Spinnerproof: Recent Episodes

Sam Hutchins and Ryan Bratley

Spinnerproof is a podcast about combat robotics

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  • This episode is pointless
  • Rules and judging! Yay!
    • Rule changes
      • You should read them and not just trust what we say: Design rules, Tournament rules, Judges’ Guide
      • Safety!
        • Power lights you can see [Design rules: 3b]
        • Cradles that cradle [Tournament rules: 3.4.2]
        • Fires are bad [Design rules: 16]
          • Minibot battery limitations [Design rules: 4b]
      • No more OotA disqualification threat
        • But a higher wall
      • Lifting/pinning/grappling timing changes [Tournament rules: 7.5.6/7/8]
        • Separation procedure [Tournament rules: 7.5.9]
      • Mobility & count-outs
        • If you’re moving, you’re moving [Tournament rules: 7.6.2]
          • Even if you’re only using your weapon to do so
          • Reducing the chances of people getting angry at officials
      • Unsticks [Tournament rules: 7.6.3/4]
        • We won’t see nearly as many unsticks
        • More fights will end early, but they’re more likely to end ‘fairly’
        • Time savings for production?
        • Minibots get removed after a second unstick
      • Engagement avoidance [Tournament rules: 7.6.7]
    • Judging changes
      • Post-match functionality displays [Tournament rules: 7.6.11]
      • Aggression - circling is more aggressive than staying faced up [Judges guide: Aggression FAQ]
      • Control - Robots which get their weapon and the hazards into play better than their opponent should win a control tie [Judges’ guide: COntrol matrix]
      • Appeals [Tournament rules: 2.4.7]
        • 1 minute window to lodge your appeal, requiring a specific reason for appealing
        • A failed appeal removes your right to appeal
          • Should there be a mid-ground?
        • Sam explains why this doesn’t apply to refereeing decisions
  • Experimental UK judging system
    • The system!
    • Already used at BBB’s ‘Subterranean Showdown’ and in use for the upcoming BBB Beetleweight Champs
    • Intended to give all robots fairly equal access to every category
    • Damage is dead, long live weapon effectiveness!
      • Not all weapon types can be expected do damage, so judging them on damage is dumb. Everyone with a weapon should be able to use it effectively
        • Lifters lift, grabbers grab, flippers flip, spinners do damage just like before
        • Wedges are a blind spot for the system. They were also a blind spot in the existing system, but the name we’ve used makes the issue more visible
          • Active weapon rule?
    • Aggression is still aggression
      • Free a stuck opponent? ALL OF THE POINTS!
    • Control & Strategy
      • Control - control your robot well, get your weapon into play, use the hazards
      • Strategy - make smart choices
        • Think of strategy as a place for judges to add points, but not a place where we really take them away

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  • We’re back!
    • Back-ish
    • Editing sucks and we’re not doing it.
  • BEVs
    • Northdown Havoc
    • Sportsman feathers are dope
  • Judging
    • Judging is hard
      • Coin-toss fights
      • Let The Good Times Stroll vs Crossblow III vs Head for the Exit
    • Battlebots…
      • This community sucks as talking about this stuff
      • The system doesn’t seem that ‘broken’
      • Do we need Battlebots?
  • What now?
    • No Battlebots episode reviews
    • Robot building?
    • Events?
    • Clickbait awfulness?
    • Hoping Sam doesn’t die

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We went to the BBB summer showdown with Split Decision 2

We’re a little rusty, and failed to record a proper outro. I hope you can come to forgive us.

Here are the pictures! https://imgur.com/a/TVheEHJ

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  • Follow Up/Front Matter
    • There is a bingo winner. We haven’t worked out who yet
    • A quite vast amount of information about brushless motors and ESCs
      • Sensorless still involves some small degree of sensing/feedback, and this is important
    • Dual brushless hammer fun
      • Stripped grub screw threads
    • Ryan made a fuss
      • Fake spinner test
      • The real testing setup
  • Battlebots and stuff
    • General thoughts
      • A very strong season, especially under the circumstances
      • A slightly underwhelming end result
    • Robot by robot
      • Hydra
        • The journey
        • Vs Gigabyte - a fight for newcomers?
      • Whiplash
        • Mad lifts vs Valkyrie
          • Sam’s sympathy for Valkyrie
      • Ribbot
        • Not a joke bot.
      • Tantrum
        • There are no words. Except the words we speak.
      • Sawblaze
      • Mammoth vs Copperhead
        • Judging…
        • The judging is made of judgment
          • The whole AMA is very much worth checking out
      • Shatter!
        • Making bets
          • Shatter! shirts
          • Since recording this episode, shipping to the UK has been made available.
        • Trying not to believe and believing anyway
      • End Game
        • M E T A
        • Variety and length of forks
        • Not being Biteforce
        • Being Biteforce
  • Aftershow: Sam’s computer troubles

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  • Front matter
    • Lockdown finally made Sam build things
      • More on that later!
      • Ryan doesn’t know what tools he owns
    • Bugglebots 4K special
      • Vote here! (may require time machine)
      • Watch here!
  • 5 episodes of Battlebots 2020 in <40 minutes
    • P1
      • The robot is very good
      • Accidentally discussing the top 32 selection
        • A hypothetical 0-3 making the top 32?
        • Is 3 wins a lot of wins?
    • Beta
      • The hammer is very good
        • Magnets!
          • E F F I C I E N C Y
          • Firing while moving?
      • What have they actually proven in their 3 fights?
    • Kraken vs HUGE
      • The fight is very good
      • Effective flamethrower-ing
      • Kraken’s forged teeth
    • Tombstone vs Skorpios
      • The countout is very bad
        • Tombstone still seems to have a lot of mobility
        • Tombstone is still being attacked
    • Unaired fights
      • Fights less TV-worthy than Perfect Phoenix vs Extinguisher?
  • Spinnerproof’s robot building exploits
    • Ryan has access to CNC now
      • How and why - work stuff
        • The ‘real’ use of the machine vs the fun use of the machine
      • CNC ant spinner frame
      • Trying to avoid CNC-creep
        • The ease and fun of designing digitally vs designing as you build
        • The satisfaction of taking a hand-built robot to an event
      • The ‘training’ given by just watching CNC-based content online
    • Sam has been developing a weapon setup
      • “A more assertive hammer”
      • PVC - prototyping wonder-material
      • Using cogs, because they are cool
        • Initial brushed setup
        • The brushless setup
          • Thanks Joe <3
        • Brushless motor/gearbox setup
          • Thanks Alex <3
          • 1806 brushless outrunners
          • Adding a gearbox
      • Running multiple brushless motors
      • P R E C I S I O N
      • The power of using the correct screwdriver
        • PoziDriv vs Phillips (Spoiler: Posidriv wins)

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  • Front Matter
    • Sliding slowly an inexoribly towards The Fight
    • Bounty Hunters
      • How do you cover something which has no formal air date?
      • Is it good?
      • Bronco the “legend”
        • The team? Yes. The robot? Eh…
      • Lack of attention to spoilers
  • Episodes 4 & 5
    • Good things!
      • Slammow working
      • Chomp working
        • Gamma 9 working
    • Shatter! vs Malice
      • Short memories
      • Expecting Malice to take the decision
        • Because it deserved it? Because we’re used to spinners winning these decisions?
      • Clickbait
    • Hydra vs HUGE
      • Yes, there are still 45 minutes of the episode left
      • Playing Ultimate
        • We promise this is far more relevant than it looks when you see it written down
      • Sport vs TV
      • The attachment
        • It’s a good attachment
      • Exceptional driving skill
        • Questionable driving choices?
        • Similarities to Warrior Dragon vs Chomp
      • Communication with the ref
        • Timings in the edit
          • 3 seconds in reality -> ~10 in the edit
      • Exploiting the weaknesses of HUGE
      • Are production to blame for the dull fight?
        • The team claim to have warned production about their plans
      • Not using your weapon
      • Ideas for preventing fights like these
        • Time outs to deal with disputes?
        • Forced weapon demo pre-fight?
        • Changing nothing?
      • Ryan did not make the diagram
    • Kraken vs Witch Doctor…
      • …in exactly 25 seconds

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  • Front Matter
    • How Spinnerproof is covering Battlebots
      • What we want, when we want
        • Fights and topics which interest us, released sporadically
  • Battlebots 2020 - episodes 1-3
    • Bloodsport vs Skorpios
      • The power of managed expectations
      • Bloodsport’s improvements
    • Shatter! vs Ghost Raptor
      • Shatter! is amazing and if you disagree you are wrong
      • The best hammer?
      • How to use a hammer
      • Shatter!‘s driving style distilled
      • Omnidrive all the things
    • HUGE! vs Mammoth
      • The dream match?
      • Are non-meta robots as fun when they aren’t facing the meta?
    • Witch Doctor vs Hydra
      • Long main events are good main events
      • Hydra starting with a flip charged
    • Black Dragon vs Kraken
      • A coin-toss or a theft?
      • Rules not rewarding what fans see as dominating a fight
    • RotatoR vs Beta
      • Decision not rewarding what the rules appear to priorities
      • Enforcing weapon usage?
      • Better hammers firing straight into weapons
        • Shatter! vs Ghost Raptor
        • Shatter! vs Kingpin
        • Blue vs Crossfire
        • Blacksmith vs Biteforce
        • Chomp vs Biteforce
      • Competitors no longer feeling that they can rely on the rules being applied consistently
      • The quality of online discourse
        • How the presentation of the show influences this
      • Robocast #79 - listen to it
        • Listen to it somewhere other than youtube
      • Actually judging the match
        • How the judges scored it
        • The 2020 Judges’ Guide
        • Beta can’t score 5 points for aggression
        • Giving Beta damage points because…reasons?
          • Assumed damage?
          • Penalising RotatoR for their damage being unintentional?
      • Loose rules vs rigid rules
        • Blame falling on people or falling on a system
      • Unnecessary and possibly unhelpful maths
    • Format
      • Bit different, innit
      • Crowd noise
        • Less suppression of audience reactions?
      • Dud fights
        • No basement tapes
        • Generally good handling of the rough fights

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This episode was recorded on November 28th, 2020

The cards can be seen in all their graphic glory here

  • The teams:
    • Mike - Mystrsyko
    • Sam - Robocast
    • Sam & Ryan - Spinnerproof
    • Charlie - Good Robottal
    • Ned - Spoiler Alert & ESC
    • Oliver - ESC and No More Spinnahhs
    • David - David of Smeg
    • Jevan - World of Woodrow & No More Spinnahhs
  • The cards:
    • Mike
      • Puff the Magic Dragon
        • A LiPo fire in the box
      • The Atomic Bomb
        • Atom#94 catches fire
          • Lotsa smoke or visible flames
      • The 2020 Dumpster Fire
        • A returning competitor flops HARD
          • EG Bombshell in 2018, Bronco in 2019, or any robot designed to win fights which fails to
      • Let it Rip!
        • Captain Shredderator vs Gigabyte (1v1)
      • Improvise, Adapt, Overcome
        • Swiss-army bot makes the top 32
          • Swiss-army bot = multiple weapon types
      • Jumping in the Grave
        • A robot is dubbed ‘the new Bite Force’
          • Does not include the new champ once they are champ
      • A Surprise, to be Sure
        • Half of the top 8 are ‘new’
          • New = no team members have reached the top 16 before
      • What Would You Like on Your Tombstone?
        • Tombstone loses its first 2 fights
      • Mr Flibble’s Very Cross
        • A team quantining on entry to the USA is mentioned
      • Thank God for the Arena
        • A robot is flung into the Lexan
      • Ice Ice Baby
        • ICEWave tears another robot in half
          • No bonus points!!
      • Close Quarters
        • A fight is restarted due to an unstick
          • Might not be shown in the edit
      • They’re Good Dogs, Bronco
        • The dog from the Pain Train team photo is acknowledged on the show
      • Shocker!
        • A rookie makes the top 16
          • Rookie = new robot with a new team, even if some members have competed with other teams
      • Crowd Favourite
        • Chomp scores a OHKO
          • ‘OHKO’ = first hit from the weapon
      • Clusterfunk
        • Gemini fails to get a win
    • Sam
      • For Grant
        • Grant Imahara mentioned directly
      • Rocky Balboa
        • Tantrum works
          • Working = weapon spins, hits as well as other similar weapons, and the punching mechanism is clearly helpful
      • Just Like The Simulations
        • An AGWWAPTBABF fantasy matchup happens, and the result is the same
      • David Attenborough
        • Two or more animal themed robots fight (each other)
          • Animal themes must be part of the bot’s aesthetic
      • Absent Audience
        • Attention repeatedly drawn to the lack of audience
          • Repeatedly = at least 10 mentions
      • Lithium Polymer Armament
        • A LiPo fire occurs
      • Old Farm Derby
        • Bale Spear vs Black Widow (1v1)
      • Split Personalities
        • A robot is split in ~2
      • The Steel Chair
        • Slammow manages a suplex
      • Hammer to Fall
        • Beta vs Chomp (1v1)
      • A Game of Two Halves
        • A robot gets split apart
      • Look at Me, Pa!
        • Two robots with minibotds fight, with their minibots
      • Pink is Sus
        • A predominantly pink robot makes the knockout stages
          • Axolotl, Sporkinok, and HiJinx are all predominantly pink
      • Extinguisher by Name…
        • Extinguisher puts out a fire
      • That’s Not 30 Seconds!
        • A team is reminded they can only hold for 30 seconds
      • Oh Lawd She Comin!
        • Chomp ends the season with a positive record
    • Spinnerproof
      • The Killshot
        • An axe/hammer scores a KO
          • Any big overhead hitty thing, but not a ‘hammer saw’ or similar, and not Rusty
      • We Die Together
        • Gemini only uses the multibot config
      • A Noticeable Absence
        • Bite Force not being present is mentioned
      • Apologies to Craig Danby
        • Slammow makes the top 16
      • OOTA is OOTA
        • ‘Proper’ OOTA from a non-spinner
          • ‘Proper’ OOTA = not behind the screws or stuck elsewhere
      • BLUE TEAM, READY?
        • Button hit with something other than a finger/hand
      • Non-starters
        • A robot with a website profile doesn’t have a fight
      • Out With Win and You’re In
        • No places in the top 32 are decided by a play-in fight
      • Stop the count
        • A robot comes back to life during a countout
      • My Leg!
        • Chomp loses a leg
      • We Get it Already
        • The cast avoids saying “Covid-19”, “Pandemic”, or “Coronavirus” for the entire season
          • Cast = not competitors
      • LiPo Fire 2
        • A LiPo fire happens
      • Why Why Whyachi?
        • 2+ Whyachi robots face each other in any kind of match
      • Don’t Bring Wheels Into the Arena
        • A horizontal spinner snipes a wheel
          • ‘Snipes’ = a single hit disabling or removing the wheel
      • Not in my Lexicon
        • The term ‘forward thrust flipper’ is used to describe a front-hinge flipper
      • The Bigger They Are…
        • Chomp’s hammer causes significant damage
    • Charlie
      • Pulverizer Pete
        • Multiple pulveriser hits to one robot in a single fight
      • Be Trans, Throw Hands
        • Sporkinok receives needless online hate
          • We’ll know it when we see it
      • Slammow Fails to Work
        • …as intended, through the entire season
      • The Saviour is Here!
        • Rusty takes a fight to the judges
      • Wee Woo (No, Not That One)
        • Extinguisher puts out a fire
      • The One True Hammer
        • Shatter! outperforms all the other ‘pure’ hammerbots
          • ‘Pure’ hammerbots = Beta, Chomp, maybe Rusty. ‘Outperforms’ = better record and/or lasting longest in the tournament (“down to the second”)
      • Free Parking
        • Non-Bite Force champion
          • Can only be ticked after the grand final
      • The Future is Now
        • No robots from the 2019 top 8 make the 2020 top 8
      • Tears in the Gears
        • A competitor cries on camera
      • Sorry About Your Bike
        • Jenny Taft segment involves smashing up a household object
      • Double Kill
        • Simultaneous KO
      • Hide and Syk 2
        • Despite the lack of live studio audience, world-renowned youtuber MystrSyko is somehow still spotted
      • The Bot Whisperer
        • Footage of pre-reboot BB used in reference to Peter Abrahamson
      • Not Even the Younglings Survived
        • Perfect Phoenix doesn’t win a fight
      • Pobodies Nerfect
        • The champ will have lost a fight along the way
      • Lights, Camera, Smash!
        • One of the lights gets broken
    • Ned
      • Everything is Fine
        • An entire episode doesn’t mention the pandemic
      • Spiderman Pointing Meme
        • Sawblaze vs Skorpios (1v1)
      • Hammer Time
        • Two hammers fight each other (1v1)
          • Chomp, Shatter!, and BETA are hammers. Mad Catter & Extinguisher count if they use their hammer setup in the fight. Rusty may or may not be a hammer.
      • Tropical Storm BETA
        • BETA KOs a vertical spinner
          • Hammer saws don’t count. Mammoth doesn’t count
      • Careful, Icarus
        • A previously successful robot crashes HARD
          • Previously top 16/play in, failing to make the top 32
      • VERTS REEEEEEEEE
        • 4WD verts make up at least half of the top 8
          • If the website photo is a vert, its a vert. Mad Catter counts if they use the vert more than the hammer
      • Now There Are Two of Them!
        • RotatoR uses the dual disc setup
      • In the Blue Hex
        • A HexBug toy appears in the box for a robot’s introduction
      • Third Time Lucky
        • Whiplash fights and beats Tombstone
      • This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
        • Someone is seen wearing a mask incorrectly
          • Nose not covered, hanging off one ear, constantly readjusting, etc
      • Screwed
        • A robot is KO’d due to being stuck in/on the screws
      • Up and Away
        • A whole robot hits the ceiling
      • Flawed Floor
        • The new floor still takes fight-influencing damage
      • Proof in the Pudding
        • A new build has teething trouble
      • THAT’S A HUGE HIT
        • Kenny or Chris say ‘HUGE HIT’
      • Noob Force
        • A new robot takes the Giant Nut
    • Oliver
      • An Open Field
        • A BB rookie makes the top 8
          • Rookie = new machine, even if the team have experience as a team or individuals
      • The Same, But Different
        • A 4WD vert wins the season
      • Bot 56
        • A previously confirmed entry doesn’t make TV
          • Confirmed = publicly by the team, by Battlebots (eg. via the website), or by associated media. SUpporter content doesn’t count.
      • Dun Dun Da Da Daaa Daaa
        • Flight of the Valkyries is sung
      • GetHype

        • Hypershock makes the top 4
      • Spider Chomp, Spider Chomp
        • Footage of a classic Battlebots walker is used
          • Includes shufflers
      • Always on the Scene
        • Extinguisher puts out a fire
      • Ghost of Toad
        • A Team Toad sticker appears
      • The Future is Now, Old Man
        • Donald Hutson is reminded of how long he has been competing
          • Directly to him, eg in an interview
      • Home Field Advantage
        • No non-US teams make the top 16
      • Thank You, Johnathan, Very Cool
        • Presenters say something blatantly wrong, or something in a graphic is clearly incorrect
      • You Only Got One Shot
        • A fight is ended in a single exchange
      • Salt of the Fans
        • A JD causes online backlash
      • Maxwell Edison
        • The Pulverisers score a KO
      • Grabbing Defeat From the Jaws of Victory
        • A robot which is clearly winning dies for any reason
      • Wait For It!
        • John Reid says ‘good hit’
    • David
      • Mortal Coil
        • Ghost Raptor gets split in 2
      • Large and in Charge
        • All 3 ‘oversized’ robots (HUGE, SMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, and Mammoth) finish with a combined win rate of at least 2:3 (0r 66.6…%)
      • The British are Coming
        • BETA makes the top 16
          • We somehow missed reading this one out…
      • Unprecedented
        • The word ‘unprecedented’ is used to describe the pandemic
      • Armchair Engineer
        • Fan makes comments about how a robot sucks and they could do it better
      • FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!
        • Two robots with flamethrowers fight (1v1)
      • Not in my Lexicon 2
        • The term ‘drum’ is used to describe something which is clearly a drisc
          • See ‘the diagram’, courtesy of Jevan
      • It Is Wednesday My Dudes
        • Ribbot makes the knockout stages
      • Stay Froggy
        • Ribbot’s vacuum-formed top survives a fight
      • Rusty in Pieces
        • Rusty gets a win
      • Spin Dammit!
        • Axe Backwards wins a fight
      • The King is Dead
        • Tombstone fails to make the bracket
      • Derby Match
        • Slammow vs Big Dill (1v1)
      • Ow, My Head!
        • Chomp’s hammer snipes a robot
          • ‘Snipes’ = accurately hitting a critical part which immobilises the opponent
      • Knife Roomba
        • A Mowbot autonomous lawnmower appears on screen
          • Not just in the background, intentionally featured
            • What if its an ad segment?
      • What Other Weapon?
        • A robot with interchangeable weapons doesn’t change weapons
    • Jevan
      • Frenemies
        • Skorpios vs HiJinx (1v1)
      • …The Harder They Fall
        • Chomp’s legs take significant spinner damage
          • Legs are removed or their function is impaired
      • I Don’t Think So, Chief
        • A team refuses a fight
          • EG. Shredderator vs Cobalt
      • The Eyes Have It
        • HUGE wins the Giant Nut
      • Should’a Stayed Electric
        • BETA runs out of gas
          • Weapon stops or can’t self right due to lack of gas
      • Sorry About Your Ceiling
        • An entire robots hits the ceiling/lighting rig
      • Weeeeeeeeeeedge
        • SMEEEEEEEEEEE wins a fight
          • Can be an exhibition/other non-tournament fight provided it is aired on Discovery
      • I’m A Fire Starter
        • 20+ fires across the season
          • Large amounts of smoke or visible flames
      • No More Apologies
        • Slammow makes the bracket
      • Game of Clones
        • A robot is likened to another in looks alone
      • Beat the Clock
        • A robot comes back to life during a countout
      • David vs Goliath
        • Mammoth fights a robot with a minibot
      • Tis Just A Flesh Wound
        • A badly damaged robot makes it to the judges
      • Stop, Stop, He’s Already Dead!
        • A clearly dead robot keeps getting hit
      • Yeeted-er
        • A robot hits the ceiling
          • Includes minibots
      • Age of Rust
        • Rusty goes undefeated during Fight Night

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  • Front matter
    • How you doing?
      • Artificial daylight lamp build
    • Youtube is becoming garbage
  • Follow Up
    • Lockjaw does not have a wedge
    • The Malice team are awesome
  • RTNCTI
    • Upcoming fights:
      • Quarter finals
        • Lockjaw vs Apollo
        • Tombstone vs Expulsion
        • Minotaur vs RAPID
        • SOW vs Biteforce
          • Semi-finals, final, and 3rd place
    • !!!RATHER LARGE SPOILERS BELOW!!!
      • Lockjaw vs Apollo
        • Easy-ish rides to the quarters
        • Battlebots arena
      • Tombstone vs Expulsion
      • Minotaur vs RAPID
        • Minotaur’s forks vs Rapid’s front edge
      • SOW vs Biteforce
        • Biteforce’s wedge diverting SOW’s weapon into its own weapon?
        • Differing spinup times
        • Power of the box rush
      • Lockjaw vs Tombstone
        • It happened, but it didn’t happen
        • Ass-plow
      • Minotaur vs SOW
        • Interactions between a drum and a horizontal
      • Lockjaw vs SOW
        • Sam may be biased towards SOW
        • Ryan may be biased against SOW
      • Tombstone vs Minotaur
        • It happened, but would it go the same way again?
        • Tombstone.pptx

