Behind the Bots

This week on the podcast, we’re diving into Season 7, Episode 9 of BattleBots, with official Match Steward Mike Jeffries. Mike is a longtime combat robot builder, who most recently competed on BattleBots with his popular modular bot Bombshell. He’s back this season to oversee the brand-new judging challenge process, which we saw this past Thursday between Malice and Valkyrie.   Follow us on Facebo...

This week on the podcast, we’re diving into Season 7, Episode 8 of BattleBots, which was very exciting indeed. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to book a guest this week, so it’s just a lil’ minisode with the four of us.   Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/behindthebots Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts Tell a friend about the show; we really appreciate your support!

This week on the podcast, we’re diving into Season 7, Episode 7 of BattleBots, with our friend and NHRL cohost Ricky Willems. Ricky will break down his most recent fight with Starchild, and reflect on the long and strange journey he’s taken to get to BattleBots.   Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/behindthebots Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts Tell a friend about the show; we really apprecia...

This week on the podcast, we’re diving into Season 7, Episode 6 of BattleBots. We’re also catching up with Hijinx Captian Jen Herchenroder to discuss the recently aired match against Captain Shrederator as well as the current season of BattleBots. Registration is now open for the NHRL March 18th event.    Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/behindthebots Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts Tell a...

This week on the podcast, we’re diving into Season 7, Episode 5 of BattleBots. We’re also catching up with Mad Catter and Lynx driver Calvin Iba to discuss the match and controversy surrounding Riptide and Lynx. Calvin is the current beetleweight champion at NHRL and the first ever two time champion. We discuss early reviews and reports of  BattleBots Destruct-a-thon, a brand-new live show in Las...

This week on the podcast, we’re diving into Season 7, Episode 4 of BattleBots. We’re also catching up with Malice captain Bunny Liaw and her teammate/husband David, as BattleBots prepares to launch an ambitious new project — BattleBots Destruct-a-thon, a brand-new live show in Las Vegas. Bunny and her team built 9 Malice ShowBots for the event, and Bunny traveled to Las Vegas to help the BattleBot...

This week on the podcast, we’re diving into Season 7, Episode 3 of BattleBots, with special guest Tim Bouwens, the captain of Ominous! Ominous is a gorgeous, three-wheeled omnidrive robot from the Netherlands, and we learn more about its history, combat robotics in the Netherlands, and what’s next for the team.   Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/behindthebots Rate and review us on Apple Podcast...

This week on the podcast, we’re diving into Season 7, Episode 2 of BattleBots. We break down the episode with Switchback captain Greg Needel, whose bot has gone through the ultimate glow-up for its sophomore season.   Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/behindthebots Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts Tell a friend about the show; we really appreciate your support!

This week on the podcast, we’re diving into Season 7, Episode 1 of BattleBots, which aired Jan. 5, 2023 on the Discovery Channel. We break down the episode with the one and only Pete Abrahamson, aka The Bot Whisperer!   Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/behindthebots Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts Tell a friend about the show; we really appreciate your support!

This week on the podcast, we’re wrapping up our coverage of the BattleBots 7 rookies with the gorgeous, ambitious, very purple dual horizontal Horizon. Team captain Joshua Kong first tested the design at NHRL and other local leagues before applying to BattleBots. Their team roster is incredible, and includes the one and only Hotkoin!   Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/behindthebots Rate and rev...

This week on the podcast, we’re continuing our coverage of the BattleBots 7 rookies with the murderous little vacuum cleaner that could — Doomba! We talk BattleBots, the metagame behind BattleBots, and the role of decidedly un-serious robots in the sport.   Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/behindthebots Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts Tell a friend about the show; we really appreciate your...

This week on the podcast, we’re continuing our coverage of the BattleBots 7 rookies with the Italian side of the Team Omega family — Ripperoni! This pizza-themed robot features a neat little innovation: A counter-rotating flywheel, designed to reduce the amount of gyro the bot experiences when it turns. We catch up with NHRL regulars Anna Zolnikov and Fred Moore, who got valuable experience with t...

This week on the podcast, we’re continuing our coverage of the BattleBots 7 rookies with the Alien-inspired big-wheeled thwack-vert of our dreams, Starchild! Team captain Brandon Zalinsky spent over a year refining the bot’s design at NHRL, with his 3-pounder Starchild and his 30-pounder Starfather. This season, he scaled up the design to 250 pounds and brought on Tony D’Ambrosio to help him const...

