
- [42:09]
A
Because he lowers his RPM to keep up.
- [42:15]
C
Yes.
- [42:15]
A
I think another really good fight with your. With your technique. That was, like, textbook. Was. Knockout. Well.
- [42:25]
C
Oh, yeah, that was. That was a good fight. I do get inverted in this fight, but, you know, I always, like, when I can win, not getting inverted, because sometimes when I do get inverted, sometimes I can just get a really good hit, like on a pulley or something like that. And that's what spoilers. That's what it ends up happening. But I always. I hate to win that way because I feel like I got lucky. Like, I. I want to feel like I just owned them, you know?
- [42:53]
A
Yeah.
- [42:53]
C
Here I lose somehow I lose the, you know, I'm in disadvantage right now. I do not successfully get out of the corner without getting hit,
- [43:07]
B
you know, you don't. I also noticed that you had the forks on it, but you don't really like to use these seem more like a defensive measure to give you a bit more space. No.
- [43:15]
C
So in this version, I primarily use the forks as a way to kind of give me time to breathe. Because, like, you know, when you're zooming all over the place, you can sometimes, like. Okay. So you need to be very patient and very attentive, and it takes a lot of, you know, brain power, I guess. And sometimes I just need a break. So whenever I need a break, sometimes I'll just Point my. I'll slowly drive away from them and point my forks at them, being like, okay, if you try to approach me, you're just gonna get up on my forks. And it can kind of just give me a chance to reassess in the match and kind of rethink what I'm doing. Because ultimately, the way.
- [44:05]
A
So even though you're not. You're not using them like a fag would, you're still using them as. That almost as psychological.
- [44:15]
C
Yes, yes. Like, yeah, basically being like, hey, give me a sec here. And ultimately, yeah, it's. I. I realize more and more whenever I'm doing, like, you know, my Shark Circle gameplay, it's really important for me to kind of, like, just calm down in a match, because ultimately, I. The way. The reason I. I feel like the reason I ended up losing to Promhetta in February and then Carmen in June was just because I was. I just got impatient, and I just went weapon on weapon and ended up losing that where as against Psycho, I was incredibly cool and patient somehow. So, yeah, it's kind of a.
- [45:01]
A
Going upside down can go either way for a horizontal man. It can either be like, yeah, lethal, or it can be, like, the best the way ever. Yeah, right, huh?
- [45:12]
C
Yeah.
- [45:13]
B
I was looking at this fight, like, you being up high in this fight, it was perfect because you have a scientific belt and then just kill the weapon and just, you know, stop from there or other fights, I would see you. It's kind of like, all right, well, now you're inverted. Let's hope the weapon doesn't get hit and, like, mine. And plus, fight the past event. That's what happened. Weapon got torn apart. Weapon got torn off. All sheared off or head dripped off.
- [45:37]
C
That was also not exactly my brightest moment. Usually, like, being inverted can be, like, all right, like, if. As long as you get, like, a good bite on them. But, yeah, I did not do. I did the opposite of that in mine. And puzzle.
- [45:54]
B
Excellent stuff.
- [45:56]
A
Oh, yeah, that's a great fight. Do you want to watch one where you lose or not?
- [46:02]
C
I. Let's watch the.
- [46:06]
A
I'm not.
- [46:08]
C
Whatever. Yeah, we can watch the Carmen Buzzkill fight. I like that fight a lot. I end up. I. I lose this one, but this was still a great fight. I still love this fight.
- [46:22]
A
All right,
- [46:27]
B
Carmody, Buzz kill.
- [46:28]
A
So you're trying to get into your neutral here. I see what you're saying. You just got impatient and dove in on that wedge immediately.
- [46:36]
C
Yeah, well, yeah, that. That didn't end up, like, sealing the Deal for me there, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It also just doesn't help. I. I've. I'm pretty sure that last competition was the first time I've ever had, like, a proper drive coach. I usually don't have a drive coach because, well, I feel like everybody else is. Has their own twelves, you know, but.
- [47:05]
A
Yes.
- [47:06]
C
Yeah. Yes, yes. So that's always very helpful to help keep steady. And of course, I have Zach Knight on the opposite side of the arena. I can never get away from that man.
- [47:20]
A
So is your weapon dead here? No. Why is it smoking?
- [47:23]
C
Yeah, I have no idea. I. I thought it was belt smoke at one point, but I honestly have no idea.
- [47:33]
A
Break. I see what you're saying. You're not controlling.
- [47:35]
C
Yeah.
- [47:35]
A
You're giving yourself some time.
- [47:38]
C
Yeah. I was not. I had no idea what the issue was. I'm like, maybe the motor. There was an issue causing the motor to get too hot or something like that. Because eventually it comes back.
- [47:48]
A
Yeah.
- [47:48]
C
And I'm like. I'm like, we're so back.
- [47:51]
A
Right.
- [47:51]
C
So I'm like, at this point, I have no idea what the issue was, man. Usually like, if I have an idea.
- [47:59]
A
Yeah.
- [47:59]
C
It's like normally if I have an idea of what the issue was, I can usually use that to inform my decisions, but I had no idea. But yeah, I. I thought I was so back there.
- [48:08]
A
But yeah, you know, if you would have landed.
- [48:10]
C
Carmen's a tough bot.
- [48:11]
A
Yeah. If you would have landed a shot on the wheel there. But he. He kills your weapon at some point. He's.
- [48:23]
C
Yeah.
- [48:23]
A
I'm so worried about fighting this robot.
- [48:28]
B
Well, yeah, the two horizontal. The 2 top horizontal 12 pound builders in the weight class inspecting horizontal fights.
- [48:36]
A
Yeah.
- [48:37]
B
Always like a fun case of like great time or terrible time.