View Details

  • Follow Up
    • Sam did a Minotaur oopsie
      • Not the oopsie Ryan expected
    • Ryan has a pillar drill/drill press now
    • Battlebots news!
      • Air date!
      • Trailer!
      • Other good things!
      • Robocast’s 2020 preview
      • Thursday broadcast
  • RTNCTI
    • Mistakes!
      • BETA vs DUCK! should not have hapened
      • Hypothermia vs BETA and DUCK! vs SOW should have hapened in its place
      • These fights will happen now
      • If any of you actually read these shownotes you would have already know all of this
    • Upcoming fights:
      • Do-overs
        • Hypothermia vs BETA
        • DUCK! vs SOW
      • Round of 16
        • Valkyrie vs Lockjaw
        • Apollo vs Red Devil
        • WAR Hawk vs Tombstone
        • Whiplash vs Expulsion
        • The Four* Horsemen vs Minotaur
        • RAPID vs Complete Control
        • Hypothermia vs SOW
        • Biteforce vs Storm 2
    • !!!VERY MILD SPOILERS BELOW!!!
      • Hypothermia vs BETA
        • BETA’s potential to damage Hypothermia’s weapon
          • Similar to Thor vs Coyote
        • Yes, we forgot to justify this. We’re sorry (Ryan’s sorry). We’ll make up for it later. (maybe)
      • DUCK! vs SOW
        • Chances of a SOW weapon failure?
          • Lockjaw’s ass wedge
      • Valkyrie vs Lockjaw
        • Over-rating Valkyrie?
        • Smokey Lockjaw
          • With an ass wedge
      • Apollo vs Red Devil
        • The last remaining RW champ
      • WAR Hawk vs Tombstone
        • Wedge
      • Whiplash vs Expulsion
      • The Four* Horsemen vs Minotaur
      • RAPID vs Complete Control
        • Flipper geometry is hard
      • Hypothermia vs SOW
      • Biteforce vs Storm 2
        • SUBSCRIBE
    • Upcoming fights:
      • Lockjaw vs Apollo
      • Tombstone vs Expulsion
      • Minotaur vs RAPID
      • SOW vs Biteforce
        • Semi-finals, final, and 3rd place
  • Aftershow - the Battlebots 2020 field (edited highlights)
    • BETA
      • It’s different
      • F’kin magnets
      • Pneumatic vs electric hammers
    • Black Widow
      • Walker? Roller? Hovercraft?
        • (The answer is roller…)
        • LOGO robot
    • Chomp
      • Yes
        • Yes
          • Yes
      • Autonomy?
    • Extingisher
      • Fire extinguisher
        • Replacing the siren
      • Witch Doctor vibes?
      • Old Extinguisher
    • Fusion
      • Gyro?
    • Gemini
      • Lieutenant Commander Data - a robot? Or not?
        • Case closed
      • One bot or two?
    • Malice
      • Not a drum
        • ‘Pancake drum’
      • A cool way iof getting a compact, high-inertia horizontal
      • Black Dragon-esque wheels
    • Rusty
      • A R T
      • More whimsy please - Ryan
    • Shatter
      • D O U B L E A R T
    • Slammow
      • Please work
      • Sharing a sponsor with the show
        • Potential fan unrest?
      • Sir Clips
    • SMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
      • Straight SMEEEEEEE vs bendy SMEEEEEEE?
      • Variable spellings
      • Tower of Power
    • Tantrum
    • Tracer
      • Monsoon-esque, but also not
      • Awesome minibot
    • The Big Dill
      • vs The Krusty Grab
        • This fight is laargely an advert for The Krusty Grab rather than The Big Dill

View Details

  • Follow up
    • Sam’s genius ideas shamelessly stolen
      • Re-solving solved problems
  • RTNCTI
    • A reminder of the rules
    • This episode’s fixtures (no spoilers)
      • Magnetar vs Hypothermia
      • Cobalt vs Valkyrie
      • Lockjaw (2018) vs The Kegs
      • The Ringmaster vs Apollo
      • Red Devil vs Big Nipper
      • War Hawk vs TR2
      • Tombstone vs Monsoon
      • Bronco vs Whiplash
      • Expulsion (Series 10) vs Eruption
      • PP3D vs The Four* Horsemen
      • Overdrive (2015) vs Minotaur
      • Iron Awe 6 vs RAPID
      • Witch Doctor (2018) vs Complete Control (2016)
      • Bite Force vs RotatoR
      • Storm 2 vs Bombshell
    • !!!!!!VERY MILD SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!!
      • Magnetar vs Hypothermia
        • Magnetar is not Pulsar
        • Hypothermia’s lifty setup
          • Surviving Minotaur
      • Cobalt vs Valkyrie
        • Not 2019 Cobalt, obvs
        • Weapon reach
        • Losing to Ultimo Destructo
      • Lockjaw (2018) vs The Kegs
      • The Ringmaster vs Apollo
        • Horizontal spinner v wedge
      • Red Devil vs Big Nipper
        • Setups - front ends and weapons
          • Diferent decision making in a straight knockout rather than Fight Night/Round Robin
      • War Hawk vs TR2
        • Impact of the arena
      • Tombstone vs Monsoon
        • Agreeing to agree
      • Bronco vs Whiplash
        • A fight what happened
          • Ryan remembers years good
      • Expulsion (Series 10) vs Eruption
      • PP3D vs The Four* Horsemen
        • Plucking wheels
      • Overdrive (2015) vs Minotaur
        • Overdirve beat Beast in the previous round
      • Iron Awe 6 vs RAPID
        • RAPID’s slow weapon reset
      • Witch Doctor (2018) vs Complete Control (2016)
        • Witch Doctor’s ground clearance
        • Complete Control’s angled sides
      • Bite Force vs RotatoR
        • Another fight what happened
      • Storm 2 vs Bombshell
        • Impact of the arena
    • Next round:
      • Fixing mistakes from this episode:
        • Hypothermia vs Beta
        • DUCK! vs SOW
      • Valkyrie vs Lockjaw
      • Apollo vs Red Devil
      • WAR Hawk vs Tombstone
      • Whiplash vs Expulsion
      • The Four* Horsemen vs Minotaur
      • RAPID vs Complete Control
      • Hypothermia or BETA vs DUCK! or SOW
      • Biteforce vs Storm 2

View Details

  • Front matter
    • Scones
    • Battlebots 2020
      • Increasing optimism
      • Taskmaster Series 10
    • Robotting
      • Mis-adventures in spinner testing
        • Learning what you’ve learned
        • Safety
      • Toilet brush robot
      • Proper but also not proper thwackbot prototype
      • Sit and spin
      • Googly eye robot
      • A potential Sam boat?
  • RTNCTI
    • A reminder of the rules
    • This episode’s fixtures (no spoilers)
      • Magnetar vs Hypothermia
      • Cherub vs Beta
      • Double Jeopardy vs DUCK!
      • Crushtacean vs SOW
      • Bite Force (2018) vs Plan X
      • Photon Storm vs RotatoR
      • Storm 2 vs Sabretooth (Series 9)
      • Free Shipping vs Bombshell (2016)
    • !!!!!!VERY MILD SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!!
      • Magnetar vs Hypothermia
        • Nope
      • Cherub vs Beta
        • Old Beta <3
        • Hammers <3
        • How does Cherub win?
      • Double Jeopardy vs DUCK!
        • DUCK!‘s redundancy
      • Crushtacean vs SOW
        • Impacts of the arena
          • Playing chicken with the flipper
      • Bite Force (2018) vs Plan X
      • Photon Storm vs RotatoR
        • Righting a wrong from many moons ago
        • 2018 RotatoR only had the dual disc/bar setup
      • Storm 2 vs Sabretooth (Series 9)
        • Sabretooth’s lack of forks/feeder
        • Storm 2’s lack of anything noteworthy
      • Free Shipping vs Bombshell (2016)
        • Rubbing shoulders with the greats
        • Free Shipping is cool
        • Bombshell’s weapon choice?
    • Upcoming fixtures:
      • Cobalt vs Valkyrie
      • Lockjaw (2018) vs The Kegs
      • The Ringmaster vs Apollo
      • Red Devil vs Big Nipper
      • War Hawk vs TR2
      • Tombstone vs Monsoon
      • Bronco vs Whiplash
      • Expulsion (Series 10) vs Eruption
      • PP3D vs The Four* Horsemen
      • Overdrive (2015) vs Minotaur
      • Iron Awe 6 vs RAPID
      • Witch Doctor (2018) vs Complete Control (2016)
      • Magnetar/Hypothermia vs BETA
      • DUCK! vs SOW
      • Bite Force vs RotatoR
      • Storm 2 vs Bombshell
  • Aftershow
    • The making of Spinnerproof

Additional sound effects from https://zapsplat.com

View Details

  • Front matter
    • Audio woes
    • Battlebots October filming confirmed
      • This was recorded a couple of hours after the announcement
      • Mixed feelings
        • RTNCTI
        • Anticipated dropouts - many of which were since confirmed
        • A chance for less recognised robots to thrive
        • Will casual fans be OK with the changes?
        • Potential for viewership to thrive in a different TV landscape
    • Robonerd
      • An event we both really missed
    • Virtual robonerd
      • An event we both really enjoyed
      • Full stream VOD
      • Full playlist
      • Our interview with Dave Moulds
        • Kev Cleasby, not Ant Pritchard
  • RTNCTI
    • A reminder of the rules
    • This episode’s fixtures (no spoilers)
      • Vulture vs Iron Awe 6
      • RAPID (s10) vs SubZero
      • Invader vs Witch Doctor (2018)
      • Razorback vs Complete Control (2016)
    • !!!!!!VERY MILD SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!!
      • Vulture vs Iron Awe 6
        • What is Iron Awe 6?
          • A very successful live scene competitor
      • RAPID (s10) vs SubZero
        • The beauty and precision of RAPID
        • The durability and jank of old SubZero
      • Invader vs Witch Doctor (2018)
      • Razorback vs Complete Control
        • Which setup for Razorback?
        • Permutations of a JD

View Details

  • Front matter
    • Amazon are meanies
    • Robonerd TV
    • No More Spinnahhs
  • RTNCTI
    • A reminder of the rules
    • This episode’s fixtures (no spoilers)
      • PP3D vs Nuts 2
      • The Four Horsemen vs Sharkoprion
      • Overdrive (4wd lifter) vs Beast
      • Minotaur vs Brutus
    • !!!!!!VERY MILD SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!!
      • PP3D vs Nuts 2
        • Who can hit what?
      • The Four Horsemen vs Sharkoprion
        • Audible confusion
        • Who can hit what?
      • Overdrive vs Beast
        • Weber
      • Minotaur vs Brutus
        • The clone wars
  • Adam Savage
    • In the interest of minimising the bias our coverage of this matter might introduce, we will not be linking to any specific news items explaining the sitution. Instead, we encourage you to find your own sources.

View Details

  • Black Lives Matter
    • Parable of the Polygons
  • The show of aftershows
    • Keeping your attention. Yes. Yours. You right there.
      • Opening another podcast episode by talking about youtube
      • Joe Rogan’s Spotify deal
    • Ryan’s Pandemic Projects
      • Silly boat video
      • Antweight Hello There!
      • Mental health in lockdown
      • Finishing projects
    • Sam’s Spinnerproof R&D Lab
      • Arduino experiments
      • Hand-cutting gears
      • Semi-autonomous weapon setup prototype

View Details

  • Front matter
    • Spinnerproof on youtube
      • Don’t use it. Listen a better way.
      • New episodes will go up, but might lag slightly behind traditional uploads
      • r/agedlikemilk
    • Good Robottal’s latest RA2 expansion pack stuff thing
      • Hello There is overpowered in relation to other non-spinners
        • There are also other robots
  • RTNCTI
    • A reminder of the rules
    • This episode’s fixtures (no spoilers)
      • Chomp vs WAR Hawk
      • Lycan vs TR2
      • Tombstone vs Reality
      • Monsoon vs Captain Shrederator
      • Overhaul vs Bronco
      • Basilisk vs Whiplash
      • Expulsion (S10) vs Carbide (S10)
      • Supernova (S9) vs Eruption (S10)
    • !!!!!!VERY MILD SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!!
      • Chomp vs WAR Hawk
        • Chomp
          • Highly sensitive to the specifics of the matchup
          • Highly unlikely to be KO’d through damage
        • WAR Hawk
          • Important bits exposed from above
            • Weapon Motor
            • Drive chains
        • Balancing biases
        • Trying to work through various judging permutations
          • Trying to remember what we do about judging
      • Lycan vs TR2
        • Lycan
          • A ‘control bot’
        • TR2
          • One of the best records, if not the best record, in modern Robot Wars
      • Tombstone vs Reality
        • Tombstone
          • Exists
        • Reality
          • Tanky in a way which may or may not be useful
          • Ominous
            • Wajoo is scary
      • Monsoon vs Captain Shrederator
        • Monsoon
          • Tauron, but excellent
        • Captain Shrederator
          • A rich history
            • Phrisbee first ran in 2001
          • An upsetting record
        • Impact of shell choice for Shrederator
        • Weapon-to-weapon impacts
      • Overhaul vs Bronco
        • Overhaul
          • Almost entirely unable to actively win this fight
        • Bronco
          • Unexpected versioning!
      • Basilisk vs Whiplash
        • Basilisk
          • Should it even be here?
            • Does it matter?
        • Whiplash
          • Exists
      • Expulsion (S10) vs Carbide (S10)
        • Expulsion
          • Failing to self right in the most upsetting of ways
          • Might take the hits, but will still suffer
          • Beat Pulsar to get here
        • Carbide
          • Versions combined
      • Supernova (S9) vs Eruption (S10)
        • Supernova
          • A competent horizontal
        • Eruption
          • Struggles against horizontals, possibly because those horizontals are usually Carbide
          • Wants an OOTA but will struggle to get that here
  • The rest of the round
    • PP3D vs Nuts 2 (S10)
    • The Four Horsemen vs Sharkoprion
    • Overdrive (2015) vs Beast
    • Minotaur (2018) vs Brutus (2016)
    • Vulture vs Iron-Awe 6
    • RAPID (S10) vs Subzero
    • Invader vs Witch Doctor (2018)
    • Razorback (2016) vs Complete Control (2016)
    • Magnetar vs Hypothermia
    • Cherub vs Beta
    • Double Jeopardy vs DUCK!
    • Crushtacean vs SOW
    • Biteforce (2018) vs Plan X
    • Photon Storm vs RotatoR
    • Storm 2 vs Sabretooth (S9)
    • Free Shipping vs Bombshell (2016)

View Details

  • Front matter
    • Actual robot building
      • Secret projects
      • The difficulties of driving and winning fights
  • RTNCTI
    • A reminder of the rules
    • This episode’s fixtures (no spoilers)
      • Tauron (S10) vs Cobalt
      • Valkyrie vs Orte
      • Concussion (S10) vs Lockjaw (2018)
      • HUGE vs The Kegs
      • Escape Velocity vs The Ringmaster
      • Death Roll vs Apollo (S9)
      • Red Devil (2018) vs Ironside 3 (S9)
      • Kraken vs Big Nipper
    • !!!!!!VERY MILD SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!!
      • Tauron (S10) vs Cobalt
        • Tauron
          • S10 - ‘the less boaty one’
        • Cobalt
          • The diet Carbide which predates Carbide
        • Ryan has range
      • Valkyrie vs Or Te
        • Two robots
      • Concussion (S10) vs Lockjaw (2018)
        • Concussion
          • All versions combined
        • Lockjaw
          • Spinny Lockjaw rather than jaw-y Lockjaw
          • Concussion did actually knock Tracktion out (or critically damage it) in the 10-way rumble
      • HUGE vs The Kegs
        • HUGE
          • HUGE beat HUGE on a JD in the 2019 season
        • The Kegs
          • Delightfully odd
      • Escape Velocity vs The Ringmaster
        • Escape Velocity
          • Extra armour or minibot?
        • The Ringmaster
          • A reliable ring spinner?
      • Death Roll vs Apollo (S9)
        • Death Roll
          • An old argument comes full circle
        • Apollo
          • Re-versioning?
            • Re-versioning!
      • Red Devil (2018) vs Ironside 3 (S9)
        • Red Devil
          • Finding the average robot
          • The plow
            • And how it won’t ultimately help
        • Ironside 3
          • Re-versioning
        • 6-1: “a bit one-sided”
      • Kraken vs Big Nipper
        • Kraken
          • So beautifully made it looks like a render
        • Big Nipper
          • Spinny, not grabby
  • The rest of the round
    • Chomp vs WAR Hawk
    • Lycan vs TR2
    • Tombstone vs Reality
    • Monsoon vs Captain Shrederator
    • Overhaul vs Bronco
    • Basilisk vs Whiplash
    • Expulsion (S10) vs Carbide (S10)
    • Supernova (S9) vs Eruption (S10)
    • PP3D vs Nuts 2 (S10)
    • The Four Horsemen vs Sharkoprion
    • Overdrive (2015) vs Beast
    • Minotaur (2018) vs Brutus (2016)
    • Vulture vs Iron-Awe 6
    • RAPID (S10) vs Subzero
    • Invader vs Witch Doctor (2018)
    • Razorback (2016) vs Complete Control (2016)
    • Magnetar vs Hypothermia
    • Cherub vs Beta
    • Double Jeopardy vs DUCK!
    • Crushtacean vs SOW
    • Biteforce (2018) vs Plan X
    • Photon Storm vs RotatoR
    • Storm 2 vs Sabretooth (S9)
    • Free Shipping vs Bombshell (2016)
  • Aftershow: brushless motors

View Details

  • Follow up
    • Battlebots’ Top 10 “Moments” of 2019
      • What is a ‘moment’?
      • What is a ‘marketing’?
      • Norwalk Havoc
        • Yes, Ryan has chosen the stream where they had some technical issues
        • Fights are 3 minutes + a potential encore, not 2 minutes
      • BBB Beetle Champs 2020 (SXS)
      • Top Four
      • Robot or Not
    • Bucktooth Burl vs Skorpios vs Deathroll
  • RTNCTI
    • A reminder of the rules
    • This episode’s fixtures (no spoilers)
      • Thermidor 2 vs Chompalot vs Subzero
      • Vulture vs Foxic vs Trolley Rage
      • Bale Spear vs Bucky the Robot vs Captain Shrederator
      • Wyrm vs Donald Thump vs HUGE
    • !!!!!!VERY MILD SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!!
      • Thermidor 2 vs Chompalot vs Subzero
        • Thermidor 2
          • Series 8 version
          • Did Thermidor 2 ‘break down’?
        • Chompalot
          • Wins that don’t count, losses that count double
            • Chompalot seems to be smoking before Shunt hits it
        • Subzero
          • Old Subzero, but not the really old Subzero which won a championship
          • Durable? Yes. Effective? No
        • Doing the research we should have done beforehand
          • And not getting the answers we want
      • Vulture vs Foxic vs Trolley Rage
        • Vulture
          • The first overhead spinner thing?
            • MegatRON is a featherweight version of a much older Jamison GO beetle (RON), but this seems to have been a saw.
        • Foxic
          • We all knew this day had to come
          • A genuinely beautiful robot we want to see do well
        • Troley Rage
          • Finding out live event records
            • Overall, Team Spinnerproof currently have a record of 5-9 in competetive fights (ignoring large melees):
              • Hello There: 0-5
              • Kylo Wen: 2-2
              • Tropical Storm Phil: 3-2
        • How well do these robots work?
          • We have seen S8 Foxic’s weapon work, but not S9
          • Can Trolley Rage self right?
      • Bale Spear vs Bucky the Robot vs Captain Shrederator
        • Bale Spear
          • A vast array of wheels
        • Bucky the Robot
          • Wej
        • Captain Shrederator
          • Versioning: Slanty shell and Spiky shell
      • Wyrm vs Donald Thump vs HUGE
        • Wyrm
          • Wej, but bad
        • Donald Thump
          • It may or may not work
        • HUGE
          • An absolute JD machine
  • The upcoming round of 64:
    • Tauron vs Cobalt
    • Valkyrie vs Orte
    • Concussion (S10) vs Lockjaw (2018)
    • HUGE vs The Kegs
    • Escape Velocity vs The Ringmaster
    • Death Roll vs Apollo (S9)
    • Red Devil (2018) vs Ironside 3 (S9)
    • Kraken vs Big Nipper
    • Chomp vs WAR Hawk
    • Lycan vs TR2
    • Tombstone vs Reality
    • Monsoon vs Captain Shrederator
    • Overhaul vs Bronco
    • Basilisk vs Whiplash
    • Expulsion (S10) vs Carbide (S10)
    • Supernova (S9) vs Eruption (S10)
    • PP3D vs Nuts 2 (S10)
    • The Four Horsemen vs Sharkoprion
    • Overdrive (2015) vs Beast
    • Minotaur (2018) vs Brutus (2016)
    • Vulture vs Iron-Awe 6
    • RAPID (S10) vs Subzero
    • Invader vs Witch Doctor (2018)
    • Razorback (2016) vs Complete Control (2016)
    • Magnetar vs Hypothermia
    • Cherub vs Beta
    • Double Jeopardy vs DUCK!
    • Crushtacean vs SOW
    • Biteforce (2018) vs Plan X
    • Photon Storm vs RotatoR
    • Storm 2 vs Sabretooth (S9)
    • Free Shipping vs Bombshell (2016)

View Details

  • Follow up
    • TheTrueCorrectGuy’s comment
      • Basically everything said in this comment is accurate
        • The difficulty of doing RTNCTI in a post-2019 world
        • Potential do-overs?
    • The Big Bot Quiz!
  • RTNCTI
    • A reminder of the rules
    • This episode’s fixtures (no spoilers)
      • Big Nipper vs Parallax vs Crazy Coupe 88
      • Overhaul vs Mega Tento vs Bucktooth Burl
      • Ms Nightshade vs Crank-e vs SOW
      • Tauron vs TMHWK vs Dantomkia
      • The Four Horsemen vs Thor vs Rusty
    • !!!!!!VERY MILD SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!!
      • Big Nipper vs Parallax vs Crazy Coupe 88
        • Big Nipper
          • Versioning?
            • Did we even make a decision about this?
            • Using the disc
          • Since recording, Ryan has learned that Big Nipper also had a third setup (a wedge) which production rejected
        • Parallax
          • A robot which was replaced by P1, and everybody was happy
          • Drum? Drisc? Saw? Wedge?
            • Our survey said: Drisc
              • But what would this be?
        • Crazy Coupe 88
          • Series 8 epitomised
      • Overhaul vs Mega Tento vs Bucktooth Burl
        • Overhaul
          • Versioning?
            • Sam takes the easy way out
          • A control bot in a spinner’s world
          • Before Fight Night, it could take 3 or 4 years to notch up 3 or 4 defeats, now a robot can do it in one season
        • Mega Tento
          • Moving the weapon was possibly more a response to the shell being able to block the weapon if it got broken
          • Tentomushi was a lightweight in Battlebots, but fought with middleweights in Robot Wars series 3
        • Bucktooth Burl
          • vs Chromefly
      • Ms Nightshade vs Crank-e vs SOW
        • Ms Nightshade
          • No
          • Breaking pre-fight
        • Crank-e
          • A better robot that it can be given credit for being?
            • Or entirely forgettable?
        • SOW
          • Energy
            • Regrets
        • The impact of the arena & house robots
      • Tauron vs TMHWK vs Dantomkia
        • Tauron
          • Monsoon, but not Monsoon. Very not
            • S9 Tauron is Monsoon crossed with a boat
          • Versioning: Series 10
        • TMHWK
          • Axes are silly
        • Dantomkia
          • A competent flipper
          • A reliable wedge?
      • The Four Horsemen vs Thor vs Rusty
        • The Four Horsemen
          • Arguing over names
          • Big Break - the snooker-based gameshow you never knew you wanted
        • Thor
          • A strong live event competitor
          • Versioning - Series 10
        • Rusty
          • Also there
        • The need to score points with judges
          • But which judges?

