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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:08]
B
Welcome to the HAVOC Rundown. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the HAVOC Rundown. We are recording a quick little rundown roundtable tonight to talk about the BattleBots Pro League episodes, the new format that has come out for BattleBots that they started for BattleBots. BattleBots powered by Bright Data. So we're going to be talking about our thoughts on the new format, how it is shot and how it is presented and the fights that occurred and. And all that kind of stuff. So, as usual, I am your MC and editor in chief Justin. Joining me is the normal crew, Ryan Hunter.
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C
Hello there.
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B
Tony Baker.
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D
I'm still here, I swear.
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B
Thomas Carroll.
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A
I'm not powered by Duracel. I'm powered by Bright Data.
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B
And for her first Rundown roundtable as an official member of the HAVOC Rundown crew, it's Shaylee
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D
Blue.
- [01:25]
B
Yeah, so let's just start really quick by recapping. So they decided to bring back BattleBots and the way they did that is they invited a bunch of battlebots, I want to say, old timers, veterans, and some new bots to compete in a round robin. Right? This is called round robin, where they have groups and you fight everyone within your group and then whoever is the winner out of those then moves on for points onto the main tournament until you have an actual winner. So they decided to do that. They decided to do it on YouTube instead of on Discovery because Discovery is not their partner anymore. They partnered with Bright Data, which is an AI company, and they came out with these. How long the episodes are? 26 minutes.
- [02:14]
D
20? Yeah. 23. 24 minutes. Somewhere around there.
- [02:17]
B
Yeah. So these little tiny episodes of about three fights each. So one group's worth of fight per episode, with the first episode having Golden Fury versus Death Roll, Huge versus hypershock, and Malice versus Endgame. So right off the bat, I just want to say that I was very excited for BattleBots to be back. I am a gigantic BattleBots fan as is. I think almost anyone you ask that's in this sport and is listening to this podcast can say the same thing. I don't think I've come across any Combat Robotics person who says I hate BattleBots or. Or did not in at least a little bit get started through BattleBots or no BattleBots before starting Combat Robotics. So it's very exciting for BattleBots to be back.
- [03:01]
A
I don't know. I hate BattleBots.
- [03:06]
B
Except for Thomas, but Thomas is the ever known anomaly. This format is interesting. I just want to open it up to the rest of you, what your thoughts were when they Originally announced this, and then as the news started coming out about break data and the formatting, what were your thoughts up until the time they actually released the first episode?
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A
I just think it's really cool that all these legends of NHRL finally get to put themselves on a big stage and try out this new format that they're not normally used to.
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E
What a lucky break for all of them.
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A
Plus, they get to scale up their designs, see if they actually work like as a bigger robot. You know, I think it's. It's a really neat change.
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D
I find it cool that in the year of the World cup, they basically followed the World cup funding format. So it's the same basic setup. You have six groups, you fight everybody in the group. So I thought that was kind of a cool thing. We haven't seen exactly how the finals are going because there's six groups and six would be an odd number to make the final fights. So I have a sneaking suspicion there's gonna be a couple wild cards thrown in there.
- [04:27]
B
Yeah, there's probably wild cards. I mean, we've seen at the end or as each fight ends and at the end of each episode that they're talking about, it looks like the qualifying figure, qualifying data point that they're using is how fast of fight ends, which is interesting.
- [04:43]
D
That's the tiebreaker.
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C
Yeah, tiebreaker right now.
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D
So basically it's whoever has the best record, but if two people have the same record, it's going to go to who had the fastest knockout to win the group. So we know for sure that the six group winners are all going through.
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C
Right.
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D
So. But like I said, you need eight. So there's no way to do it with six. So there's going to definitely be some. A couple of wildcards, which kind of brings me to like talking about the first episode. So I'll wait a second.
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C
Yeah, actually, I'm pretty sure that it's going to be two from each group. I think it's the top 16 are going to be the top 12.
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D
Which still won't work.
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C
Yeah, no, it's only the top six.
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D
Yeah, I know. It's. It's only the winner of this group because they've said that a few times, actually.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Okay. Well, either way, I find with the tap out that. Sorry, I find that's the other thing I wanted to knockout thing, they have put the tap out button as a part of these episodes. And now that I have seen a first. First opinion. Now that I've seen BattleBots episodes with tap out buttons, they should have had tap out buttons the whole entire time, guys. I mean that was 100.
- [06:06]
B
That would have solved a lot of problems. The one that comes to mind was the Riptide vs Captain Shredderator fight where he just sat there and. And just like continued to hit him over and over again. Yeah. A tap out button there would have saved that entire thing.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Unless they ignored the tap out. But that's a whole other thing.
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D
I really wonder if that was designed more for the format and how much time they actually had because the groups had a fight. All three of their fights in one weekend.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Yes.
