hey guys it's norm from tested I'm here in San Mateo for combats combats combat
combat combats cup I'm here with Dave Caulkins you are
the co-founder of combats and you guys also won robo games right and we do so
combats just two big events every year Robo games in the spring which is the
International Olympics of robots with both combat robots as well as humanoids
autonomous robots things like that and in the fall we do the combats Cup which
is very much based on a Stanley Cup of a traveling trophy so teams win it and
then give it back the next year and you get your name on it
very cool so Robo games I've been done that before it's like feats of strength
you have like just all different types of robots but that's not what combats
this fall event is about this is about destroying other robots heavy robots and
you have your own robot right here so tell me about this robot this is Vlad
the Impaler - which is a very old robot now first started in 2001 constantly
being upgraded and robots are a lot like computers that you know they're never
really done you're always upgrading him and building better ones and things like
that so you mentioned battle bots a couple you know ten years ago there were
battle bosses on TV and combats came after that what was the story behind
that there were so many people who fell in love with the sport of fighting
robots and just because the TV show went off the air didn't mean that the support
went away so just you know like it's like watching baseball you know just you
don't always go to the major league games sometimes you go to the minor
league games the pickup games things like that and so after the show went off
the air we just wanted to keep the sport going and so here we are today with the
same size arena and all the same size robots and having a lot of fun yeah and
a lot of competitors - a lot of the same competitors once it gets in your blood
it changes your life and it's not which sounds very clichéd but it's the truth
is that you get into this and you're like this is what I want to do most of
the guys here have day jobs I do too we all just take vacations so this is our
vacation instead of going to Cancun Mexico or whatever we come five robots
you gotta give me the lowdown on what the different types of weapons are for
the robots if I if I'm just new to so combat robots and I see there's some
with big wheels on them some flippers water that what are the different
techniques so the different techniques the the easiest one is a wedge which is
just getting under the other robot and ramming him around then you have simple
lifters such as Vlad you have pneumatic flippers which usually have nitrogen or
co2 tanks inside and then when they pop it can throw the other robot all the way
into the ceiling then you have spinning weapons both spinning bars and spinning
disks and spinning drums which basically cut open the other robot flamethrowers
which don't do a lot of damage but look really cool and then a couple other
random robots that people are always coming up with new and unique ideas and
then they all use pretty standard motors three to five horsepower motors
everybody uses a slightly different brand but yeah they're all three to five
horsepower and when you're in the cage what are the rules it may just go at it
and it's very much like boxing so it's a three minute match you go at it
really no-holds-barred you're not allowed entanglement devices or
electronic weapons but that's it and you just beat the crap out of the other guy
until you either knock them out or three minutes is up much like boxing and then
it goes to the judges Wow and these robots I mean you want to repair them
between matches do you take certain pride if you get a robot completely out
of commission and they're unable to be repaired yeah there's a lot of pride in
being able to come into the pits and turn a robot around in 40 minutes not
just you know charging the batteries but holy crap they ripped off you know the
whole front end and you have to do that and just like NASCAR or anything else
there are some teams that are a lot better than others at that some teams
you know you can be damaged and that's it you're out cuz you're not going to be
able to repair that for four days other guys can turn their robot around and you
know an hour to because they're just much better at it
vlad the impaler - you fought yesterday tell me how your fights went I'm not the
best competitor in the world I try to focus more on I'm getting the
competitors here so Vlad's first fight was against mosquito we did better on
aggression than on damage but damage counts for four more points so we lost
the fight and then the second fight leg got flipped over and the power switch
actually got turn the old power switched it's the robots
were a big weakness power bun sneak in and you push that button and that's the
end of the fight well good luck next year you run the
event you can you can basically do this whatever you want but in practice it's
more like our two vacations of the year and we do this then we need a vacation
after the vacation awesome well thank you Dave we're gonna talk to a few more
creditors and then check out some actual fights enjoy
I'm here with fuzzy Malden you are team toad the singular member with your robot
right whole families team toad but I'm here by myself this time so I'm team and
your robot is a blizzard this is George weld here competing in combats this is
my 12th year of competing in combat robotics I think my first comm box event
was in 2006 all right so tell me a little bit the blizzard blizzard is a