View Details

  • ~~Follow up~~ Front matter
    • Sam has been streaming
      • Twitch
      • VODs - 1, 2
    • Ryan has been guesting
      • ESC
      • The Big Bot Quiz
  • RTNCTI
    • A reminder of the rules
    • Ryan made a lot of notes, and is confident that none of said work will go to waste
    • This episode’s fixtures (no spoilers)
      • Witch Doctor vs Lucky vs Shockwave
      • Vanquish vs Black Ice vs Basilisk
      • Tombstone vs Crackers ‘N’ Smash vs Warhead
      • Creepy Crawlies vs Magnetar vs Double Dutch
    • !!!!!!VERY MILD SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!!
      • Witch Doctor vs Lucky vs Shockwave
        • Witch Doctor
          • Pre-2019 Witch Doctor has a rocky record
          • Ryan’s extremely thorough notes completely ignored the fact that Witch Doctor took part in the 2015 season
            • If they had, the 2015/16 version would have had a record of 2-5 (or 2-3 if excluding exhibitions) for a total of 5-7 or 5-5 before 2019
        • Lucky
          • A disappointing record?
          • More configurations than we (or they) know what to do with
          • More suited to horizontals than verticals?
        • Shockwave
          • A very Robot Wars machine
          • More suited to horizontals than verticals?
        • Remembering the power of ganging up
      • Vanquish vs Black Ice vs Basilisk
        • Vanquish
          • Do we allow the lifter to work?
            • Ryan has reviewed the fight footage and now lifter movement is visible
        • Black Ice
          • That win
          • Weird weapons, gaping ground clearance, not invertible
        • Basilisk
          • Not your typical flipper
          • Slowly removing their wins
          • Using cameras for an autonomous system
        • re: Vanquish vs Shrederator - its worth noting that the team were ill for a while between fights, limiting their repair time and contributing to their coming into that fight weapon-less
      • Tombstone vs Crackers ‘N’ Smash vs Warhead
        • Tombstone
          • Tombstone
        • Crackers ‘N’ Smash
          • Some have previously called them cowards. We do not condone this behaviour
          • Series 9 version with the front-hinge lifter
        • Warhead
          • Grabber or spinner?
          • Canonical setups and reasons for choosing either
        • Very few heavyweights with exposed wheels have actually won stuff…
      • Creepy Crawlies vs Magnetar vs Double Dutch
        • Creepy Crawlies
          • Sacrificed to the robot Gods
        • Magnetar
          • Pulsar, but it worked
            • With the exception of self-righting, which we can forgive
              • Could it have been invertible?
          • A E S T H E T I C
        • Double Dutch
          • Wonky wheeling
          • Decisions which make your robot work vs decisions which get you onto Battlebots
          • That advert
            • The actual fight

View Details

  • Context:
    • Ryan went to AWS61 with a new antweight - Tropical Storm Phil
      • He did quite well, winning 3 fights and losing 2
  • Fights
    • vs Pyramid Scheme
    • vs Boink?!
    • vs Team Phyte’s Big Syte
    • vs Mini B
    • vs Potential Uplift
  • Antweight building
    • Titanium is hard to work with
    • The whole robot was built using the following tools:
      • Cordless drill with 1.5mm, 2mm, and 7mm HSS bits
      • Centre punches
      • Soldering iron
      • Low-temp glue gun
      • Cheap ‘junior hacksaw’
      • More expensive ‘big boi hacksaw’
      • Tin snips
      • Small Phillips-head screwdriver
      • Scalpel
      • Small files
    • Not enjoying the process
      • An issue with building ants or an issue with building solo?
    • Slightly overcomplicated flipper design
      • Better mechanisms which aren’t significantly more complex
      • Not knowing how torque works
  • Future antweight plans
    • More front-hinges?
      • Fun, but hard to use effectively
    • Designing around an evolving driving style
    • Hammers not working
    • Spinners?
  • The antweight class
    • Are antweight fights enjoyable for an audience?
      • Definitely enjoyable for a competitor
    • The contact rule
      • Ordinary use of the contact rule
      • Sporting use of the contact rule
        • Not the fight Ryan was talking about, or a fight Ryan mis-remembered
    • The dreaded cube
      • What can be gained by gaming the cube
  • Ryan explains football to Sam for far too many minutes
  • Miscellaneous fun fights
    • Plank of Wood vs Wu Ben Wu Won’t Believe This Is a Rebuild
    • Hot Rod vs Yeetus & Retreatus
    • Little Kit 4 vs Annie Wuz Robbed
    • Wu Ben Wu Won’t Believe This Is a Rebuild vs Armamant

View Details

  • Follow up
    • We forgot
  • Front matter
    • Seriously, there’s no structure here
  • BBB Beetleweight Champs 2020 @ SXS
    • But first, a tangent
      • Entering AWS 61
        • Ryan and Sam’s solo builds
    • The concept behind Kylo Wen
      • Experimenting with a steel wedge, true 4wd, and a different build style/layout
    • Learning from the failures
    • Winning fights you don’t deserve to win
    • Our fights:
      • vs Batbot and Wedgin & Let The Good Times Roll
        • Mistaken identity
        • The wedgiest wedge
        • Dead batteries and pre-fight self-disembowelment
      • vs Bourbon
        • Pre-fight pessimism and strategic advice
      • vs Wee Loser and Don’t Be Brick
        • Yes, coming joint 3rd counts as a podium
          • Alex was not, however, part of the team for series 6. But shhhhhh…
            • But maybe coming joint 3rd in the Extreme 1 All-Stars should count. Yeah, let’s go with that.
        • Winning a split decision
          • Failing to cope emotionally with winning a split decision
      • Maximum Ogredrive vs End Boss
      • vs Let the Good Times Roll
        • The re-rematch
        • Losing to the champ
        • LTGTR vs Sir Lance a Frog and Super Snappy
          • And one of the best KOs of all time
      • Gladiator
        • Ryan drives, at last
        • Seeking out spinners
        • Assorted highlights:
          • Evil Kin-wee-vil
          • Unintentionally jinking away from Night Fury
    • Summarising our electrical issues
      • Sam’s explanatory video
    • All fights (with timestamps)

View Details

  • Bugglebots Dung Beetle Melee
    • Watch on YouTube
    • Ryan is unhappy, and Sam doesn’t understand why
    • The weapon is Ryan’s responsibility
    • Philosophies from space
    • Love for Snappy
    • Sam’s pie chart
    • Spinnerproof on YouTube
    • Kylo Wen Test Drive
    • Where do videos live?
  • The Spinnerproof backlog
    • Where should new listeners start?
    • Should we delete old episodes?
    • Is Sam George Lucas in disguise?
    • Old media formats
    • Is Spinneproof spinnerproof?
  • The Kylo Wen story
    • It’s a testbed for future ideas
      • Drive
      • Materials
      • Maintainability
    • We built it in a lot less time than Hello There!
    • Will it be better than Hello There!?
    • Weapons add a lot of weight and complexity
  • A childish end

View Details

  • Follow Up
    • Daedalus vs Annie JD
      • 8 other robots may or may not have been involved
      • Cosmin’s view on the fight
        • Why Daedalus stopped for a few seconds
        • Damage done to Annie
        • Post-fight and judges’ interview
        • Damage done to Bourbon
        • Competition regulations with judging criteria (from 2013)
          • Is this what is being used?
          • Is a new version available?
            • Where?
            • Update 27/01/2020: The rules document was updated a few days after this episode was published. The new document is here
    • Buggle Bonus content continues
      • Hello There! vs Jay
        • The weapon doing what its supposed to
        • The drive not doing what its supposed to
      • Phil vs the venue
    • L’boro Robot Riot
  • Bugglebots 2019 - The Grand Final
    • An XL episode
    • New music
    • Thunderchild vs Saw Loser
      • Aw jeez
      • Pinning - good or bad?
        • Good control, bad aggression
        • Ramming: good control and aggression
      • Sam’s judging catch 22
      • Communication of the rules, systems, and expectations
        • Drivers’ briefings?
        • Pre-event info packs?
          • The Bugglebots pack was focussed on logistical info and tournament format, and very thorough
      • Contentious decisions suck for all parties, and we want to see steps taken to minimise them as much as possible
    • Splodeyboi vs K2
      • Splodeyboi’s wheelectomy
      • Enjoying the freedom to discuss K2’s dominance
      • The other Wajoo fight
        • An older (not necessarily first) version of K2
    • Daedalus vs Mini Spinny mk 2
      • Arguing about whether Mini Spinny’s driving is excellent or upsetting
      • Meta note: Ryan had recording issues and samples were dropped in some areas, fortunately we saw the issue coming and took a backup recording which has been used to patch things up.
      • Smoll batteries
      • Sam’s high-quality robot improving service
    • Thunderchild vs Splodeyboi vs Mini Spinny mk 2
    • Saw Loser vs K2
      • An enticing matchup which lived up to expectations
      • K2’s weapon as an aid to control
      • Pit wheel eating
        • That Wajoo/Suijin fight
    • Thunderchild vs Daedalus
      • Cosmin’s revised Thunderchild strategy
      • A random draw
        • Either way there was a potential rematch, just not a rematch from the heat
    • Daedalus vs Saw Loser
      • The pure beauty of Saw Loser’s internals
        • Saw Loser on GitLab
      • Super secret audience view video
        • For maximum enjoyment, watch Joe and Shane’s reactions to the first hit
      • How to kill Daedalus’ weapon
    • Da Grand Final
      • Staying away from the pit in a fight against Thunderchild
      • A (comparatively) easy decision?
      • The perils of being an international competitor
    • Post-event comedowns
    • The ridiculous amount of effort which goes into Bugglebots
  • The near-future for Spinnerproof
    • Exiting podcast mode
    • Entering roboteer mode
      • Building for UWE
      • There will be photos. Probably.
    • RTNCTI?
    • Bugglebots specials will be covered, eventually

View Details

  • Follow up
    • Ryan missed a lot of things last time
      • Buggle Bonus content
        • Annie vs Claws 2 JD
        • The Spinnerproof supercut
      • Amazing artwork
        • Probably Ryan’s favourite thing ever
        • Frog merch
    • Bourbon’s wedge
    • How y’all listen
  • Bugglebots 2019: The Last Chance
    • Rumble the 1th
      • A pitless rumble
      • Excellent refereeing
      • Also a judges’ decision happened
        • The system there is vs the system we want
      • Rumbles going to the death?
      • Pitless rumbles? Less-pit rumbles?
    • Rumble the 2st
  • Podcast recommendation - Two Headed Girl
    • “a new show about gender, mental illness, and all sorts of transitions made by a couple of married queers trying to figure themselves out.”
    • Terminology can be a minefield and we’re doing our best

View Details

  • Follow Up
    • The Apprentice’s difficulties
    • Claws 2’s ailing drive
  • Front Matter
    • Australia
      • There are some misleading size comparison images online involving the size of Australia
        • Australia is roughly 75% the size of the entire USA mainland
      • Australia to New Zealand isn’t quite as far as Sam made out, but it’s still pretty far.
    • Spinnerproof on YouTube
      • How do you listen to Spinnerproof (or any other podcasts)?
    • Spinnerproof on RoboCast
  • Bugglebots 2019, Heat 5
    • Ryan’s conspiracy theories
    • Catalyst vs Miny Spinny mk 2
      • Catalyst
        • Those eyes
        • A quietly well-designed, well-refined machine
      • Mini Spinny mk 2
        • Yet another style of undercutter
        • Another dark horse
    • Drizzle vs Wee Woo
      • Sticking
      • All kinds of ridiculous
      • Drizzle
        • It gone done self righted
          • Self righting is really easy and making it do it probably took next to no effort
      • Wee Woo
        • The full fleet
          • Finding the limits of the Wee Woo cluster philosophy
        • Dave Weston’s addition as a driver
      • Watching from the pits
      • Drizzle’s Bugglebots debut
    • Bourbon vs Jay
      • Bourbon
        • Super compact
        • A very sturdy wedge
      • Jay
        • Strength in simplicity
        • A classic beginners’ build
        • Fairly compact
        • A very sturdy wedge
      • Jay’s wheelectomy
      • Bourbon’s drive difficulties
    • Jay vs Wee Woo vs Catalyst
      • A fight between 3 robots
      • Effusing over spinner Wee
        • Managing the ceiling count
      • Catalyst out-bricking the brick
      • Strategic non-engagement
    • Mini Spinny mk 2 vs Bourbon
      • Return of the speeeeeeeed
      • Casually wanting some more
    • Drizzle vs Jay
      • Watching with a restricted view
      • Close to a double KO
      • Does Drizzle win this as a wedge?
        • Robonerd rumble
          • Jay struggles to push Hello There! (which is only running 2WD)
          • Drizzle happily scoops up Hello There! and pushes it
      • Potential for a double KO?
      • Unexpected mathematics
    • Mini Spinny mk 2 vs Jay
      • Perfect box-rush evasion
      • Actual wedging
        • Yet a swift demise
    • The grand final lineup
      • The overall success of less extreme spinner designs
        • Homogeneity, with variety
    • The rumbles
      • Yes

View Details

  • Follow Up
    • Ryan’s corrections
      • Claws 2 was not a grand finalist, despite being in the ‘Grand Final’ episode
      • The Apprentice’s difficulties were electrical, not belt-based
        • “Browning out”, whatever that means - doesn’t happen to servos
    • Further apologies to Alex Mordue
      • We tried to talk about 2018 Heat 3 but the recording failed
        • It will happen. Eventually. Probably.
    • Did we do the last heat justice?
  • Front matter
    • This episode is also on YouTube
      • Don’t get used to it
        • Why not do this for all of our Bugglebots episodes? This is the episode where we really have something unique to contribute to the conversation
      • Podcast player recommendations
  • Bugglebots 2019, Heat 4
    • Daedalus vs Claws 2
      • Handmade simplicity vs CNC complexity
        • Daedalus’ weapon assembly
    • Thunder Child vs Hello There!
      • Thank you, post-production team, for making us look so good
      • Thank you, competitors and viewers, for all your kind words
      • “Zero turning circle”
      • Pre-event roundup (ft. a lot of hair)
      • Drawing one of the tournament favourites
      • The forks.
        • Getting stuck was our fault
          • And we would do it again! (ft. another useless minibot)
      • Nate is an awesome guy and also very handsome
      • Pre-fight nerves
    • AnnieRUOK vs 2 Berg 2 Furious
      • Sam is confused by Berg memes
      • 2 Berg’s pre-competition problems
      • Australia is quite a long way away
      • Another school of undercutter design
    • Claws 2 vs 2 Berg 2 Furious vs Hello There!
      • Picking the right configuration
      • Backflips
      • Exposed wheels
      • The ceiling
      • Losing the weapon axle
        • Hello There! self rights beautifully
      • Hitting the ceiling?
        • Maybe?
          • No…
            • And definitely not twice
    • Thunder Child vs Daedalus
      • The ruthless efficiency of a superb wedge
      • Pure noise
      • The reddit poll had Daedalus, implying that most people would back Daedalus in a 1v1
    • Claws 2 vs AnnieRUOK
      • BenfromTeamPanic’s post-heat video
      • Two robots well matched in terms of drive
      • juj bad evry1 get angery
    • Claws 2 vs Thunder Child
      • So nearly a one-hit-wonder
    • Final thoughts
      • Thanks once again to everybody involved!
      • And thanks to Garfie for this gem.
      • Not in the podcast but worth adding here:
        • Successful hits vs Thunder Child - 14
        • Successful hits vs Claws 2 & 2 Berg - 16? Cutaways make it slightly tough to tell
        • Damaging hits across the 2 fights - 0
        • Successful hits in series 1:
          • Heat 1: 0
          • Heat 2: ~3
          • Heat 3: 0
          • Heat 4: 0
          • Heat 5: ~15

View Details

  • Follow up
    • Ryan said a lot of silly things about batteries
  • Front matter
    • We skipped Saw Loser’s heat last series and Alex Mordue was sad
  • Bugglebots 2019, Heat 3
    • Saw Loser vs W I D 3 B O I
      • Weaponised width
        • Not wide for the memes, wide for the function
      • Cautious driving and tactics
    • Unconscious 514 vs Leim Thart
      • Crushers are hard
      • Spring flippers are hard
    • The Apprentice vs Rev 4
      • How does Rev 4 stay balanced?
        • When Rev 4 doesn’t stay balanced (top left)
    • W I D 3 B O I vs Rev 4 vs Leim Thart
      • Rev 4’s cut link
      • W I D 3 B O I’s insane brushlessless drive
      • Leim’s 4-bar lifter
    • Saw Loser vs Unconscious 514
      • Sportsmanship vs showmanship
    • The Apprentice vs Leim Thart
      • The Apprentice’s spinup issues
    • Saw Loser vs Leim Thart
  • A look ahead to heat 4
    • OH HEY THAT’S US!
    • Full assembly of Hello There! on YouTube
      • Watch with subtitles or it will definitely suck
        • With subtitles it could still suck
    • The robots:
      • Thunderchild
      • Hello There!
      • Daedalus
        • Bonus Daedalus
      • Claws 2
      • AnnieRUOK
      • 2 Berg 2 Furious

View Details

  • Followup
    • Sam likes your tweets, Sam dislikes his poor experiment design
      • Spinnerproof on YouTube
        • In the process of fetching this link, Ryan realised that we have already ticked over to 50, so don’t bother subscribing
    • We will take a detailed look at the new Battlebots rules in the near-ish future
      • RTNCTI should also return post-Bugglebots
  • Bugglebots 2019: heat 2
    • Splodeyboi vs Phoenix
      • Phoenix vs Tempus
        • Other Phoenix fights in this video seem to show that they couldn’t self right from a standstill, but this might have been rectified between UWE and Bugglebots
    • Snappy vs Gear Down For What?!
      • Probably the best Bugglebots fight to date
      • GDFW smacking the arena around
      • The pit escape
      • Judging the judges: pt. 1/?
        • Defining control
          • How well you control the fight vs how well you control your specific robot
        • Live opinions
      • Explaining the robots
        • Who is the Bugglebot audience?
        • Whilst making these shownotes, Ryan realises that he referred to direct drive last episode and didn’t clarify it
          • Ryan is a hypocrite
    • Wajoo vs Shark Setrakien
      • Pronunciation minefield
      • No matter how amazing you think Wajoo is, its amazinger
        • Neutron stars aren’t actually very bright…
      • Is it a good fight?
        • Sam enjoys seeing Dave’s robot destroyed
        • Dave enjoys seeing Dave’s robot destroyed
        • Ryan is describing Hypnodisc’s fight against Robogeddon, but conflating it with the fight against Stealth
          • The Robogeddon team took it pretty well, Stealth less so.
    • Snappy vs Pheonix vs Shark Setrakien
      • Two relative newbies lecture everybody on LiPo safety
        • Bugglebots is in good hands with Tim and Shane on the case
      • Ordering the final results of the tournament
    • Gear Down For What?! vs Phoenix
      • P H Y S I C S
      • Link placement
      • Tim spies with his little eye
    • Wajoo vs Splodeyboi
      • Splodeyboi sailing through a realistically quite unfavourable matchup
    • Splodeyboi vs Pheonix
      • Counting the ceiling strikes

View Details

  • Bugglebots 2019
    • What’s new?
      • Format
        • Ryan’s quick and dirty format diagram
      • Interviews
      • Test arena
  • Episode 1
    • Rust in Pieces vs Sir Lance-a-Frog
      • Minibot wars
      • Underestimating clusterbots
        • Teamwork
      • The Frog A E S T H E T I C
        • Visit Team DSC Robotics for all of your robot-based picturebook needs
        • Maybe commission some artwork while you’re there? Even if you don’t need it
      • 2019 Euros Gladiator - in which Frog does rather well
    • Hold my Beer vs Halo
      • Big brains
      • The world’s greatest removeable link
        • The part number Sam got is for the housing: 926522-1.
      • Hold my Beer is a lovely machine
        • Jeroen built TaN confirmed
        • Build photos
          • Weapon mechanism origami
    • K2 vs Maximum Ogredrive
      • Maximum Ogredrive is scary and anybody who says it isnt is lying
      • The incredible poise and ballance of K2
        • The incredible durability of K2
    • Hold my Beer vs Sir Lance-a-Frog vs Maximum Ogredrive
      • Significant repairs for HmB
      • Ogredrive’s demise
      • The perils of invertibility
    • Rust in Pieces vs Halo
      • Perfect anti-spinner strategy
      • Halo’s crazy drive
        • Halo build diary
    • Sir Lance-a-Frog vs K2
      • The box-rush of dreams
      • Sam’s perfect recall of series 1
      • Unconstrained/less constrained 4-bar lifter setups?
      • Post-Euros video
    • The overall story of the heat

View Details

  • Front matter
    • We already recorded this.
    • Battle in the ‘Burgh
      • The whole tournament on YouTube
        • Plus whiteboards and shenanigens
      • How to watch a live event
  • ‘Fixing’ the Battlebots meta
    • Spinners bad
    • Weight bonuses for non-spinners?
      • Are weight bonuses effective?
      • How do you decide how much is enough?
        • Walker/shuffler bonuses
          • Shuffler bonus for UK Beetles dropped from 50% to 33% in June 2019
            • Battlebots used to acknowledge that unsticks happen
          • SOW went 7-0 as a Heavyweight shuffler, and 2-4 as a Superheavyweight
    • Removing Battlebots’ extra barriers to non-spinner success
      • Arena hazards
        • Less intrusive pit designs:
          • Robot Ruckus’ walled-off corner pit
          • The ‘side pocket’
      • Judging criteria
        • Robogames judging (ctrl+f ‘flip over’ to find relevant section)
          • Say what you want about Robogames, this is a pretty good set of judging rules
  • A general discussion about AI and Machine Learning
    • A conversation driven by the sordid tale of Apple’s ‘sexist’ credit card
    • Defining AI, Machine Learning, and AGI (for the purposes of this discussion)
      • AI: A decision-making system designed by a human. Can be debugged.
      • Machine Learning: A system which produces a decision-making system. Built and then trained, can’t really be debugged.
      • Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): Sci-fi version of AI which is, or appears to be, a human-level intelligence. Don’t worry about it. Yet.
    • Current uses of AI/ML
      • Image/video processing
        • Google’s image compression
        • YouTube’s video compression
      • Social media
        • How it all works
        • The wonderful, wholesome, entirely benevolent Netflix algorithm
        • Sam’s experiences with Reddit
        • Promoting controversy/outrage
        • Bad technology vs technology being used by bad people
          • Setting ‘goals’ for ML systems
      • Finance (and other stuff)
        • How bias can develop within an ML system
          • The Apple case
          • How bias is picked up
          • Why bias might not be detected
      • Medicine
        • Cancer detection
        • What happens when the machine causes a human death?
          • The impact of one life lost vs x lives saved
        • Potential bad implementations of the technology
      • Crime ‘prevention’
        • Predicting reoffending
        • Opportunities for bias presented by data which would likely be used for training
    • How to be better

View Details

  • Follow Up
    • Battlebots Bingo
      • It’s over, but its also not over
        • Potential future ticks
          • Khajit has wares: does Monsoon using a piece of Bombshell count?
          • Elephantastic: Nelly still has a fight to be released
      • Thrilling statistical analysis
        • 9 of Roasting Robots’ 16 predictions scored points
          • 4 of these went to Robocast, 3 to Spinnerproof, and 2 back to RR
        • 8 of Robocast’s 16 predictions scored points
          • 5 of these went to RR, 2 to Spinnerproof, and 1 back to Robocast
        • 5 of Spinnerproof’s 16 predictions scored points
          • 3 of these went back to Spinnerproof, while RR and Robocast each received 1
  • Front Matter
    • FRA Beetleweight Champs
      • Event recap/report thing
        • This video’s thumbnail is possibly one of my favourite things I’ve ever made and that genuinely scares me - Ryan
      • Playlist of our fights
      • Full event video
  • Battlebots
    • The robots we missed
      • Bloodsport
        • Unfortunate to come up against 2 verts in its play-in
      • Skorpios
        • Suffering from its similarity to Sawblaze: a robot which Battlebots has definitely fallen in love with
        • Matched up against a lot of tanky machines
        • Most of the original team from 2016 are still on the team, but the team has doubled in size since 2016
          • The captaincy has changed, but the previous captain (Orion Beach) is still on the team
      • Sidewinder
        • The weird idea which kinda worked, right up until it didn’t
      • Tantrum
        • Not-Tantrum working extremely well in China
        • The additional brutality of a spinner you have to fire
  • Battleboats
    • Battlebots, but on water
    • The meme which didn’t actually spark this conversation
    • Model warship combat
      • Projectile weapons on replica boats
    • Wetbots at RoboNerd
      • Normal robot combat weapons on…whatever you would call that
    • What weapons can be effective?
      • Multiple weapons?
    • Submarines? Hovercrafts? Hydrofoils? Ekranoplans? Crabs?
    • Weapon restrictions
      • Mythbusters on how bubbles affect buoyancy
      • Bubbles sinking a ship
    • ‘Arena’ hazards
  • Robot naming conventions
    • Semantic Versioning
    • Year-based versioning
      • What if an event takes place over the new year?
  • Aftershow: Roborace
    • Tom Scott’s video
      • The project has been going for at least 3 years but good info seems hard to find
        • 2019 was the first time they brought in external teams to turn this into a competitive sporting environment
    • How ‘deeply’ can teams alter the car’s software?
    • No active overtaking in races, overtakes are limited to straights and uncontested
    • How programmers make software work better
      • Fast inverse square root
      • RAM management on PS1
      • (Not mentioned in the podcast, but still interesting): Game Saving
    • Writing an operating system

View Details

  • Battlebots Bingo
    • Welcome to a world where the shownotes don’t really exist!
      • Instead, all the key info can be found here
  • The final cards
    • Roasting Robots
      • Reunited: Monsoon & Ragnarok will face Mad Catter & Chronos in Episode 16’s Bonus fight
      • Elephantastic: Nelly had another fight (vs Shellshock)
        • Nelly’s ridiculous hammer power
      • Split Personality: Tom Brewster agrees that Monsoon was split ‘in half’
      • Mike predicted he would get 6-8 - good job, Mike!
    • Robocast
      • Khajit has Wares: was there a behind the scenes segment showing Bloodsport borrowing the self-righting pole?
      • Spinnerproof Sam offered £5/$5 for anybody who got a full house
      • Fight Court Reboot: The live audience when there’s a ‘controversial’ JD
        • Ryan doesn’t know the difference betwene Wan Hoo and Railgun Max
      • Back Asswards: Episode 12, fight 2 (SOW vs Kraken): “Kraken jams up that spinner!”
    • Spinnerproof
      • Apologies to Craig Danby: this may be revisited when a Foxtrot basement fight comes out
      • A New Hero Rises: 64/66 is 96.969696969%
        • Nice.
    • Breaking the tie
      • WE WIN!
      • Or nobody wins?
  • BONUS STATS
    • Who gave the kindest predictions?
      • 9 of Roasting Robots’ 16 predictions scored points
        • 4 of these went to Robocast, 3 to Spinnerproof, and 2 back to RR
      • 8 of Robocast’s 16 predictions scored points
        • 5 of these went to RR, 2 to Spinnerproof, and 1 back to Robocast
      • 5 of Spinnerproof’s 16 predictions scored points
        • 3 of these went back to Spinnerproof, while RR and Robocast each received 1
    • That’s all the stats. I’m sorry that the heading set an unreasonable expectation.