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D
So like it was a quick turnaround as compared to normal battlebots where they had like two weeks of recordings.
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C
Yeah, yeah.
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B
So it was. It's a lot harder to ask. Again, we'll. We'll go back to the Riptide versus Captain Shredderator fight. If you don't tap out there, you are dealing with 10 times the damage that you would have if you were able to tap out when you knew we're going to lose. And that difference in. In damage means a lot when you have such a short turnaround time to get a bot ready. Even if you have multiple copies, which we saw with the tombstone thing, having multiple copies doesn't mean anything because they can all die and then you have nothing. So yeah, so the tap out is a new thing. That is cool. Do the fights feel rushed because of it or do we still. Because I know we were talking, Ryan, we were talking about the fact that they don't feel as impactful as they did in previous, like during the Discovery era.
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C
I think. I think honestly how the fights feel comes down to a couple of factors. One, I think one main factor is the editing of it. There was a lot of editing back in the Discovery era where like, I'm pretty sure they were editing out whole sections of a fight of like boring, like quote unquote boring sections of fights. And also editing around huge hits so that the audio would reflect the huge hit. And also like the cameras would move back and forth for it and everything like that. And I think that part's missing. I also think that we are so used to watching bots, especially in Beatles and 12s that move at such a speed and hit each other so many times and are so. And that has such a fast paced combat that watching a 2:50 move is kind of glacial in comparison. In a lot of ways, at least that's how I feel about it.
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B
Yeah.
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C
I mean like, I love watching these robots. These robots are like my favorite thing ever for so long. But at the same time, it's like once you've watched Beatles, like over and over, like, I must have watched already, like thousands of Beetle fights in my life now next to that, like a 250 fight feels like kind of molasses a little bit. And that's fine. That's cool. They hit each other so damn hard. But like, I don't think it translates well compared anymore for me personally. Well, that's. That could just be me.
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B
We were talking about the editing before recording and the editing feels different, mostly because of the fact that it. I don't want to call it lower quality, but the editing does not. Is not up to what it was during the Discovery era. And I guess it's because they had more time, more money, more resources maybe to do it.
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C
They had no budget or no resources for this at least compared to Discovery era. And I mean, like, good on Greg and Trey for going, you know what, we're going to make this happen and we're going to figure out what it looks like on YouTube and we're going to get it done. And in a lot of ways it seems like. And I mean like we are going to be able to ask him ourselves in a little while. Spoilers. We're going to have Greg on. But it really feels like the. The fight nights that were previously released were kind of like a way of figuring out what that editing looks like and what YouTube looks like for them. Before they tried something a lot bigger with pro league.
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B
Even the fight nights feel though, I guess during the fight nights, they weren't really trying to tell the stories behind it. It was just kind of like, here's a fight, here's a fight, here's a fight, here's a fight. But I feel like those felt a little bit more cohesive than some of these episodes have.
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C
Yeah.
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B
And Shea, like you were saying, they've made improvements over the episodes, which has been amazing thing that they've been able to do with YouTube that I don't think you can do on a major network. Because on a major network you kind of have to go, here's 10 episodes. Release them at a pace. Whereas YouTube you can just kind of go, okay, that didn't do so great. Let us edit this one different. That didn't do so great. Let us add the, like, they have a little bit more leeway there.
- [11:20]
E
Yeah. And I, I think, you know, one of the best parts about this is it feels like this little love letter to the fans because it was like, is this even coming back? Is it ever going to be a thing again? It's dead. So then having it come back and then them being willing to listen and make adjustments and respond so fluidly has actually been really encouraging. And it, like, at least for me, and I haven't even. I'm almost, like, forgiven and forgotten. It's like, oh, it's better every time. This is great. This is what I hoped. So I. I love that. Like, I appreciate that.
- [11:57]
B
I. I do. Just. I want them to tweak the flow a little bit better. And I think that's the thing that's really throwing me out, is that whoever is editing these, like we were talking before is. Seems to be missing some kind of imaginary mark that's there of where it should be edited in and where the flow kind of is to make it feel better. And a lot of these episodes, I guess more the beginning ones, the. The past episode, and hopefully this one that's coming out tomorrow from when we're recording, this is gonna feel a little bit better, but it was just a little choppy. And it just. I think the way that I described it when these first started coming out and we were having the discussion was it feels like a recap video more than it does an actual episode of BattleBots, which hopefully they'll. They'll work on that and get that a little bit better. Because I want an episode. I want to, like, be invested and not feel like I'm watching a recap of something that's already happened.
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C
So.
