Its not all that fair to expect the same action in these older fights as you would in the more recent ones...This was only the 2nd robot combat competition ever, and the sport has been evolving ever since. Honestly, I don't know what I would be able to build with the only reference being the robots from one year previous. Much easier now, when I can research what others have done and I know what works and what doesn't.
Also rules have been made more clear since then and Blendo like bots have been banned for being too dangerous. It spun so fast that it could've flung debris into the crowds. Also since its entire outer shell spun it was impenetrable. It would've taken a long forked flipper bot to throw Blendo over and even then it might not stop it. Jamie Hyneman was given the title of champion by default on the grounds he does not partake further with Blendo. Not all info he is entirely accurate, it is just parts that I remember reading long time ago.
Physicists: It would ignite the oxygen in the air on contact and obliterate itself in the process. Walrus Robotics Engineer: Well I guess we could tone it down a smidge
My 150g Fairyweight/UK Antweight vert has a blade that spins about that fast (it's around 28,000rpm or so, so just 2000rpm less). At those kinds of speeds, even a single-tooth asymetric blade starts to behave less like a kinetic impact weapon and more like a cutting blade. The blade actually slices through material rather than grabbing and ripping chunks off, and that's actually a bit of a bad thing since that means it's not transferring kinetic energy into the opposing bot that well.
Seeing Blendo at full speed with a live audience and a protective wall that flimsy is terrifying. What were they thinking? I guess they weren't ready for robots that dangerous yet.
Agreed. There was nothing close to being that dangerous the year prior. The arena was beefed up after the 1994 event but not enough for a full body spinner
@@diabolicalmachine Yet they let Mark Pauline and his SRL robots do a performance during the interlude and arguably their machines are more dangerous than anything entered into robot wars.
@@lewisb85 I would agree that a lot of the SRL creations are more dangerous, even just by their mass and power. However I haven't seen pictures or footage of any creations that they actually brought to display at RW that were more dangerous than say, Blendo.
Adam Savage just posted a video telling of Blendo's disqualification both years they competed because of how powerful it was. They got a first place trophy in lieu of competition.
DoMore has lots of ground clearance so its hard to see much, but Blendo was ripping small parts off and sending them flying...with some of it going into the audience, Blendo got disqualified from the event even though it won this match by audience decision
In a recent Tested video Adam Savage said the organizers decided blendo was too dangerous to compete and just gave them a first place trophy and awards
I was at these first few live events. It was interesting every year how the box got more and more hardened. Concret damaged in first, add metal floor. Blendo sends bits into the flimsy plexiglass, switch to 1" lexam. Someone cuts in to lexan, make it 2 layers with air gap. Stuff flying up, add lexam on top. Poorly tuned gas engines fill box with smoke, add ventilation fans. Realize battery fires are nasty, add ventilation tubes to the outside. On and on.
Man.. if only Blendo came along later in the series when the safety regulations were better. Then again, it was the very reason they got stricter safety regulations in the first place.
One thing that's really neat to note here is how totally ineffective DoMore's weapon is. That pneumatically driven spike is something that would be absolutely devastating if it could get a solid hit, but Blendo's entire design is the antithesis of things that make good targets for a weapon that drives straight in. Its dome shape from the heavy steel wok makes it impossible to get a straight shot(this is a principle of both historical armor design and even modern armored vehicle design; if you can't make impact at a perpendicular angle to the surface you're striking, you can't break through). That combined with the 400 RPM rotation means that spike will always glance off and be deflected without causing any damage.
I would have left the weapon in it's extended position and just rammed Blendo at full speed (if the arm was able to have less ground clearance than the Blendo), hopefully using it's own spin to send it flying. Would have sucked for the audience though.
if you look close the very tip of the spike got very bent when it attempted to get blendo. probably got whacked by the spinning motion and pretty much ruined its spike weapons last bit of effectiveness.
Its not just the angle. Its the fact the it has some crazy centripetal force going on which makes that dome shape repel anything that touches it and its always carrying a large amount of momentum. Just looking at it in this video you can see the thing is just terrifying to behold. Imagine having to be the opponent to that.
The 'third bot' is the camera bot, which had a camcorder mounted a tilting mechanism. It seemed pretty well made, and I'm not sure where the footage went from all the matches.
@@veramae4098 Terminator "humanoids" are science fiction. Real-life humanoid robots are fragile, extremely complex, extremely expensive, and, outside of humanoid-specific competitions like RoboOne, have never done well in any form of combat.
@@ShadowlordDio At the time of this fight people were very much still in the thick of figuring out what works. No one had ever seen anything like Blendo before. These days horizontal spinners have been almost completely refuted, and people know how to make bots that can survive them easily. For a good example, take a look at how Tombstone fell from grace at BattleBots - it went from being world champion and a regular finalist to not even making the playoffs. Also, your plan would be a bit risky. Using a big scoop to deflect hits is a tried-and-proven method but the moment you introduce any active mechanics into it you start to risk the force of the impact damaging the mechanism. If you wanted to use a flipper like that you'd be better off having the scoop fixed to your bot's chassis, and then have a recessed flipping arm that comes up through a gap in the middle of the scoop. That way the flipper mechanics don't have to take the shock of a full-power hit.
Blends really is the perfect combination of defense and offense. Every vital component is encased in steel that spins fast enough to rip away anything that touches it.