View Details

  • Front matter
    • Ryan sees Teslas in the wild
  • Battlebots
    • Episode 15
      • Sawblaze vs SOW
        • Being unreasonably drawn away from SOW
        • Sawblaze’s reluctance to use the weapon
          • MegatRON
        • “Hammer Saw”
          • Two guys who have never built a spinner make wild guesses about how you build a spinner
        • The late hit
          • Such late. Many unsporting.
      • DeathRoll vs Yeti
        • Big weapons, big aggression
        • Yeti self-righting?
        • DeathRoll’s lack of spares
          • Preventative maintenance
      • Quantum vs Tombstone
        • Ray’s box-rush bamboozle
          • 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399
            • That’s 46 perfectly recalled digits of pi
              • The world record is 67,890. Git gud, scrub
                • And they may not have even included the 3
            • Relevant XCKD
      • HUGE vs Whiplash
        • HUGE: the sports model
          • Bob Lazar approved
        • A tricky/easy JD
          • HUGE gets the damage points, even if what feels like 3 points worth of damage hasn’t been done in the fight overall
          • HUGE, by virtue of being the style of robot it is, may struggle to demonstrate aggression and control despite being aggressive and controlled
        • Live event judging systems
          • No judging system?
            • It turns out the diving judges are following a complex and rigid system, who knew?
          • Semi-anonymous judging?
    • Episode 16
      • Witch Doctor vs Deathroll
        • Return of the Judges’ Decision
          • Separating judging from refereeing
            • Controlled Translational movement
              • Hello There! limping on with one side of drive dead
            • “Quick Walking”
          • The JD itself
        • Spoilery trailer shenanigens
      • Tombstone vs Biteforce
        • A spectacle, but not the spectacle we expected
        • Biteforce pulls through with little-to-no damage
      • Biteforce vs Witch Doctor
        • The weird human need for variety and novelty
        • How do you challenge Biteforce?
          • Yes, we know it may not be coming back in its current form. Humour us

View Details

  • Follow up
    • The Judges’ Guide has been published!
      • Check out exactly how badly Ryan explained many, many things
  • Front matter
    • FRA Beetleweight Champs
      • We’ve been accepted
      • We’re trying a few new things inside Hello There!
      • Competetive Ryan?
  • Battlebots
    • Episode 13
      • Free Shipping vs Railgun Max
        • “Eggbeater drum”
        • The Great Damage Debate pt.2
          • When does damage to a robot ≠ damage done by the opponent?
          • Sam and Ryan agree that the current application of the judging rules is unfairly biased against spinners
        • Lack of resolution in the scoring
        • Protecting the judges
          • A correct decision can still lead to the ‘wrong’ robot winning
      • Bronco vs Hydra
        • Bronco is better than 0-4
        • Tough matchups and a weird defeat
          • Bronco’s history against verts isn’t as bad as it may seem
            • Wins vs ‘lesser’ verts: S1 Witch Doctor, Razorback, S3 Bombshell, a semi-functional Lockjaw, and WAR Hawk
            • Defeats to tougher verts: Minotaur, Whiplash, Biteforce, HUGE, re:MARS Witch Doctor.
          • Inertia Labs’ trademark style
        • BrONcO hAS To gO HydrAUlIc nOW!
    • Episode 14
      • A set of questionable matchups
        • And questionable selections
      • Valkyrie vs Quantum
        • Valkyrie’s mysterious 4th fight
        • Every crusher is a control bot
        • The Quantum/Spectre wedge
      • Hypershock vs HUGE
        • Rake: legitimate competitive addition or pure meme?
          • The can be no middle ground
        • HUGE’s excellent wheel design
      • RotatoR vs Blacksmith
        • Waiting for the count vs scoring more points
        • The Great Damage Debate pt.3
      • Cobalt vs Minotaur
        • No wedge = no hope?
        • Cobalt’s ridiculously durable weapon
        • An uncontentious JD?
    • Round of 16 seedings and matchups
      • They’re a tad strange
        • Why is Deathroll so low?
        • Why is Tombstone so high?
        • Why is HUGE so low?
      • Last season’s Desperado winner (Lockjaw) got 9th, not 8th
      • How much of this discussion is a result of confirmation bias? Probably more than we want it to be.

View Details

  • Front Matter
    • Robonerd 2019
      • We went
      • We recorded basically nothing
      • Sam was horrifically injured
      • Hello There!, Split Decision, and Tropical Storm Phil v0.3 all fighting
        • Hello There! ~~dominating~~ participating in the ‘Content Creators’ Rumble
        • We have no new footage of Split Decision so here’s a Gabriel fight
        • TSP’s noble death
  • Battlebots 2019
    • Episode 11
      • Live commentary track
        • Spinnerproof Bonus feed
      • DUCK! vs Quantum
        • Sam was right
        • Ryan was biased
        • DUCK!‘s lack of KO potential
          • Old weapon vs new weapon
            • Lack of non-invertible robots
              • Ryan counts six competitors which aren’t invertible and have no way to self right:
                • Captain Shredderator, Daisycutter, Deep Six, Kingpin, Shellshock, SOW,
                • Plus four with questionable self righting ability/invertibility
                  • Cobalt, End Game, Bombshell, Mammoth
        • DUCK!‘s lack of being-KO’d potential
      • Blacksmith vs Captain Shrederator
        • Ryan is unintentionally meaner than he means to be
        • Sam was right
        • Modifications/configurations
          • Blacksmith’s wedge
          • Shrederator’s fally-offy teeth
          • Shrederator’s sticky-uppy teeth
        • A lengthy debate about how to judge damage to a spinner
          • If a butterfly flaps its wings and Shrederator’s weapon stops working, does Blacksmith get the damage points?
          • A robot being damaged != damage points for the opponent
      • Tombstone vs Gruff
        • A very lengthy (~20 minute) ~~debate~~ monologue about how to judge the aggression of a spinner (and the definition of aggression)
          • Clarification re: ‘severity’ - the 3 judging categories are supposed to be totally separate, so the term ‘forcefulness’ being used is surprising and confusing since force should equate to damage
            • For this reason, it makes more sense (to Ryan) for the term ‘forcefulness’, in this context, to refer to how the attack is carried out rather than its effect
              • By this definition, it makes sense to think of ‘severity’ in terms of whether an attack could have been carried out MORE forcefully
          • Clarification re: ‘boldness’ - Ryan latched onto a single phrase a little too hard here: risking damage to a weapon by using it is considered more bold than an attack with something else (eg a wedge) which is less likely to be damaged.
            • This feels like it crosses over weirdly with the later clause about not using a weapon. Its ‘double damage’ against wedges, and that sucks.
        • A less lengthy discussion about how to judge superficial damage
        • A lengthy debate about how to judge damage to a spinner
      • End Game vs Cobalt
        • A welcome reminder of End Game’s power
        • ~~Plowless~~ Wedgeless Cobalt
        • Cobalt’s disappointing record?
    • Episode 12
      • The sports equivalent of a bottle episode?
        • Short, one sides fights and lengthy, unsatisfying cripple fights
        • Fluffy button-pressing montage
        • Highlighted fights
          • Double Jeopardy’s ‘miss’ on Lucky
      • Shatter! vs Minotaur
        • We love Shatter!
          • We always talk about Shatter!
        • Designs which could benefit from omnidirectional drive
          • Horizontal spinner: Sluggo
          • Wedge: Alcoholic Stepfather
        • How did Shatter! die?
      • Witch Doctor vs Gigabyte
        • A little bit more than ‘one big hit’
        • Dodgy physics alert
      • Bronco vs HUGE
        • TYRES!!
        • Bronco’s top armour choice
          • Defensive driving
        • Bronco’s reputation and the team’s status
          • Sam’s point makes complete sense
    • Looking ahead to the top 16
      • Everybody with 3 or more wins is likely in - even Minotaur
      • Potential for episode 14 to feature 2-2 teams fighting for the last place/places

View Details

  • Front Matter
    • Sam complains about technology
      • Wacom Intuos Art (small)
    • YouTube sucks
      • Many (hundreds?) of robot combat videos removed on the grounds that they showcased animal cruelty
        • Most videos have now been reinstated, or at least those from uploaders who are still active
        • Sam’s wider fears about the increasingly widespread application of machine learning
    • RoboNerd 2019
      • 31st August 2019
      • Spinnerproof will be there in some capacity
        • Hello There!!
        • Split Decision!
        • Tropical Storm Phil?
    • Robot Champions
      • Demo available on Steam
      • Kickstarter recently launched (1/3 funded at time of writing)
    • Re:MARS live event videos now on YouTube
      • Terrible sound
      • Distracting editing
      • Awful titles
  • Battlebots 2019
    • Episode 9
      • HUGE vs Gigabyte
        • HUGE’s configurability
          • Wheels, bars, spin direction
        • Gigabyte’s singular gameplan
          • Spin and drive
        • HUGE’s love of a JD
          • A lack of KO potential or a function of their matchups?
          • Witch Doctor was, at the time of this fight, 7-7 - going 8-7 by beating Whiplash
            • The BB website lists them as 8-5, implying that they don’t count the 2 defeats in exhibitions as true defeats, but still lists their 2016 exhibitions in its match history. 2015 fights aren’t on the match history at all, but are still counted in the stats. Basically, the BB website isn’t the authoritative source Ryan wants it to be.
      • SubZero vs P1
        • P1 vs SideWinder
        • “Reverse flipper”
          • The challenges of building a front hinge
        • SubZero’s huge repair job
        • SubZero’s take on the typical US flipper design
      • Deep Six vs Nelly the Ellybot
        • Exceptionally long necks
        • Deep Six’s funky controls
        • Broken everything
        • Double KO = TKO
          • The BB website lists both Deep Six’s win over Nelly and Quantum’s win over Blacksmith as JDs. Boo.
        • Sub-standard slow-mo
      • Whiplash vs Witch Doctor
        • Witch Doctor developing a record befitting its reputation
        • Wheels: they’re very important
        • What is Whiplash’s primary weapon?
        • Controlling Whiplash solo
          • Controlling robots in general
    • Episode X
      • A slightly weird episode?
      • Free Shipping vs Bronco
        • Defending Bronco
          • Losing to the reigning champ
          • Suffering a freak failure and performing well anyway
        • The Free Shipping flamethrower
          • Sound effects
          • Quantity of flame
      • Valkyrie vs Monsoon
        • The weapon which will never ever fall off again
        • The weapon which will constantly hit an opponent for 3 solid minutes
        • How many times will Ryan say the words “wailed on for 3 minutes”?
      • Biteforce vs Hypershock
        • Building Hypershock up
        • Biteforce’s inability to lose the ground-clearance battle
        • The concerning reality that this is what constitutes a tough season for Paul

View Details

  • Front matter
    • Pop music corrupts children
    • Introducing children to combat robotics
      • Don’t tell Bugglebots!
    • Spinnerproof blocked in schools
    • Sam and Ryan lament how long it takes to make Spinnerproof
      • It’s deceptively time consuming making a podcast
      • What’s our schedule?
  • Battlebots Episodes 6 and 7 (and 8)
    • Gruff vs Copperhead
      • TV shows bend reality to their will
      • Robert Cowan’s fight recap
      • Defining flamethrowers
      • Shooting rifles left handed
    • Monsoon vs Hypershock
      • Short fights
      • What makes a fight worth talking about?
      • Ryan’s lack of research shows
      • Tapping out
    • Bronco vs Biteforce
      • Will Bronco be found out?
      • Other flippers in combat robotics
    • Sam finally gets annoyed by the sound effects
    • Sam and Ryan continue to complain about the runtime
    • What is a TV show?
    • Sawblaze vs Blacksmith
      • Is Blacksmith boring?
      • What makes a good fight?
      • More analysis of judge’s decisions
    • Rotator vs Tombstone
      • How do you defeat Tombstone? With a wedge!
      • Rotator out-wedge’s Duck!
      • Dull endings to exciting fights
    • A brief run-through of the desperado
      • We had a nightmare recording this episode. At this point we’re 3 hours into the session, and we just ran out of time to do it justice
      • Min~~e~~otaur on form
      • Great final fight
      • We enjoyed the desperado, even though we knew it was happening

View Details

  • Follow up
    • Judging
      • We have had a look at the Judges’ Guide
        • We can’t show you it
        • We won’t quote directly from it
        • We will give you the headlines
          • It’s a thorough document which accounts for pretty much every reasonable scenario
    • Mordecai14’s full RTNCTI run through
    • The weird, weird world of gyroscopic effect
      • DolphinWithRobotArms, Derekdudge, and gr_zero explain why ~~we were~~ Ryan was wrong
        • Demonstration involving counter-rotating masses
          • It was while writing these very shownotes that Ryan realised that the setup in this video is pretty much exactly what Falcon has.
          • Counter Revolution demonstrating sluggish, but seemingly unhindered, turning
      • ‘Mental models’ and learning: assimilation & accommodation
      • Cognitive disequilibrium
    • Battlebots Bingo - Update number 1
      • The Bingo hub
  • Front Matter
    • Ben Eater building a graphics card
      • Probably not a cannibal
      • Definitely a clever dude
  • Battlebots 2019, Episode 4
    • Duck! vs Cobalt
      • !Floor
        • Expectations vs reality
        • Impact on fights
        • Impact on designs
          • Design flaws, design risks, and design advantages
      • Good fights > bad fights
      • Duck! is amazing. Cobalt is amazing. This fight is amazing.
      • ‘Cheap’ wins
    • Bombshell vs Rota~~toR~~
      • RotatoR’s new configuration
        • RotatoR’s new, new configuartion
      • Bombshell mk 3 - design vs performance
        • Good robots, bad robots, and everything in between
          • Team history vs robot history
    • Nelly the Ellybot vs Rainbow
      • BIAS!!!!!
      • A fight which looked good on the card, and turned out to be a good battle
      • Chris & Kenny’s performances this season
      • Nelly’s working weapon
        • Its OK, because its only a joke robot /s
    • End Game vs Ribbot
      • End Game’s smart upgrades
        • End Game’s poor performances
      • Ribbot’s solid design choices
        • Ribbot’s solid performances
    • Tombstone vs SawBlaze
      • Who do they throw at Tombstone next?
      • The mirror-universe version of this fight where SawBlaze doesn’t trip over its own pulveriser
  • Battlebots 2019, Episode 5
    • Gigabyte vs Minotaur
      • Another problematic redesign
        • Wheely-ing
        • Weapon spinup/reliability
      • D E S P E R A D O T O U R N A M E N T
    • Shatter! vs WanHoo
      • Yes.
      • HAmMeRs dON’t dO aNY DaMAge
        • Terrorhurtz “vs” Panic Attack
      • The most one-sided decision of all time?
      • Counting swings/hits
      • Aiming to entertain
    • SOW vs Whiplash
      • Build up
        • Podcasters discuss filmmaking…again…
      • How to beat SOW

View Details

  • Follow up
    • Battlebots 2019 coverage:
      • We won’t be talking about every single fight
        • We feel our strength is talking about robots, not talking about fights
        • We would rather focus only on the best fights than talk unenthusiastically about the less interesting ones
        • We will make sure we talk about every robot over the course of the season - most of them multiple times.
  • Front matter
    • Captain Shrederator vs Cobalt
      • Telling people to chill ~2 weeks after everyone stopped being angry
      • There’s usually a reasonable background to this kind of story
      • Fight Night isn’t purely a Legitimate Sporting Competition
        • It’s about maximising entertainment while maintaining a valid competitive format
      • How do teams use social media effectively?
        • Is there a ‘right’ way to talk about this kind of behind the scenes info?
      • Bad situation - great memes
  • ~~Battlebots Season 4, Episode 2~~
  • Battlebots 2019, Episode 2
    • SOW vs HUGE
      • Wheels
        • How much difference did they make?
          • +Defence, -Speed
        • Tyres - helpful?
        • Pretending we know precisely how the wheels failed
          • SOW’s hammers vs an ‘ordinary’ bar
      • Reversing the weapon
        • Fairly serious damage to SOW
        • How efficiently can HUGE’s bar usually hit?
          • SCARY PHYSICS - ABORT! ABORT!
    • Texas Twister vs Black Dragon
      • Nobody was robbed
        • It’s not as simple as ‘who do you think won’ - there are points being given out.
          • If you don’t like the result, your issue is with the rules and not the judges.
          • Does the show make this clear enough?
      • Sam and Ryan roleplay as judges for 18 minutes
        • The full judging criteria
        • Since recording, it’s been confirmed in multiple places that points can be split in all categories
        • Damage:
          • Sam: TT 2-1 BD
          • Ryan: TT 2-1 BD
        • Aggression
          • Attacks not using a weapon are still worth something, its just less than attacks with a weapon. How much less? Good question
            • Sam: TT 1-1 BD
            • Ryan: TT 2-0 BD - but 1-1 feels very valid
        • Control
          • Sam: TT 1-1 BD
          • Ryan: TT 0-2 BD - but 1-1 feels very valid
    • Witch Doctor vs Shatter!
      • Shatter!‘s weapon issues
      • Good driving all round
      • Trying to work out how good Witch Doctor is: episode N
        • Going into the fight, Witch Doctor had 5 wins and 7 losses
          • This win and the 2 Vegas wins bring them to 8-7
        • Their wins (pre-Vegas) were largely unimpressive, but their losses were all really tough fights
        • Season 1: Witch Doctor vs Tombstone
      • The magic of TV
      • Shatter!‘s crazy levels of armour
    • Axe Backwards vs Mammoth
      • Mammoth works
        • Sam didn’t think it would
      • Tweel
  • Battlebots 2019, Episode 3
    • Bloodsport vs Lucky
      • TL:DL - we are visionaries, and any team who wants to avoid this kind of issue should invite us to join them next season
      • We really made this bit confusing: During the build of Hello There! we tried to test the robot with a drive setup very similar to what Lucky used for this fight. It was horrible. Don’t do it.
        • Here’s a video
    • Free Shipping vs Hydra
      • Making assumptions about how Hydra’s weapon works
        • Since recording, the team have clarified how Hydra works
        • Rollercoaster launches (Hydraulic @2:25)
        • Bad washing machine science
        • The potential pros and cons of Hydraulics
    • Unexpected format chat
      • Length and pacing
        • Do the gaps between fights create more backlash when a fight isn’t good?
      • Sound effects
    • Breaker Box vs Falcon
      • Trying to explain Falcon’s relationship with gyroscopic effect
      • Trying to explain why 2WD turns faster than 4WD
      • How effective is Breaker Box’s lifter?
      • RoboGames 2012
        • RoboGames 2011
    • Biteforce vs Yeti
      • A genuinely decent main event
      • Unsticks Confirmed by Paul
      • Forks vs wedgelets
        • The universe won’t allow anything to go under Biteforce

View Details

  • Follow up
    • The follow ups are easily startled, but they’ll soon be back - and in greater numbers.
  • Bugglebots
    • Doing Bugglebots was amazing
    • We can’t talk about a huge amount
    • Our first experience of full combat
    • Bugglebots is an excellent live show
      • And a logistical miracle
      • Two 12hr+ days of work from the crew
    • We must now keep our secrets for months. Boo.
  • Battlebots
    • Bingo talk will be saved for the next Bingo episode
      • Go listen to the Bingo episode if you haven’t already.
      • Also, full cards and explanations of each prediction can be found here
      • And you can generate your own
    • 2 hour runtime
      • It’s not for everybody
      • Pacing currently seems good
      • Pits segments are meaningful
        • A nice, long chat with Ray
          • and GUNS!!!
    • The graphics still suck
    • Quantum entanglement
      • Was it an entertaining fight?
      • Was it a manufactured controversy?
        • The rules you can read vs the rules you’re told
      • That interview
        • Conspiracy theories with Ryan
      • What now?
        • According to some sources, Cobalt’s body is 100% AR500. Could this be the case for some other robots?
    • Main event
      • Was it good? Does it need to be good?
      • How much fight reordering does Battlebots do?
        • Duck! vs Bombshell was the first fight of the event, and is in episode 2
          • This, incidentally, would have been a valid opening main event - we will have to see if the fight itself would have been worthy
    • Re:MARS livestream
      • Sam had a bad time
      • Live events are hard, and this was a pretty good effort from everyone involved
        • Except the sound guy. Screw the sound guy.
          • (Sorry sound guy, you were probably doing your best)
      • Re:MLARaS = Machine Learning, Automation, Robotics and Space
        • What even is AI?
          • the “AI Effect”
      • Chomp’s vacuum feet
      • Professor Hutchins explains exactly what AI is
      • Ryan is consistent, vol 472: “I don’t think it would ever be entertaining”…“I asked ‘is it’, not ‘will it be’…”
  • RTNCTI
    • RTNCTI lives on, in a universe where the 2019 season doesn’t exist
    • Where it all began: 5 episodes and 4 months ago
    • Carbide vs DisConstructor vs King B Remix
      • Series 10 Carbide, Series 8 DisConstructer, Robogames King B
      • Is it ever offensive to suggest that a Robot Wars competitor will probably lose to Carbide?
    • End Game vs Eruption vs Sawblaze
      • Oh no…
      • Most recent versions of all three
      • End Game bringing the potential but not the results
        • Good wins balanced out by bad losses
        • Inability to self right reliably
      • Eruption and Sawblaze are both exceptionally driven and extremely effective
        • Who gets under who?
      • Can Eruption adapt to the Battlebots arena?
    • High-5 vs Reality vs Splatter
      • Poor High-5…
      • Reality with a reasonable record, Splatter coming in with only one fight but an otherwise proven concept
        • Invoking time travel

View Details

  • Battlebots Bingo
    • You thought there would be follow up, didn’t you?
    • How it all works
      • We have three teams, each representing an excellent podcast:
        • Spinnerproof
        • Robocast
        • Roasting Robots
      • Each team has submitted 16 predictions about the upcoming 2019 season.
      • Predictions range from really obvious things which will definitely happen, to incredibly specific things which almost certainly won’t.
      • All the predictions have been put together, shuffled, and we will now take turns drawing them at random for our own Bingo cards.
      • First to get a full line (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal) wins
        • If nobody gets a line the game comes down to points - one point per ticked box, plus bonusses/half ticks
    • [SPOILERS]
      • Battlebots Bingo Cards
      • Spreadsheet to make your own card
  • This is it.
    • There are no more shownotes
      • It feels weird to me as well
        • Bugglebots was fun though
          • This series is going to be AMAZING. Seriously
            • The field is crazy, especially compared to series 1

View Details

  • Follow up
    • Behemoth and the axe
      • Probably lacked the power to make a difference
      • We won’t need to remember this for future
    • Heavy Metal’s wheels
      • A potential do-over?
  • Front matter
    • Robot naming gripes
      • ~~Saw~~Blaze
      • Cobalt 2.0
        • Correct robot name versioning - coming soon
    • Bugglebots
      • We’re in!
      • The current state of Hello There!
        • This episode was recorded April 26th 2019, and since recording we’ve finished the drive and one front end too
        • Hammer or axe?
        • It now self rights. We are invincible.
      • Going dark?
      • Robot building > podcasting
        • It sucks to be making less regular episodes, but Bugglebots is TOTALLY worth it
        • Battlebots coverage?
  • RTNCTI
    • The full rules and competitors
      • Have we missed any robots? If so, please tell us now so we can add them.
    • The very simplified rules:
      • Every robot we have official footage of competing in a reboot series of Robot Wars and Battlebots
      • Qualifying: 32 1v1s and 32 3-way melees, feeding into a randomised 64 robot bracket
      • The result of every bout is decided by the roll of a D7 die.
    • This episode’s fixtures (no spoilers):
      • The Swarm vs Deathroll vs Gemini
      • Kill-E-Krank-E vs Gigabyte vs RAPID
      • Moebius vs Brutus vs Petunia
      • Gabriel vs Storm 2 vs Tough as Nails
      • Push to Exit vs Overdrive vs Hobgoblin
      • Gamma 9 vs WAR Hawk vs Nightmare
      • Bad Kitty vs Cherub vs Ultraviolent
      • Counter Revolution vs Sweeney Todd vs Cobalt
    • !!!!!!VERY MILD SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!!
      • The Swarm vs Deathroll vs Gemini
        • Which parts of The Swarm?
          • It turns out there really were two Skyes
            • Pull yourself together Ryan, they look nothing alike.
        • Great White and Deathroll
          • Invader is essentially Megabyte, not Moebius
      • Kill-E-Krank-E vs Gigabyte vs RAPID
        • RAPID didn’t fight Apex, Ryan clearly doesn’t remember how Series 10 worked
        • Flipping a full-body spinner
      • Moebius vs Brutus vs Petunia
        • Original Brutus
        • Petunia’s difficulties against vertical spinners
        • Brutus’ top armour
      • Gabriel (2) vs Storm 2 vs Tough as Nails
        • Storm 2 running the 4-bar lifter
        • Gabriel running the big ol’ sword
        • How do hammers work?
        • (mis-)remembering the Gabriel vs Carbide vs Big Nipper melee
      • Push to Exit vs Overdrive vs Hobgoblin
        • Most recent versions of Push to Exit and Hobgoblin
        • 4WD lifter version of Overdrive
          • Ryan’s notes are still terrible
        • Ryan almost remembers how Series 10 worked
          • But that trailer was pretty much pure hype
      • Gamma 9 vs WAR Hawk vs Nightmare
        • Nightmare’s ~~SRiMech~~ InvMech
        • The true power of Nightmare?
      • Bad Kitty vs Cherub vs Ultraviolent
        • Bad Kitty’s bold aesthetic
        • How does a robot lose to Black Ice?
      • Counter Revolution vs Sweeney Todd vs Cobalt
        • Degrees of sillyness
  • Next episode:
    • Carbide vs DisConstructer vs King B Remix
    • End Game vs Eruption vs SawBlaze
    • High-5 vs Reality vs Splatter
    • Witch Doctor vs Lucky vs Shockwave
    • Vanquish vs Basilisk vs Black Ice
    • Tombstone vs Crackers ‘N’ Smash vs Warhead
    • Creepy Crawlies vs Magnetar vs Double Dutch
    • Big Nipper vs Parallax vs Crazy Coupe 88
  • The rest of the round
    • Overhaul vs Mega Tento vs Bucktooth Burl
    • Ms Nightshade vs Crank-E vs Son of Wyachi
    • Tauron vs TMHWK vs Dantomkia
    • The Four Horsemen vs Thor vs Rusty
    • Thermidor 2 vs Chompalot vs Sub Zero
    • Vulture vs Foxic vs Trolley Rage
    • Bale Spear vs Bucky the Robot vs Captain Shredderator
    • Wyrm vs Donald Thump vs Huge