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E
And I. I think too, there's this element of, like, when it feels like such a huge departure from what you know and love, it can be a little bit jarring and you're trying to. With what's happening and when. And so even wherever they land, as long as it starts to land consistently, then you feel like you can just kind of settle in. And I know where this is going. I know which flights they're going to show. I know they're going to do an interview. And then you can just enjoy, rather than feel like you're being pulled around and not sure what to expect.
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C
Right.
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D
I also wonder a little bit of about it, if it's the recording of it. So, like, you got to remember that Discovery is this massive company with, like, tons of, like, years of filming and everything else like that. So you have professionals standing there with professional level cameras doing the recording. I don't know what type of equipment, and the people that were actually physically filming it were, like, doing the actual recording of it.
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A
No, there is something very different about this season and everything for tv. The frame rate on the cameras is the same, but the actual shutter speed is significantly higher. So normally you want to have double your, your, your frame. Your shutter speed should be double your frame rate. So 60 frames a second, you want 1, 1 20th of a second for your actual shutter to be open. And that gives a nice motion. It gives a nice smoothness to it. Everything in this latest season has been much higher than double the frame rate. Because when the weapons are spinning up, you can. Or when they're at certain speeds, you can see the weapons act choppier when they drive. It's more like crisp and it gives it a strange feeling that you're just not used to seeing. So whatever they did, they changed something with the filming that makes. That gives a whole weird, speedy vibe to everything.
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D
Right, that's interesting.
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E
Yeah, way to pick up on that. Holy cow.
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B
Yeah, way to have the facts.
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D
Thomas is our camera guy.
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B
Yeah, this is true.
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A
I've seen things. I want to ask Greg and Trey because I want to find out from the source.
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B
Yeah, yeah. Well, thankfully you'll be able to ask him. So I just want to talk about some of the bots in the episodes we've seen. So as of recording this, we've seen five fights or five episodes. In episode one is Death Row versus. So we saw Death Row, Golden Fury, Hyperspace. Yep, go ahead.
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C
Before we go into the episodes, if you are listening to this and haven't listened up and haven't watched
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A
Smoke Kills
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C
Dumbledore, this, this is your time to stop listening to this.
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E
Purple Kant is Kaiser Soze.
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C
Yeah.
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D
And maybe we only do the first four episodes because that's round one. So we'll basically talk about round one and then we can talk about round two in.
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B
Yeah, that's fine. Because round two just gets it. I wanted to talk more about like the robots as we are seeing them now and some of the robots that we may not have seen before. Not so much the fights themselves, maybe. So episode one featured Death Row and Golden Fury. Golden Fury being the Indian born robot. Hypershock and huge. Both of that. We know with Hypershock having that new tall attachment which he may or may not have stolen from Zach. And End Game versus Malice.
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A
He definitely stole it from Zach.
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C
Yeah, he definitely stole from Zach. He was, he was watching that final and he was like, no, that's how I take how huge, like do it.
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B
Zach was also there. So I, I wonder how much went into that.
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C
Yeah, the. I love. I Like Golden Fury. Golden Fury was also at the Russian Games. The Russian. No, not Russian, sorry. Abu Dhabi.
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B
Abu Dhabi, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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D
That team was at the Games of the future. But they also do regularly compete in. I can't think of the name of the Russian one, but they do regularly compete in that competition as well. Yeah, so they're, they've been around for a while, just not over here in BattleBots.
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C
Yeah. And I mean, like, their first fight, they looked pretty good. They looked really pretty good. Yeah. The Hypershot first is huge. The, that configuration was pretty cool, but huge is huge, man.
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D
Yeah, you know, I, I, I, I don't know. Like, it's funny, the thing about the Hypershock in general, I just love the actual banter between him and his wife.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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D
It's hilarious.
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B
It is. And we're not going to talk about the latest episode, but he did acknowledge the fact that hypershock has always been deadly, but also look good. And he focus on the looking good a lot. And he said that now the robots are evolving so fast to be able to do both as well. And he acknowledges, kind of scary to see.
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D
He also said he hasn't changed his bot since 2021.
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C
Right.
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B
Yeah.
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D
Hypershock has not changed in five years. And if you've ever, like we see every day in NHRL and everything else, a bot from a year ago does not survive in the cage today.
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C
No, it doesn't.
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E
I think some of that's interesting too, is that, like, from what I understand, there just wasn't a ton of lead time. It was like, we're doing this. Who can come? But we know that especially with the smaller weight classes, everything is happening exponentially quicker. And so it was like, yeah, let's bring our bot. And it's. Everything has changed. And especially some of the people with newer robots, you can tell that they have, they were prepared for some of the changes and they've adapted in ways that some of the older bots probably even had no idea that they needed to change those ways, which very much.
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D
Fight of the Night in Night one, Endgame and Malice. And that's what bit Endgame he said they just put the spot together. They haven't changed anything on it.