- [48:42]
A
Well, so. So Lore, Liam and I are locked in. Oh, geez. I missed this.
- [48:50]
B
This part.
- [48:51]
A
Sorry.
- [48:54]
C
We don't have to look at it. We don't have to. No, I just. Yeah, the.
- [48:58]
B
The.
- [48:59]
C
The bearing could only take too much and the, the bearing, the ball bearing ended up like the inner and outer race sheared.
- [49:06]
A
But anyway.
- [49:07]
C
Yeah. What are you saying?
- [49:12]
A
Yeah. Geez.
- [49:13]
B
Locked in.
- [49:13]
A
Yeah. You gave him so much feedback and you were just upside down. Yeah, See, that's where like, being upside down can be, like, it can be the best thing ever or it can be death. And sometimes you just don't get an option.
- [49:30]
B
Interesting.
- [49:31]
A
I don't understand how you didn't kill Carmen when he was upside down, man. That's crazy.
- [49:35]
C
I don't know. I mean, I hit him pretty hard, but it was. It looked like I hit him pretty hard, but. Yeah.
- [49:40]
B
I don't know, because, Liam, you have, like, a dead shaft on Buzzkill. Correct.
- [49:44]
C
It's not like I do dead shaft. Yeah. Maximizer.
- [49:48]
A
I.
- [49:49]
C
So, yeah, live shaft. Dead shaft, definitely ups and downs. Live shaft is definitely harder to pull off, but I think if you can pull it off, I think it's a little bit better just because, like, you know, Jake, he's got the live shaft. The weapon is welded to the live shaft, so there is, like, no bearing to shear, you know? Oh, yeah. This one you'd have.
- [50:16]
B
I was thinking, like, you would have to.
- [50:18]
A
To remove. Let me think. You'd have to blow the pulley apart.
- [50:25]
C
Yeah.
- [50:26]
A
Or sheer.
- [50:26]
C
Where the threads.
- [50:29]
B
Yeah, that.
- [50:30]
C
Yeah. And that's why on my Beetle Zenith, that's why I did live shaft on it. And I've been liking it a lot. Yeah, it's been very nice. Well, you get the.
- [50:41]
B
Yeah. You're fighting. What did you say, Jake?
- [50:49]
A
Oh, I was. I said, you get the protective belt.
- [50:52]
C
Yes. That is also nice. I guess let's protect it against the hammer saw, maybe. But overall, it's. It's nice.
- [51:00]
B
Yeah. Because I was thinking, like, with Mako and a little bit of what we saw at Buzzkill, that control element is going to be huge, especially, like, your use of forks. But even this fight mind and puzzle right here, this is like a prime example of control against two other strong vertical spinners that definitely want to break you.
- [51:19]
C
I just want to point out what just happened there. It's easy to miss, but. So basically, Mr. Matt Luther driving mine in, he sees that he, you know, he's a vert, and he sees that I'm inverted. So he makes, I mean, you know, the obvious decision. He's going to try and hit me to smack off my vert. So, yeah, it comes up a second like, oh,
- [51:52]
A
now I.
- [51:54]
C
So he. The bottom plate gets full fed into my weapon, and I just gut the inside of the robot. Oh,
- [52:04]
B
that is the difficult part with the bouncy boys.
- [52:07]
A
Oh, that is so unlucky.
- [52:11]
C
Yeah, that's. That. It was really unlucky. They were. If that didn't happen, they would have probably won this fight. Yeah. So then that happens. Okay, so what happened there? Basically, I go to. I'm seeing red, and I'm like, okay, I've got my undercutter upside down. I'm going to try to smack into him, but then I'm like, wait, maybe this isn't a good idea. So I have a brain fart moment. I slow down, which gives them like a no feed into the weapon. So don't do that. That's bad. But here you can see back to what you were talking about earlier, which side to circle. Minan has a dead or I mean puzzle has a dead drive side here. So I know that I can always circle the side with the dead drive side. And you'll see that in a second
- [53:02]
A
down on the left. That means you should be doing clockwise. I remember earlier.
- [53:10]
C
I don't know, I feel like you're thinking about it too hard. Just go to the side with the dead drive side.
- [53:15]
B
It also works because plus was inverted.
- [53:17]
A
But what if you're on the wrong side? That's what I don't understand. Understand.
- [53:24]
B
It's funny how you're using an inverted triangle robot to try to wedge against the.
- [53:29]
C
So the wedge you don't, you don't need the wedge. You just need, you know, a massive robot. But yeah, you can see the robot.
- [53:39]
B
So because the drive side.
- [53:40]
C
Yeah, yeah. I got a little bit scared.
- [53:42]
B
Oh, dang.
- [53:45]
A
The. I see. So it's not even a clockwise counterclockwise. You're just trying to approach the side with the dead side.
- [53:57]
C
Yeah, I'm not doing a very good job right there. But here you can see there. Then I'm like, oh wait, I need to lock in. So then I'm like, oh wait, I just need to circle the dead drive side and look, there's a minute left. Keep up.
- [54:08]
B
Yeah, golden dumpster run on the line. What's he gonna do?
- [54:12]
A
And this really shows like understanding, like especially for newer drivers, understanding the judges decisions and the way that judges decisions work because you know, a new driver might see their weapon get removed and think it's hopeless. Well understand that during JD's like the way that multi bots are scored, if one's fully dead, then you're at 3, 3. I'm sorry. If half is dead, then that you know one side is fully down. Even though you've got weapon down. It's a three, three damage split. It's not like a, like a 51 damage split. Right. So like, yeah, understand your judge's scoring and like factor that into your drive. It might not be hopeless. Right.
- [54:57]
B
Yeah.
- [54:57]
C
I would always be, I would always want to be in a scenario with one robot with a down weapon and one robot with a down drive. I'd always to be the one with the down weapon and have full drive.