View Details

  • Front matter
    • We’re building for Bugglebots
      • We should probably also apply at some point…
      • It’s not Split Decision. We have plans for Split Decision. Awful, disgusting plans
      • Building robots is hard
        • HDPE is melty
      • Hello There! The prequel-meme-themed bidirectional axebot that nobody asked for
    • We’ve been guesting on Roasting Robots
      • Maximum Uncanny Valley
      • Holy Copyright Infringement, Batman!
      • The Razer of Battlebots
    • Battlebots Season 4 confirmed
      • Spinnerproof: bringing you the big, breaking news since 2017
  • RTNCTI
    • Some follow-up
      • Apollo vs Cobra kinda happened
      • Cobra vs Behemoth vs Eruption…vs Hobgoblin
      • Photon Storm is not, as far as we can tell at least, a former UK Heavyweight champion
    • The full rules and competitors
      • Have we missed any robots? If so, please tell us now so we can add them.
    • The very simplified rules:
      • Every robot we have official footage of competing in a reboot series of Robot Wars and Battlebots
      • Qualifying: 32 1v1s and 32 3-way melees, feeding into a randomised 64 robot bracket
      • The result of every bout is decided by the roll of a D7 die.
    • This episode’s fixtures (no spoilers):
      • Heavy Metal vs Chimera vs Free Shipping
      • Hypothermia vs Apocalypse vs Hypershock
      • Axe Backwards vs Warrior Clan vs DUCK!
      • Red Devil vs Tantrum vs Battle Royale With Cheese
      • Iron-Awe 6 vs Bonk vs Infernal Contraption
      • Meggamouse vs Valkyrie vs Jellyfish
      • Skorpios vs Behemoth vs Biteforce
      • The General vs Radioactive vs Concussion
    • !!!!!!VERY MILD SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!!
      • Heavy Metal vs Chimera vs Free Shipping
        • Chimera 2: Elwedgetric Boogaloo
          • Thwackbots and active weapon rules
          • Physics corner: for thwackbots which sit flat when inactive, driving ‘towards’ the weapon will cause a combination of wheel movement and weapon movement in which the centre of gravity moves upwards.
        • What does Heavy Metal’s weapon do?
        • Potential difficulties for Free Shipping in the RW arena?
      • Hypothermia vs Apocalypse vs Hypershock
        • Ryan completely disregards the existence of Season 1 Hypershock
          • Ryan wrote all of his notes on the train to/from a football match. It shows.
        • We forgot to decide which front end Hypothermia is running, but since we repeatedly allude to the wedge they’re running the wedge
      • Axe Backwards vs Warrior Clan vs DUCK!
        • Warrior ClanDragon
        • Axe Backwards.jpg
        • DUCK!‘s strategy
      • Red Devil vs Tantrum vs Battle Royale With Cheese
        • Red Devil’s configuration
        • Do Tantrum and BRWC work?
        • Ryan.exe has stopped working
        • Kenny and Rose.img
        • You just listened to a full 50 seconds of Sam attempting to roll a die
      • Iron-Awe 6 vs Bonk vs Infernal Contraption
        • Bonk and The General were hit at pretty much the same time by Carbide: The General lost a wheel but was still twitching, Bonk doesn’t seem to move thereafter
        • Trying to explain Infernal Contraption
      • Meggamouse vs Valkyrie vs Jellyfish
        • Battle of the Biases
      • Skorpios vs Behemoth vs Biteforce
        • Struggling to judge Skorpios
        • Which Behemoth scoop?
        • Funding RTNCTI
        • Ground clearances
      • The General vs Radioactive vs Concussion
        • Fun fact: The General faced Behemoth (and Carbide and Bonk) in its only RW battle
        • Funner fact: Radioactive barely even beat the ‘ready’ button
  • Next episode:
    • The Swarm vs Deathroll vs Gemini
    • Kill-E-Krank-E vs Gigabyte vs RAPID
    • Moebius vs Brutus vs Petunia
    • Gabriel vs Storm 2 vs Tough as Nails
    • Push to Exit vs Overdrive vs Hobgoblin
    • Gamma 9 vs WAR Hawk vs Nightmare
    • Bad Kitty vs Cherub vs Ultraviolent
    • Counter Revolution vs Sweeney Todd vs Cobalt
  • The rest of the round
    • Carbide vs DisConstructer vs King B Remix
    • End Game vs Eruption vs SawBlaze
    • High-5 vs Reality vs Splatter
    • Witch Doctor vs Lucky vs Shockwave
    • Vanquish vs Basilisk vs Black Ice
    • Tombstone vs Crackers ‘N’ Smash vs Warhead
    • Creepy Crawlies vs Magnetar vs Double Dutch
    • Big Nipper vs Parallax vs Crazy Coupe 88
    • Overhaul vs Mega Tento vs Bucktooth Burl
    • Ms Nightshade vs Crank-E vs Son of Wyachi
    • Tauron vs TMHWK vs Dantomkia
    • The Four Horsemen vs Thor vs Rusty
    • Thermidor 2 vs Chompalot vs Sub Zero
    • Vulture vs Foxic vs Trolley Rage
    • Bale Spear vs Bucky the Robot vs Captain Shredderator
    • Wyrm vs Donald Thump vs Huge

View Details

  • Follow up
    • Battlebots Season 4 slightly more confirmed!
    • Bugglebots Series 2 very confirmed!
  • Front matter
    • Spinnerproof live event coverage
      • There won’t be any
        • Sam doesn’t enjoy watching them
        • Ryan isn’t sure he enjoys talking about them in a structured, podcastable format
  • RTNCTI
    • The full rules and competitors
      • Have we missed any robots? If so, please tell us now so we can add them.
    • The very simplified rules:
      • Every robot we have official footage of competing in a reboot series of Robot Wars and Battlebots
      • Qualifying: 32 1v1s and 32 3-way melees, feeding into a randomised 64 robot bracket
      • The result of every bout is decided by the roll of a die. Currently a D6, changing to a D7 next episode
    • This episode’s fixtures (no spoilers):
      • Nuts vs ICEwave
      • Supernova vs Razer
      • Crushtacean vs Sweet Revenge
      • Kraken vs Draven
      • Mohawk vs Sharkoprion
      • Whiplash vs Obwalden Overlord
      • The Disk O’ Inferno vs Rotator
      • Poison Arrow vs Photon Storm
      • Coyote vs Beta
      • Ghost Raptor vs TR2
      • Frostbite vs Razorback
      • Cobra vs Apollo
      • Aftershock vs Ironside 3
      • Or Te vs Kan-Opener
      • Sabretooth vs Wrecks
      • Plan X vs M.R. Speed Squared
    • !!!!!!SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!!
      • Nuts vs ICEwave
        • Series 10 Nuts (2), 2019 ICEwave
        • Entanglement effect of Nuts 2
        • FOG. OF. WARRRRRRRR
          • Rhino‘s use of Halon to smother engines
        • Minibots
        • Nuts 2 wins, as well it should
      • Supernova vs Razer
        • Series 9 Supernova, Series 8 Razer
        • Razer’s anti-horizontal setup
        • Supernova wins, Sam mourns
      • Crushtacean vs Sweet Revenge
        • Nope.
        • A reasonably competent original run/live scene machine vs the most forgettable robot in reboot history
        • Crushtacean wins
      • Kraken vs Draven
        • Series 9 Draven
        • Kraken wins
          • Upcoming Kraken upgrades
      • Mohawk vs Sharkoprion
        • Empathising with producers and actively encouraging you not to listen to this
        • 2018 Mohawk
        • How effective is the Sharko disc?
        • Ryan messes with the system and regrets it immensely
          • Sharkoprion goes through
      • ~~Whiplash~~ wHiplash vs Obwalden Overlord
        • Another close battle
        • GAMBLER’S FALLACY
        • wHiplash wins
      • The Disk O’ Inferno vs Rotator
        • 2018 Rotator
        • Disk O’ is cool
          • and would benefit from the modern judging criteria
        • Rotator wins
      • Poison Arrow vs Photon Storm
        • Live event Photon Storm
          • Ryan’s utterly unnecessary and factually incorrect defence of Photon Storm
            • Photon Storm competed as Tiberius prior to 2016
            • Neither Photon Storm or Tiberius are a former UK champion
            • Tiberius is widely referred to as ‘feared’, but details of its results over the years are hard to find
        • Photon Storm wins
          • Expect follow-up…
      • Coyote vs Beta
        • Series 10 Coyote
        • Beta’s wedge is surprisingly low
        • Beta wins
      • Ghost Raptor vs TR2
        • Ghost Raptor destroys our rules
          • Season 1 Ghost Raptor, as a swiss-army bot: spinner, Lifter, Keep-away bar
            • Lifter for this fight
        • TR2 is an ACTUAL UK Champion
          • WITH THE BUM AXE!
        • TR2 wins
          • No time was wasted in the making of this battle
      • Frostbite vs Razorback
        • Underestimating Frostbite?
        • Season 2 Razorback running the drum
          • Teams probably don’t select a weapon based on what would happen if it broke
        • Razorback wins
      • Cobra vs Apollo
        • This fight LITERALLY HAPPENED
          • Although it was tag-team and the World Series is essentially non-canon
        • Series 10 Apollo and Series 10 (World Series) Cobra
        • Ryan completely forgets that Hobgoblin exists.
        • Apollo sneaks through
      • Aftershock vs Ironside 3
        • Series 10 Aftershock, Series 9 Ironside 3
        • A horribly tough one to call
        • Ironside 3 wins
      • Orte vs Kan-Opener
        • Both in their short-lived Series 8 forms
        • Sweeney Todd should have been counted out, but regardless the hit which killed Kan Opener arguably came after the one which finished Sweeney Todd.
        • The Orte flipper does indeed work and could be reasonably described as about average
        • Orte survives to be beaten in the next round
      • Sabretooth vs Wrecks
        • Series 9 Sabretooth, Season 2 Wrecks
        • Sabretooth walks the fight.
      • Plan X vs M.R. Speed Squared
        • Series 9 MR Speed Squared
        • An auspicious ending
        • A robot which Wrecks took to the judges vs a robot which Foxic took to the judges
        • Plan X somehow takes the advantage
          • and wins
  • Next episode:
    • Heavy Metal vs Chimera vs Free Shipping
    • Hypothermia vs Apocalypse vs Hypershock
    • Axe Backwards vs Warrior Clan vs DUCK!
    • Red Devil vs Tantrum vs Battle Royale With Cheese
    • Iron-Awe 6 vs Bonk vs Infernal Contraption
    • Meggamouse vs Valkyrie vs Jellyfish
    • Skorpios vs Behemoth vs Biteforce
    • The General vs Radioactive vs Concussion
    • The Swarm vs Deathroll vs Gemini
    • Kill-E-Krank-E vs Gigabyte vs RAPID
    • Moebius vs Brutus vs Petunia
    • Gabriel vs Storm 2 vs Tough as Nails
    • Push to Exit vs Overdrive vs Hobgoblin
    • Gamma 9 vs WAR Hawk vs Nightmare
    • Bad Kitty vs Cherub vs Ultraviolent
    • Counter Revolution vs Sweeney Todd vs Cobalt
      • 3-ways are decided by first eliminating the ‘weakest’ robot outright and then producing odds for the remaining two, still taking into account the presence of the third and their impact on the fight
  • The rest of the round (episode 4)
    • Carbide vs DisConstructer vs King B Remix
    • End Game vs Eruption vs SawBlaze
    • High-5 vs Reality vs Splatter
    • Witch Doctor vs Lucky vs Shockwave
    • Vanquish vs Basilisk vs Black Ice
    • Tombstone vs Crackers ‘N’ Smash vs Warhead
    • Creepy Crawlies vs Magnetar vs Double Dutch
    • Big Nipper vs Parallax vs Crazy Coupe 88
    • Overhaul vs Mega Tento vs Bucktooth Burl
    • Ms Nightshade vs Crank-E vs Son of Wyachi
    • Tauron vs TMHWK vs Dantomkia
    • The Four Horsemen vs Thor vs Rusty
    • Thermidor 2 vs Chompalot vs Sub Zero
    • Vulture vs Foxic vs Trolley Rage
    • Bale Spear vs Bucky the Robot vs Captain Shredderator
    • Wyrm vs Donald Thump vs Huge

View Details

  • Follow up
    • Sam has been reading about meltybrains
      • There was code, it was a special kind of code, Ryan should not be writing this note.
    • Links vs Switches: Redux. Switches bad, links good.
      • Switches don’t always fail dangerous, but they’re roughly as likely to fail dangerous as safe.
  • Front matter
    • Battlebots season 4?
      • Probably. Very probably. But not definitely. Yet.
    • Bugglebots continues!
      • UK vs ROTW: 11th February 2019. AFTER the release of this episode!
  • RTNCTI
    • The full rules and competitors
      • Have we missed any robots? If so, please tell us now so we can add them.
    • The very simplified rules:
      • Every robot we have official footage of competing in a reboot series of Robot Wars and Battlebots
      • Qualifying: 32 1v1s and 32 3-way melees, feeding into a 64 robot bracket
      • The result of every bout is decided by the roll of a die
    • !!SPOILERS BELOW!!
    • Expulsion vs Pulsar
      • Versions: Series 10 Expulsion, Series 9 Pulsar
        • S10 Expulsion did win some fights, but largely by default.
      • Expulsion wins
    • Androne 4000 vs Bombshell
      • Season 2 Bombshell with the horizontal bar
      • In the Robot Wars arena
      • Bombshell wins
    • Complete Control vs Overdozer
      • Season 2 Complete Control
      • Complete Control wins
    • Lockjaw vs Tracktion
      • Season 3 Lockjaw, running the spinner
      • Tracktion with Vulture’s wedge
      • Lockjaw wins
    • Predator vs Beast
      • What is Predator?
      • Beast wins, despite a spirited Predator performance
    • Yeti vs Double Jeopardy
      • Double Jeopardy wins
    • Minotaur vs Blacksmith
      • Season 3 Blacksmith, with the forks
      • Minotaur wins
    • PP3D vs Chromefly
      • PP3D wins
    • Apex vs Invader
      • Invader wins
    • The Kegs vs Terror Turtle
      • Cloned drivers
      • Technically the team joined with the Bigger Brother team for The Grubs at KoB and the Four Horsemen at Battlebots, not The Swarm
      • The Kegs win
    • Stinger (TKB) vs Escape Velocity
      • Stinger with the wedge, Escape Velocity with the minibot
      • Escape Velocity wins
    • The Ringmaster vs Terrorhurtz
      • The Ringmaster wins
    • Lycan vs Mecha Rampage
      • Lycan wins
    • Devilled Egg vs Bronco
      • Bronco running whatever armour they like because this is still a 1-5
      • Bronco wins
    • Monsoon vs Ultimo Destructo
      • Season 3 Ultimo Destructo, running the horizontal spinner
      • Monsoon wins
    • Chomp vs Glitterbomb
      • Chomp wins
  • Next episode:
    • Nuts vs ICEwave
    • Supernova vs Razer
    • Crushtacean vs Sweet Revenge
    • Kraken vs Draven
    • Mohawk vs Sharkoprion
    • Whiplash vs Obwalden Overlord
    • The Disk O’ Inferno vs Rotator
    • Poison Arrow vs Photon Storm
    • Coyote vs Beta
    • Ghost Raptor vs TR2
    • Frostbite vs Razorback
    • Cobra vs Apollo
    • Aftershock vs Ironside 3
    • Or Te vs Kan-Opener
    • Sabretooth vs Wrecks
    • Plan X vs M.R. Speed Squared
  • The rest of the round (episodes 3 and 4)
    • Heavy Metal vs Chimera vs Free Shipping
    • Hypothermia vs Apocalypse vs Hypershock
    • Axe Backwards vs Warrior Clan vs DUCK!
    • Red Devil vs Tantrum vs Battle Royale With Cheese
    • Iron-Awe 6 vs Bonk vs Infernal Contraption
    • Meggamouse vs Valkyrie vs Jellyfish
    • Skorpios vs Behemoth vs Biteforce
    • The General vs Radioactive vs Concussion
    • The Swarm vs Deathroll vs Gemini
    • Kill-E-Krank-E vs Gigabyte vs RAPID
    • Moebius vs Brutus vs Petunia
    • Gabriel vs Storm 2 vs Tough as Nails
    • Push to Exit vs Overdrive vs Hobgoblin
    • Gamma 9 vs WAR Hawk vs Nightmare
    • Bad Kitty vs Cherub vs Ultraviolent
    • Counter Revolution vs Sweeney Todd vs Cobalt
    • Carbide vs DisConstructer vs King B Remix
    • End Game vs Eruption vs SawBlaze
    • High-5 vs Reality vs Splatter
    • Witch Doctor vs Lucky vs Shockwave
    • Vanquish vs Basilisk vs Black Ice
    • Tombstone vs Crackers ‘N’ Smash vs Warhead
    • Creepy Crawlies vs Magnetar vs Double Dutch
    • Big Nipper vs Parallax vs Crazy Coupe 88
    • Overhaul vs Mega Tento vs Bucktooth Burl
    • Ms Nightshade vs Crank-E vs Son of Wyachi
    • Tauron vs TMHWK vs Dantomkia
    • The Four Horsemen vs Thor vs Rusty
    • Thermidor 2 vs Chompalot vs Sub Zero
    • Vulture vs Foxic vs Trolley Rage
    • Bale Spear vs Bucky the Robot vs Captain Shredderator
    • Wyrm vs Donald Thump vs Huge

View Details

  • Follow up
    • SpaceX
      • Impact of Government shutdown less severe than we assumed
        • Plus that’s over…for now…
      • Texas has a coastline.
      • Why Stainless for the Starship?
    • Bugglebots
      • Meltybrain build diary
      • Robot safety
        • Removable links, external switches, and internal switches all have their pros and cons
      • Kits: more than just the D2
        • Kinetic
        • Weta
        • Safety concerns re: kits with spinners
        • Viper (US Antweight)
        • Reddit comments: 1 & 2
          • The meta at various weight classes
  • Bugglebots: The Grand Final
    • RumbleBee
      • Maximum Ogredrive da real MVP
    • =5th: SCD
      • An almost perfect performance
    • =5th: Rev 2
      • POWAAAAAAAAH
    • 4th: Snappy
      • Competetive uncompetetiveness
    • 3rd: Captain Doom
      • Top tier driving = podium places
    • 2nd: Limpet
      • The wedgiest wedge
    • 1st: K2
      • Triple threat: solid weapon, solid drivetrain, solid strategy.
  • Bugglebots series review
    • Bugglebots was really good, somehow living up to the hype
    • Production
      • Superb camerawork and editing, particularly in fights
      • Excellent graphics
        • Minor greenscreen issues
      • Reasonably simple improvements to audio
        • Ryan keeps saying ‘condenser mic’ because he apparently forgot how to say the word ‘handheld’
        • “Audio is really important” - Two Podcasters, 2019
      • Possible tweaks to pacing
        • Fewer interviews?
          • Battlebots style overlay?
          • More BTS?
          • Judges’ segments
        • No set runtime
      • High-quality commentary
    • Competition format
      • Really effective heat format
        • Possibly needed explaining early on?
    • Robots
      • Variety of designs of robot
      • Variety of experience levels of teams
      • Possible seeding for Series 2?

View Details

  • Battlebots Basement Battles
    • All now on the Battlebots YouTube channel
    • Highlights:
      • Valkyrie vs Overhaul
      • Duck vs Gigabyte
  • Bugglebots
    • Heat 5 has aired since recording
    • Heats just getting better and better
    • Robots of interest
      • Bourbon
        • Hexagonal drum hype
      • Mini Spinny
        • PP3D, but small
      • Wee Woo
        • Viability of multibots
      • Maximum Ogredrive
        • Sawblaze, but small
        • Saws are cool and everybody knows it
        • No, Dragon King does not count as a modern heavyweight which used a saw
      • Flick
        • Design/build video
        • SLS explained in 2 minutes
        • SLS explained in 15 minutes
          • TL:DW The uncured powder, confined within the bed and relatively compacted, provides stable support for new layers. This loose material falls away once the finished part is removed.
      • SCD
        • Sam has been converted
        • Accelerometer noise and drift
      • Hard Knox
      • Dr Thwackenstein
      • Apex BW
    • Removable links
      • A silly way to lose
      • Necessary at the weight class?
      • Possible alternatives?
    • Kit-built robots
      • Competitiveness of certain kits which will remain nameless
      • Possible difficulties with identical robots entering competitions
        • For competitors
        • For spectators
      • Who is the target market?
        • D2 kits are not as plug and play as this discussion makes them sound - internals still need to be bought and fitted separately
  • Sam’s Stupendous SpaceX Sit-Rep
    • Block 5 has been working well
      • Landing abort/failure
      • ‘Intelligent’ landing systems
      • Human rating
        • Uncrewed Crew Dragon test flight…soon?
        • Texas does have a coastline. 300 miles of it.
        • In-flight abort test…slightly less soon?
          • Blue Origin in-flight abort test
        • Manned demo flight: 2/3 crew chosen chosen and announced
        • Crew access walkway
      • Sperm!
      • BFR
        • Now called ‘Superheavy’ and ‘Starship’
        • Starship Hopper

View Details

  • Bugglebots
    • Heat 1
    • Heat 2 trailer
    • Production value
    • Presenting
      • Presenting and interviewing is harder than it looks
        • Ryan makes it look particularly difficult
    • Weak-ish fights in heat 1
    • Accessible roboteering
      • Silly Beetlewight thwackbots?
  • Split Decision Mk2 - AKA Split DecIIsion
    • Split Decision Mk1
      • Robonerd episode
      • Robonerd ‘vlog’
        • Hooray for GoPro audio
      • The build
        • Constraints
        • A small gallery showcasing the best and worst of the design
        • Humble beginnings
    • Mk 2 design and build
      • 2D design
        • Orthographic projection
        • Layered construction
      • 3D design
        • Its a work in progress…
      • Making intentionally bad choices

View Details

  • Parsley Games at Memoto-Mori.com
    • We played Action Castle
  • Spoilers! Final map

View Details

  • Front matter
    • Sam recommends youtube channels
      • James Bruton - he makes robots
      • Barnaby Dixon - he makes puppets
      • Frank Howarth - he makes wooden things
      • Colin Furze - he makes mistakes
    • Antweights
      • The omni-flipper
      • PAD vs CAD
  • Battlebots - The World Championship Finals of the World
    • The fluffening
      • 4 fights, plus another top 10 for the Science channle bonus.
        • BUT unaired fights are coming! (According to a now deleted tweet…)
      • Battlebots: Resurrection
        • High-quality graphics and editing
        • Bot 56: Raven
          • A competitor explained the Raven situation 4 months ago on reddit - nobody seemed to notice
        • There would be a link to the series here but, since we’re in the UK, we can’t access the legal link to share. Well played, Discovery. Well played.
    • Exhibition: Tombstone vs Tantrum
      • HUGE ARENA BREACH THREATENS TO KILL THOUSANDS
        • Or turn the lights off
        • How Can Battlebots Be Real If Our Eyes Aren’t Real?
      • Being spoiled
    • The losing semifinalists
      • Lockjaw
        • Ryan is glad that Lockjaw didn’t win
        • Jaw vs Minotaur?
        • Deceptively resilient wheels
        • The plough
          • 12mm AR500 is, shockingly, quite resilient.
      • Whiplash
        • RIP little friend, it was a fun ride
        • Non-translational movement
          • More mobile than a certain robot in a certain rumble?
          • Ryan explains sport
            • The entertainment/sport spectrum for TV programmes
            • William Osman!!
        • Robogames silver medallist, not champion
    • The finalists
      • Biteforce
        • Not a fast weapon, but an efficient weapon
        • Only ever beaten by Chomp
      • Minotaur
        • HUGE damage. Both sides broken into 2 or more pieces again
  • Series retrospective
    • It was good
    • It was long
    • Podcasts are hard work
    • It had ad breaks
    • It wasn’t available in Europe

View Details

  • Follow-up
    • Sam vs Youtube
    • RoboNerd 2018
      • Sam done vlogged. It’s on YouTube.
      • ~~Split Decision - the greatest machine ever conceived~~
      • Split Decision - the greatest machine ever conceived
  • Battlebots - 16 –> 4
    • Episode 18
      • Sawblaze vs Monsoon
        • Underrated nuances of driving
        • Did you know we built and fought a robot?
        • The psychology of driving
          • Driving with a teammate
      • Tombstone vs Bombshell
        • Ragequitting Battlebots
        • Tombstone: the ONLY horizontal spinner in Battlebots
        • Bombshell’s pre-season: Lock-Jaw (8th seed), Bronco (2nd seed), Yeti (7th seed), BiteForce (3rd seed)
          • Has anybody had a tougher pre-season? Tombstone faced 2 machines which didn’t make the final 16 (DUCK! and GigaByte)
        • Ray’s mega-post
      • Minotaur vs Witch Doctor
        • The forbidden love between Witch Doctor and Witch Doctor’s wheels
        • A candidate for highlighting?
      • Highlighted fight: Lockjaw vs SOW
        • Can we fit all the fights into an episode? Should we?
        • Sam wants to drop Faruq. Sam is wrong.
      • Lockjaw vs Bombshell
        • Next…
      • Minotaur vs Monsoon
        • So much potential, so little delivered
    • Episode 19
      • Biteforce vs HUGE
        • Hailed as the biggest potential upset of the 16
        • The true value of HUGE
      • ICEwave vs Wedgetator
        • Twisted spoilers
        • ICEwave’s lack of ICE armour
        • Do seedings matter? Do they work in robot combat?
      • Bronco vs WarHawk
        • One of the better verts vs the only flipper
        • Aggression’s place within Bronco’s strategy
      • Rotator vs BiteForce
        • Wow.
      • Whiplash vs Bronco
        • 2(Wow.)
        • Whiplash’s weapon usage - accident or stroke of genius?
        • Ryan carefully prefaces an argument by repeatedly stating the obvious
          • Is Bronco’s approach overly negative?

