RobotCombat.com - November 2000 updates

11/30/00

Well, the champions have all been crowned, and this season of BattleBots on Comedy Central is over except for the rest of the Rumbles, to be shown next Tuesday at 10pm. I have updated the San Francisco 2000 Event Report with the winner results, but I need your help. I was only able to fill in the results of the matches that were aired on Comedy Central, so I need to know all the non-aired match results, if you can help out with these specifics, please let me know.

11/29/00

Keegan Hutto, a promising robot builder in the making, has made a new version of his Lego 'Minimare', modeled after my robots Backlash and Nightmare, check out Minimare 2001! Great job, Keegan!
I had a chance to meet Keegan and his dad briefly at the recent BattleBots event in Las Vegas, and was pleased to see a TON of robot-building energy and potential in this little guy! Keep up the great work, Keegan!

11/28/00

My long overdue "Special Thanks" for the help in getting my robots through the recent Las Vegas BattleBots event: These guys were a HUGE help to me, and deserve extra gratitude and recognition.

- Don Lariviere for his fantastic work on cutting out Nightmare's new disc

- Dan Cherney for his excellent machining and long hours on Nightmare's new teeth

- Ramon Ebert for all his hard work on the Team Nightmare pit crew and beyond

- Todd Mendenhall for his great work on Nightmare's weapon motor, motor mount and other work, prepared by the SORC Workshop. (If you need similar work done, you can contact Todd at thumbunny@home.net)

I've been working on my Las Vegas BattleBots 2000 Event Report, and I need your help in filling in some holes. If you attended the event and have additional photos of some of the bots I am missing, or have further information that I may not have included, I would greatly appreciate it if you could contribute. I will credit anyone who helps out with missing photos. Thanks!

I'm still recovering from my BattleBots adventure last weekend, and a brief yet very relaxing visit with family for Thanksgiving, but I will get to work on my BattleBots Las Vegas report soon. To tide you over, here are a few of the pictures taken at the event. Click the thumbnails to see a larger picture.

Picture 1 is the newest version of Nightmare. This new design incorporates a new improved disc, teeth, drive 'arms' and many other significant upgrades, this is the configuration that Nightmare fought in for the Vegas event.

Picture 2 is the new Backlash. He got some pretty good upgrades too, including all new heavier armor, reinforced frame, new battery system, providing more speed and overall power.

Picture 3 I couldn't resist posting, this is a huge gash that Nightmare left in the BattleBots arena floor during the Heavyweight rumble when some other robot (I think it was one of those pesky British Bots) upended Nightmare so that the disk made contact with the floor. It made some great sparks, too! (No damage to Nightmare's new teeth) To my knowledge, no other robot in the history of BattleBots has been able to do this much damage to the BattleBots arena. Take THAT!

In all, the event was great, I can't wait to see what Comedy Central does to fit so many excellent battles into a 13 week series of 30 minute episodes! Better get rid of some of the fluff and put more than 3 battles per show this time!

Whew! What an event! BattleBots is now over for the 2000 season, and the event this past weekend in Las Vegas was incredible. Of course I am not allowed to post results of matches, but you won't have long to wait anyway, as Comedy Central is going to crank out this season's episodes starting only a few weeks from now.

I will be posting some pictures and video from the venue and the pits as soon as I get my rest from a long, crazy weekend. Stay tuned for a new event report coming after Thanksgiving. This time I'm really going to need your help, as there were over 130 robots competing, I think I got pictures of most of them, I'm sure I forgot many and will need help identifying robots as well.

In the meantime, I would like to thank all the people who helped me out in the pits and in getting my robots ready for this event, I will list everyone later when I have more energy, but you all know who you are!

I was so glad to meet so many other builders and fans! Big thanks to everyone involved!

11/10/00

Once again, I've taped the Tonight Show from last evening and posted it here for your pleasure. This time Mauler 2000 faces Chin-Killa in a 1/4 scale BattleBox arena with amazing results! Watch the video to find out what happened!

I've only heard one grumbling about me posting videos in QuickTime format, if you have trouble reading it, or would rather I try a different format, please let me know so I can determine the format for future videos. Thanks

11/9/00

Watch the Tonight Show this evening on NBC to see BattleBots carnage! Mauler won the vote from last week's poll and he will be the robot to face Jay's Chin-Killa SuperHeavyweight robot. Mauler 2000 has beefed up to 325 pounds just for this fight! Should be awesome! Check out the San Jose Mercury News article.

11/7/00

Well, it certainly has been a while since I posted an update on my robots, but for good reason- I've been working like crazy getting them finished.Yes, both Backlash and Nightmare have received some upgrades for the next event- some minor, others pretty significant. No details right now- you'll have to come to the event to see these latest improvements.

Right now, exactly one week before the bots need to be loaded on the truck to Vegas, both of my bots are almost completely disassembled and in the shop. Don't worry though, things are going pretty smoothly, although I had a bit of a scare yesterday when I put Nightmare in his new configuration on the scale and came up with 220 pounds (10 pounds overweight). I freaked out the rest of the day until I realized that I had left about 7 pounds too much on the scale for the weigh-in. Whew, still overweight, but not bad. Today I managed to shed that and more, drilling lots of holes helps considerably. I should have Nightmare back together by Thursday and Backlash done by Saturday. Which, of course, gives me only a couple days to practice driving.... sounds about right. Man, I tell you, one of these days I'm gonna be finished with PLENTY of time to spare before an event.... some day. Anyway, that's about it for now, just wanted to let my readers know that I'm still here and the robots are coming along nicely.

11/4/00

Uh oh, look out! Jay Leno has his own battlebot! He had a 400 pound robot with pneumatic "chin" and 4 spinning lawnmower blades made for him. He showed off "Chin-killa" for the first time on the Tonight Show last evening. Last night's show featured 3 more robots, Superheavyweights Diesector and DoAll and heavyweight Mauler showed off each of their destructive natures for Jay behind a specially-installed-for-BattleBots (but not pumpkin-proof) lexan wall on the Tonight Show set.

Jay is calling for votes to see which of these three robots will fight his "Chin-killa" on next week's show! Go vote now! http://nbci.com/leno

If you missed the show, you may view this special BattleBots coverage of the Tonight Show here on RobotCombat.com. Check my video page.

11/3/00

Another BattleBots appearance on the Tonight show! Watch this evening, as more BattleBots smash it up for Jay Leno and a nationwide audience! Mauler, Diesector, and DoAll are scheduled for this appearance!

Don't miss it!

Also, BattleBots will be on Leno again next Thursday, November 9! Wow, looks like Jay is getting sucked in!

11/2/00

Is it already November? Yikes, time flies when you're on a deadline... I've archived the October updates below, if you think you might have missed something last month, go check.

Yes, I know I've been slow and less frequent lately on my updates here, I've been really busy with my robots' upgrades and preparation for BattleBots-Las Vegas which is now only a couple weeks away! I have a LOT to finish up, but stay tuned.

Wow, A BattleBots Marathon! Saturday Nov 25, Comedy Central will be showing 6 hours of episodes all at once! From 2pm til 8pm. Get your popcorn ready and invite the neighbors!