Thoughts on Season 5

Random thoughts:
  • Things Battlebots should steal from Robot Wars
  • Things Battlebots should not steal from Robot Wars
  • Whatever happened to Tripulta Raptor?
  • Conglomerates happen to Battlebots
  • Random thoughts after looking at pictures
  • Making fun of bot names
  • Bot picks

    • Things Battlebots should steal from Robot Wars

    So during the rerun season of Battlebots 4.0, I slowly came to the realization that if I wanted some fresh robot fighting action I was going to have to suffer through Robot Wars on TNN. Actually, I came to the conclusion that I was going to have to be watching a Star Trek rerun and be too lazy to get off the couch and/or press the "off" button on the remote if I wanted robot fighting action. So by the law of inertia, I passively got my bots. After absorbing a few episodes, I came to the conclusion that there were some things that Battlebots could stand to steal from Robot Wars.

    Things to Steal:

  • The Writers - The writers for this show actually come up with complete conversational topics to discuss with the builders. I especially like how they send the announcer out to corner the losers and discuss in some depth how the apparent lack of any coherent strategy whatsoever led to the whupping by the house bots. They also avoid feeding double entendres to the Bot Bimbo.
  • Carol the Bot Bimbo - TNN definitely knows how to do the Bot Bimbo correctly. They've got this woman Carol, who first of all looks better than Carmen or Traci. She also reeks of some intelligence, which enables her to deliver complicated sentences pertaining to the design and construction of robots, and converse with the builders without having to incessantly stare at the teleprompter.
  • The House Bots, especially Matilda - I really like the idea of house bots swooping in and delivering suck bots to the hazards after they have expired from terminal suckiness. I especially am enamored of Matilda, the warthog bot. Battlebots needs Matilda.

    • Things Battlebots should never steal from Robot Wars

    Things to leave alone:

  • The WWE Battlebox - The Robot Wars battlebox looks like a cross between WWE arena and the Mad Max set. Flame throwers, pits, rotating police lights, fog, all no doubt included to provide some excitement because the robots themselves certainly aren't doing the job.
  • The Robots - It would appear that Robot Wars chooses its contenders from the pool of bots that lose in the first round of qualifing for Battlebots. No I take that back. They get their contenders from the pool of bots that forfeit their first round of qualifing for Battlebots. No, I take that back. They get their contenders from the piles of spare parts on the tables in the pits for Battlebots. Well, now that I think of it, even a pile of parts scooped from Mauler's pit could beat the tar out of a Robot Wars bot.
  • The Announcer - At one time I remembered this guys name. Approximately 15 nanoseconds later I forgot it. I would guess they picked him out of the audience somewhere at a WWE match. Enough said.

    • Whatever Happened to Tripulta Raptor?

    Many Battlebots fans are aware of scuttlebutt that Team Raptor ran into some annoying legal problems that forced them to remove Tripulta Raptor from competition. Not that Tripulta Raptor tore up the battlebox, but it was fun to look at. So I'm melted into the couch watching Robot Wars and they're having this competition called an "annhilator". They stick 6 bots in the ring and they fight until one of them expires, then they send the survivors back for repairs then start over with the remaining 5, and they repeat until there is only one left, and that bot wins. So I'm watching with minimal brainwave activity and they introduce this bot Cyclone. I notice that the team captain is "Bob Pitzer, from Arizona". Hmmmm. That sounds familiar. Then the bot rolls into the ring. The bottom half of the bot bears an extraordinary resemblance to the drivetrain section of Tripulta Raptor. It looks like there was some sort of major declawing operation that went on because the talon has been replaced with a spinning disk not unlike that found on a Battlebot called Backlash. So we've got the Tripulta/Backlash graft, and the camera pans over it, and all doubts as to the origin of this bot melt away as an enormous sticker that says www.raptorrobotics.com fills the screen. A. Ha.

    The "annhilator" starts and approximately 3 seconds into the fight it becomes clear that Cyclone is better built and designed than any of the other bots, it has the strongest and most reliable motors, and it is the only bot with a weapon that can inflict damage on an opponent. So the first thing that the other 5 sucky bots do is determine which of them is the suckiest of the suck, and then turn on that bot and kill it. During the repair break, the writers have the announcer go over and suggest to the remaining 4 suck bot teams that it might be wise for them to gang up on Cyclone, seeing as it could easily kick the crap out of any one, two or three of them. They should attempt an offensive maneuver while they still have numbers. So the 5 remaining bots roll into the ring for the next round. The first thing that the 4 sucky bots do is determine which of them is the suckiest of the suck, and then turn on that bot and kill it. Needless to say, Cyclone wins the annhiliator. The saddest part is, if they stuck Cyclone in the box with say, Omega-13. Omega-13 would turn it into filings in about 37 seconds.

    Comglomerates happen to Battlebots

    I'm noticing the major teams create these conglomerates to get around the one bot per weight division rule. We've got:

    Random thoughts after looking at pictures

    Jim Smentowski has put the bot pics from Season 5 up on www.robotcombat.com. The rest of this page will all be commentary drawn from looking at these pictures. Yes, there is limited information that can be drawn from a pit picture. Remember this before sending me a nasty message that I'm full of shit. All these opinions are based on pictures. Of course they're full of shit!

    Random Lightweight thoughts:

    Random Middleweight thoughts:

    Random Heavyweight thoughts:

    Random Superheavyweight thoughts:

    Making fun of bot names

    From the "If They're Actually Going to Name Their Bot This Then They Have Truly Earned The Right to Be Ridiculed" department of bad bot names:

    Bot names I thought particularly clever:

    Bot Picks

    During one of my stints at a certain unnamed college radio station, the music staff had what they called their weekly "suck pick". They used to take the couple dozen 7" singles that got sent to the station each week and look at the covers. From the cover art they'd pick the single that was most likely to suck out of the whole bunch. This was the "suck pick". They were approximately 99.9999995% accurate in their choices.

    From looking at the pictures on robotcombat.com, here are my Season 5.0 suck picks. If I am accurate I will never be subject to actually having to watch any of them fight. They'll forfeit in the first qualifying round. If any of them actually do make it to TV, their suckage will be measured relative to Wacky Compass, who set the standard for Suck Bot to Suck Worse Than Any Other Bot That Made It to TV back in Season 3.0.

    Suck Bots:

    My real bot picks:

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