View Details

  • Followup
    • Garfie’s comment re: active weapons and mid-tournament changes
    • F O R E S H A D O W I N G
  • Episode 17
    • Robots cost money, ya know
    • DOUBLE DOWN
    • ICEWave vs HUGE
      • Let’s talk about wheels
      • HUGE vs Crippling Depression
      • Giving ICEWave the credit it deserves
    • Gemini vs Some Horsemen
      • How is the Horsemen’s weight distributed?
        • 60% (by weight) must be incapacitated
      • Aggressive wedging
    • Skorpios vs Hypershock
      • Angle grinder: a thing which Chris owns
      • Speed, power, and driving ability from SKorpios
      • An almost functioning weapon and genuine reliability from Hypershock
        • THAT opening hit
      • Anticipating controversy
    • Play-in matches
      • The vert rumble
        • Three deserving robots being whittled down to one
        • ‘The green square’
        • The non-death of WarStop
          • Untethered minibots
      • That other rumble
        • Ryan refuses to write notes on his own rant. The rant cannot be condensed. The rant is perfect.
          • s t r e n g t h o f s c h e d u l e
        • Back-to-back Battlebots champions:
          • Heavyweights: BioHazard
          • Middleweights: Hazard
        • Dubbing
    • Final 16 seedings
      • Simply MASSIVE spoilers /s
      • WHOOOOOGE
    • Looking back on the Fight Night format
  • Aftershow: SpaceX’s first confirmed customer
    • Yusaka Maezawa
    • Sam is aware that he was wrong about who would be going with Yusaku, and would like to point out that the technology being created is far more interesting to him than the people going.

View Details

  • Followup
    • Fights for newcomers
      • Criteria
        • Modern era
        • Spinner involvement/weapon variety
        • Visual mode of operation
        • Damage
        • Evenly matched?
        • No spoilers!
      • Fights
        • Carbide vs Eruption (S10 Grand Final)
        • Carbide vs Gabriel vs Big Nipper
        • Yeti vs LockJaw
        • Bronco vs Blacksmith
        • Tombstone vs DUCK!
        • Complete Control vs Bombshell
        • Tombstone vs Bronco
          • Titanium sparks and jumping
          • Or, ya know, Carbide vs RAPID - a fight which is essentially identical apart from the bits where its better
        • Complete Control vs Warhead)
  • Front matter
    • Sam’s Apple repair woes
      • Severely damaged iPad
    • Samtweight update
      • Sam refuses to allow me to put a picture of his finger here.
    • Bugglebots
      • Filming was, by all accounts, a great success!
      • Due to launch in December
  • Episode 15 (starting at: 00:30:50)
    • Manufacturing more controversy?
    • Blacksmith vs Warhead
      • Out to put on a show
      • Judges’ decision
        • Internal vs visual damage
    • Captain Shredderator vs Vanquish
      • No active weapon on Vanquish
      • Body removed from wheels
    • Kraken vs Red Devil
      • Kraken - a crazy idea which worked
    • Hypershock vs Reality
      • Hypershock: uncompromisingly compromised
      • Reality: deceptively hardy
    • Sawblaze vs EndGame
      • Ryan was wrong about EndGame’s chances
      • Sam is consistent
      • EndGame’s strong start somehow going to waste
      • A close JD?
  • Episode 16
    • We heard you like verts…
    • Whiplash ws Warhead
      • Jaws mean no self righting
        • Although sheer size makes them ahrd to flip
      • Whiplash’s regrettable late(ish) hit
      • Has Warhead had a chance to impress enough?
    • Mohawk vs Reality
      • The unusual armour priorities of Mohawk
      • Blanked out clocks?
    • WarHawk vs Free Shipping
      • Free Shipping is a silly robot with no tangible charm or merit
      • Free Shipping will NEVER die
    • Witch Doctor vs Overhaul
      • Meh…
      • Recalibrating mobility
    • Minotaur vs SubZero
      • Irrisitible vs largely immovable object
  • The final 16
    • All robots by record (correct at end of E16)
    • This was a great segment when we were expecting to release it before episode 17 aired. But hey, we were fairly right!

View Details

  • Follow up & front matter
    • Sam knows how cars work
    • What creates more pollution: walking or electric skateboarding?
    • SAM WAS WRONG a bit
      • Valkyrie’s bar failure, via Max Owers on twitter and the team on facebook
    • King of Bots International Featherweight Championships
      • Playlist of all fights [Warning: LOUD]
      • The sordid tale of Orpheus
        • Probably the best event report video ever
  • Episode 13: Spinner, Spinner, Chicken Dinner
    • Valkyrie vs Red Devil
      • Foreshadowing
        • Dragon King: Red Devil’s Chinese Cousin
        • Binding multiple recievers
    • Brutus vs Gigabyte
      • The Ultimate Wedge
      • Bold strategy, Cotton
    • Biteforce vs Bombshell
      • Anybody’s fight - everybody saw this one going the full 3 minutes.
    • SoW vs End Game
    • Blacksmith vs Minotaur
      • High quality graphics
      • Fights to show a new fan
      • Blacksmith’s forks
        • Screwball Scramble
  • Episode 14
    • Duck! vs Tombstone
      • Tombstone snapping the plow like its nothing
      • Isosceles trapezoid
      • Mystrsyko expertly demonstrates precisely how the edit misrepresented Tombstone’s immobility
    • Petunia vs Yeti
      • Sub-par driving?
    • Monsoon vs Axe Backwards
      • A terrible, terrible matchup for Axe Backwards
      • How small can an active weapon be?
        • Weapon rules
    • Warhead vs Warrior Dragon
      • Argy Bargy
      • Warrior Dragon’s hilarious unreliability
      • Split decision
        • Broken record in 3…2…1…
    • Bronco vs Sawblaze
      • Has modular armour gone too far?
      • Arena damage
      • Early damage to Sawblaze destroying self-righting capability
      • Unstick?

View Details

  • Episode 11: The Desperado Tournament
    • How it all worked
    • Lucky vs Gemini
      • Lucky is unluckly lol
      • Gemini’s lack of teamwork
        • Friendly fire
    • LockJaw vs Krakken
      • Theme over function?
        • Innovative crusher mechanism
      • Slow spinup for LockJaw?
    • Cut fights:
      • Double Dutch vs Gigabyte
        • Novel spinner concept vs old school spinner concept
        • Not a particularly close fight
      • Hypothermia vs Valkyrie
        • Hypothermia showing the strength of the wedge
    • LockJaw vs Valkyrie
      • Valkyrie’s weapon failure
    • Lucky vs Gigabyte
      • The Good Wedge
      • The Bad Mast
    • LockJaw vs Lucky
      • Problematic wedge choice?
        • Sam’s theoretical wegde design corner
        • LockJaw’s asymetrical spinner
      • Translational movement…
  • Episode 12: The episode after the Desperado Tournament
    • Sam sees things, he sees them with his eyes
    • RotatoR vs Skorpios
      • RotatoR works now
      • !wall
    • Ultimo Destructo vs Witch Doctor
      • PULVERISE
    • Overhaul vs WarHawk
      • Those pesky mobility rules
    • Chomp vs WarHead
      • Non-spinner fights FTW
      • Dino head for WarHead, lower pressure for Chomp
    • Tombstone vs Whiplash
      • Another genuine challenge for Tombstone
      • Exceptional driving on both sides

View Details

  • Followup
    • Ryan is stupid
    • Sam is young
    • Both are getting fit
    • The knife of robots
      • Spork 1: the forky spork
      • Spork 2: the spoony spork
      • Spork 3: prime spork
  • Front matter
    • ‘Bounty matches’
      • Tombstone? Last Rites? Whoc ares about saying the right one at the right time?
  • Battlebots Episode 9 (00:10:45)
    • Chomp vs HUGE
      • Crippling Depression vs HUGE
      • HUGE is wonky
      • Chomp is practically indestructable
    • WARhawk vs Brutus
      • WARhawk is awesome
      • Gyroing for mobility
    • Captain Shredderator vs Petunia
      • Petunia’s wedge-fac
      • Hammer-and-nail bot?
    • Yeti vs Bombshell
      • Two machines not quite at their best so far
        • Positives and negatives for both sides
      • More overanalysis of a judges’ decision
    • ICEwave vs Skorpios
      • Skorpios wins in basically every sense of the word
        • Skorpios may be unable to score aggression points for most of the fight, but ICEwave totally fails to score them at all
  • Battlebots Episode 10: The Driving Masterclass
    • Hypershock vs Free Shipping
      • Powered weapon?
        • Twitch test?
        • What is a flamethrower?
          • Can the flame ‘disconnect’ from the nozzle?
      • Wedges
        • Whoops! vs Last Rites
    • Red Devil vs SubZero
      • How many flips does SubZero have in it?
      • Droooooooones
        • Sam is never fully satisfied
    • Sharkoprion vs Warhead
      • Jaws vs jaws
      • ????????????????????????? YAAAAAY!
      • The best recycled robot to date?
    • Monsoon vs SOW
      • RIP
      • Unprecedented damage to Monsoon
    • Bronco vs Duck!
      • Ryan, an intellectual…
      • Pure driving genius
      • How did Duck! plan to win?
      • Sam fails to count to three
      • SackAlisonHaislip2K18

View Details

  • Followup
    • The Great Wedge Debate 2K18
      • Dantomkia
      • Multiple wedges
      • Forks
  • Front Matter
    • Buttonless phones
      • HTC U12+
      • Sam regrets starting this conversation at 4m 45s
      • P R E M I U M
      • Ryan’s ideal phone
    • Asimo is ‘retiring’
      • The cutting edge of early 21st century technology
  • Battlebots episode 7 (starts at 00:15:49)
    • Lucky vs SOW
      • Terrorhurtz vs Fluffy ft. John’s keepaway stick
      • The pure, unadulterated power of SOW causes glitches in the Matrix
        • Better slow-mo?
          • Gratuitous slow mo destruction from last Rites
          • The Slow-Mo Guys
    • SawBlaze vs Mohawk
      • Entanglement?
      • Exceptionally fair driving
    • Chomp vs Overhaul
      • Hooray for juges’ decisions!
      • CHoMp HaS a HIgH cENtRe oF GRaViTY
      • Re-boot the hard drive
    • Unaired fights
      • Predator has…struggled…
      • All robot’s records have been updated on the Battlebots website
    • Biteforce vs End Game
      • The main event curse
  • Battlebots episode 9
    • BOT 56 REVEALED!!!!!
      • Swampfish? Jellything?
    • Warrior Dragon vs RotatoR
      • To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Warrior Dragon. The flipper mechanism is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of torque conversion most of the attacks will go over a typical viewer’s head. There’s also Clint’s lawn chair, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from RioBots literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these machines, to realise that they’re not just violent- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Warrior Dragon truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn’t appreciate, for instance, the humour in Faruq’s existential catchphrase “It’s Robot Fightin’ Time,” which itself is a cryptic reference to Mark Beiro’s Battlebots Las Vegas 1999 announcements. I’m smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Greg Munson’s genius wit unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools.. how I pity them. And yes, by the way, i DO have a Will Bales tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It’s for the ladies’ eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they’re within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid
      • Drone death!
      • Rotator’s setup - bars > discs and direction of rotation
    • Duck! vs Reality
      • W E D G E
        • Fork?
          • PanicAttack.HEIF
      • Weapon comparisons
    • Hypershock vs BRWC
      • MEME BATTLE!!!!
    • Witch Doctor vs Blacksmith
      • Blacksmith running with the forks and winning the ground clearance battle
      • Reversing the screws
    • Lockjaw vs Bronco
      • Another fight which will go down in history as having taken place.
      • Radio issues or mechanical issues?
      • Talking about aviation themed robots and not mentioning Hellachopper
        • Spitfire
          • What kind of wedge is it?

View Details

  • Followup
    • Wedgegate: the Definening
      • Visual guide
      • The wedgiest wedge
      • Dominator 2
        • NitriDe…
      • The hot new wedge in town
  • Front matter
    • Tesla fire
    • This is Fighting Robots
      • Sam continues to not watch TiFR
      • Xiake is the real MVP
      • Battles only edits on dailymotion
      • Ryan has now won a game of Fortnite. He didn’t deserve it.
  • Battlebots Episode 6
    • Reality vs SawBlaze
      • Reality’s ground clearance makes this a reasonably easy fight for SawBlaze
      • Reality’s motor housed inside the weapon - what are the benefits?
      • SawBlaze’ wheelying issue is the only thing between them and a flawless fight
    • Monsoon vs Petunia
      • Monsoon bending their weapon axle
      • Chris and Kenny’s reference-o-rama
      • Petunia with chances to get a crush in
      • Robots getting stuck
    • SubZero vs Captain Shredderator
      • Whyohwhyohwhy
      • Big rebuilds for both machines
      • Captain Shredderator AMA
    • Chomp v Warrior Dragon
      • SPLIT DECISION WATCH: Part dowehaveto?
        • Is bias unavoidable?
        • Where do you give the damage points? Did WD damage Chomp at all?
          • Chomp’s hit on WD
      • Team Whyachi describe the weapon as a ‘kinetic energy flipper’, as opposed to all those flippers with no kinetic energy
      • Chomp coming in with even more automation
    • Bronco vs Bombshell
      • Bronco’s anti-vert armour setup
      • Bombshell’s inability to self right boding very well for this fight

View Details

  • Battlebots Episode 4
    • Classic Battlebots footage in the intro
    • Red Devil vs Monsoon
      • Is Monsoon among the most energetic spinners?
      • Nightmare vs Slamjob
      • Split decision watch: Part 1
        • Final 16 selection ‘process’
          • Judge’s scores seem to be 1/40 of the full picture.
    • Lucky vs Skorpips
      • The efficacy of saws
      • The rarity of flippers
        • Weird wedglets?
          • What is a wedge?
      • What killed Lucky?
        • KO?
    • Battle Royale With Cheese vs Tantrum
      • Schedule shuffling and re-shooting fights
    • Lockjaw vs End Game
      • Did End Game hold back?
      • Flipper/Grabber option
    • Tombstone vs Gigabyte
      • Could have gone either way. Could have.
      • Anticklockwise spinner vs clockwise spinner
      • RDC explain the issue which caused the shell to detatch
      • Sportsmanship
  • Battlebots Episode 5
    • HUGE intro there!
    • Free Shipping vs huge
      • Free Shipping with the modified forks
        • HUGE immediately wecking those forks
      • HUGE team explain why they don’t add rubber to the wheels
      • A small lick of fire turning UHMWPE wheels into jelly /s
      • Split decision watch: Part 2
        • The worst one yet?
        • Damage, Agression, Control, & Strategy defined
    • Kenny’s interviews
    • Minotaur vs Hypothermia
      • Extra wheels vs heavier wedge
      • Split decision watch: denied
    • Blacksmith vs The X Horsemen
      • Multibot knockout rules
      • The role of armour against hammers
    • Son of Wyachi vs Brutus
      • Uneventful?
      • Has SOW become an easy target?
    • ICEwave vs Yeti
      • Yeti in defence mode
      • ICEwave tip speed
      • The late hit
      • Sam finds a new button to press
      • Yeti team explain/demonstrate the reciever failure

View Details

  • Follow up
    • Ryan got things wrong
      • Bulky feeder wedges aren’t all that common on HW drums
        • Xiake and Spin Doctor are rare exceptions
      • Vanquish appears set to appear again this season
  • Front Matter: technology is bad edition
    • Elon Musk vs the press
      • Elon doesn’t like criticism
      • Elon wants us to rank press outlets: 1, 2, 3
    • Amazon Echo privacy failure
      • Church of England’s prayer feature
    • Apple ejected Sam’s favourite app
  • Battlebots, Episode 3
    • Another very good episode
    • Overhaul vs Sawblaze
      • Overhaul
        • Sam thinks Overhaul is ugly
        • Many invisible improvements to Overhaul, as chronicled in Charles Guan’s superb build-log
      • SawBlaze
        • Green flames!
        • A saw!
        • Trash talk!
      • Sawblaze’s saw really, really works
      • Where does Overhul fit within the meta?
        • Decent anti-spinner setups
    • Whiplash vs Hypothermia
      • Whiplash
        • Versatile weapon rather than a particularly powerful weapon
      • Hypothermia
        • Very neat lifter mechanism
        • Option of a much more defensive plough
        • Posibly more robust than this fight would make it seem
      • Wonderful overhead hits from Whiplash
    • Four Horsemen vs Double Jeopardy vs Gamma 9
      • Four Horsemen
        • From Ian Watts and the team that created The Swarm and The Grubs
      • Double Jeopardy
        • From the team that brought us the unreasonably robust and effective Troublemaker at Robogames, among other machines.
        • The quick build means the weapon is much heavier than it could potentially be, hence the very weak armour
      • Gamma 9
        • From the team that brought us the largely ineffective but uneniably creative walker Gammatron
          • The dome is an aesthetic throwback to the original machines
      • Double Jeopardy’s AMA revealed that the cannon did serious damage to Gamma 9
      • Judges’ decision shenanigens
        • Was it a knockout for Gamma 9?
        • Under Battlebots’ double knockout rules, this fight goes to the judges anyway as it lasted more than 60 seconds
    • WarHawk vs Axe Backwards
      • Warhawk
        • A standard but well excecuted spinner design
      • Axe Backwards
        • Full. Body. Drum.
        • Extremely robust drum
          • Less robust everythng else
      • Sam doesn’t understand the cultural importance of the primary weapon meme
      • Nuts 3 for Battlebots 2019?
        • NutsAcrossThePond

    • Hypershock vs Biteforce
      • Hypershock
        • Possibly the best looking robot ever made
        • Rock ship from FTL
        • Hypershock toy when?
      • Biteforce
        • Still an unispiring design, but immensely powerful
      • Faruq jingle when?
      • Hypershock evidently in trouble from the very start
  • EM drive
    • P H Y S I C S
    • Good explanations of EM drive are hard to find
    • Ryan is wrong about the device being open ended
  • Bonus after aftershow

View Details

  • Follow up
    • Minotaur’s wedge
      • ‘True’ feeder wedges
  • Front matter
    • Upcoming competitions
      • KoB 2
      • Bugglebots (Beetleweight webseries)
        • Website
        • Twitter
        • Facebook
        • YouTube
    • Upcoming livestream
      • 26th May at 7PM BST
        • THIS TIME in your timezone
    • Ryan forgets that this IS episode 30
  • Battlebots
    • Many memorable moments
    • Short fights = more fluff?
    • Superb cold open
    • ICEwave vs Vanquish
      • ICEwave
        • Other petrol engines in robot combat?
      • Vanquish
        • Seemingly a robust wedge
        • Very well driven
        • Build diary
      • Tweedy’s AMA responses seem to indicate Vanquish WILL be back
      • Repair time
      • 360 cameras
        • The camera
        • Example video
    • RotatoR vs Petunia
      • RotatoR
        • Splitting weight between two spinners
          • Impacts which slow one disc don’t slow the other
      • Petunia
        • Faruq justifies his existence
          • Sam fails to realise that the tweet comes after the publication of the episode
        • Sam is…disappointed…by the weapon
        • A slightly unusual crusher design
          • More Androne than Razer
        • Broken beak tip
    • Brutus vs Red Devil
      • Brutus
        • Standard vertical spinner
        • Serious electrical issues
          • Minor commentary shenanigens
      • Red Devil
        • The wedge is a good choice, but not classic Red Devil
      • Has the tight timeframe reduced the showmanship of some teams?
      • Pinning/grappling rules
        • Unsticking
    • Captain Shredderator vs End Game
      • Captain Shredderator
        • Dated internals
          • Tiger Claw is competing in TiFR
        • Dat transmitter
      • End Game
        • FMB champions
          • Ryan was grossly mis-remembering this title fight vs DiotAwe
        • Rough floor issues
    • Yeti vs Witch Doctor
      • Yeti
        • One big robot
        • Apparently has a set of wedge forks, whatever that may mean
      • Witch Doctor
        • Post-fight report
          • Why do motors overheat?
          • Cooling on an ESC
      • An underwhelming matchup?
      • Ryan’s list of acceptable verticals:
        • Hypershock, Monsoon, Yeti, HUGE, End Game, Sharkoprion, Whiplash
          • At least 50% of the vertical spinners in the field…
  • The new Reddit layout(s)
    • A conversation predicated on Ryan not having realised there are 3 versions of the layout
      • Mobile-style ‘cards’
      • ‘Classic’
      • Compact

View Details

  • Followup
    • Sam was inconsistent
    • Ryan got more things wrong about Predator
      • Predator and Foxic, together in perfect harmony
    • Robogames livestream
      • Accompanying Twitch VOD
    • Upcoming livestream: 26th May 2018 at 7pm UK time (BST)
  • Ryan’s ~~libellous~~ angry front matter
    • Plagiarism
      • Firefox
      • WEdgE FlIppErS aRE AlL THe sAmE!!
        • ‘Soaring Shell’
          • Visual comparison with similarities highlighted
          • Vulcan vs Terrorhurtz
    • Carnage
      • Volvo flywheel thing
        • Clarification: the reason the team’s inability to give basic stats on the weapon concerns me is that - by my admittedly limited understanding - without that information they have no way of knowing how much energy the weapon can impart and, without that knowledge, they can’t know if the safety measures they have put in place are sufficient. - Ryan
  • Battlebots
    • All new format
      • Hand-picked matchups, leading into a final 16 bracket
        • Technically a form of swiss draw?
    • Alternates
      • Since recording, we have learned that alternates are guaranteed at least one fight, in which they may fight non-alternates, with the potential to be ‘promoted’ to the main competition if they impress. It appears that the main difference between an alternate and non-alternate is largely administrative in that non-alternates are guaranteed more fights and may get different financial compensation.
    • Rule changes
      • Tip speed nerf
      • New judging criteria
    • Editing and presentation
      • Slightly rough camerawork
      • Slimmed-down presenting team
      • Significantly higher pace
      • More important role for Faruq
      • Slightly over-zealous sound effects
    • Blacksmith vs Biteforce
      • Blacksmith
        • Industrial aesthetic
        • Low on power, but tenacious and spectacular
        • Deadblow
      • Biteforce
        • Still scarred from 2016?
        • Ineffective wedge?
    • Mecha Rampage vs Free Shipping vs Duck!
      • Mecha Rampage
        • Too wide?
        • 50% of the mass is in the weapon section
      • Free Shipping
        • Original Sin
          • Not only reigning RoboGames champion, but on the podium almost every year
      • Duck!
        • Billet bot
          • Ti or Al? Al
            • Sam wants more expensive robots
        • Whoops vs Last Rites
      • Facebook comments…
        • ‘Just’ a box?
      • An excellent choice of rumble - 3 incredibly experienced builders/drivers
      • How do you judge a rumble?
    • SubZero vs HUGE
      • Subzero
        • Old SubZero vs new SubZero
        • Too much adaptation for the opponent?
      • Huge
        • How do you deal with HUGE?
        • Lack of traction
      • Sam finally realises the Hellraisers are a thing
        • Computer-controlled hazards
    • Bombshell vs Lockjaw
      • Bombshell
        • No longer a swiss-army bot
      • Lockjaw
        • Now a vertical spinner
          • Although rumour has it the jaws are still an option
          • Is it a disc? No.
      • Commendable acts of sportsmanship
    • Tombstone vs Minotaur
      • There are no words capable of doing this fight justice
      • A disappointing end?
      • Major damage to both machines: twisted/broken frame for Tombstone and huge armour damage for Minotaur
      • More than 30 hits
        • Extremely thick aluminium evidently works well
      • Severe arena damage