Actually, Both Jamie and Adam worked on creating this destructive monster. Them alone is what makes Mythbusters. Even though it was before the creation of such show, it still is the work of Mythbusters.
Interesting watching DoMore utilize its stationary, secondary weapon. At that point it's moving like Blendo, but it's purely defensive since it can't approach while spinning like that as it's using it's drive wheels to achieve that motion instead of a second motor.
@@mousermind I understand that you want to correct grammar (even if the comment was one made just short of a decade and a half ago), but check out the rest of my comment. 4 other uses that use both forms of the word correctly-in this case it was a more primitive version of autocorrect "fixing" things.
@@mousermindApostrophe shows possession. "It's" is the only word on the English language that standard form says doesn't follow this rule. That's dumb as hell, so the rule gets ignored.
@@chrismanuel9768 I think it's exactly the other way round. Apostrophe DOESN'T show possession, it shows omission of a letter, like in "he's" = "he is", "it's" = "it is", "doesn't" = "does not", "the wives' letter" = " the letter from several wives of which the plural would have to be wivess without an apostrophe" etc while "its" is the form showing possession.
The only problem that I see with Blendo's design is that while the shell is pretty heavy-duty, I think Jamie Hyneman sacrificed armor potential for somewhat better RPMs (too heavy of a shell or motors that don't have the torque to get up to speed after a hard strike and it would take forever to get the weapon up to usable speed-a problem with Whyachi). That being the case, when the armor gets dented up the shift in weight makes it move like a washing machine on spin cycle with shoes in it.
@@RickoSidheblendo is Completely overkill for any kind of robot competition and the design and philosophy is simply too strong for competition. The only way to beat it was to flip it. To flip it you had to be pretty sure you weren't going to get your robot flipped. Very tough to defeat a design like this. The other robot had no win condition other than to wait for Blendo to run out of fuel or malfunction. Funny to watch. That thing is a little monster 👹
@@Chironex_Fleckeri it was the inertia labs guys who came up with the best idea for beating blendo back when gas weapons were legal, a halon gas fire extinguisher fitted to their robot rhino to choke out the petrol engine.
Watching these older videos, its impressive to see how far the technology for the various components used in the designs has evolved since the sport started.
Jamie was really ahead of the curve with Blendo. That style of bot is a popular idea nowadays, with bonus points for the loud scary motor. I wonder what would happen if they brought it back with modern tech.
yeah it seriously made the other guy think about everything his robot can do and he tried it. Not sure why every is so bored. This is the origins of this.
I love how Jamie just went about it as simplistically as possible and destroyed all these really complex machines. It's like the crushing blow of reality lol.
I love it when someone ZOOMS in on a shot!! We get dizzy from the panning...we can't see what else is happening in the arena...we have no idea of the relationship of one robot to another! That makes for a wonderful viewing experience. ZOOM-PAN!! ZOOM-PAN!! ZOOM-PAN!! PAN! PAN PAN! PAN! DIZZYDIZZYDIZZYDIZZY!!!
Blendo was like a BattleBots-robot in the mild early days of the original Robot Wars. The very first reason why a cage had to be built around this flying shrapnel 🤣😂
Battlebots style arenas were needed as the franchise went more and more towards robot combat. Remember in the original Robot Wars, there were 2-3 eliminator rounds consisting of obstacle courses and agility tests. Only the fastest four in these stages went through to the combat round. There was no need for an area to protect against spinners, as none of the well known 'spinner' robots in either RW or Battlebots would ever have got through the agility phases.
Crazy to think that 4 years later a bot became even more devastating Instead did 80mph It did 300mph You know em You love em You’ve been terrified of him for the past 22 years NIGHTMARE
The only reason I know about this is from a single video Adam Savage posted on his channel recently. It’s a strange phenomenon: lose, by being the most destructive and violent version so much so that you win by default
That arena is so sketchy. If they held a competition with modern battle bots there would be audience fatalities the very first night, it would be horrifying. Picture Bronco just throwing Witch Doctor up over the wall and straight into the crowd with the main weapon spinning. Horrifying.
Nobody expected the energy that Blendo brought to the arena: the output of a 5 hp engine, stored up for however long it too to spin up the shell. Pieces of the opposing robot went flying into the crowd.
Just saw Adam Savage talking about Blendo's matches on his 2023 youtube channel, "Adam Savage's Tested". He said that Blendo destroyed every opponent in 10 or 15 seconds. Not criticizing Adam; it's just an example of how our memories fail us all. Maybe every other opponent was dead in seconds, but one lived for minutes, the entire match
DooMore survived longer by running away; once they actually made contact it was done quick. After this season the rules of engagement were changed where you can't just run out the clock like this anymore. DooMore survived for awhile but it wasn't the whole match you can see here where it smokes and fails; you're not supposed to keep attacking at that point and let the refs call the match. If Adam said every opponent went down with 10 to 15 seconds of contact that'd be accurate.
The stark contrast between this and now is crazyyyy. Considering thjs was banned for being too dangerous while robots now are literrally flying across the arena
yeah the real issue here is how crappy the shielding is here. It's just some flimsy panels with no top that appear to be around 7' tall. The producers were not prepared for anything like this.