- [55:07]
A
Oh really?
- [55:08]
B
The chat is saying you're a little too Quiet.
- [55:10]
A
I'm sorry. I, I. It's because I. It's because I leaned back. I'm leaning closer to my mic
- [55:18]
C
because I know, especially if. If my opponent is a vert and they have a down drive side, even if I have a down weapon, I feel like you should still be able to win that because you can just circle the side with the. The dead drive side, and then they can't really do anything to you.
- [55:39]
A
Wow, there it is. Everyone in the audience thought you were screwed.
- [55:45]
C
I. I thought I was.
- [55:46]
B
I.
- [55:46]
A
Yes.
- [55:48]
C
Look, it wasn't just the people in the audience thought I was good too.
- [55:54]
A
That's it.
- [55:54]
B
That's the one technical game. That's the key.
- [55:57]
C
Oh, yeah. Son of Cram. I know this robot. Dude, this robot is tough. I got the buzzkill right here. The tooth is gone. The tooth doesn't exist anymore. It's like it's gone Cram.
- [56:13]
B
Who's the driving coach?
- [56:15]
A
Some. Some guy with. Doesn't know anything about robots. Cram was.
- [56:21]
C
No. Well, he was. You were still very helpful in pointing out whenever he was inverted or not inverted because the robot looks the same.
- [56:29]
A
Yeah, it's really hard to tell. And when I fought him, he drew the cool S on the other side, and I couldn't tell which way stopped or which way was up and which way was down because the cool S was on the bottom. Yeah, it's really hard to tell with that robot when it's inverted. So, like, you know, for people who are, you know, new drivers and new horizontal drivers specifically, like, the best scenario for you is when your opponent is upside down because their weapon can't do anything to you. And typically, they're weaker driving because two wheels are off the ground. Cram is a special case because, A, you kind of can't tell, and B, it drives just as good upside down as it does right side up. And then the third thing is that it can roll over pretty quick too, which makes it a pretty dangerous target. So that's what. What. What Liam and I are kind of referencing here when we're talking about, oh, I need to know if my opponent is. Is inverted because they're so vulnerable in that state. Graham is not vulnerable in that state.
- [57:31]
B
So we did lose the drive wheel guard. But, man, this is so cagey because, like, both of you are extremely fast. So I do see the. Really, the big difference I'm noticing is Cram having the gyro some and Liam, like, you, you just don't drift at all. Like you were saying before, like, you just I don't immediately pivot.
- [57:50]
C
Yep. And then the other. Another thing about driving an undercutter like buzzkill is a lot of just getting good at driving in general is like, whenever you hit them, it's not like a vert where, you know, you stay planted and then they go into the air. Like, you have no idea which direction you could bounce off of. So a lot of driving buzzkill is just in a split second, reacting to whichever way you bounce off and just incorporating that into just a fluid motion.
- [58:22]
A
Yeah.
- [58:22]
C
Because if you notice when any fight where I'm driving buzzkill, I try to never, like, stand still. Like, even when I'm waiting for my opponent, I'm still moving. Like, you always want to keep momentum. Like, always keep driving.
- [58:37]
A
It's like a flurry.
- [58:39]
C
Yes.
- [58:40]
B
It's like a cyclone. Like, you're always. You're always giving potential of feed because your weapon's always spinning and you're always, like, going some direction. So in theory, even like an off shot could in theory do stuff like that. We sort of hit the side of fram, pop it up a little bit, catch the edges of it earlier. Got a wheel off of it. In this case, he's trying to dive right away. You're still able to, like, constant feed. You're.
- [59:02]
A
You're going toward the dead side every time here. Driving toward, approaching the dead side, trying to get to the dead here.
- [59:10]
B
You kind of like bait him a little bit. Like he's trying to get gyros, but always back in. It's. It's such a. What a brilliant control bot. Love control bots. And Buzzkill is an excellent control bot.
- [59:21]
C
I know. Well, it's nice when the opponent doesn't have a wedge. I hear he might be changing that though. But we'll. We'll see.
- [59:29]
B
Oh, look what you've done.
- [59:30]
A
Let's take a quick break. We're sitting here at an hour right now. Let's take a quick break and then let's talk about the champs bracket and what that looks like. Liam, this has been an excellent breakdown. I think this is like, if you're a new horizontal driver. I think I might just send them this podcast and say these are the things that you need to know before you build or drive a horizontal. I think it's perfect. Let's take five minutes and then we're going to be right back for our preview speculation, I guess, of camps 2025. Cool. Welcome back to behind the Bots. We're here with Liam King, golden two time golden dumpster winner Liam King, just hot off of a freshman. We're going to be breaking down the brackets going into champs and I'm going to hold us to half an hour on this because I know this is good luck. We could spiral out of control on this one. So we'll do 10 minutes for limiting. I'm limiting this to 10 minutes of weight class so that doesn't spiral into a coping session because I know it could. Okay, which one?
- [61:12]
C
Start with.
- [61:14]
A
Oh, wait.
- [61:14]
B
I mean go small and work your way up. Yeah. Yeah, sorry.
- [61:20]
A
You think twelves are going to take the longest? Why? Why do you say that?
- [61:23]
C
Why?
- [61:28]
B
I do threes. Yeah.
- [61:32]
C
All right.
- [61:33]
A
Interesting matchups.
- [61:34]
B
Off the.
- [61:35]
A
Off the rip. Chainsaw Kitty could be facing strike point again. That's a big deal. They fought earlier this year. Sean won. Never to do the same thing twice. Chainsaw Kitty, Kazi sky. Always aggressive, great fighter. That could be a cool rematch. Brandon, what jumps out for you?
- [61:57]
B
Honestly, I was curious about. I was trying to look for. Where is it? Where is. Where's Cold Smith? Trying to find it.