View Details

  • Followup
    • Predator - the real one
  • TV shows around the world
    • ~~KFC Death Camps~~ Clash Bots
      • Sam can’t bear to watch it
      • Ryan’s life is hollow and meaningless so he watches it anyway
      • The Bill Podcast - a ‘The Bill’ podcast - this is not an endorsement of this podcast
      • Soggy Bottoms - a ‘Great British Bakeoff’ podcast - also not an endorsement
    • This is Fighting Robots (KoB 1.5)
      • Sam can’t bear to watch it
      • Ryan’s life is hollow and meaningless so he watches it anyway
      • Intrusive editing
        • Feel free to speculate about Sam’s taste in vloggers in the comments
        • Since recording, a ‘VIP’ episode has come out featuring better edits of all fights
    • Battlebots debuts May 11th!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      • Trailer
      • More trailers (UK only)
  • Robot combat in Hollywood
    • Spoilers, duh…
    • Big Hero 6
      • The scene
      • The perfect multibot
      • High-level controls?
    • Is Batman a Superhero?
      • In which Sam expects Ryan to be consistent somehow
    • Pacific Rim
      • Massive robots fighting monsters
      • “Tanks and stuff” - the only logical approach to war, apparently
      • “ELBOW ROCKET!!!"
      • Crimson Typhoon - the three-armed Jaeger
        • In-universe explanation of the ‘drift’ mind melding process
    • Real Steel
      • Quite big robots boxing other quite big robots
      • Atom: Basically Gabriel
      • Shadow mode - the robot mirrors the action of a human controller simply by watching them
      • Liver punches
      • Robot Combat League
    • Megabots
      • Pretty much out of money and out of ideas

View Details

  • Pre-show waffle
    • Tray with feet
      • Note to self: set up Amazon Affiliate link…
  • Autonomous cars
    • Robot or Not?
    • Uber crash - for those who have been living under a rock
    • STUDIES!!
    • How a driverless car sees the road (ft. a rogue duck)
    • Correction: Google’s cars are currently maxxing out at Level 4 autonomy: Level 5 requires the ability to go anywhere whereas the current generation of car can only drive on pre-mapped roads.
  • Battlebots
    • Essentially confirmed entrants
      • Chomp
        • Level 1 autonomy
        • Hammer test - now with ___% more wobble
      • Bronco
      • Lucky
      • SubZero
      • Minotaur
      • Bombshell
      • Tombstone
      • Gigabyte (ft. unsafe testing practices)
      • Red Devil
      • Hypershock
      • Yeti
      • Team Danby: Predator
        • More old Biteforce than Overhaul
      • Team Tauron/DRT: Monsoon
      • “Let’s move onto robots - I know what I’m talking about with those” (Ryan, 2018)
      • Team Nebula: Vanquish
      • Team PCP: Petunia
      • Multiple teams: Reality
      • “My robot knowledge is really letting me down today” (Also Ryan, 2018)
      • Oh Yes Robotics: End Game
        • Helpful infographic
      • HUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE
      • Not mentioend but highly noteworthy: Team Toad entering a new machine, Hypothermia
    • Full list of confirmed entries on reddit or on Google docs
  • King of Bots 1.5 (This is Fighting Robots)
    • Blue
    • Megabyte
    • Vulcan
    • Great White
    • An Ellis Ware heavyweight
    • CJ
    • Tanshe
    • Weber
    • Griffon
    • Thunder & Lightning
    • Unknown returning team
    • Snake
    • Grill Judge/Two BBQ
    • Sabre
    • Specrte
    • 008
    • Formula
    • Tungsten
    • Fango
    • Breaker Box
    • Bonesaw
    • ~~SAT’arn~~ Saturn
    • Dragon King
    • Bonfire
    • Full list of confirmed entries on reddit or on Google docs
  • Depression & anxiety
    • Sam’s ‘year of health’
    • Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
    • Resources
      • Depression overview
        • Ryan’s feature for Mental Health Awareness Week 2017
      • Helping yourself
        • Self-care guide
        • Coping with suicidal thoughts
      • Helping others
        • “What to say” from makeitok.org
        • Samaritans’ guide to ‘difficult conversations’
      • Index of Mental Health helplines (UK)
    • Gratuitous dog video

View Details

  • SPAAAAAACE
    • Falcon 9 Block 5
      • Reusable-ier, powerful-ier, space-ier
  • Bad news…
    • Robot Wars didn’t fail, the BBC failed Robot Wars
    • Can Robot Wars work off of the BBC?
    • At least we have KoB and new Battlebots, right?
  • KoB: the final 8
    • Ryan’s confession
    • Episode 7
      • Spin Doctor vs Megabyte
        • Spin Doctor: officially not cowards
        • Ryan makes another midguided sporting analogy
      • Spectre vs Grill Judge
        • Razer vs Tornado 3.0
      • Great White vs That Which Shall Not Be Spelled
        • Rules are rules, and these rules are dumb
        • Ellis speaks, and he is visibly annoyed
      • Snake vs Thunder & Lightning
        • ‘Ave they got a SRiMech?
        • Multibot immobility rules
        • Judging a multibot
      • 2v2 exhibitions
        • Snake & Sabre vs Vulcan & Tanshe
          • Shuffle the drivers
          • 4WD on flippers
        • Rust Boar & Wild Beast vs Spin Doctor & Geat White
          • Mayhem and two drones
          • LiPo smoke: not a good kind of smoke
    • Episode 8
      • CJ vs Megabyte
        • Some robots just will not die
      • Thunder & Lightning vs Spectre
        • Spectre-cle. heh.
        • Perfect robots?
      • 3rd place playoff: Thunder & Lightning vs Megabyte
        • T&L with the wedge, Megabyte with the old steel shell
      • RUUUUUMBLEEEEEE
      • Grand Final: Spectre vs CJ
        • “Some kind of beetle”
  • Final thoughts
    • Watching a foreign language programme
      • RobotRevo

View Details

  • Follow up
    • Garfie explains how polycarbonate breaks
      • How much of a robot could be weapon?
    • Drum definitions
  • King of Bots - Round of 16
    • Tanshe vs Great White
      • New Blue
      • Doomba
    • Sam’s final 8 predictions
    • Ryan’s final 8 predictions
    • Grill Judge vs Blue
      • Omnidrive’s limitations
      • Grill Judge’s ground clearance
      • Judge’s decision
    • Spin Doctor vs Crossfire
      • The most traction-reliant robot since Gabriel
      • Tastes Like Burning
    • Spectre vs Wild Beast
      • Phwoarrrrr
    • Megabyte vs Raging Bull
    • Thunder & Lightning vs Sabre
      • Skinny flippers
      • Going back on predictions
    • Knife Legend vs Rust Boar
      • Ray Billings’ box posture
      • Titanium welding is hard
      • Chinese adverts
        • OOZY BALLS!
      • Rust Boar retires
    • Snake vs the robot whose name Ryan now refuses to attempt writing
      • Snake’s weapon system
        • Can it lift and hold?
  • The final 8
    • Qualitative predictions
  • Aftershow: SpaceX fairing recovery
    • Fairings
      • Reportedly up to $5million each
    • Weird net boat thing
    • Intact fairing after splashdown

View Details

  • Gareth Anstee
    • Dystopia
    • Trolley Rage
    • General d’Meaner
    • Utopia
    • Defector
    • RPM
    • Dystopiant
    • Defectant
  • Heavyweights
    • Events
      • Extreme Robots
      • Robots Live!
      • Mechatrons
    • Rules
      • FRA Rules
      • Spinners
        • Robots Live! - spinners cannot exceed any two of the following:
          • 20% of robot’s weight
          • 500 RPM
          • 500mm diameter
        • Extreme Robots - up to 125mph tip speed
        • Robot Wars - up to 250mph tip speed
      • Judging
      • Knockouts
        • Returning from an OotA
        • Escaping the pit
    • Format
      • No fixed format
      • UK Championsip: melees into knockout
    • For the audience
      • ~9 fights per show, plus side events
      • Seriousness of the fights depends on the individual event
    • Recogniseable names/faces
      • Manta
  • Other weight classes
    • Antweights
      • Antweight World Series
    • Beetleweights & Featherweights
      • Standalone tournaments & side events
        • UWE Beetle Brawl

View Details

  • Follow-up
    • VR in the classroom?
      • VR is the classroom?
  • Front matter
    • Battlebots is Backlebots
      • Filming late March/early April
      • ~250mph tip speed limit
        • Why is tip speed limited, not energy?
        • Sam pulls random numbers out of thin air to support a point which doesn’t really need figures
    • Antweight progress
      • Sam’s 4WD drivetrain
      • Armour materials
      • Sam’s driving woes
  • King of Bots
    • Hazards
      • Floor flippers
      • ‘Smoke Your Enemy’
    • Episode 4
      • Spectre vs Whirlwind
        • Flawless victory
          • Except the bit where they lost a tyre
        • Single tooth setup confirmed?
      • Tanshe vs Hammerhead Shark
        • Ryan doesn’t know the difference between anterior and posterior
        • Legitimate drama
      • Grill judge vs Crossbow & Shield
      • Rust Boar vs Blade Gyro
        • WALL OP
      • Blue vs DangerThunderZoneStorm
      • Sabre vs The Grubs
    • Sam’s Secret Spinner Scheme
      • Beetleweight spinner setup
      • Antweight spinner failure
    • Episode 5
      • Hunting Winds vs Great White
      • Megabyte vs Chiyung Jinlun
      • Snake vs Suspension
        • Battle of the ground clearances
      • Residual Wind vs Wild Beast
        • Residual Wind in ‘invertible mode’
      • Knife Legend vs Moments, Thunder & Lightning vs Ninja General
        • Fights which will go down in history as having taken place
    • Wildcards
    • Round of 16 draw
  • Aftershow: Falcon Heavy
    • Mission overview
      • Misleading animation
    • Full 34 minute launch ‘livestream’ VOD
      • Liftoff
      • Booster separation
      • Main core separation
      • Fairing deployment
      • Booster landing
    • Superb Smarter Every Day video with HQ sound from the launch

View Details

  • Follow up
    • Ryan reflects on the Antweight segment
      • Musings on teaching techniques
      • “Back in my day…” - Ryan, an old man
      • Garfie489’s comment on the barrier to entry
      • Sam’s not a teacher, did you know?
  • King of Bots
    • RobotRevo on Twitch
    • K.O.B as compared to other televised competitions
    • Episode 1
      • Stingray vs Megabyte
      • Vulcan vs Excalibur (AKA Sabre)
      • “Armoured Steel Fist” vs Snake
      • Great Crossbow & Steel Shield vs Zhuge
      • White Tiger vs Red Lion
      • Spectre vs Hawk Hunter
      • Crazy (AKA Residual Wind) vs Old Captain (AKA Sea Dog?)
    • Episode 2
      • Steel God of War vs Thunder & Lightning
      • Spin Doctor vs Great White
      • Tanshe vs Dark Knight
        • Half ‘A’ press
      • Hammerhead Shark vs Shadow Ring Blade (AKA Hurricane Tony)
      • Ninja General vs Flaming Wheel
      • Thunderstorm (AKA Danger Zone) vs Burning Twin Stars
      • Extreme vs Rust Boar
      • Ring of China vs Grill Judge
    • Episode 3
      • Raging Bull vs Blue
      • Suspension vs Wu(?)
        • The descent into madness begins
      • Shou Shou (AKA Moments) vs Griffin (AKA Uncle Tom)
      • Dragon Warrior vs Knight (AKA Shaku)
      • ‘Guardian of Swire’ vs Whirlwind
      • Blade Gyro vs Scorpion
      • Alpha vs Alchemist (AKA Hunting Winds)
      • The Grubs vs Crossfire
      • Ink Thorns (AKA ‘Spit’) vs Moor

View Details

  • Follow-up
    • The Lost Episodes
      • Episode 19: in which we discuss how a love of Robot Wars and Lego can intertwine beautifully
      • Episode 20: in we save Robot Wars but dismantle Star Wars
    • Antweights
      • Nuts & Bots
        • NanoTwo ESC
      • Ryan is very wrong about transmitter protocols
      • Paper rocket model plans
  • The International Specials
    • NEGATIVITY WARNING
    • Format & Production
      • Tag-team battles
      • Battle music
        • Sound effects
    • Captains
    • International robot logistics
  • Episode 1
    • ‘Diotoir’
      • ‘Too safe’
      • Added wheelguards
    • ‘Rabid M8’
      • Active weaponry?
    • Cobra
      • Dividing opinion
      • Active weaponry?
    • TMHWK
      • Previous owners?
      • Axe woes
        • Thor’s bent Axe-head
    • Apollo vs Sir K
      • Size matters
  • Judges’ Segments
    • Sethu’s wearable tech
      • Security implications of the Internet of Things
    • Noel’s antweights
      • Ryan is still too angry to write useful notes about this
      • Great antweight resources:
        • Alex Shakespeare’s antweight care instructions
        • RobotWars101 Forum
        • Antweight Robot Facebook group
        • Rory Mangles’ recommended antweight parts
        • ~~Robot Wars website~~
  • Episode 2
    • The Bash
      • Youtube build videos
      • The BBC unfairly raising expectations?
    • Tough as Nails
    • Weber
      • “No armour”
      • 40kg underweight
    • Cathard
      • Slightly more than ‘just a loaner-bot’
      • The tag-team incident
        • Concussion AMA - in which Ryan forgot to ask the question…
      • A victim of entanglement
    • Terror Turtle
      • A participant
    • Matilda vs Big Nipper
    • Dead Metal’s saw vs Concussion’s drum
  • Aftershow: The Last Jedi - follow-up
    • SPOILERS

View Details

  • Elon Musk’s Heavy Erection
    • Hype forecast: Moderate-High
    • Falcon Heavy (propaganda warning)
    • Sam tolerates the ill-informed ramblings of a man who knows a very limited amount about spaceflight
  • Upcoming specials
    • Which aired before we released this podcast…
  • Ryan saves ~~Robot Wars~~ televised robot combat
    • Ultimate Beastmaster but WITH ROBOTS
    • Since recording we have learned that KOB will start airing in early January and seen a trailer with English commentary.
  • Almost 90 minutes of talking about Star Wars
    • Is Star Wars Sci-Fi?
      • No.
    • Randall Munroe on things moving near the speed of light
    • ~~Dreadnaut~~
      • Dreadnought (spoilers)
    • ~~W I D E B O I~~
      • W I D E B O I (spoilers)

View Details

  • Follow up
    • Series 10 reflections
      • Whimsy
      • Format
      • Ryan and Sam make each other sound like dysfunctional hermits
      • Editing
        • Ten robot rumble: extended cut
      • Ratings
        • No, not those ratings…
    • International specials
      • COMPETITOR SPOILERS! Skip to 12 mins to avoid!
      • The last set of ‘specials’ and why they sucked
  • LEGO Robot Wars
    • An episode. There are many. Watch them. All of them
      • Remote controlled LEGO used right
        • Almost every weapon type
        • Homemade arena
        • Higher production values than Robot Wars: Grand Champions
    • Ryan & Sam’s childhood robot building safari
      • Sam wins…with parental help
        • LEGO Mindstorms
          • Programming a sentry gun
            • Editorial note: that’s not proper LEGO and you know it
            • Learning to code?
              • LEGO Mindstorms’ programming interface
              • Scratch
              • For context, Sam is a software developer. WHO KNEW?
        • Creating mechanisms
          • Rack and Pinion steering
          • Differentials - they’re magic
          • ‘Walkers’
      • Ryan is a LEGO hipster
        • 10 years of building and destroying Robot Wars robots
          • Elasticate ALL OF THE MECHANISMS
            • Deadly seige weaponry
            • Mangonel
            • Series 1 Dead Metal
      • Meccano
        • Sam’s Meccano ~~finger amputator~~ bar spinner
        • Plastic, for safety
      • Building LEGO from kits
        • Saturn V kit
          • 1m of phallic, American pride to “display and role-play”
        • Why not just buy bricks?
        • Big brand crossovers, because LEGO isn’t famous or anything
        • LEGO models, or models made of LEGO?
          • Millennium Falcon kit comparison
          • The crane that ‘looks like LEGO’
      • K’Nex
        • Rubbish, but good
        • Simple and effective, but fiddly
        • Function over form
          • “You’d have a hard time building a good-looking house out of K’Nex”
        • An 8 minute argument about whether aesthetics are an engineer’s concern
  • Welcome to Tangentsville
    • Minorest Star Wars spoilers ever
    • The Spinnerproof origins story
      • Star Wars ‘Machette’ viewing order
      • ‘Correct’ Robot Wars viewing order?
    • Mis-remembering Tornado
      • Tornado did nothing wrong
      • Inquisitor - vanquisher of the mighty Razer
        • Ryan tries to remember who won the First World Championships having only started talking about the World Championships as part of a conversation about Razer
    • Obsolete audio format.PCX
    • The morals of taking LEGO back from a child
    • Sam is literally James Bond
    • Crushed childhood dreams of entering Robot Wars
      • Ryan considers ‘post the year 2000’ to be near the end of Robot Wars
    • Scrapheap Challenge
      • Dick Strawbridge

View Details

  • Not complaining about the format
    • The best episode ever?
      • Probably
        • Series 5 final?
      • An entirely fair result
  • The 10-way wildcard rumble: death and glory
    • Tactics
      • Michael has done this before with Explosion
      • Conserving battery power/gas
      • Weapons don’t win these fights
      • Spamming Fog of War
    • House robot shenanigans
      • Where did Dead Metal come from?
        • Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors - House Robot Rebellion
          • Viewer discretion is advised
      • Sir K tries to kill Terrorhurtz
    • Extended cut of the rumble!
  • Melee 1: Behemoth, Carbide, Nuts 2
    • Dave Moulds: The Best Driver in Robot Wars
    • Nuts 2’s lucky hits
      • SO LUCKY
      • Incredible minibot driving
      • A joke robot?
        • Diotoir “puts Tornado up on its side”
    • Judges decision
      • How are the actions of minibots accounted for?
    • Carbide: villains?
    • Majestic.pict
  • Melee 2: Eruption, Magnetar, RAPID
    • Drum spinner
    • Magnetar’s reliability
      • SRiMech failure
      • The magnets, however, are doing their job
  • Redemption round
    • Behemoth vs Magnetar
      • Battle of the ground clearances
      • How to move out of your radius
      • RIP Ellis’ Screw. 2017 - 2017
      • Behemoth isn’t an old robot
        • Trigger’s broom
        • It’s an older design sir, but it checks out
    • Carbide vs RAPID
      • A missed opportunity for RAPID
      • A glorious death
        • And exceptional sportsmanship
  • Semi finals
    • Eruption vs Behemoth
      • Shenanigan corner
        • Behemoth & the put button
        • The floor flipper
    • Nuts 2 vs ~~Tornado~~ Carbide
      • Why did Carbide not defend against Nuts 2 sooner?
      • Can Nuts 2 spin the other way?
      • Does Nuts 2 fail safe?
  • Grand final
    • Eruption vs Carbide
      • WOW
      • Carbide is not at 100%
        • Weapon motor issues? Contactor issues? Clutch issues?
      • Defensive driving
        • Exceptional aggression
      • A straightforward judges’ decision?
  • Third place?
  • Series 11 wishlist
    • Goodbye Fog of War
    • Repeated fights
    • Heat lineup selection
    • Other events?

View Details

  • Followup
    • Spinnerproofing
    • Sam’s open letter to Ellis Ware
  • Armchair Production
    • Fluff
    • Inconsistency of style
    • Low effort?
    • Competition format niggles
      • More an issue of heat lineups?
      • Ryan may or may not misunderstand the concept of a Swiss Tournament
  • Melee 1
    • Expulsion
      • Excellent ideas, mediocre execution
      • Weapon angle & geometry
      • Driving
      • Naming woes
    • Thor
      • Hammers and axes are different things?
      • Jason’s driving is back to its best
      • Scoop selection
    • [Coyote] (http://www.robotwars.tv/competitors/season-10/week-5/coyote/)
      • Like last time but presumably better?
    • Expulsion dies early
    • Pit release button problems?
    • Flipper Frenzy
    • A genuinely good driving match
  • Melee 2
    • Magnetar
      • M A N G E N I U S
      • Aesthetics matter
    • Hobgoblin
      • Aesthetics matter
        • Brutalist robot design
      • Borderline unfinished, but powerful
    • Push to Exit
      • Please work
      • Front hinges seem really viable
    • Control box swap
    • Shane begs for his life
    • Hobgoblin was also there
  • Redemption battles
    • Coyote vs Hobgoblin
      • In which nothing happens and everything happens
      • Coyote’s post-cease shenanigens
    • Push to Exit vs Expulsion
      • JP crosses the line
      • A fight also occurs
  • Semi finals
    • Thor vs Coyote
      • Matilda: the most vioent house robot
      • Another very good driving match
    • Expulsion vs Magnetar
      • Expulsion’s strategy
      • Fog of War almost influences a fight?
      • “Death Drum”
  • Third place playoff
    • Coyote vs Expulsion
      • What…what happened?
  • Final
    • Magnetar vs Thor
      • Thor’s entanglement device
      • Thor’s hammer not hitting low enough
      • Magnetar’s power becomes abundantly clear
      • How will it get on in the final?
      • How would Thor get on if Jason took on a teammate?
  • Ratings
  • Ill-advised grand final predictions

View Details

  • Follow up
    • Shunt’s absence explained
    • Arena walls
    • Adult members of the Tracktion team
  • Gushing over the episode
    • Sam ruins the gushing
      • House Robot POVs
      • Trundle

    • The Least Foggy of Wars
    • No Judges’ section
    • Good pits action
    • Lack of roboteer characterisation
    • Ryan ruins the gushing
      • Active weapon rules
        • What active weapon rules?
  • Melee 1
    • ~~Iron~~ Eye Ron Awe 6
      • An effective (horizontal) spinner-killer?
      • Series 10’s lack of big horizontal spinners
    • The Kegs
      • A bits ‘n’ bobs build
      • Almost identical, but just different enough
    • Tauron
      • More streamlined, more nimble
      • Underpowered bar?
      • Two grown men confuse themselves about how gyroscopic precession works
    • Ryan forgets that Iron Awe 6 won the melee
    • Pit button controversies
      • Cluster bot rules
    • Melee winner
      • Uncontroversially Iron Awe 6’s fight (judging by the edited version of the fight we saw)
        • But that doesn’t make it the worthy winner
  • Melee 2
    • Concussion
      • Completely rebuilt the same
        • Incremental upgrades done right
      • Telemetry
      • Redrum
      • The Nuts guards
        • Did they kill Concussion?
    • Nuts 2
      • Standard horizontal spinner
      • Exceptional minibot driving
      • How effective is the meltybrains system?
      • Nuts 2 the Carbide-killer
    • Androne 4000
      • OMG IT’S RAZZOR
      • The 2-stage crusher system
    • Pinning rules
  • Other fights
    • Concussion vs The Kegs
      • Sir K interfering with a countdown
    • Tauron vs Androne 4000
      • Judges’ decision
        • Aggression is king
    • Iron Awe vs Concussion
      • Shots fired?
    • Nuts 2 vs Androne 4000
      • Craig Danby’s incredible t-shirt collection
      • The flames
    • Iron Awe vs Androne 4000
    • Concussion vs Nuts 2
  • Ratings

View Details

  • Followup
    • Carbide’s battery woes
  • Armchair Production 2.1
    • Fluff
    • ‘Representations’ of roboteers
      • Tracktion
        • Kids front and center
        • Immitate, Improve, Innovate
      • Vulture
        • Rejecting the cameras
      • Should all representations be positive?
        • Should there be a ‘representation’ at all?
        • Self-censorship for TV
        • Charlie Brooker on how TV can use editing to grossly misrepresent real events
          • Pay close attention to the use of voiceovers/interview soundbites
      • RAPID
        • Literally just money. Apparently.
        • The British view of money and success
      • Apex
        • Craig’s ‘strop’
      • Are we any better? We hope so
  • Melee 1
    • Bucky The Robot
      • Ryan’s ideal entrant?
      • Unreliable self-righting
    • RAPID
      • Hugely improved
      • Excellently driven
        • Using the hazards
      • Slow flipper reset
      • Pneumatics issues
      • Boring?
        • Very well ‘planted’ and controllable with the 4WD, and therefore visually unspectacular
        • Making it look easy
    • Tracktion
      • Basically not tested in its fights
        • Immediately out vs RAPID, Apex self destructed and Vulture forced to withdraw
      • Borrowing bits
        • Where does this sit within the rules?
          • And do we care?
        • Active weapon?
    • JP’s weird and wonderful commentary
      • Overhyping the Fog of War
      • Under-hyping the Fog of War
    • Conversations with Lucy Rodgers
      • Actually analysing the value of FoW
      • The primary role of the house robots: freeing stuck robots
  • Melee 2
    • Apex
      • A dangerous machine?
        • Do the BBC want us to think this was worse than it was?
    • Terrorhurtz
      • A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
      • Acknowledging the old series
      • THE CHAIR
        • An inconvenient chair with clear sentimental value
      • The Best Hits
      • Front armour upgrades
    • Vulture
      • ‘Not engineers’
        • Experienced builders with featherweights…
      • Very well constructed
      • Underpowered weaponry?
    • JP explaining the immobility rules (a bit)
      • Sam ruins everything
  • Selected fights
    • Tracktion vs Apex
      • Dead Metal in the arena
      • Why Apex died
        • Ghosts
    • RAPID vs Tracktion
      • RAPID’s ‘ears’
      • Pressure to entertain
        • Playing with the rules
    • Opening melee restart
  • RAPID AMA
    • Flipping a transit van 1m in the air
  • Ratings
    • RobotWarsMascots.djv