I was at Fan Expo yesterday and Adam Savage told a story about Blendo: First year: In their first match, they hit their opponent, take them out. In their second match, they hit their opponent, take them out but a metal piece flies off right into the lap of the insurance provider. Next thing they know some very stressed out people come over to them and hand them first place because they had to disqualify them for the tournament because their bot was too powerful despite passing the safety checks that said “yeah, this isn’t a death machine” The next year, they come back with Blendo, first match, they take out their opponent. Second match, they take out their opponent, but despite the heightened box and the ceiling, a piece flies out and hits a lawyer. No one was hurt, but once again the organizers gave them first place as compensation for disqualifying them. They stopped the sport after that, and because Adam’s been out of the loop for so long, he’s not returning to Battlebots/Robot Wars.
I agree! What's also interesting is that the builder of DoMore took off all the perimeter spikes in the 1996 event...you can still see all the (tapped?) holes in the frame for them.
Probably the main reason why Blendo was so damn effective was the amount of energy it was using at any given moment. Other robots weren't tapping into anywhere NEAR the amount of energy Blendo was. I think a pretty good way to level the playing field would have been to mandate a limit on how much energy the robots have access to. I haven't kept up with Robot Wars, so they may have already done this, but if I were running this competition, I'd specify that all competitors would have to use a battery specified and supplied by the competition organizers.
In these early events Blendo was also able to spin up to speed before the match started. Rules came about afterwards such that you can only start spinning once the match commenced. That rule change hurt Blendo's performance in later years.
The slow inevitable march of blendo may not be fancy, but it is the most existentially terrifying robot to have ever graced the stage with its presence.
I know the initial spark probably could've been anything in the end (they did special effects and prop work AFAIK,) as some people just seem like they could bubble to the top in any circumstances, but I like the idea that a salvaged lawnmower engine was a major stepping stone to seeing a cement truck explode or a ballistic gel goose going ballistic into a Fauxbio head a couple weeks back. And then like a huge chunk of the popular maker channels on this site. Knock-on effects be wild.
It never lost, right up until battlebots, where it was first "disqualified" due to safety concerns and got to share the title with the winner, and then later on lost due to having become outdated, and no longer able to compete as well as it had.
Blendo's super cool, the original spin bot built by pure logic, just can't help help but feel it stands massively below Last Rites and Megabyte due to its lack of power and control.
@@Tkieron megabyte & last rites fight in modern upgraded arenas meant to withstand forces double of theirs, blendo fought in an arena meant to prevent a robot from driving over the side
14 years late and this video randomly pops up on my timeline.... Adam Savage from Mythbusters recently did a video on Blendo actually... Stating that Blendo was Jamie brainchild and that his 'first' intention, was to make a Robot that size, that spun at 30,000rpm...... till a scientist friend of his let Jamie know that if a 3foot wide Robot spun fast enough for the outer-edge to hit 30,000rpm, it would be moving so fast, that the 'blades' it had as weapons would be hitting Mach4 and would melt from the friction with the AIR. Needless to say, Jamie had to 'settle' on a mere 3600rpm give or take? The Robot only ever 'fought' 2 fights... and both times was taken out of competition because the creators of the Event had not envisioned anyone creating a robot like Blendo that could send a chunk of another robot flying away at Mach-Fudge. But, even though it was pulled from Competing twice, both times after only its first battle, they were still given a 'matching prize' to First-place, because the people running the event didnt feel it fair for them to get nothing after 'they' haddnt beefed up their safety enough for what 'could' be created.
Since that's the case I'd say that the spikes were primarily used to render moot any robots that use their shell as spinning weapons. A lot of other 'bots with similar low spike arrangements seem to get spikes beyond a certain length to fall prey to 'bots with lifting arms or wedge shaped shells. That's why I think the builder would remove them in the long term.
camera: shows domore kinda jostle forward camera pans back over to blendo: *ominous spinning saucer that looks like an alien craft slowing heading towards domore* i think we all predicted the outcome, although domore ended up doing quite alot and actually seems to be an ingenious design itself
DoMore's weapon looks like it would actually be more effective if it just had a bit more punch to it. At least when it comes to the standard sort of "block with a ramp/saw/flipper" design you see a lot these days. But against a bot like Blendo, it had no real chance. Also, that piston-spear needed to have a firmer base. A bot like Blendo would just tear that right off.
Could you imagine if Jamie even got to build it to go 1/4 as fast as he originally hoped? This end product was only 400rpm, he wanted it to spin at 30k rpm lol.
I have to question why the robots start smoking when they take damage. The only reason I could immediately think of would be that a motor got burned out or that wires got sliced and crossed, melting some stuff. But after the large cloud of smoke, all the functions of the robot appear to still work in this video.
Derpancakes From my observation, I think Blendo managed puncture DoMore's CO2 tank that powers it's pneumatic spike weapon. Not enough for it to burst from the sudden change in pressure or rush out all at once, but rather a small slit-like hole so that it would leak out in a manner like in the video, producing a "smoke" like vapor cloud. As possible proof, the hosing/tubing around the weapon's framework does lead back the the area where the vapor is coming from...
+Derpancakes speaking as a person who's been to a robotics competition and is friends with one of the competitors, robots can occasionally catch fire. i know this because his did. motors overheat, and wires burn REAL good.
The wok was called blendo and was eventually removed from competition because of a tendency to hurl its competitors pieces into the crowd. This was deemed too dangerous to continue.
Simple beats complex. The other one could move around in strange ways and open its mouth and extend a pincer, but blendo could just spin with a blade and was unstoppable. Lesson learned.