- [62:08]
C
We got Cold Snap Elytra.
- [62:10]
B
Elytra. There it is. Yes. Okay. So you near the top. Yeah. I was curious about them because I was trying to think about. Jelly Baby is the first buy. Right. But Cold Snap is a big, big 30, not 30. Big shuffle, big three pounder. So it's like a big body. Elytra is very famous for just being super wide one but also biting everything with the very aggressive shape on it. So I was curious how either of those could shaping until a baby. And between the two of them.
- [62:37]
C
Actually I think Electro Cold stuff bought Jelly Baby. True.
- [62:43]
B
But again that was like earlier in the year.
- [62:47]
C
Oh, wait, did Elytra also.
- [62:48]
A
Yeah.
- [62:49]
B
Oh, really? They did. They both did.
- [62:52]
A
Threes, guys.
- [62:53]
B
Come on.
- [62:54]
C
Yeah.
- [62:55]
B
Dude. I just.
- [62:56]
C
I remember now.
- [62:57]
B
Yes.
- [62:58]
C
This is the competition I did not go to. Yeah, this is.
- [63:03]
B
Yeah.
- [63:04]
C
I took a break for this one.
- [63:05]
B
Yeah. Because I was curious about what each one would do against the super Duper.
- [63:11]
C
Oh. So either way it's going to be a rematch. This is. That's. That'll be fun.
- [63:14]
B
Yeah.
- [63:14]
C
I wonder if I was looking for
- [63:16]
B
that in the bracket somewhere. I figured that was gonna be coming in again. I think Paige is stupendous the Jelly Baby defense against them just because angles on it. But yeah. October like exactly. Like you get a second chance on there. Like what do you do second shot. I think that's the question or Electro have to ask themselves if they could delete.
- [63:35]
A
Yeah.
- [63:36]
B
In the following round.
- [63:37]
A
Old Snap is so cool. It's so big. And it's proportionately just like, huge in a way that, like.
- [63:45]
C
Yeah.
- [63:47]
A
I mean, Buzzkill is not like a huge, huge robot.
- [63:50]
B
No. Xenomorph 12 is kind of like.
- [63:52]
C
I like. I like Cold Snap because it's a very cool undercutter. However, I swear this robot likes to destroy leatherbacks robots. I don't know what it is.
- [64:03]
B
It does. Oh, my goodness. This leatherbacks have a terrible draw with Cold Snaps early in the day for tournaments. It's so sad. But also great learning. It's so sad.
- [64:13]
C
Yeah. Yeah. Leatherbacks were kind of plagued by shuffling undercutters, but that's okay. Or weight bonus undercutters, but the same.
- [64:22]
B
Yeah. Because what I appreciate most about Cold Snap fights is that because it's a shuffler 30. I keep saying 30 pound shuffler, three pound robot. That means that it has the ability to actually have, like, inertia to stay in place. Most times, like I am, I'm under the belief that three pounders have excess energy. And so they just move out of the way before actually before they take tons of damage. They kind of like they press it against the wall. Like, Cold Snap is one of the few cases where it's like, if you do the right thing, it can just throw you around and continually upset you or get on its head. Apparently, gyro lock itself.
- [64:57]
A
He does. He does this exact same thing you do, Liam.
- [65:00]
C
I'm surprised. Right?
- [65:02]
A
Yeah, I'm surprised. Yeah, I know. It's so sad watching. I'm not trying to flex here anything other than my robot trying to do that because, yeah, my robot's got the freaking. The motor that wrenches it back around. Correct. But I know. Yeah, that's so funny. I can't believe that those shufflers are fast enough in order to do that. That's crazy. I mean, they're zooming move.
- [65:34]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, that's. That's. That's the first round draw. I was curious about electric old Snap just because it was curious how they had how either one of them would rematch Jelly baby. And so I think even in this fight, I'm sure Miles. That's why I watched this more times than we have and probably thought to himself, man, I want to be able to not repeat, but at the same time, Elytra, I'm sure, is equally violent. You're talking about, like, giant vert, giant horizontal. The first round, it's kind of play dangerous game.
- [66:05]
C
Yeah.
- [66:06]
A
If I was Miles and I. I'm kind of tipping my cap as to my thought Process for fighting control bots a little bit here. But I would be thinking about ways to make those shufflers more exposed. Like he's stuck here. Like making those. The shufflers either bigger or removing the. The wheels. Oh wow. In the house box.
- [66:34]
B
Hey, ramp buddy. Maybe those are gonna be too.
- [66:40]
C
Or maybe like a thinner blade.
- [66:42]
A
Yeah.
- [66:43]
C
To try to cut better so it doesn't just bounce off.
- [66:47]
A
Really the real problem. The real problem is getting stuck upside down. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna say anything past that as your strategy. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna reveal anything or my strategy for that matter.
- [67:01]
C
But yeah.
- [67:01]
A
Yeah. Jelly baby. Always dominant, very well driven. Paige Clayfield.
- [67:07]
C
Yeah.
- [67:07]
A
Great driver.
- [67:08]
C
I'm also. I'm excited to see Pine Victus versus Sad Octopus.
- [67:13]
A
Yeah.
- [67:14]
B
Rematch.
- [67:16]
C
Yes.
- [67:17]
B
Yeah.
- [67:17]
C
It's funny because Pine Victus was able to kill Sad Octopus in one of the. Or the, you know, February and that was his qualifying event. But then since then Sad Octopus went on and put on a very good show. Since then I forget which comp or he made it far in multiple comps afterwards. Right.
- [67:36]
B
Yeah. I remember he got finals against Caldera mid year.
- [67:40]
C
Yes.