View Details

  • Follow up
    • Pitting House Robots
    • Jetpacks
      • Tomorrow’s World
      • A friendly heads up that The Martian seems to now be on Netflix and everybody should watch it.
    • Sabretooth’s drum
    • Apolcalypse’s grabbers
  • Armchair Production 2.0
    • The triumphant return of the title sequence
    • Manufactured drama?
      • “Acting”
      • Batteries - all basically the same?
      • Aftershock AMA
    • Fog of War
  • Melee 1
    • Big Nipper
      • GRIPPA SPINNNAAAAAAAAA
      • The Gabriel video
      • That hit…
    • Gabriel 2
      • Respect the design
        • Taking a big spinner the distance - when do you see that?
          • Beta vs Tombstone? Typhoon 2 vs Storm 2?
    • Carbide
      • “A good robot”
      • 20% improved
      • Thrillingly reliable
      • If they’re spinning, they’re winning
  • Melee 2
    • Eruption
      • Upgraded?
        • New anti-spinner armour?
      • The only thing between Carbide and the title?
        • This conversation is borderline un-summarisable
    • Aftershock
      • Forever in Aftershock 1.0’s shadow
    • Crackers ‘n’ Smash
      • Proper clusterbots?
      • A retracted apology
      • “ARE WE NOT CEASING!?”
    • THAT OOTA
  • Other fights
    • House robots having fun
      • Interfering with the result?
    • Aftershock vs Carbide
    • Eruption vs Big Nipper
      • Listening in on the judges
    • The lack of a judges’ segment
  • Return of the ratings
    • Entanglement.bat
    • An impromptu look back on Series 8

View Details

  • Editing, production and format
    • BBC giving episode spoilers
    • There IS no perfect intro sequence
      • Cold opens are cool
    • Battle coverage
    • Overproduction?
      • Ryan got a B in A-Level media studies and really can’t stop analysing things
    • In-arena interviews
    • Graphics
    • Arena hazards
      • Breakages
      • Fog of War
      • Inconsistent flipper flips
      • Spikes
    • Conversations with…
      • Landing stuff with rockets
      • SpaceX = Tesla
    • Better judges’ segments
      • Antweight building
  • Robots
    • Behemoth
      • WHERE’S THE AXE?
      • Reliving the walkout
    • Donald Thump
      • Everything went better than expected
      • DaraStep.PCX
        • Donald Thump AMA
    • Sabretooth
      • Gabe2.0
        • Inside The Bot
      • Spotting a good/bad driver
      • Upgrades = downgrades
      • AccidentalKOB

    • Opening Melee
      • Who won?
      • Why did Behemoth run the ‘classic’ scoop?
        • Behemoth AMA
      • Sabretwoth
    • Apollo
      • A slight apology from Ryan re: upgrades
      • Series 2 grand final
      • Goodbye Marc, hello Alan
        • Is the showmanship gone? Is that a bad thing?
      • House Robot etiquette
    • Apocalypse
      • Ed Wallace’s beautiful machines
      • The axe shaft
    • The Swarm
      • Deceptively effective
      • Teamwork: makes the dream work
        • The ‘Ender’s Game’ formation
      • Ryan’s extremely high quality notes (from the first viewing)
  • THAT HEAT FINAL
    • Apollo losing or Behemoth winning?
      • Behemoth’s Great Flipper Escape
    • Attempted celebrations
    • The blind spot
  • The 10-way melee
    • Beetleweight Gladiator fight
      • W I D E B O Y
      • Camerawork challenges
      • The ~~flipper~~ flapper…
    • The pit release area
  • The Spinnerproof Podcast Antweight Challenge
    • Showing Sam the wonderful and weird world of antweights
      • The video we are watching
      • Antweight rules
      • The cluster
      • A spinner…
      • Ryan’s prototype antweight chassis
      • The unfolding robot

View Details

  • King of Bots
    • Knockoff Ironside 3 (AKA robot #43)
    • Mega Melvin
      • The Robot Wars trailer
    • ‘Robot #76’ - Deathroll & Neon
    • Tanshe
    • Crossfire
      • Why? What? How?
    • Spectre
      • Ryan realises he started this section without giving Sam any warning…
    • Vulcan
      • Significant arguing
        • We thought physics was risky territory…
    • Griffin
    • Eruption clone
  • MegaBots Inc vs Suidobashi Heavy Industry
    • Unmanaged expectations
    • The full video
    • MegaBots Inc Youtube channel
    • Real Steel trailer
  • Robot Wars Series X
    • What we got right, what we got wrong
    • Predictions

View Details

  • ‘Spoiler’ warnings
    • We will be discussing:
      • Heat lineups
      • Likely opening melee lineups
      • New robots
      • Upgrades to old robots
    • We will not be discussing:
      • Fight results
  • Housekeeping
    • Episode & tournament format
      • The 10 ~~robot~~ entrant wildcard melee
      • Bye bye round robin
        • Visual explanation
    • BringBackBash

    • Fog of War
      • Sam is pre-emptively enraged
    • Entanglement
  • Robots
    • Notable absences
    • Heat A
      • Behemoth
      • Sabretooth
      • Donald Thump
      • Apollo
        • Video - non spoiler
      • The Swarm
      • Apocalypse
    • Heat B
      • Eruption
      • Aftershock
      • Crackers & Smash
      • Carbide
      • Gabriel
        • The weapon is, in fact, visible and looks new.
      • (Big) Nipper
    • Heat C
      • RAPID
      • Tracktion
      • Bucky The Robot
      • Apex
      • Vulture
        • Budget Pulsar
      • Terrorhurtz
    • Heat D
      • Concussion (tiny spoiler?)
      • Nuts 2 (tiny spoiler?)
      • Androne 4000
      • Tauron
      • Iron-Awe 6
      • The Kegs
    • Heat E
      • Hobgoblin
      • Magnetar
        • An open letter to Ellis Ware
      • Push to Exit
      • Thor
      • Expulsion
      • Coyote

View Details

  • Followup
    • Ryan’s Reasonably Comprehensive List of Pink Robots
      • Ellie’s Little Pink Bot - not actually anything to do with Bigger Brother.
    • Sophisticated statistical analysis of robot colour popularity
    • Sam is blown away by house robots which were around for 3 of the 9 original series
      • Yes, I am classing Extreme 1 & 2 as series. No, I don’t feel good about that.
  • Robots
    • Rotator
      • The ol’ ‘having two spinners is silly’ rant
      • Sam applies his wealth of Lego-based wheel knowledge
      • Fights: vs Witch Doctor
    • Witch Doctor
      • ThatsACoolSpinnerDesign.WebP
      • The newer, slightly less cool spinner design
      • External vs internal symmetry
      • Dying in a cloud
      • Fight: vs Rotator, vs Red Devil
    • Wrecks
      • Ryan’s misplaced optimism is quickly and efficiently shot down
      • Thank you for ‘validating my effort’ by being here
      • Gyrobot
      • A Hebocon build is born
        • Ridiculous volume control interfaces
      • Fights: vs Red Devil
    • Red Devil
      • Dead Metal, but effective
      • BashyBashy

      • Fights: vs Wrecks, vs Witch Doctor, vs Bombshell
    • Splatter
      • Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy?
      • Big Bang Theory robots
        • Damn it Sam…
      • Fights: vs Warrior Clan
    • Warrior Clan
      • Warrior Clan vs Nightmare
      • Ideal vertical spinner contact points (according to Ryan, who knows next to nothing)
        • If you can correct this then please, please do
      • Hypershock’s rake
      • Fights: vs Splatter, vs Hypershock (USA only)
    • Ultraviolent
      • Fights: vs Hypershock
    • Hypershock
      • Ridiculous drum concepts
      • Fights: vs Ultra Violent, vs Warrior Clan (USA only), vs Poison Arrow
    • Hellachopper
      • Bullseye may be the least international reference possible…
      • Test videos:
        • Extended cables
        • Final, fatal testing
        • Home testing
  • Armchair Engineering: Alternative Forms of Locomotion
    • Cam shufflers
    • ‘Proper’ walkers
      • Degrees of freedom
    • Gyroscopic precession
      • If the whole ‘yaw is turned into forward movement’ bit is a bit confusing, imagine shuffling along on your backside - shifting your weight from one butt cheek to the other
    • Brushbots
      • Vibrant
    • Linear induction

View Details

  • Followup
    • r/Battlebots AMA list
    • Two-Headed Death Flamingo
      • MorePinkRobots

    • BroncoGangers? DoppleBronco?
  • Robots part 1
    • Mohawk
      • NO PYRO, NO PARTY
      • It’s not Razer
      • The beak tip design
      • Fights: vs Biteforce
    • ~~Biteforce~~ Biteforce
      • Show Ryan the biting!
      • Basically their rejected 2015 design
      • S T A T I S T I C ~~S~~
      • Fights: vs Mohawk, vs Ringmaster, vs Chomp (USA only)
    • Ultimo Destructo
      • Multiple setups:
        • Horizontal bar spinner
        • Hammer
        • Flipper
      • Fights: vs Ringmaster
    • The Ringmaster
      • Omnidirectional Vector Drive
        • There is no Facebook video. Ryan accidentally made that up.
        • Which way is forwards? Is there a forwards?
      • Machining porn
      • Weapon noise
      • Fights: vs Ultimo Destructo, vs Biteforce
    • The Disc O’ Inferno
      • Assymetric spinner ballancing
        • Material thinning
          • SamsBluntLumps

        • The judge’s decision controversy
      • More Machining Porn
      • Fights: vs Chomp
    • Chomp
      • HARDOX hammer arms
      • ThatsALotOfPower.gif
      • Huuuuuuuuuuuge ram (the black bit…)
      • Linear motion –> hurty motion
      • LIDAR - ‘AutoChomp’
        • THAT hit on Biteforce
      • Fights: vs Disc O Inferno, vs Captain Shredderator, vs Biteforce (USA Only), vs Yeti
    • Deathroll
      • Artbot?
      • Australia.bmp
        • Map Men
      • Fights: vs Captain Shredderator
    • Captain Shredderator
      • A very angry biscuit
      • Fights: vs Deathroll, vs Chomp
  • Referees
    • Uniforms matter
    • Actual communication between competitors and officials.
    • REFDRONE
    • Sam’s plane
  • Robots part 2
    • Poison Arrow
      • Nothing. Like. Hypershock.
      • Fights: vs Mega Tento, vs SOW, vs Hypershock, vs Bombshell
    • Mega Tento
      • Tentomushi in Robot Wars
      • Moving the ‘drum’
        • Defining a ‘drum’
      • Krave Monster
      • Fights: vs Poison Arrow, vs Stinger TKB (USA only), vs Yeti
    • Lycan
      • 35mph top speed. That’s a lot of speeds
      • How fast could a Battlebots-legal robot go?
      • Sam finally squeezes in a Star Wars reference
    • Creepy Crawlies
      • 5-part multibot
      • Not a proper clusterbot, apparently.
    • Gemini
      • 2-part multibot
      • Also not a proper clusterbot, apparently.
      • Root3
  • Armchair Engineering: Automation
    • What do the rules allow?
      • Sam lets his mind run wild for a while
    • What is worth doing?
      • Arena hazard avoidance?
      • Wall avoidance?
      • SENSORDRONE?
      • Automating weapons
        • The Chomp hammer
        • Flippers?
        • Grabbers?
      • Super-fast sumo robots
    • Technogames tangent
      • Futher rocketry tangent
        • We don’t come back from this

View Details

  • Followup
    • Reddit thread
      • Spinner design & materials
        • Tombstone’s weapon bars
        • Pros & cons of AluminIum
      • Money
        • Prize money
  • Robots part 1
    • Bronco
      • ALL OF THE WHEELS
      • How on Earth is Minotaur pronounced?
      • Taking two robots
      • Fights: vs Blacksmith, vs Chromefly, vs Razorback, vs Minotaur: NONE OF THE WHEELS
    • Blacksmith
      • Thatsagoodlookingbot.jpeg
      • Fights: vs Bronco, vs Minotaur
    • Chromefly
      • Weapons mounted directly to motor output shafts?
      • Fights: vs Bucktooth Burl, vs Bronco
    • Bucktooth Burl
      • Drum design
      • Compactness
      • Fancy tyres
      • ‘Fights’: vs Chromefly
    • Razorback
      • Fights: vs Sawblaze, vs Ghost Raptor, vs Bronco
    • Sawblaze
      • The different discs
      • Welcome to Tangentville
        • Skorpios
        • ‘Scorpios robot’
        • Scorpion
      • Fights: vs Razorback
    • Son of Whyachi
      • [Old walker rules] (http://robotwars.wikia.com/wiki/Walkerbots#Definition)
        • Season 3.0 SOW
        • Drillzilla
      • Team Whyachi’s robots
      • Fights: vs Ghost Raptor, vs Poison Arrow
    • Ghost Raptor
      • Sam is annoyed by more welding
      • 2015 Ghost Raptor’s shenanigans
      • Ryan is annoyed that GR got a wildcard because its another spinner, goes on to suggest 2 spinners as better wildcards.
      • Fights: vs Son of Wyachi, vs Razorback
  • Flames, Drones, and Minibots
    • Drone piloting rules
      • Sam can’t tell the difference between Poison Arrow and Hypershock
    • Nuisance minibots
    • BringBackBash

  • Robots part 2
    • Minotaur
      • ‘Standard drum spinner’
      • Waxing lyrical in a way not conducive to detailed shownote making
      • Fights: vs Photon Storm, vs Blacksmith, vs Warhead, vs Bronco, vs Bombshell: RIP
    • Photon Storm
      • Live tour record
      • Fights: vs Minotaur
    • Complete Control
      • Grabber + fire = fun
      • The blowtorch
      • Preserving your ‘brand’
        • Sam still can’t tell the difference between Poison Arrow and Hypershock
      • Fights: vs Bombshell, vs Warhead
    • Bombshell
      • Modular weaponry
        • Horizontal spinner
        • Vertical spinner
        • Axe
        • Lifter
      • Gigantic team
      • Ryan really doesn’t like Swiss Army Bots
      • Fights: vs Complete Control, vs Cobalt, vs Red Devil (USA only), vs Poison Arrow, vs Minotaur, vs Tombstone: grand final, low quality
    • Warhead
      • That new grabber head thing
      • Sam likes a robot which ‘cannot win’
      • Tornado ‘cheat’ their way to the series 6 title
        • Tornado’s arsenal of ‘weapons’
      • Fights: vs Obwalden Overlord: UK low quality or USA high quality, vs Complete Control, vs Minotaur
    • Obwalden Overlord
      • Controls in action
      • Mark Setrakian’s ‘Snake’
      • Behemoth & Gravity vs Cassius Chrome, Mr Psycho & Growler
      • Fights: vs Warhead: UK low quality or USA high quality
  • Armchair Engineering: Alternative flipper systems
    • Garfie489’s comments
    • Onboard compressors?
      • Armakillo
    • Linear Induction Motor?
      • Hyperloop
    • Electric motors?
    • Flywheel power?
    • Springs?

View Details

  • Followup
    • The Heat E line-up
    • Whiteboard matches
      • On-board footage from Behemoth
    • Re-re-opening the engineering wound
      • ‘Dave Lowry’
      • Ryan’s tries to clarify his position for the [n]^th time
  • Battlebots
    • WTF is Battlebots?
      • The key differences with Robot Wars
      • 2015 Highlight reel
    • How to find the shownotes. Which you clearly already know how to do. Because these are the show notes. And you are reading them. Well done I guess?
      • I’ll just put the Jellyfish video here again…
    • The bracket
  • Group 1
    • HERE BE SPOILERS!
    • Tombstone:
      • Shock mounted drive
      • Last Rites
      • vs Witch Doctor (2015)
      • Fights: vs Black ice, vs Escape Velocity, vs Brutus, vs Yeti, vs Beta, vs Bombshell (low quality)
    • Black Ice:
      • What does it actually…do?
        • The 3 ‘weapons’
      • Dan Barry,
      • Fights: Qualifier vs Skorpios & Bad Kitty, vs Tombstone
    • Escape Velocity:
      • Aluminium honeycomb
      • SpaceX’s previous foray into combat robots
      • Fights: vs Overdrive, vs Tombstone
    • Overdrive:
      • Sam needs to start rhyming
      • 2015 Overdrive
      • Ryan is bothered by a lack of gyro-dancing
      • Fights: vs Escape Velocity
  • Group 2
    • Brutus
      • 2015 Witch Doctor vs 2016 Brutus
      • Ryan doesn’t like gimmicks
      • Asymetric/single tooth disc design
      • Fights: Vs Moebius, vs Lockjaw, vs Tombstone
    • Moebius
      • ‘Standard full body spinner’ designs
      • Direct Metal Laser Sintering, Super-Draco engines, harder than diamond
      • Fights: vs Brutus
    • Ray Billings vs Peirce Hawthorne - because apparently somebody else also though this
    • Yeti
      • What Ryan thinks Alaska is like
      • Sam considers quitting the podcast
      • Fights: vs Lockjaw, vs Lucky, vs Tombstone
    • Lockjaw
      • Spring powered flipper
        • What came first, the flipper or the clamp?
      • Lockjaw’s lineage and previous performances
      • Fights: vs Yeti, vs Brutus
  • Deconstructing the show
    • Sports broadcasting
      • Presenters
        • Samantha Ponder
        • Kenny Florian & Chris Rose
        • Faruq Tauheed
        • The pit reporters
        • The arena-side reporter
      • The tale of the tape: Less informative than a Bill Nye Netflix series
    • Online info
      • Competitor profiles
      • Competition stats (aka ‘sports information’)
      • Robot Wars wiki vs Battlebots wiki
        • Converting from lbs to more civilised units
    • Robot sponsorships
  • Group 3
    • ICEwave
      • Full body spinner?
      • Stalling petrol engines
      • Sneaky paintwork
      • Fights: vs Sub Zero, vs Nightmare
    • Sub-Zero
      • Sam continues to be annoyed by ugly welding
      • Struggling to remember the weight limit
      • Fights: vs ICEwave
    • ~~Stinger~~
    • Stinger: the Killer Bee
      • Gratuitous flames
      • Modular weaponry
      • Effective spinner-killing
        • Wyrm
      • Fights: vs Nightmare, vs Mega Tento (US only)
    • Nightmare
      • Estimating the height
      • Ryan is sure he rememberes the fight with Beta and is almost entirely wrong
      • ‘Self righting’ system
      • Old disc vs new disc
      • Fights: vs Stinger TKB, vs ICEwave, vs Beta
  • Group 4
    • Beta
      • Two grown men fall in love with a furious limpet for approximately 5 minutes
      • Design details: Hammer head, crooked arm, armour hinges, weapon motor and mechanism, Beta website
      • Breaking the floor
      • Fights: vs Lucky, vs Overhaul (US only), vs Nightmare (US only), vs Tombstone
    • Lucky
      • Wedge weirdness
      • Fights: vs Beta, vs Yeti
    • Cobalt
      • Comparisons with Carbide
      • Bombshell won or Cobalt lost?
      • Fights: vs Overhaul, Vs Bombshell :(
    • Overhaul
      • Becoming Biteforce: a winning paintjob?
      • Fights: vs Cobalt, vs Beta (US only)
  • The judges
    • The judging criteria: defining aggression
      • Beta vs Tombstone
    • Celebrity/guest judges
  • Armchair Engineering: Flipper mechanisms
    • Gassing about gasses: a plea for more information
    • Mechanisms
      • The classic ‘BritWedge’ flipper
      • The Bronco/SubZero ‘launcher’
      • The Escape Velocity…thing…
      • Lucky’s 4-bar lifter/flipper

View Details

  • Follow-up
    • Episode 4
      • Foxic: winner of an fight ft. terrible live commentary.
    • Episode 5
      • Welding and working with Aluminium.
      • The original Heat E lineup ft. excellent detective work.
      • Reopening the Jellyfish engineering wound. (skip to 30mins to avoid. We won’t blame you.)
        • The engineering mindset & formal education.
        • ‘Solved’ problems and best practices.
        • Learning to be creative - John Cleese on ‘playing’
        • Ryan doesn’t know how to define the terms of his argument
  • Melee 1
    • Apollo (wildcard)
    • Aftershock
    • Eruption
  • Melee 2
    • Carbide
    • Concussion
    • Ironside 3
  • Head to Heads
    • Ironside 3 vs Eruption
    • Carbide vs Aftershock
      • The arena does its job
      • The BBC spoiler policy - Conker 3 in an excellent battle
    • Aftershock vs Ironside 3 The fixening
    • Carbide vs Eruption
    • Aftershock vs Eruption Hurting the house robots
    • Carbide vs Ironside 3
  • Final Carbide vs Eruption Carbide vs the House Robots
  • Ratings (spoiler alert)
  • Ryan’s Robot Rank-O-Rama
    • Part 1: ‘objective’ rankings
    • Part 2: favourites
  • Armchair Production
    • Re-working the format

View Details

  • Follow up
    • The costs of Chaos 2 and Frostbite
    • The pit button, how does it work?
  • Melee 1
    • Apollo
    • Rusty
    • Ms. Nightshade
    • Coyote
  • Melee 2
    • Crackers and Smash
    • Carbide
    • Mega Mouse
    • Trolley Rage
  • Conversations with Sethu Vijayakumar
    • No-one has human rated launch capability to the Moon, let alone Mars
    • Focus rings on Martian GoPros
  • Crackers, Smash and the rules of Robot Wars
  • Coyote volunteer for a pasting
  • Carbide vs. Apollo 2 - The Sparkening
  • Armchair engineering
    • Armour
    • Hydroforming

View Details

  • We’re live!
  • Ryan feels terrible about last episode’s audio
  • Follow up
    • Foxic wins a fight
    • Facts and figures
  • Melee 1
    • Supernova
    • Frostbite
    • Wyrm
    • High 5
  • Melee 2
    • Crushtacean
    • Ironside 3
    • Apex
    • Pulsar
  • Pulsar vs. Ironside 3
  • Supernova vs. Frostbite
  • Conversations with Lucy Rodgers
  • Big hits
  • Ratings
  • Armchair engineering
    • Weaponry
    • Kan-opener

View Details

  • Stealing logos
  • Follow up
  • Foamcore robots
  • Round 1
    • Melee 1
      • Thor
      • Tauron
      • Concussion
      • Chimera 2
    • Melee 2
      • Foxic
      • Explusion
      • MR Speed Squared
      • Heavy Metal
  • Round 2
    • Thor vs. Concussion
    • MR Speed Squared vs. Heavy Metal
  • Conversations with Noel Sharkey
  • Round 2 cont.
    • Heavy Metal vs. Concussion
    • Thor vs. MR Speed Squared
    • MR Speed Squared vs. Concussion
  • The definition of armament
  • Round 2 cont.
    • Heavy Metal vs Thor
      • Tungsten hammers
  • Final
    • Concussion vs. Thor
  • Armchair engineering
    • Omnidirectional wheels: how do they work?
    • X Robots
    • Strafing robots

View Details

  • Follow-up
    • Jellyfish: The Saga Continues
  • Round 1 - Group Battles
    • Melee 1
      • [Cobra] (http://www.robotwars.tv/competitors/season-9/week-2/cobra/)
      • [Hobgoblin] (http://www.robotwars.tv/competitors/season-9/week-2/hobgoblin/)
      • [Behemoth] (http://www.robotwars.tv/competitors/season-9/week-2/behemoth/)
      • [Eruption] (http://www.robotwars.tv/competitors/season-9/week-2/eruption/)
    • Melee 2
      • [Draven] (http://www.robotwars.tv/competitors/season-9/week-2/draven/)
      • [PP3D] (http://www.robotwars.tv/competitors/season-9/week-2/pp3d/)
      • [Cherub] (http://www.robotwars.tv/competitors/season-9/week-2/cherub/)
      • [Push To Exit] (http://www.robotwars.tv/competitors/season-9/week-2/push-to-exit/)
  • Round 2 - Head to Head
    • Behemoth vs. Eruption
    • PP3D vs. Cherub
    • Eruption vs. Cherub
    • PP3D vs. Cherub
    • PP3D vs. Behemoth
  • Noel Sharkey vs. The Urge to Say ‘Amazon’
  • Round 2 cont.
    • PP3D vs. Eruption
    • Cherub vs. Behemoth
  • Round 3 - Final
    • Eruption vs. Cherub
  • Armchair Engineering
    • Transmitter Setups

View Details

  • Hiding a trophy
  • Is Robot Wars a TV show or a competition?
  • Round 1 - Group Battles
    • Melee 1
      • Rapid
      • Jellyfish
      • Nuts 2
      • Terrorhurtz
    • Melee 2
      • Sabretooth
      • TMHWK
      • Crank-E
      • Aftershock
  • Round 2 - Head to Head
    • Sabretooth vs. Terrohurtz
    • Rapid vs. Aftershock
    • Aftershock vs. Sabretooth
    • Terrorhurtz vs. Rapid/Jellyfish
    • Terrorhurtz vs. Aftershock
    • Jellyfish vs. Sabretooth
  • Round 3 - Final
    • Aftershock vs. Sabretooth
  • Lamenting about the format