What makes it appear defensive only is that its drivetrain made it drive so slowly, a biproduct of so much weight being put towards the weapon. The opponent can't win the match by avoiding Blendo so driving into a defensively spinning robot is going to do damage. The faster you drive into it, the more bite the spinning teeth will have.
It’s weapon is it’s armor It has a chassis underneath with a bearing that the shell attaches to On either side of the spinning shell are 2 large teeth It uses stored kinetic energy and transfers them with the teeth whenever it connects to the opponent It’s basically a rotating hammer
I would love to have seen blendo do 30000 rpm, from a very very safe distance that is. Methinks that slamming that thing into something else while turning around 500 times each second is going to be pretty devastating and spectacular for blendo too
Its not all that fair to expect the same action in these older fights as you would in the more recent ones...This was only the 2nd robot combat competition ever, and the sport has been evolving ever since.
Honestly, I don't know what I would be able to build with the only reference being the robots from one year previous. Much easier now, when I can research what others have done and I know what works and what doesn't.
Especially with Battlebots now
Also rules have been made more clear since then and Blendo like bots have been banned for being too dangerous. It spun so fast that it could've flung debris into the crowds. Also since its entire outer shell spun it was impenetrable. It would've taken a long forked flipper bot to throw Blendo over and even then it might not stop it. Jamie Hyneman was given the title of champion by default on the grounds he does not partake further with Blendo.
Not all info he is entirely accurate, it is just parts that I remember reading long time ago.
@@ordelian7795 fun fact it did
@@ordelian7795 at the same time, the glass is now 1.5 inches of hexan (not to be confused with hexane)
If I made a battlebot, it would be like a two-sided tombstone, but with scaled-down spinners.
its like they say, aint about if you win or lose, its about how many rules you make them add to the rulebook
This is underrated.
It's about making th ref say
"Fuck you no! No you can't do that!"
Roger Neilson's philosophy in a nutshell
I did FIRST robotics in high school; our team was _very_ proud of our couple rules haha😂
If you get the legal department worried about your creation, you've already won.
I love how Blendo's final design was spinning at "only" 400 RPM. Jamie's original plan wanted 30,000, lol.
Physicists: It would ignite the oxygen in the air on contact and obliterate itself in the process.
Walrus Robotics Engineer: Well I guess we could tone it down a smidge
Probably had no context to work on, a 3.5" hard drive spins at 7200RPM and that's a feat of its own.
@@peterfrom80s not a joke. Jamie asked a physicist what he thought because he legitimately wanted it to be 30k lol.
I see you also watch Adam Savage lol
My 150g Fairyweight/UK Antweight vert has a blade that spins about that fast (it's around 28,000rpm or so, so just 2000rpm less). At those kinds of speeds, even a single-tooth asymetric blade starts to behave less like a kinetic impact weapon and more like a cutting blade. The blade actually slices through material rather than grabbing and ripping chunks off, and that's actually a bit of a bad thing since that means it's not transferring kinetic energy into the opposing bot that well.
Seeing Blendo at full speed with a live audience and a protective wall that flimsy is terrifying. What were they thinking? I guess they weren't ready for robots that dangerous yet.
Agreed. There was nothing close to being that dangerous the year prior. The arena was beefed up after the 1994 event but not enough for a full body spinner
@@diabolicalmachine Yet they let Mark Pauline and his SRL robots do a performance during the interlude and arguably their machines are more dangerous than anything entered into robot wars.
@@lewisb85 I would agree that a lot of the SRL creations are more dangerous, even just by their mass and power. However I haven't seen pictures or footage of any creations that they actually brought to display at RW that were more dangerous than say, Blendo.
@diabolicalmachine there was a walking machine with a arm and a flamethrower. Team delta had footage of it running on their site.
Adam Savage just posted a video telling of Blendo's disqualification both years they competed because of how powerful it was. They got a first place trophy in lieu of competition.
I fucking love the strategy at 1:36 "fuck it, fight fire with fire"
Attackofthehank Fight boggle with boggle.
DoMore has lots of ground clearance so its hard to see much, but Blendo was ripping small parts off and sending them flying...with some of it going into the audience, Blendo got disqualified from the event even though it won this match by audience decision
Sound like blendo didn't throw enough natal part to the audience, but the next time will be different, now blendo know who is his real enemy
In a recent Tested video Adam Savage said the organizers decided blendo was too dangerous to compete and just gave them a first place trophy and awards
I was at these first few live events. It was interesting every year how the box got more and more hardened. Concret damaged in first, add metal floor. Blendo sends bits into the flimsy plexiglass, switch to 1" lexam. Someone cuts in to lexan, make it 2 layers with air gap. Stuff flying up, add lexam on top. Poorly tuned gas engines fill box with smoke, add ventilation fans. Realize battery fires are nasty, add ventilation tubes to the outside. On and on.
@@johno186 The competition was in an arms race. With itself.
I love how Jamie figured out the key to winning was spin to win.
He’ll try spinning, that’s a good trick
@@ThespianVl and Adam Savage worked both on Blendo AND The Phantom Menace :)
Except DoMore was the clear winner. Way more aggressive. Way more maneuverable. Landed multiple hits and forced Blendo into the wall.
Twirling, twirling towards freedom!
also he has electro magnets in the base he could turn on to keep people from flipping him with the metal floor of the area.
Man.. if only Blendo came along later in the series when the safety regulations were better.
Then again, it was the very reason they got stricter safety regulations in the first place.
HellaChopper is the new Blendo.
He did, they asked him to withdraw again for the same co champion title
It did.