- [67:40]
B
That was like May or something. I forget exact date. I remember he just made a dangerous run. But at the same time I remember early Pine, early Sad and that just being like an all time banger. I think it was like the interesting though they might have fought more than once. I'm pretty sure this is the same SAD that goes on rest of the year. But the first version of Sad I think Pine like eliminated pretty quickly. I think they might have twice.
- [68:05]
A
It's so reminiscent of like old school Links. So cool, huh?
- [68:11]
C
Yeah. And I mean Pine Victus has also gotten an upgrade since the last time they've seen each other. So we'll see how it goes. And then after that either one of them versus Repeater.
- [68:23]
B
Ah. So potential. Potential feed in there with three Links is in a fight.
- [68:29]
C
I know, right? I think the. I think looks like Lynx is going to win.
- [68:33]
A
I. I love the Link side of the bracket. Oh hell. We got. We got Link's fight going again.
- [68:42]
B
I know he's done great work to update Pine naked Roy clean at the same time. Eat a Bobby to Bobby to Bob.
- [68:50]
A
But we'll see whatever happens Link, I think Links is retired now.
- [68:56]
B
Yeah. Calvin just had a nice time making money off of his robot. Like you know what? Maybe I'm good.
- [69:02]
A
It's over.
- [69:03]
C
I mean, I mean I win the world championship three times. I mean what. What other Glory is there.
- [69:08]
A
Yeah.
- [69:09]
B
And he like. And he funded Scar. Like, he paid for the new. Like, he's. He's done by. I actually by numbers. I guess you could say he's made the most money off of fighting robots off anyone. Like, you consider. Like, he's made links and obviously refined links than other robots with it. But you just think about just the links line in its own right, and then the wind it's gotten from it. That's like enormous capital he's moved through that robot. It's awesome stuff. But yes. But yes. Beater bars, Peter bars.
- [69:44]
C
Yep. How we doing on time?
- [69:47]
A
Okay. Okay, we're gonna wrap. Okay, we're gonna wrap up.
- [69:50]
B
Okay.
- [69:51]
A
Okay.
- [69:51]
B
That's threes.
- [69:52]
A
That's threes. Sorry. I just flicked myself in the eye with this piece of filament I was playing with, and then I watched it back on stream. I'm such an idiot. I can't wait to clip that. Oh, God. Oh, that hurt. All right, do you want to do
- [70:07]
C
30s, 30s, or twelves next? Let's do 30s.
- [70:11]
A
Okay.
- [70:11]
C
Okay, let's do 30s.
- [70:13]
A
All right.
- [70:14]
B
I want. I won't.
- [70:15]
A
How are you looking, buddy?
- [70:18]
B
Personally, I'm glad that they gave me the bone of moving Voron and Phenomenon up besides the bracket. I was afraid of them pulling each other first.
- [70:27]
A
What is.
- [70:31]
C
There's gonna be so many banger fights. Oh, my God.
- [70:35]
B
Here's the thing. I think that Almost all the 30 pound fights in the first round, it can be done within like a minute or a minute and a half.
- [70:43]
C
I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah.
- [70:44]
B
So violent. They're gonna be so incredibly violent. They're all just gonna die super fast. Like, the first two shots and it's like, all right, you lost drive and you lost weapon crawl for two minutes. Or the other one loses nothing and destroys the other one, like, immediately.
- [70:58]
C
Yeah, I'm excited for Dead Rise Kill Switch and then into Chunky. That's gonna be exciting.
- [71:07]
A
I was gonna watch this personally.
- [71:10]
B
That is crazy. Personally, I think that a. A Dead Rise Kill Switch fight is just gonna be massive violence. I think Dead Rise has absurd power. I think Kill Switch can also take it. His kill switches shuffler, so it has the extra bulk. Take the hits over and over again. I think it's mainly just, like, violence. And the first one who stops spinning is the one who dies. I guess it's every kind of fight, but, like, particularly that fight, driving not really being a big factor in it.
- [71:37]
C
But yeah, I mean, but I'm curious to see what either of them would do against Chunky. I know that Dead Rise has a big old wedge, but we'll have to see if. If he. If he wins his first match, how it'll hold up. Also, I'm not sure if Kill switch. I don't remember if they have like a full plow or something like that. I don't know. Because if they don't, then I think Chunky would definitely have the advantage. He would ride up the Kill Switch would just ride up on the. The chunky shell. So we'll see what happens.
- [72:07]
B
If I were to think about. If I were to think about them fighting a Chunky, I think either one is going to be lots of bite between like the. To the Chunky coming almost normal to the beater bar and punching itself, or I think it's going to skip over it and sort of bounce off the edge of it. But, you know.
- [72:22]
A
Well, is the big black dragon.
- [72:25]
B
Yeah. Benguela's mini black dragon?
- [72:27]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [72:27]
B
That's the short answer.
- [72:29]
A
Yeah.
- [72:29]
C
Yeah. How you feel about that?
- [72:31]
A
Yeah, how are you? How are you feeling?
- [72:33]
B
I mean, personally, I have longer forks and when you're driving against the robot that is longer forks, I feel generally speaking that if I can get to any side, I'll be what he just did. Just did against it. The part I'm worried about is them bending a fork, which I think is insta death for me in any sort of fight because they have a wide beater for their weapon. And I think if I were to pull that, if I were to come not normal to them, I would die. In a fight against Toro last event back in June, I think I basically was like right normal to their weapon and instantly threw them up and punch them into the air. But the second that I was even slightly angled, they bent up one of the forks and almost killed it. So, yeah, in a sense it's like if I line it up straight, he will certainly die first. And if I go at any angle, I will certainly bend a fork and be in the negative for a minute.
- [73:29]
A
They fought.
- [73:32]
C
Yeah. And then we got the potential for a. If complete. If kablooey can best Goose, then we can get a Megatron kablooey.