what's called heavyweight robot it's 220 pounds or 100 kilograms
it is a four-wheel spinner it has tank drive the left side wheels work together
the right side rows work together and it can spin in place and then on the front
we have a 32 pound spinning drum right out of s7 tool steel heat-treated to a
hardness of C 50 and it spins about 3600 rpm
my goal is either to throw him or absent that parts of him well with the box-t
arena let's take a look underneath the hood there it's not too complex in terms
of no RC control the machines go it's really very simple it's it's probably no
more complicated than your average remote-control racing car at least the
tank drive there's two motors this is the the 3-inch Aunt Flo that's about you
know three and a half to four horsepower motor it's got a planetary gearbox it
does you can eight to one reduction and then that drives in a chain reduction so
this spins very fast compared to the two tires
and underneath the electronics is a companion that operates the right side
we have we have a receiver that talks for the remote control and it's just a
standard Futaba aviation style remote control we have a battery for the the
radio we have five batteries for drive and weapon this relay controls this
relay and that really these are contact it's big
this is a small relay that runs off of this receiver battery this provides
power to the weapon and this provides a braking action by shorting the motor out
these never are on at the same time that would be bad and the n7 motor also yeah
we said separate 4-inch mag motor we actually have an overdrive what you want
to look at the change here let's see we have 19 teeth on this sprocket and only
15 feet here so we're actually driving the weapon faster than the weapon motors
turning so we have overdrive on that motor and also a braking system because
that's gonna spin for a long time right yeah there's a rule when you're when
you're done with a fight you're supposed to be able to spend down in 60 seconds
that's basically so that we don't have the audience board waiting around and
you keep the keep the competition going well when I clocked it without the brake
it took two minutes and five seconds to spin down which means I got almost all
the friction out of it which is normally a good thing unless you have so we can
put the brake in it spins down about 40 seconds so when other people are
fighting the blizzard what is their strategy to take you out of commission
well the the one I caught yesterday it was a flipper and and it took him 12
seconds to get me upside down I know but I basically kept running over him until
they flipped me again and then I was right side up and then I got one good
hit and today I have a little secret weapon here I have this three pound
tooth and a three-inch chromoly steel this rides right along the ground and
that gets under other wedges and so when I got under his wedge he fired his
weapon he caught himself on his a part of his own robot and immobilized himself
he drove up the robot hit this and his whole robot just rode up on top of mine
and I chewed up on underneath him for a while and you could see shavings coming
off in the video it was glorious so how do you practice with the blizzard do you
like take it to a parking lot you make dummy robotic well I actually I used to
have a restaurant in Pittsburgh where you could fight robots so when we closed
we gave away two of our big arenas to Dave Hawkins who's walk
by me right here and that would those were his first arenas to run combats and
robo games and I kept the small one for myself so I keep that in the shop so I
actually have a tiny version we called the tiny toad tank it's 12 foot by 12
foot but it has one inch lexan heavy steel Athens steel floor and I used that
to have a safe place to spin this up in my own shop
this is the best robot I know how to build right now it's better than a lot
of them but there's one robot out there that I don't know how to be done and I'm
a lot of people in that boat if if all goes well I have four or five bikes
today so after two o'clock I will I will hope to be one crazy guy on the other
hand I'm going to lose your side of the bracket so if I lose I go home so I
could only have one more fight but I am I chances against the great pumpkin and
I owe him a whooping so I'm going to try and deliver it
I'm here with Gary Ginn you're the Builder the head lead builder for
original sin your robot behind you this is the robot that's one for the past
three years the combats cup right yes we're the only team to have won the
combats Cup more than one time and we've done it the last three years which is a
huge accomplishment what is the secret behind original sin success what type of
robot is this let's have a battle bot very simple wage robot all I do is I go
after the other guy why gender room slamming against the
wall hopefully knock them out I think the reason original sin does so well is
is because of its simplicity it does absolutely what it needs to do and
nothing more and have you made improvements this year it's original sin
better wedge stronger flap just more spares just getting or being able to
repair in between fights is very important Gary what do you do what is
your day job when you're not building original sin when I'm not building
original sin I'm designing and building electronics electronics your background
and then killer robots is your hobby yeah that's right I started racing RC
cars as a hobby and that's why probably why I am able to drive original sin so
well
well good luck on your competition today and wathah check them out in the cage
all right thanks
you