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C
Right.
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E
When and where are they gonna fight?
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D
Yeah, yeah. Well, they fight garbage cans and other crap in their arenas down in New Zealand. When they have their events, they actually bring out Endgame to beat the crap out of other stuff in their arena. But yeah, they don't really fight against other bots down there.
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E
So I Mean, and garbage cans aren't really, you know, growing exponentially in complexity or.
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D
No, definitely not.
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B
And I mean, on the other side, I don't, I don't know if. I mean, Bunny has made a lot of changes to Malice, but I don't know where.
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C
Well, the thing, the thing you have to realize about Malice on the other side is Malice. They've slowly, completely and totally also been forming more and more of a mega team. And that includes Johnny Supas now too. Johnny sus was on YouTube TV this time, you know, and if you're going to ask anyone about horizontals, you got to ask Johnny, you know.
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D
Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah.
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C
And I mean, like, Malice has always been this kind of, like this bot could really be great and it really just needs that thing to push it over the edge. And honestly, maybe after that fight, maybe they found the thing. Maybe they found the thing to push it over the edge and that's it. And it's good to go now.
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D
But that's why I said earlier, I think the wild card things, I think we could see Endgame, if they win their other two fights, being one of those extra bots in the actual.
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C
Yeah, yeah, I think it's fun.
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D
I just can't see the final thought.
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E
It's fun to see matchups where you think you know what will probably happen. It's a blast to see literally a blast to see surprising things happen. It's. It's like your old favorites with a new twist and I'm enjoying it.
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D
Yeah.
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B
Speaking of.
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D
Considering everybody thought Endgame was going to win the whole thing, so.
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B
Yeah, speaking of old favorites, new twist. Moving on to episode two, Copperhead versus Jackpot. Copperhead is about that we've seen multiple times before, but it is now being driven by. Is he 9?
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D
Yes, he's 9 years old. Yeah.
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C
Yeah.
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B
And I just want to talk about the fact that Jackpot is a heavy hitting bot and he cop. He went into there against Jackpot, lost a weapon and still won that fight with driving ability. And that was an insane fight to watch. I absolutely loved it.
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D
So, yeah, I wonder if Jackpot didn't have the mechanical issue if it would have gone that way. But yeah, he's definitely driving better. It's. It's going to be interesting to see how it goes down the line.
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C
The interesting thing about Jackpot is he literally has the biggest opportunity for stick time of pretty much anybody in this field right on a 250 because he works there. So he gets to drive a jack. A jackpot or whatever bot all day long, anytime he wants. And he has every. The literal text box and everything like that to work in. And Jackpot has always, since the beginning, been kind of a budget build. Like, literally, that's what the main thing of it was from the beginning. And it's still, as far as I know, pretty much a budget build. But, I mean, like, everything has been improved on Jackbot, including freaking. His little Ace in the sleeve bot.
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B
Yeah.
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C
And that thing is really great, but at the same time, Lifter. Right?
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B
That's what it's called.
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C
Yeah, it's a cam. No, it's. It's called Ace something Ace.
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D
Yeah, but it's a. Yes.
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B
Yeah, but the type of bot is a cam lifter.
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C
Yeah, it's a cam lifter. It's a little cam lifter. But as far as I know, with this build, he had to put a lot more into defending it because everybody knows how much of a threat it is this time. So everybody's targeting it now. Yeah.
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B
Makes sense. He took it and he brought it to other competitions, and he's like, look at my cam lifter, and look what it can do. And people are like, oh, okay, well, let's get rid of that.
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D
Yeah.
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B
So, Match two Scorpios versus Manta. Manta is my personal pick to win this entire thing. I've watched so many videos. Yeah, I've watched so many videos of his other fights across the entirety of other heavyweight competitions. The small amount that there are. But he. It. That bot is just absolutely insanity. That is my pick to. To win the entire thing and destroy everyone. That fight was brutal. And Zach said afterwards. I believe they showed him saying afterwards. I don't think it was a separate video. I think it happened in the episode where they said that he had hit the bottom and it was something that he just had not zip tied. It was a power. Power. Power wire that he just had not zip tied. And when Manta hit the bottom, it just came unplugged and the whole thing died.
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A
So it was just a little ollie OOP maneuver.
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D
Yeah, yeah.
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A
It just kind of, like, rolled over the top. It looked. It didn't even look real.
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C
It just kind of reminds you. Hey, kids, make sure you connect and double connect all your power connectors and then tape them together and do everything.
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D
I just. The power of Manta, though, just like that bot is going to literally destroy something else.
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B
Yep.
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C
I just want Noisy Boy back. Please bring Noisy Boy back. Come on.
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B
So, and then Tombstone versus madcatter.
