The Destructobot For The Man With Everything 180
bewert writes: "Heavy duty metal-ripping hardware is going up for auction on E-Bay next week. The "Son of Wyachi", winner of the Heavyweight Championship on Comedy Central's BattleBots, will be auctioned on E-Bay. The inventor, Terry Ewert, practiced on old washing machines while developing S-W's triple rotating metal meat grinder apparatus.
With a 12 hp. electic motor driving three hardened tool steel meat tenderizer points spinning at 71 mph, Son of Wyachi quickly renders most objects into smoking ruins. A must have for your next Halloween bash!" Auction aside, this is a scary robot. Do not use near kids, pets, or anything you like intact.
what? (Score:2, Interesting)
Production values seriously lacking (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, it is somewhat tough to take the anchors very seriously -- they've got this "God, put me anywhere else, even Fox Sports" look in their eyes the whole time.
It'd be really nice to see them expand the rules somewhat to allow more interesting weapons, however. I'm getting sick of seeing bots push or flip each other -- I want to see sparks and flying metal. Of course, they'd probably have to move that away from the audience, but I think it'd be worth it.
When.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:When.... (Score:2, Interesting)
There's even a Linux version available from Loki [lokigames.com].
It's a little different than Battle Bots; you construct a robot, and then "wire" it to compete in different arenas. Kind of a cross between Robotica and Lego Mindstorms.
the end of the wedge.... (Score:2, Interesting)
That robot had an average KO time of about a minute and a half. It destroyed the other robot in 90 seconds. I watched the semi-finals and the finals of the Heavyweight division and SoW dominated. There were some other robots that had efective spinning disc weapons too. The days of the flip and push battlebots are numbered. It's obvious that the judges and fans like to see physical damage and sparks. More importantly, how do you take out a bot like SoW? You can't get in close enough to push or flip it. Can't add thick heavy armor, because that would effect the weight class you are in. Only thing left is to take it out with a stronger, better weapon. SoW is just the beginning.
Re:It looks small... (Score:2, Interesting)
They also speed limited Wyachi to 5 ft/sec, but later tested it successfully at 15 ft/sec. If they can do the same for Wyachi (or if they can move to a stable wheeled platform), then no wonder they think Comedy Central should strengthen the arena (currently uses 1" or so of Lexan, which may not cut it soon).
The real issue I see for them is that with that much impact force you have a problem keeping control of the bot immediately after impact. Even at a "mere" 10k ft-lbs of impact force SoW went spinning off several times during the semi-finals and finals in this year's tournament. Sure, so did the other bot, but now you're talking about a lighter wheeled bot (walkers have higher weight limits) with even more force. I'll be interested to see how they deal with this.
Gotta get home tonight and watch the super heavyweight championship! Thanks TiVo!
Re:Championship Controversy (Score:2, Interesting)
Carlo Bertocchin (you know, the guy who BUILT and FOUGHT the Biohazard) said after the match he had no problem with the result, Biohazard was pretty beat up anyway.
Biohazard was having trouble steering at the end, he had plenty of chances to flip Whyachi. It was a close, great fight and I think the result was correct.
The horror of seeing Biohazard's front armor ripped off is burned into my mind!
Re:Championship Controversy (Score:3, Interesting)
The refs did goof by stopping the match when they did, though it was so close to the end of the second count as to be forgiveable, and BioHazard was clearly doomed anyway. The BioHazard team wholly accepted the ruling, so there's no need to fuss.