It applied to Comedy Central’s battlebots for seasons 1.0 to 3.0 plus the 1999 Vegas event. Even with upgrades, it got the tar beat out of it.
It did enter in later events, but lost pretty decisively. Too many copycats plus other bots were designed to counter the spinner approach.
@@KingdaToro gigabyte is copy/paste
"Jamie honey, have you seen my wok?"
RobMacKendrick underrated comment: it’s literally a spinning wok riding on a mower engine! hahaha
😂😂😂
*I wonder if the guy who made this ever went on to do anything cool later in life*
The team that made Blendo made a successful little show called Myth Busters...perhaps you have seen it before, +Teen Titans Go - DROIDZ?
ruclips.net/video/7kldLMTV-fo/видео.html
Yeah, they made the show Myth-Busters.
Yeah guys, that was the joke.
RUclips Kids [DROIDZ] he 3d printed an ass
DoMore spinning at 1:33 never fails to get a chuckle out of me.
(david attenborough voice) Unable to formulate a cogent battle plan, DoMore elects to mock its opponent.
I'll try spinning! That's a good trick!
i thought it was geuinely genius to counter-spin
I can practically hear Adam's maniacal laughter
It was Jamie's bot though....
Adam did the wiring
🤔 a name of savage might mean something?
That’s what we call sound.
@@Venganza_ Jamie was the one who built it and started it up during each match, but Adam was the one remote controlling Blendo during the match itself
If I remember correctly, Blendo entered twice in Robot Wars but was forced to quit because of the shrapnel, but they received co-champion.
One thing that's really neat to note here is how totally ineffective DoMore's weapon is. That pneumatically driven spike is something that would be absolutely devastating if it could get a solid hit, but Blendo's entire design is the antithesis of things that make good targets for a weapon that drives straight in. Its dome shape from the heavy steel wok makes it impossible to get a straight shot(this is a principle of both historical armor design and even modern armored vehicle design; if you can't make impact at a perpendicular angle to the surface you're striking, you can't break through). That combined with the 400 RPM rotation means that spike will always glance off and be deflected without causing any damage.
I would have left the weapon in it's extended position and just rammed Blendo at full speed (if the arm was able to have less ground clearance than the Blendo), hopefully using it's own spin to send it flying. Would have sucked for the audience though.
if you look close the very tip of the spike got very bent when it attempted to get blendo. probably got whacked by the spinning motion and pretty much ruined its spike weapons last bit of effectiveness.
Its not just the angle. Its the fact the it has some crazy centripetal force going on which makes that dome shape repel anything that touches it and its always carrying a large amount of momentum. Just looking at it in this video you can see the thing is just terrifying to behold. Imagine having to be the opponent to that.
@@billfred9411 I did indeed make note of the rotation also being a factor.
You could just say "spikes don't work on spinning discs"
i'll try spinning, that's a good trick
It was actually applied physics. By spinning in the opposite direction, you reduce the attacker's force. Brilliant move; well worth the try.
@dominator funy reddit moment
@@RobMacKendrick you must be an applied fisicks majore
That thing is horrifying; I especially love the Wikipedia quote "...tendency to tear itself apart"
full body spinners tend to do that even today.
@@marcusc9931 *cough cough* gigabyte vs tombstone 2018
The 'third bot' is the camera bot, which had a camcorder mounted a tilting mechanism. It seemed pretty well made, and I'm not sure where the footage went from all the matches.
Blendo was the first of its kind. No one knew how to counter a spinner like that yet.
So ... the terminator "humanoid" robots are just silly?
@@veramae4098
Terminator "humanoids" are science fiction. Real-life humanoid robots are fragile, extremely complex, extremely expensive, and, outside of humanoid-specific competitions like RoboOne, have never done well in any form of combat.
just a metal shove that gets below it and yeets it out of existence over the fences lol. how doesn´t anyone thougt of this?
@@ShadowlordDio
At the time of this fight people were very much still in the thick of figuring out what works. No one had ever seen anything like Blendo before. These days horizontal spinners have been almost completely refuted, and people know how to make bots that can survive them easily. For a good example, take a look at how Tombstone fell from grace at BattleBots - it went from being world champion and a regular finalist to not even making the playoffs.
Also, your plan would be a bit risky. Using a big scoop to deflect hits is a tried-and-proven method but the moment you introduce any active mechanics into it you start to risk the force of the impact damaging the mechanism. If you wanted to use a flipper like that you'd be better off having the scoop fixed to your bot's chassis, and then have a recessed flipping arm that comes up through a gap in the middle of the scoop. That way the flipper mechanics don't have to take the shock of a full-power hit.
@@VestedUTuber too long text and over thinking a simple shove yeet catapult. Proven since medieval times lol
day 348, still waiting for something to happen
Blends really is the perfect combination of defense and offense. Every vital component is encased in steel that spins fast enough to rip away anything that touches it.
Who will win, One fully operated machine with attached spikes that moves dangerously, or one spinning boi
Blendo almost looks alien compared to the others, and completely unstoppable
Actually, Both Jamie and Adam worked on creating this destructive monster. Them alone is what makes Mythbusters. Even though it was before the creation of such show, it still is the work of Mythbusters.
So sad it's gone :(
*They alone are what make Mythbusters
I loved Mythbusters
I watched it 50% because of Kari Byron 😍🔥
Thank you for having footage of Jamie’s monstrosity in action I have heard the legend but seeing it is something else entirely
Blendo = When you have three green shells in Mario Kart 64
2:47 "Why? Why was I programmed to feel pain?"