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A
Oh, my God. Tombstone. That Bot is so bad, literally, Tombstone could beat it.
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B
My God. I feel bad for Ray.
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C
I know.
- [25:14]
B
I feel bad for Ray. Ray. Ray. I follow Ray on social media. He's done a lot of work on the newer version of Tombstone. He had a lot of hope in that bottom. And then for some reason, he just could not get it working when it got in the arena itself. So he had to bring the older Tombstone that. He's also done a little bit of re. Engineering too, but it's still the older Tombstone. And I think we've said. I'm not sure if we said on the podcast, but I've definitely had this conversation before. Tombstone has just been evolved past it used to be the big boy on the block, and everything has gotten faster and stronger and more resilient. And Tombstone, the older Tombstone, has a hard time with that now.
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A
Tombstone will win.
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D
It was. It was interesting to see, like, from an actual, like, editing and episode way, this was something we probably would never have seen on Discovery episodes where they actually showed them go to the cage and his bot not turn on.
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B
Right.
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D
Like, they. They would have just shown the extra. The fight at the end. So it was really interesting to see that aspect of it, which we normally wouldn't have seen. But yeah, I. I totally agree. Like, Tombstone was the master of kinetic energy. It's like that blade would hit so hard. However, the box that he was beating didn't have the structural strength to take those hits. And now they absolutely do. Like, and when he hits them, that energy isn't transferred to the other bot. It ends up being transferred right back to Tombstone and throws them all over the cage and then he ends up breaking. So it's another thing like we were talking about with Endgame and Hypershock. I think it's just the. They're not iterating as fast as everybody else are, is because they like their bots. Yeah, it's like. And the younger teams are coming up and they're just blowing them out of the water at this point. So it's evolve or die, basically at this point.
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B
Speaking of evolve or die, let's move on to episode three. And my pick so far for the most evolved robot Switchback.
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E
Yeah,
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B
that. That thing went from a. Okay, that's a cool concept, but it doesn't hit that hard to episode three, going, oh, my God, what did it just do to Rib?
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E
That was amazing.
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D
I think that was the first fight that went three minutes too.
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B
It might have been. Yeah.
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D
Yeah.
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E
So, I mean, I. So I get to a little bit of the behind the scenes, because a lot of the. All those guys are. Rev Robotics is where Texas robot combat meets. And so I've been seeing things come together. They've got some new, like, machines in there, and they have been so, like, as opposed to. We just pulled this off the shelf. Like, they have been working hard to optimize that thing. And it's just fun to see your friends and people you love. Just as fun to see them on the show. But then to see them kick ass royally. I mean, wow. We were screaming, amazing, Amazing.
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B
It was something else because Ribbon's like, look at this giant riptide weapon bar that we have. And look at all this work we've done. And then switchback just goes and goes. Nope.
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E
And it's just such a unique concept. It's awesome. Like, we all love it. We all love novelty. But it's amazing to see a unique concept be so effective and so dominant.
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C
Yeah.
- [28:59]
B
Magnitude, which we know really well, had to go against Disarray, which was a swap in Disarray, was great. I'm not sure if it looked up to the level to be there. Magnitude kind of just like, handed that to them.
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C
Disarray has been showing up to BattleBots recently a lot. Like, every time BattleBots has a position open for Disarray to be there, they've kind of come and, like, been working on their bots and iterating and fighting. And they don't really have a great track records at BattleBots right now, like, any of the recorded bytes necessarily. I mean, like, it's a cool concept. It's a cool looking bot and everything. It's kind of like. It kind of gives older bot vibes of that, like the shape of, like, the square with a little bit of a canted lever, cantilever, like cantilever, you know, like an angled top on it and like. Like a vert in front. Like, it looks like kind of an older spot. And it just couldn't put it up to Magnitude, who is like the. One of the best drum spinners ever made at this point now.
- [30:18]
B
Yeah.
- [30:18]
C
And I mean, that's saying something. It looks. It looks just on the same level as Minotaur right now. And I hope he gets a fight. Minotaur.
- [30:27]
B
Oh, I really do.
- [30:30]
E
I. That's who I think might take the whole thing. That's. I mean, they just. It's incredible.
- [30:36]
D
Yeah.
- [30:37]
A
I really want to see Manta versus Disarray and see who gets to keep the theme.
- [30:46]
B
I like that.
- [30:47]
D
Well, unfortunately, I don't think we're gonna get to see that fight.
- [30:49]
B
So no one knows Valkyrie versus Teratops. Teratops surprised the hell out of me. I know they've been showing up a lot to different competitions, and they've been doing a lot of work on that robot. I've watched a couple of the older unaired episodes of the Discovery Battlebots with them in it, and I guess I just didn't realize how dominant that robot can be. They're very good with that lifter and using that lifter and then feeding into the vertical spinner. But they. They just had a very good. It went to a. A decision, I believe a judge's decision. But, like, that was a great fight with Valkyrie. It was back and forth and they did an amazing job against an. A robot that was already established, already had a reputation.