- [73:41]
B
Let's go
- [73:44]
C
in the quals. Like that's because I'm pretty sure that again last time he spot it was like late in the bracket it was champions.
- [73:51]
A
When did Goose qualify Goose?
- [73:55]
B
Goose beat me way back in February because Undertaker and Goose were both same school and they came February and qualified really, really fast swine or take advice for you on there. That's a rematch, too. And so, yeah, same idea. It's like, okay, I have longer. I have forks, though. Undertaker also has long forks, because I saw at the Robo Brawl that's probably worse, and we could just fork each other. But the real fear is, yeah, Kaza is our other, like, rocket body. And so I'm definitely afraid of fire. And I don't have an answer yet if. Fire or no fire, and that worries me daily.
- [74:29]
C
Yeah. Yeah.
- [74:30]
A
That is a big. That is it. Yeah, you're right. That is a big deal. That. That is a really big deal. Especially while we're week and a half out from competition and there's still no indication. Let's see you think about that.
- [74:48]
B
Yep. Because I'm thinking.
- [74:50]
A
Yeah. Yep.
- [74:52]
C
Yeah.
- [74:52]
B
Because I like, if you're Kaza, like, you live and die by that. Because I love him, like, in terms of, like, really strong brick multi bot. But if you have no way to aggress and you're fighting the beastly is 30 pounders in the whole world, you're probably gonna die. Or you might, like, control for a while and you might not have, like, the most exciting fight, but, like, high odds. Someone nips the chassis, bends something, and just kaput.
- [75:18]
A
Undertaker, earlier than the year, too. And if I remember, just absolutely freaking ran through them, too. Let me see if I remember correctly, because, like, see, this is possible. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. Look at the freaking ceiling shake, dude.
- [75:40]
B
The forks are immediately gone. On the other.
- [75:42]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [75:44]
B
That would be pain.
- [75:45]
A
And even though they've got fire, it's like.
- [75:51]
B
But, yeah, like, that's the kind of, like, life or death they have if they don't have a fire. Because even right now, like, at least the other one could say it has weapon, but this one with no fire and just pure vibes.
- [76:00]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [76:05]
B
But I'm kind of afraid what's gonna happen is they're gonna not get the reading until, like, the day before. It's gonna have to just, like, buy aluminum tape. Yeah, that's like five lumin tape and pray and. And I'm gonna be so scared.
- [76:16]
A
Yep.
- [76:18]
C
Yeah.
- [76:18]
B
All it takes, like, one good pincer mover, pincer maneuver. And there's, like, no extra room in Voreon, so if there's heat in there, it's just gonna go right into the guts, and that's gonna be.
- [76:29]
C
Oh, oh,
- [76:32]
A
oh.
- [76:36]
B
That's the chassis pulled out of the frame.
- [76:40]
A
Yes. That could be an interesting rematch. Undertaker too. Well, but I'm hoping. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [76:47]
B
I Mean, I was, I was. I mean. Yeah.
- [76:49]
A
Looking at that. Wrong. Possible possible rematch there.
- [76:54]
B
Yeah.
- [76:54]
C
Also Red Storm Kratos. No, I feel like that could be interesting.
- [77:00]
A
Yeah.
- [77:07]
B
Reliable with time. I love the idea. Like, it's beautiful engineering. And Red Storm's a robot where you decapitate it. That's like a very direct way to just get a good position going.
- [77:19]
C
Yeah. I mean I would imagine if the. The Kratos can like skip over Red Storm's wedge and hit the. The grappling mechanism, then.
- [77:28]
B
Yeah.
- [77:29]
C
Yeah, it could be interesting. And then in. Into emulsifier Emperor.
- [77:35]
B
Wait, wait, wait. You're telling me that Red Storm could go into emulsifier in like the. For in quality?
- [77:42]
A
Yeah, that's nuts.
- [77:45]
C
Yeah.
- [77:46]
B
Yeah, that's nuts.
- [77:48]
A
That's like a finals. Those are finals. Yeah, yeah, that's like a finals fight. So Kratos had some problems with the most recent event. What happened? Let's see. We're spinning. We're doing the thing. Oh, that's chain.
- [78:03]
B
That's chain. That's the chain.
- [78:04]
A
And kill. Yeah.
- [78:06]
B
Pain. And kill. Lots of leftover inertia though. And there you go.
- [78:11]
A
Yeah. And kill.
- [78:12]
C
Yeah.
- [78:13]
A
Unfortunate.
- [78:15]
B
But I'm noticing that the. Yeah. So that was his last fight was against Angela. If I were guessing. They probably could look at that. And they've probably been slow tuning it because it hasn't. Hasn't been super damaged in that last fight. So I have to imagine they've been trying to tune that at a clutch. Do whatever they have to make them more reliable because then you're going into a potential emulsifier.
- [78:38]
A
Yeah.
- [78:39]
B
You best lock it.
- [78:40]
A
Yeah. Yeah, man. Red Storm versus. Versus Emulsifier. That could be really, really cool.
- [78:48]
C
Yeah. Yeah. Waddles four letter into little Ash Macabot.
- [79:00]
B
So like.
- [79:01]
A
Yeah.
- [79:01]
B
Here's the thing with little Ash and macabre.
- [79:03]
A
Yeah.
- [79:03]
B
First of all, love little Lash. But I don't think that robots actually been punched in the face. Seriously. I don't think ever. Like when I went west to the RCL finals, I did not see it take much damage at all. Like it was very. Actually driven. And the April run was kind of. Kind of sad. Yeah. Two, four pits. He went into the bracket and then died in the finals because it just turned off. It's pretty rough. But I think about Mechabot. I'm like, that's a stupidly big beater. So he has to like take a hit at some point or another. That robot's gonna get hit in the face.