This week on the podcast, we’re continuing our coverage of the BattleBots 7 rookies with Ben Burton, captain of the Triceratops-inspired TerrorTops! We talk dinosaurs, robots, and robot dinosaurs.   Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/behindthebots Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts Tell a friend about the show; we really appreciate your support!

This week on the podcast, we’re continuing our coverage of the BattleBots 7 rookies with the quirky, kilt-wearing captain David Small and his brand-new heavyweight flipper bot Banshee. David built robots with his dad, and more recently picked up the sport again with his bots Kelpie and Son of Kram. We talk about combat robot history, combat robot design, and kelpie tattoos!   Special outro music t...

This week on the podcast, we’re continuing our coverage of the BattleBots 7 rookies with one of the most-anticipated robots of the season — Emulsifier. This robot, from the builders at Bots FC, began life as a brutal little 30-pounder that won the Most Destructive award at Motorama 2020. It’s competed several times at NHRL, and will again appear this weekend, where it hopes to earn a spot in the 2...

This week on the podcast, we’re kicking off 10 weeks of BattleBots 7 rookies, with Doom captain Alejandro Pina. Doom is an articulated hammersaw mounted atop sloped wedges. Alejandro spent more than a year designing and prototyping the bot, but reportedly was not able to pass safety in time to compete on the show. We’re catching up with him to learn more about Doom, and what he’s learned so far fr...

This week on the podcast, we’re focusing on the lifeblood of our sport — local combat robotics leagues. We’ll talk with the organizers behind the Midwest Robot Combat Association (MRCA), which launched earlier this year and just held the 2022 MRCA Finals. We’ll talk about what it takes to start a league, how to grow a league, and where they’d like to take MRCA in 2023 and beyond. Follow us on Face...

This week on the podcast, we’re coming to you live from the pits at BattleBots! Chris, Lindsay and Luke are working on the pit crews for Copperhead and Shreddit Bro, and are taking all of your burning questions about what happens behind the scenes at filming. This is a short one (and the audio is terrible) but we’re having the best time ever! Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/behindthebots Rate...

This week on the podcast, we’re catching up with Team Ostrich Air, builders of the rookie bot Double Tap! The team just shipped their bot to Las Vegas, and will fight in their first combat robotics match ever later this month. The team is based in Silicon Valley and runs a drone startup, and they’ve even recruited a Pixar animator to their roster. We’re intrigued by Double Tap’s design, and we're...

This week on the podcast, we’re sitting down with longtime builder and perpetual fan favorite Marc DeVidts, captain of ICEwave! Marc began building combat robots more than 20 years ago, but really roared into BattleBots pop culture with Season 1 of the reboot with his terrifying horizontal spinner, powered by an internal-combustion engine. Despite its cult status, ICEwave was not selected to compe...

This week on the podcast, we’re catching up with the winner of the 30-pound division at September’s Norwalk Havoc — Yahoo captain slash Copperhead team member slash pet store owner slash giant pumpkin farmer and friend of the pod Chad New! Chad has been build combat robots for 20+ years, and has fought on both BattleBots and King of Bots. We learn all about his very interesting path through combat...

This week on the podcast, we’ve got a brief little, guestless mini-sode, while we recover from September Norwalk Havoc. We’ll recap the latest event, share our top personal highlights, and get you hyped about next week’s guest, Copperhead pit crew member/pet store owner/master prankster/giant pumpkin farmer Chad New! Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/behindthebots Rate and review us on Apple Pod...

This week on the podcast, we’re diving deep into the just-revealed Season 7 of the show — which will film in Las Vegas Oct. 18 through Oct. 30 — with BattleBots cofounder and friend of the pod Greg Munson! Greg answers all of your burning questions, and gives us a sneak peek at what to expect in the coming season. Oh! And we take a look at the finale of BattleBots Champions.   Follow us on Faceboo...

This week on the podcast, we’re catching up again with longtime BattleBots builder Brad Hanstad, to get an exclusive early look at his new heavyweight Triton, the spiritual successor to Deep Six. Oh, and we’ll take a look back on the final qualifying event for BattleBots Champions.   Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/behindthebots Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts Tell a friend about the show...