- [31:39]
C
So I. I really like Teratops. And Teratops is yet another bot that has been putting in as many reps as possible. Like, it has been showing up to as many. There's no place to fight your heavy, like, anywhere. There's no place to fight your 250s. So every time that there's a time that 250 is being bought, it seems like Teratops has been there lately. Yeah, and that's why they've gotten it. I mean, like, Teratops was in that famous. What was it? The Robo Games, when the arena was breached by Manta. I believe that that was against Teratops.
- [32:19]
B
I believe so.
- [32:20]
C
I mean, like, they've been around now
- [32:23]
E
and I just love their. Like, they just seem so charming. Like, they have so much charisma and like the sweet dinosaur. Yeah, the dinosaur. Okay, he's hilarious. But like, the captains, they just. Yeah, I just want to be their friends. And. Yeah, I. I love the humility that they bring with a bot that has improved a lot. So, yeah, that's been fun.
- [32:49]
A
I will give some free advice for anyone who wants to instantly destroy Terror Tops in the arena. Just name your robot. Meteor.
- [32:59]
C
Is Fireball close enough.
- [33:01]
D
That's a.
- [33:02]
B
That's a cool world by name.
- [33:03]
A
Not a meteor. Fireball is completely different. That's an alcohol.
- [33:08]
B
So I think there's a beetle named Meteor. So as long as. As long as his name Meteor just. Yeah, just gonna.
- [33:14]
E
There's a Comet.
- [33:16]
B
Oh, yeah, there you go.
- [33:17]
A
Comet's not the same.
- [33:21]
C
Go for it, Connor.
- [33:22]
B
We believe in you.
- [33:23]
A
I mean, he can make a 250 version.
- [33:25]
B
Yeah, this is true.
- [33:26]
E
Okay, but. But wait. Crab Rangoon beat Comet. If Comet made a 250 would Calypso take it.
- [33:34]
A
No, no, no, no, it's not. This is like. This is like Pokemon, how, like, water is strong against electricity and all that. Like, comet, like meteor is strong against teratops, but it could get destroyed by a lot of things. This is just for this one bot.
- [33:48]
C
Now that you brought up Calypso. I love Calypso. The way that they're in really sucks, but I really like the look of Calypso. I think this is the first time that I've seen it. Personally. I know that, like, it's been around for a little while, as far as I know, like, at least, like, people have been talking about it. But honestly, that robot looks like a better. A new version of Jen Working Rotors robot who right now is Hijinx. It looks like a new version of Hijinks and I like it.
- [34:25]
E
I am very biased because these are like my people. Josh Kong is, you know, in trc, and it's amazing and there. So that team is the team that had Horizon, which, if you remember from your Hot Coin interview hotline helped design that robot. So, like, they're so strong with aesthetics. But honestly, I'm pitching Josh Kong to come on this show because he is brilliant. Like, as an engineer. His, like, when he does make smaller robots, they terrify and dominate. And this is like a little aside, but he created a plant that he wanted to create it and print it in such a way that when it hit another robot, it would explode. But he's like too good of a builder. And so instead of like exploding on impact, it just dominated every other robot at the competition. He's just really talented and really smart, and that whole team is just really neat builders who, you know, I don't know if you guys know the people who were called up last minute. It was the lastest of minutes and they just pulled it together and, you know, have a really neat robot and are doing really well. So cool.
- [35:41]
B
Okay, last episode, Episode four. Because we're not going to talk about episode five. Just the up to episode four. So Cobalt versus the Twins.
- [35:51]
A
The twins.
- [35:54]
B
The twins are. It's Aaron, right? Okay. Yeah. Aaron Hill.
- [36:01]
D
Always coming with something new.
- [36:03]
C
Yep.
- [36:04]
B
Yes, they defeated Cobalt. I think this was the first time that I saw a multi bot in the BattleBots arena that did as well of a job, as good of a job as the twins did. And they deserve that defeat of Cobalt hands down. Like, it was just such a great fight.
- [36:22]
A
That was pretty unfair. They got two bots.
- [36:26]
D
I do. Like, what the. I can't think of the guy who drives Cobalt said he goes with the magnets and stuff that are in the twins. It's like fighting to 250 pound box. There is so much pressure being pulled down in that bot that it's like you were. Yeah, you were not gonna lift it.