- [79:36]
A
After having a conversation with him though. I'm so. I'm so excited to like, see it drive and like, see everything that he was talking about with, like, I. I remember from that episode him talking about like, oh, he doesn't drive with braking so that he can drift better and like how exactly once you kind of see it, like, it makes so much sense, like the way that this robot moves. So I'm excited to see that because I wasn't looking out for that last time. So.
- [80:02]
B
Yeah, I think he's probably the comp. I think he's probably one of the, would you say, least studied angel side fight to have for a robot that's in the finals.
- [80:12]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [80:13]
B
Because. Because, you know, one event and an event had two forfeits to get in the bracket.
- [80:17]
A
That's.
- [80:17]
B
Yeah. Kind of rough, but at the same time, it's probably like the most stealthily good machine that could show up there and just dark horse roots ways to deal with dynamite.
- [80:26]
A
All right, that's my 10 minute timer for 30s. 10 minute timer.
- [80:30]
B
Oh, nice. All right, good luck, boys.
- [80:32]
A
Onto the good luck, guys. Welcome to hell. All right. AK the 12 pound bracket. All right. What? You go first, Liam, because I know which fights I'm looking for in the first gauntlet here. Qual one and quality.
- [80:49]
C
Yeah, I mean, well, I don't know the fights. Okay. So I guess I could talk about me. So I'm either gonna fight Sievert or Adamant Barrage. So I am happy about either of those fights. I think I'm going in with an advantage. But you definitely can't count either of them out. I fought Sievert before at Hive Hysteria. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. I'm also, I don't know, I feel like the big fight that I'm looking toward, like, looking forward to seeing is the potential of Promhetta versus Carmen. That will be a big match. And I have a feeling that you care a lot about that match too.
- [81:34]
A
Yeah. So that match basically feeds. So if I win this one, I go in this slot here and then the person who goes into this slot comes from Q37, which is fed by this one here and that one here. So that's why I care a lot is because. Because it sends a very high seed to fight Q37 versus someone who own low seed and a buy here. So it's kind of like I'm probably going to end up like thinking about it. I'll probably fight winner of Q2W7 in the first round of 16 I and I've already prepped my family for this possibility because they're all coming from Louisville, Kentucky. I said, no, no. They're like, we. We need you to do really well because we're all flying up. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, right, right.
- [82:39]
B
You gave him one of the worst.
- [82:40]
A
Yeah, yeah, the worst. Just no. And. And they're mostly. They are mostly joking when they say that.
- [82:47]
C
Sure.
- [82:48]
A
But I could very well. And I've already prepared for this emotionally. I could see a Maximizer 1 and 1 here where. Where I win one of the fights here in qual and then I lose out in the round of 16 here. So it could be. It could be a great season with a terrible end here for. For. For Maximizer. I'm. I'm totally prepared for it. So we'll see.
- [83:11]
C
And the thing is that you're kind of soul locked to them. Likely prom had our Carmen because even if mine and plus will manage to beat you, then you. There's a chance you'll be fighting the winner.
- [83:23]
A
Yeah.
- [83:24]
C
Right. So it's right.
- [83:26]
A
I end up. I end up here. Yeah. Yeah. Right. These four robots are. Their outcomes are kind of tied to each other. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. Not in the Maximizer storyline, but could be very interesting for the day. And this is a fight that might not stand out to you. It stands out to me. Caldera 12 versus Xenomorph. Why does this stand out?
- [83:51]
C
Yes. That's going to be a big fight.
- [83:53]
A
This is a big. This fight could be a big one. And why. Why do I say that? There are very few robots on the field that can successfully hit slam plans. Frame Xenomorph is one of them. Okay. If Xenomorph ends up in this slot here. Here. It could mean an early loss for Slam Plan, which would send it to the other side of the bracket where.
- [84:22]
C
Yeah, it would send it to me. I would be very sad.
- [84:26]
A
That's why it matters for you. Okay.
- [84:29]
C
Yes.
- [84:29]
A
It's going to send it to the same side of the bracket as full court. It's going to send it to the same side of bracket as void as me, as court Harmon. Robots that might be ready to fight it.
- [84:46]
C
I really need.
- [84:47]
A
This is really interesting. This is really interesting. Okay. This is really interesting. If Xenomorph manages to beat Caldera and then manages to beat Slam Plan, it's the underdog going into both of those fights. It could be really interesting. Likewise. I know Islam plan beat Caldera 12 back in June. Or no, that was. That was Like October of last year. It was like that.
- [85:19]
C
Yeah, that was a while ago.
- [85:20]
A
It was a very long time.
- [85:21]
B
I did fight. You're right about that.
- [85:23]
A
I think that was a closer fight than. Than it looked. Okay. I think that that was a fight that could have reasonably gone either way. Where is it?
- [85:42]
B
Control F. Why is it not okay, Interesting. Maybe he fought you to mistaking it as stand plan.
- [85:51]
C
No, no, it was definitely slam plan.
- [85:56]
A
Why did.
- [85:56]
B
Oh, there it is. There it is. There's October. October 24th. It was another page.
- [86:01]
C
Yeah.
- [86:02]
A
Anyway, yeah, I think this was a.
- [86:04]
B
More.
- [86:04]
A
I was cage side for this fight. I was doing a little video help for. For Brendan and that was great. It was a disgusting, disgusting display of power out of slam plan. But it. I feel like it could have easily gone the other way.
- [86:28]
B
You know, slam pans one side of the bracket, but you just like that first.
- [86:33]
A
Not like, yeah, that looks really bad for caldera. Like, he got launched here. But fundamentally all he lost was a little wheel armor and slam plans. Wheels, like really damage. So like.