Interesting watching DoMore utilize its stationary, secondary weapon. At that point it's moving like Blendo, but it's purely defensive since it can't approach while spinning like that as it's using it's drive wheels to achieve that motion instead of a second motor.
*its drive wheels
its = possessive
it's = it + is
@@mousermind I understand that you want to correct grammar (even if the comment was one made just short of a decade and a half ago), but check out the rest of my comment. 4 other uses that use both forms of the word correctly-in this case it was a more primitive version of autocorrect "fixing" things.
@@mousermindApostrophe shows possession. "It's" is the only word on the English language that standard form says doesn't follow this rule. That's dumb as hell, so the rule gets ignored.
@@maikerugoit matters
@@chrismanuel9768 I think it's exactly the other way round. Apostrophe DOESN'T show possession, it shows omission of a letter, like in "he's" = "he is", "it's" = "it is", "doesn't" = "does not", "the wives' letter" = " the letter from several wives of which the plural would have to be wivess without an apostrophe" etc while "its" is the form showing possession.
The only problem that I see with Blendo's design is that while the shell is pretty heavy-duty, I think Jamie Hyneman sacrificed armor potential for somewhat better RPMs (too heavy of a shell or motors that don't have the torque to get up to speed after a hard strike and it would take forever to get the weapon up to usable speed-a problem with Whyachi). That being the case, when the armor gets dented up the shift in weight makes it move like a washing machine on spin cycle with shoes in it.
@@RickoSidhe i just watched the same video!! had to look up blendos fights myself
@@RickoSidheblendo is Completely overkill for any kind of robot competition and the design and philosophy is simply too strong for competition. The only way to beat it was to flip it. To flip it you had to be pretty sure you weren't going to get your robot flipped. Very tough to defeat a design like this. The other robot had no win condition other than to wait for Blendo to run out of fuel or malfunction.
Funny to watch. That thing is a little monster 👹
@@Chironex_Fleckeri it was the inertia labs guys who came up with the best idea for beating blendo back when gas weapons were legal, a halon gas fire extinguisher fitted to their robot rhino to choke out the petrol engine.
Adam said (in 2023) that Jamie's original plan was for Blendo to spin at 30,000 RPM -- 500 revs per SECOND. A physicist advised against that.😅
Just watched Adam Savages Tested RUclips channel.
‘How lethal was Blendo REALLY’
I love that the silver dude just started spinning. Taunting an enemy that ferocious is a bold move.
Watching these older videos, its impressive to see how far the technology for the various components used in the designs has evolved since the sport started.
Jamie was really ahead of the curve with Blendo. That style of bot is a popular idea nowadays, with bonus points for the loud scary motor. I wonder what would happen if they brought it back with modern tech.
yeah it seriously made the other guy think about everything his robot can do and he tried it. Not sure why every is so bored. This is the origins of this.
I love how Jamie just went about it as simplistically as possible and destroyed all these really complex machines. It's like the crushing blow of reality lol.
beyblade, taken to its extreme.
Ah yes, Blendo, the grandfather to modern full body spinners like Gigabyte, Captain Shrederator and Chronos
I love it when someone ZOOMS in on a shot!! We get dizzy from the panning...we can't see what else is happening in the arena...we have no idea of the relationship of one robot to another! That makes for a wonderful viewing experience. ZOOM-PAN!! ZOOM-PAN!! ZOOM-PAN!! PAN! PAN PAN! PAN! DIZZYDIZZYDIZZYDIZZY!!!
When the camera man feels like hes getting paid too much for doing nothing...
This is fuckin funny
DoMore: Ima DoLess
blendo: RD2D screams while spinning in a circle
who's here after watching Adam's blendo video o Tested?
Yup. Had to check.
This is gonna be known as the darkest age in the entire history when the machines take control of the world
Blendo was like a BattleBots-robot in the mild early days of the original Robot Wars.
The very first reason why a cage had to be built around this flying shrapnel 🤣😂
Battlebots style arenas were needed as the franchise went more and more towards robot combat.
Remember in the original Robot Wars, there were 2-3 eliminator rounds consisting of obstacle courses and agility tests. Only the fastest four in these stages went through to the combat round. There was no need for an area to protect against spinners, as none of the well known 'spinner' robots in either RW or Battlebots would ever have got through the agility phases.
This is *exactly what robots should be doing, not replacing artists, writers, and musicians.
Crazy to think that 4 years later a bot became even more devastating
Instead did 80mph
It did 300mph
You know em
You love em
You’ve been terrified of him for the past 22 years
NIGHTMARE
Nightmare was actually made by the builder of one of Blendo's victims, having been convinced of the power of kinetic energy weapons.
Imitation is the highest form of flattery
The only reason I know about this is from a single video Adam Savage posted on his channel recently. It’s a strange phenomenon: lose, by being the most destructive and violent version so much so that you win by default
That arena is so sketchy. If they held a competition with modern battle bots there would be audience fatalities the very first night, it would be horrifying.
Picture Bronco just throwing Witch Doctor up over the wall and straight into the crowd with the main weapon spinning. Horrifying.
From what i remember Blendo never lost.
It did eventually lose when designs got better, and people copied Blendo
@@andrewparker1622 nobody that "copied" Blendo ever fought it. It mostly lost to wedge bots.