- [36:45]
C
They're also hitting like individual heavies too. Like, they're hitting hard as hell. And I mean, like the beginning of that match is just them, like kind of like figuring it out. And you could tell that. And my. His name is escaping me too. He was the driver of Lucky. He's a really fucking good driver. He's a really good driver. And you could tell what he was trying to do at the beginning of that match was go, I'm going to bring you both into this corner where you lose the advantage. Because he did not want them to have the advantage. You can't flank in one of the corners. So he was trying to push them back and they were just not having it. So he had to come out and try to hit one. And it was over at that point because as soon as one was hit, the other hit. It was the kind of multi bot match that like, has been evolving in this sport over and over again to the point of like, it's kind of like repeater. It kind of was a repeater match in a lot of ways. Like, it had a. It felt the same way of a sort of the same thing. Like, almost unfair. Like these bots are hitting like their full weight, but they're individual and they are piloted like somebody is in a drift. Like these two drivers are in the drift from Pacific Rim.
- [38:14]
B
And.
- [38:14]
D
And there is no, there is no bonus. So they are literally two 125 pound box or anything else to them.
- [38:22]
E
I feel like Aaron Hill has this tendency to come up with a design that looks very unassuming and then just punches the opponent in the face, literally. And he does these amazing things that you think shouldn't work. And then he kind of falls off that bot, maybe passes it to someone else and does it again and again and again. I mean, you look at Dutch Oven, you look at Tantrum, you look at Blip, and now the twins. So, like, when I saw the twins and I saw it was him, I was like, oh, I. I know. I know where this is going. He's just really, really talented.
- [38:59]
A
I don't want to play with you anymore.
- [39:01]
B
It's a way that comes back to
- [39:02]
D
where we're talking about like the, the growth. Like he's always bringing something new. You don't know what to expect.
- [39:09]
C
Yeah.
- [39:09]
D
So you can't plan for it.
- [39:11]
B
And Blip especially. I remember when Blip was revealed. I remember there was a bunch of builders that went, wait, he did. He did what? The flipper works. How, what, how did he get that to work? What? Yeah, so, so Minotaur versus Bloodsport. I, I kind of feel bad for Justin Marple on this because Bloodsports whole thing is that its offense is its defense. And at. When it's spun up, it's trying to kind of ward off robots away from it because it's really hard to get an angle on it. And their first opponent was Minotaur, whose whole thing is, I'm going to hit my head into you as hard as possible and something's going to happen. So it was literally their worst. One of their worst opponents they could have gone into because miniatures was like, I'm just going to hit you anyway. It doesn't matter. You spin up. I'm, I'm. I'm cool with that. I'm just gonna. And it didn't work out very well for Bloodsport.
- [40:09]
D
So. And this is another one that I can't remember his name. He was really like, subdued in his first fight. I'm like, where? Like, come on, I want to see the excitement, the pounding on the glass.
- [40:20]
E
Are you talking about Daniel Freitas, the driver? Yeah, he was, he was laid back, wasn't he?
- [40:24]
D
Yeah, he was really laid back. It was like, what's, what's wrong?
- [40:30]
E
Someone needed to wave a red flag in front of his face.
- [40:32]
D
Exactly.
- [40:35]
B
Yeah. So that was a great fight. And then the last one I want to talk about, of course, is the Witch Doctor versus Erbatron. They came in versus AI, man versus AI yes. Orbitron's whole thing is that they're trying to make a bot that works for. With AI and AI is making decisions. It didn't work very well in this fight. The builder of Orbitron afterwards said that there was. They got hung up on some stuff and the AI wasn't able to like, recognize how to get out of certain situations. Which. Yeah, it, I mean, it's. Yeah, I'm not gonna go any further into that.
- [41:12]
C
But to be more specific, the. It is. The AI isn't really fully driving the bot. It is kind of like a, like a driving aid in a lot of ways, because technically the guy on the controller is like choosing where like the speed to go and everything like that. But the AI is kind of like directing where the bot moves kind of, and he can turn that on and off as much as he wants to at this point. The. The thing that. And, like, the funny thing is, like, oh, AI has learned about the size of arenas. Thank you. This is something that we've all learned about, like, for years and years now. But at the same time, there has been such. There was such, like, a fervor in the community of, like, oh, why should AI. Like, should we allow AI to be in it and stuff? And it's like, where was that back when Champ had basically a targeting program on it? Where is that when. When. The fully autonomous version of DeepMelt. Where was that when Deep Belt was put out? Everybody was so excited for Deep Belt. It's like, well, DeepL was an AI.
- [42:38]
A
Its program is very rudimentary.
- [42:41]
C
Yeah.
- [42:41]
D
But I think that's the thing. It's like. I think it's that whole. There's that whole backlash against, like, AI and everything else, and it's like, it's. That's a whole nother conversation. We get into another point, but it's like, it's. Come on. It's just another assistant. It's like. And as we saw, it didn't work very well.