- [86:45]
C
But the interesting thing like, about it is normally, like as a horizontal, it's like. Oh, thinking about it intuitively, you'd want to be able to like have the weapon hook around and bite the outside of the wheel. But it seems like. Yeah, but when we like after watching this fight, like, I don't know. Because the problem is that whenever you hook around and you bite the wheel, if the wheel kind of like absorbs the hit it, it's. It torques the robot's body into the weapon cavity, if that makes sense. When the weapon slows down, it torques the body. And that's exactly what happened to caldera there. So it's kind of like you hit the inside of the wheel. Do you hit the outside?
- [87:26]
A
You want to hit the outside of the wheel. It's very counter. We're back. We're back to. We're back. We're back to horizontal driving lessons with. With Jake and Liam. Yeah, you want to hit the outside of a big wheels wheel because then you. Yeah, yeah. You don't get fed.
- [87:40]
C
No, no, no. That's what I'm saying. Caldera hit the outside, but that torqued his chassis into the body.
- [87:47]
B
Yeah, like, he brought it into the weapon.
- [87:48]
C
Sorry. It torqued the body into the weapon cavity. So you want to. Yeah, so you'd want to hit the inside.
- [87:59]
A
Also depends on rotating. You want to hit like the left wheel or the right wheel? It depends.
- [88:06]
C
Oh, yeah, my bad, my bad.
- [88:07]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's It's. Yeah. I'm trying to remember our conversation. We'll talk about this after the Stream.
- [88:16]
B
This is 12 Oliver versus Big Wheel.
- [88:20]
A
Yeah.
- [88:21]
B
Like a mirror pairing to Xenomore and Slam.
- [88:24]
A
Also interesting is we're seeing more so. So we saw Big Prom Hetta versus Grandeur Prom. Hada now has.
- [88:39]
C
Yeah. I want Prom Header and Slam Plan to be on the same side of the bracket.
- [88:42]
B
Yeah.
- [88:43]
A
Because I want to see how effective this is. And I know Zach wants to too. It's kind of like when you build a worst case scenario config and then it ends up being like, pretty good. And then you're like, okay, now I want to use this, like, all the time.
- [88:57]
B
Yeah. Like bigger fish.
- [88:59]
A
Yeah. Right. Marlin, you get excited to run it, right? Because, like, this works so good.
- [89:07]
C
It's always great to turn your bad matchup into a good one.
- [89:10]
A
Yes. Yeah, that's exactly what this is. So I, I would be very interested to see this against Slam Plan. I think it turns in basically it turns a fight where Zach, like, has no chance into a fight fight where Zach has a chance. And like, that's always interesting, right? I, I. No, I think it's totally decent. I think it's totally decent. How easily he removed that wheel. Yeah, I think it's totally decent.
- [89:38]
B
Yeah.
- [89:38]
A
I mean, I think if he gets
- [89:39]
B
a direct shot in Slam Plan, that could be very dangerous.
- [89:43]
A
Yep.
- [89:44]
B
Yeah. I'm also curious. The camber of Slam Plan has an impact on that though.
- [89:48]
A
Yeah.
- [89:49]
B
I'm curious. That'll be resistant in a different way. So that 10 minutes.
- [89:53]
A
Yeah. And we're right at 10 minutes. Okay. So those are the fights I'm excited for. Okay.
- [90:02]
B
But if you want any other last points about that, just since it's probably like the last big thing we're going to be doing is I have the robots around the World for this one. It's like probably a few more minutes on that.
- [90:11]
C
Let's do.
- [90:12]
A
Let's do Robots around the World. And then.
- [90:14]
B
Oh, I didn't have one. That's what I was.
- [90:15]
A
Oh, you didn't have one. Oh, okay.
- [90:16]
B
That's fine. Nah, I gave more time for this. I figured. Big point.
- [90:20]
A
Yes. It's since a little. It's okay. Okay. Okay. Since we'll be doing brackets up.
- [90:25]
B
Okay.
- [90:25]
A
Liam, it was great seeing you. It was great talking to you. Thank you very much for being on our stream. I'm very excited to see Buzzkill's performance next week. I'm very excited for the potential matchup between Buzzkill and Maximizer to determine who goes on as. I don't know. Whatever.
- [90:44]
C
We'll see.
- [90:45]
A
Sorry, I lost my train of thought. My timer went on.
- [90:47]
B
Who's the real horizontal.
- [90:48]
A
Who's the real horse?
- [90:49]
C
Yeah.
- [90:50]
A
No, no, no.
- [90:51]
C
We'll see. I don't know.
- [90:53]
A
No, I. I already know that you're gonna win when we fight.
- [90:56]
C
I don't know. Yeah, your robot's pretty tough.
- [91:00]
A
You're gonna win the first fight, and then I'm gonna win the second. That's what's gonna happen.
- [91:05]
B
Maybe maximizer bus kill, grand final.
- [91:07]
C
I don't know. We'll see.
- [91:09]
A
We're gonna.
- [91:09]
C
We'll see. If I. If I end up. If end up having to fight Slam plan and the round 16, I might. I might be a sad boy, but
- [91:19]
A
we might both be out in the round of 16, I think.
- [91:22]
C
Yeah, well, I think it's.
- [91:23]
B
I don't know.
- [91:25]
C
I think if I can.
- [91:26]
A
I don't know.
- [91:26]
B
Yeah.
- [91:27]
C
I don't know. And then. I don't know. Yeah, it's. It's tough. There's. We're running out of easy fights. There. There are no easy fights. They're all bad. They're all bad. Oh, no.
- [91:42]
A
Yeah.
- [91:42]
B
This is why I've had two robots. Your second chance Shot one gets out.
- [91:47]
A
You got one more.
- [91:49]
B
All right. Thank you, guys.
- [91:50]
A
Thank you, guys for tuning in. Have a great finals viewing experience. This is behind the bots. Thank you, guys.