When materials and engines improved, Blendo lost all of its fights unfortunately
Blendo is the representation of let’s try spinning that’s a good trick
I am amazed they didn't have plexiglass in place -- WHY WOULDN'T YOU PUT SAFETY GLASS !?!?!?!!!
Nobody expected the energy that Blendo brought to the arena: the output of a 5 hp engine, stored up for however long it too to spin up the shell. Pieces of the opposing robot went flying into the crowd.
This right here is exactly how and when they realised that they needed to beef up the arena.
Just saw Adam Savage talking about Blendo's matches on his 2023 youtube channel, "Adam Savage's Tested". He said that Blendo destroyed every opponent in 10 or 15 seconds. Not criticizing Adam; it's just an example of how our memories fail us all. Maybe every other opponent was dead in seconds, but one lived for minutes, the entire match
DooMore survived longer by running away; once they actually made contact it was done quick. After this season the rules of engagement were changed where you can't just run out the clock like this anymore. DooMore survived for awhile but it wasn't the whole match you can see here where it smokes and fails; you're not supposed to keep attacking at that point and let the refs call the match.
If Adam said every opponent went down with 10 to 15 seconds of contact that'd be accurate.
The stark contrast between this and now is crazyyyy. Considering thjs was banned for being too dangerous while robots now are literrally flying across the arena
yeah the real issue here is how crappy the shielding is here. It's just some flimsy panels with no top that appear to be around 7' tall. The producers were not prepared for anything like this.
blendo was so awesome and destructive it was banned 3 times!
I like how it not only looks intimidating, but sounds intimidating aswell.
For a machine called "DoMore" it really didn't do a whole lot! It did run away a few times. lol
Blendo: Destroying the competition in the most boring way possible.
I was at Fan Expo yesterday and Adam Savage told a story about Blendo:
First year: In their first match, they hit their opponent, take them out. In their second match, they hit their opponent, take them out but a metal piece flies off right into the lap of the insurance provider. Next thing they know some very stressed out people come over to them and hand them first place because they had to disqualify them for the tournament because their bot was too powerful despite passing the safety checks that said “yeah, this isn’t a death machine”
The next year, they come back with Blendo, first match, they take out their opponent. Second match, they take out their opponent, but despite the heightened box and the ceiling, a piece flies out and hits a lawyer. No one was hurt, but once again the organizers gave them first place as compensation for disqualifying them. They stopped the sport after that, and because Adam’s been out of the loop for so long, he’s not returning to Battlebots/Robot Wars.
I agree! What's also interesting is that the builder of DoMore took off all the perimeter spikes in the 1996 event...you can still see all the (tapped?) holes in the frame for them.
the moment when the other robot tries to copy his technique
Safety concerns? Like, 'I seem to have forgot which way I am pointing ? Oh well let's give the audience a scare'
Hyuga clan's ultimate technique
Probably the main reason why Blendo was so damn effective was the amount of energy it was using at any given moment. Other robots weren't tapping into anywhere NEAR the amount of energy Blendo was. I think a pretty good way to level the playing field would have been to mandate a limit on how much energy the robots have access to. I haven't kept up with Robot Wars, so they may have already done this, but if I were running this competition, I'd specify that all competitors would have to use a battery specified and supplied by the competition organizers.
In these early events Blendo was also able to spin up to speed before the match started. Rules came about afterwards such that you can only start spinning once the match commenced. That rule change hurt Blendo's performance in later years.
Battlebots employs tip-speed and weapon weight limits now, yes.
The slow inevitable march of blendo may not be fancy, but it is the most existentially terrifying robot to have ever graced the stage with its presence.
I know the initial spark probably could've been anything in the end (they did special effects and prop work AFAIK,) as some people just seem like they could bubble to the top in any circumstances, but I like the idea that a salvaged lawnmower engine was a major stepping stone to seeing a cement truck explode or a ballistic gel goose going ballistic into a Fauxbio head a couple weeks back.
And then like a huge chunk of the popular maker channels on this site. Knock-on effects be wild.
It never lost, right up until battlebots, where it was first "disqualified" due to safety concerns and got to share the title with the winner, and then later on lost due to having become outdated, and no longer able to compete as well as it had.
You just KNOW it's an engineer's favprite event when sharpnel ks regularly being sent flying and there ISN'T a barrier.
Blendo was the one with the spinning dome of destruction
Blendo's super cool, the original spin bot built by pure logic, just can't help help but feel it stands massively below Last Rites and Megabyte due to its lack of power and control.
+RocketNothing "first of it's kind" is rarely synonymous with "best of it's kind".
Was Last Rites and Megabyte banned and responsible for rule changes because it was too dangerous? Blendo was.
@@Tkieron Nevertheless, Yal's still right.
@@Tkieron megabyte & last rites fight in modern upgraded arenas meant to withstand forces double of theirs, blendo fought in an arena meant to prevent a robot from driving over the side
Other designers: We need mobility, versatility, different weapons, a self-righting system...
Jamie Hyneman (in his usual deadpan): speeeeeeeeeeen.
Imagine spending all this time building these elaborate frames and it all gets completely outclassed with a wok thats turned upside down
14 years late and this video randomly pops up on my timeline....