- [43:00]
C
No, it didn't.
- [43:01]
D
And I was very happy because my favorite bot is Witch Doctors. I'm kind of hoping they do really well. Anyway.
- [43:06]
A
Yeah, so there's an old tale about this. Old MacDonald had a bot. Aiao.
- [43:13]
C
Oh, my God.
- [43:14]
E
A I. A I. Oh, no.
- [43:16]
D
Oh, no.
- [43:18]
C
Thomas, I thought we were gonna. You were gonna start talking about, like, Jacob and the Steam Hammer and. No,
- [43:26]
B
he used a pun. It was a pun.
- [43:31]
A
Jacob and the Steam Hammer is classic.
- [43:33]
D
Yeah.
- [43:36]
B
Okay, so that was the. The first four episodes. Anybody have any other thoughts before we wrap this up?
- [43:42]
E
I think one thought that I have is, you know, I've actually been watching old episodes of Robot wars with my son, and one thing that I love is that after the fights, they'll go, yeah, what happened there? And the person will, like, open up their robot and show. I do like that now, because all these builders are active on social media or on Reddit. They can kind of diagnose because people are quick to jump to conclusions, like, why are they terrible at driving? Or, why did this happen? Or that robot sucked. And then if they care enough, they can go and to where these fights are being discussed. And you can see that the builders are saying, well, this is what happened. And so I think there is a. Because this is new. I feel like they're doing a little bit of a disservice by not. Not giving, like, I'll begin an example. I know this is from episode five, but, you know, there was a robot that we love that looked like they all of a sudden became terrible drivers. And it was like, what happened? Well, later they posted a picture, and it turns out the floor in the arena is so textured, it's like sandpaper. So when they test in the test box, it looks like it's driving fine. And so the team thought, oh, yeah, we've got tread for this. We've got tread for one fight. We don't need to change it. Well, they drove and took off, and the ground completely, you know, basically removed all their tread. And they were ice skating, like, the whole fight. And, you know, an amazing, amazing driver just looked like, you know, someone handed it to their kid or something. So it's like, unless you dig deeper, you're not going to hear those stories. And so I feel like there is a missed opportunity to go a little bit deeper because this is something that the fans love. So I love that there is space for that. And if you do look, there's a great story or interesting story or better information about what happened when you go deeper. I just wish it could be shown because it's so fun on Robot Wars. What happened here? Oh, well, look inside my robot. This is what happened 100%.
- [45:47]
B
I almost, like.
- [45:47]
D
I don't know, I guess I'm spoiled by Nana Chell with the live. I kind of wish we got to see this live. I kind of wish we got to see, like, people back in the pits and stuff like that. Like, live. I think it would have been a lot better, but I understand that they're trying to bottle a TV show, so we're not going to get to see that. But it's like, it's kind of cool to watch things live and see how it actually all goes out.
- [46:12]
C
I think my thoughts on what you're talking about, Shay, is like, there has always also been this community of people that good old Luke used to say the ice road trucker, mouth breather crowd just, like, comes along is like, why robot not work? That robot dumb. Why? This robot bad. This robot real bad. They should stop being robot.
- [46:42]
B
No, my. My favorite is why no put gun on robot. Why don't put gun on robot.
- [46:49]
A
Just put a gun on a battlebot.
- [46:52]
C
You come to my house, I have gun put on robot.
- [46:56]
B
It is Okay. I was. I was gonna say the. One of the best ones for that is if you go and look for Scorpios's YouTube channel. Zach is extremely good at that, so.
- [47:11]
C
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [47:12]
A
He.
- [47:13]
E
All of his like post fight videos and pre. Actually, I've appreciated his YouTube channel so much because he goes around before the fights and he actually gets some of those details from other builders. So it's not even just his stuff. He's. Yeah, he's covering the behind the scenes stuff on lots of robots and people, which is really fun.
- [47:31]
B
Yeah, he's awesome.
- [47:33]
C
Yeah.
- [47:33]
B
Okay, so I think we're gonna wrap it up there. We will see where the rest of these episodes go. We'll have another conversation after all of the preliminary stuff is done and we see what the tournament itself is going to look like. But thank you guys for talking about this. If you want to see any of our other content, look for the Havoc rundown on YouTube, Facebook and anywhere else you get social media. This will be put up on Spotify and YouTube, so get it there. And again, check out our website, havoc rundown.com everyone go watch BattleBots.
- [48:08]
A
Yeah. I really hope Will Bell shows up to a real competition like NHRL someday.
- [48:12]
C
Yes. Doesn't NHRL have a pro league?
- [48:18]
A
Yeah, it's even better because we have two things that I can't say on this show.
- [48:24]
B
Okay, everyone say goodbye.
- [48:28]
A
Bye.