Adam Savage from Mythbusters recently did a video on Blendo actually... Stating that Blendo was Jamie brainchild and that his 'first' intention, was to make a Robot that size, that spun at 30,000rpm...... till a scientist friend of his let Jamie know that if a 3foot wide Robot spun fast enough for the outer-edge to hit 30,000rpm, it would be moving so fast, that the 'blades' it had as weapons would be hitting Mach4 and would melt from the friction with the AIR.
Needless to say, Jamie had to 'settle' on a mere 3600rpm give or take?
The Robot only ever 'fought' 2 fights... and both times was taken out of competition because the creators of the Event had not envisioned anyone creating a robot like Blendo that could send a chunk of another robot flying away at Mach-Fudge. But, even though it was pulled from Competing twice, both times after only its first battle, they were still given a 'matching prize' to First-place, because the people running the event didnt feel it fair for them to get nothing after 'they' haddnt beefed up their safety enough for what 'could' be created.
Since that's the case I'd say that the spikes were primarily used to render moot any robots that use their shell as spinning weapons. A lot of other 'bots with similar low spike arrangements seem to get spikes beyond a certain length to fall prey to 'bots with lifting arms or wedge shaped shells. That's why I think the builder would remove them in the long term.
camera: shows domore kinda jostle forward
camera pans back over to blendo: *ominous spinning saucer that looks like an alien craft slowing heading towards domore*
i think we all predicted the outcome, although domore ended up doing quite alot and actually seems to be an ingenious design itself
DoMore's weapon looks like it would actually be more effective if it just had a bit more punch to it. At least when it comes to the standard sort of "block with a ramp/saw/flipper" design you see a lot these days. But against a bot like Blendo, it had no real chance. Also, that piston-spear needed to have a firmer base. A bot like Blendo would just tear that right off.
Does 2:38 depict "a shot FROM the dome"?
Could you imagine if Jamie even got to build it to go 1/4 as fast as he originally hoped? This end product was only 400rpm, he wanted it to spin at 30k rpm lol.
I have to question why the robots start smoking when they take damage. The only reason I could immediately think of would be that a motor got burned out or that wires got sliced and crossed, melting some stuff. But after the large cloud of smoke, all the functions of the robot appear to still work in this video.
Derpancakes From my observation, I think Blendo managed puncture DoMore's CO2 tank that powers it's pneumatic spike weapon. Not enough for it to burst from the sudden change in pressure or rush out all at once, but rather a small slit-like hole so that it would leak out in a manner like in the video, producing a "smoke" like vapor cloud. As possible proof, the hosing/tubing around the weapon's framework does lead back the the area where the vapor is coming from...
+Derpancakes speaking as a person who's been to a robotics competition and is friends with one of the competitors, robots can occasionally catch fire. i know this because his did. motors overheat, and wires burn REAL good.
Blendo on the testo ploughed through 6ft of sandbags without a problemo.
Nothing fucking happened
The wok was called blendo and was eventually removed from competition because of a tendency to hurl its competitors pieces into the crowd.
This was deemed too dangerous to continue.
the irony being that they booked SRL to do a performance during the interval, the argument is the srl machines were way more dangerous than blendo.
*Well, It's not like Jamie's gonna lose...*
Simple beats complex. The other one could move around in strange ways and open its mouth and extend a pincer, but blendo could just spin with a blade and was unstoppable. Lesson learned.
@Bakumaster9 there's some sort of blade thing on it's side, it's just no visible when it's spinning. check for photos
I just watched a clip of Adam Savage taking about Blendo and the next day google gives me a 15 year old video of the actual bot. What a world.
I appreciate the "two can play at this game" energy
I bet this was savagely tested.
Gotta admire DoMore's "sportsmanship"
Blendo: I'll try spinning, that's a good trick
DoMore: I'll try spinning, that's a good trick
I’m confused, at the 2min point domore is just sitting on blendo as it spins, does blendo even have weapons? I though it had spikes?
What the heck was powering Blendo, a nuclear reactor?
Yoey Schwab A lawnmower engine.
A nuclear powered lawnmower
@@riclucci4748 Enhanced by the momentum of all that steel spinning at 400 rpm once started by a man with a drill .
These matches where never as violent as i was hopping.
Yeah, I expected much more than we see.
Well, this was the first spinner, and it’s 1995, don’t expect what you see today
The fact there is no arena shielding is so dumb
The fact this was a sport where people were barely protected by a thin sheet of plexi scares the hell out of me
1:35 *Beyblade theme starts playing*
I don't get it. What's offensive about blendo? It just spins defensively
What makes it appear defensive only is that its drivetrain made it drive so slowly, a biproduct of so much weight being put towards the weapon.
The opponent can't win the match by avoiding Blendo so driving into a defensively spinning robot is going to do damage. The faster you drive into it, the more bite the spinning teeth will have.
It’s weapon is it’s armor
It has a chassis underneath with a bearing that the shell attaches to
On either side of the spinning shell are 2 large teeth
It uses stored kinetic energy and transfers them with the teeth whenever it connects to the opponent
It’s basically a rotating hammer
anyone fondly recognizes the sm:)e communitcations logo in the back?
does blendo have any offensive weaponry?
1:35
_"What is he doing?"_
_"He's beginning to believe."_
I would love to have seen blendo do 30000 rpm, from a very very safe distance that is. Methinks that slamming that thing into something else while turning around 500 times each second is going to be pretty devastating and spectacular for blendo too
Did anything ever happen?
Is there a website for robot wars so i can see the rules
just look up battle bots rules
I wonder if they would allow this again since they have upgraded the walls and stuff
It’s a sport now