A

Foreign.

B

Hey, everyone, I'm Justin, your editor in chief. And welcome back to another episode of the HAVOC Rundown. Tonight's episode is a huge one because we're breaking down one of the biggest moments in Modern Combat Robotics history. The very first NHRL Pro event. From the atmosphere in the building to the pressure of competing at a completely different level. So fights themselves and what its format could mean for the future of the sport, we're diving headfirst into everything that made this event special. And joining us tonight is a builder who is right in the middle of all the chaos. He's a builder and driver of Dead Rise, one of the most dangerous machines in the 30 pound division. And someone who got to experience the Pro tour firsthand. Please welcome Joe Copenhaver. I said that right? Right?

A

You said it right. Thank you, guys. Hey, it's a pleasure to see you. It's been like, what, like four whole days?

B

Oh, yeah.

A

Still hot and fresh.

B

Yeah. It's wonderful having you on. Thank you for coming on and talking to us. We're going to go over a little bit of the Pro tour in our main segment and then we'll get down to the five and focus where we focus on you. And then we have a good amount of mailbag questions for people that wanted to ask you some questions. So we'll get to that at the end. Of course, I'm not alone. Joining me this episode is the man who somehow remembers robot records better than most people. It's Ryan Hunter.

C

I mean, I have them all on my phone. I'm cheating.

B

Our journalist and chaos historian who always finds the story hidden underneath the sparks, it's Thomas Carroll.

D

Wait, what? Me find stories. The Marylanders are coming. The Marylanders are coming.

B

The creative mastermind of the crew, trophy designer and merch machine, and our full time instigator, it's Tony Baker. Buy more merch.

E

Buy more merch.

B

We'll get to that later on. I've got a little stinger about the merch. It's okay. And our featured guest tonight, sitting in what we now call our fifth chair, he's the builder behind Mako and one of the most recognizable builders in the sport. At the Bro Tour, he was driving Turbo Fiends. It is Julian Papazian.

F

Yay. Hello, everybody.

E

I personally am quite upset that Julian is sitting.

B

I was told that he was going to be standing.

A

I'm quite upset. There's no milkshakes

C

so he can stare

B

at his stomach the entire time.

C

Are we getting good Julian or evil Julian tonight?

F

Good Julian. Evil Julian's Pad Dead Production.

C

Okay,

B

okay, so we got good Julian sitting in our fifth seat in our fifth chair. But before we get to the main segment, let us stop off of that icebreaker that we call Ryan's Game Corner.

C

All right, everybody, we're going back to a game that we have done before a little bit, but I have a new name for it. The new name for this game is we are playing do the Pros know who is the most pro of all the pros? Yes or no? So I. This is once again a game that we've played before. I have collected stats from all over sports to compare against Combat Robotics stats. All the combat robotic stats come, of course, from the HAVOC rundown database and they are compared with sports from all across the spectrum. Everybody is going to be allowed to answer because there is one and two answers. There is only two answers here. There's two sides, two stats.

E

Yes or no?

C

We will then go do the percentage of you get it right, then the house will not get a point. The house gets a point. If you. If half of you if the percentage. Sorry, give me a second.

A

If more of us get it right,

B

then get it wrong, then the house doesn't get a point. If more of us don't get it right, then get. Yeah, no, no, good. You're. You were getting your percentage mixed up.

D

So we're all.

B

We're all playing together.

C

We're.

B

It's a team. We. We have games where we're all competing against each other and then for the majority of our games, we're competing against Ryan. Yeah. So.

A

Yeah.

C

Yeah. Okay. So our very first stat is which was faster? The fastest 30 pound match between tea Catty and Dragon Fruit or the fastest sumo match on record between Hakuho and Harum Ma Fuji.

D

I know. I meant I know this one.

F

I'm a big Hakug fan, so

C

I know I mispronounced those. And once again, there is not a general consensus. Consensus for the exact fastest sumo match. But this is like one that I found a couple places. So how would everyone like to answer this? The fastest 30 pound match ever or the fastest sumo match?

D

It's definitely the fastest sumo match.

A

I have to represent the big boys. We're going sumo.

F

That's right.

E

Yeah. I was gonna go sumo too.

D

Wait, did you say you have to represent the big boys and then you said Fumo.

F

Sumo.

D

Sumo.

A

Sumo.

D

Fumo is a plush.

B

So I will say that as far as I know, in sumo, as soon as the leg steps out of bounds, that's the end of the match. Whereas Tea caddy versus Dragon Fruit. The hit happened and then they also have to get counted out before the match is over.

D

That's right.

C

So the fastest, that's not necessarily ends when they tapped.

F

That's fair.

B

I, I'm still going to go with sumo like everyone else. Because I, I, I could see a sumo match going faster than that match

C

went just by a sumo match could

F

like half a second, literally.

B

Yeah, yeah, I'm going to go with sumo.

C

Yep. So the 30 pound match was three seconds and the sumo match was under two seconds.

B

Ooh,

A

no.

D

Is this the point turned into the

C

everybody gets it right telephone?

A

I'm really upset.

E

ESPN Sumo Wrestling night. And they don't anymore.

C

You can watch it on YouTube. They are doing each of the main tournaments. You could watch like the whole thing or you could watch like recaps of it. Right now is the May tournament. And the May tournament is very good right now.

A

Awesome. All right.

E

I show weird sports at school. So sumo will be on there now.

C

Sumo's very fun to watch. All right, next, the longest win streak. Kaza light or Richard Petty.

E

Oh, this one's easy. It's Richard Petty.

C

Okay.

D

I, I don't know what sport Richard Petty's from.

B

Yeah, I was gonna say this is nascar, right?

E

Yeah.

C

Yes, it is nascar. Yes.

B

Okay.

D

Is he alive still?

C

I mean, Richard Petty did technically more than nascar, I believe. I think he did Indy too.

E

No, he never did Indy.

A

Oh, Mario Benny stock.

E

Yeah.

F

Yeah.

C

All right, let's get some answers.

B

Let's start.

C

Let's start with Tony. Which way are you going?

E

I'm going to go with Richard Petty.

C

Okay,

B

so when we say longest win streak, are we talking about longest continuous over different events? Didn't lose a match. So win, win, win, win. Golden Dumpster. Win, win, win, win. Golden Dump. Like that?

C

Yeah, I believe so.

B

Huh. I'm gonna go Cazale. I'll differ from Tony on this one.

C

Okay. Jessica goes Kazalite.

E

I think it's gonna be close.

C

It's pretty close.

E

Yeah.

C

Julian,

F

this is a tricky one because I don't know a lot about nascar, but I know it's hard to get first place, famously a race. But there's not that many matches in a 30 pound tournament. And counts a light. Doesn't win every time. But Richard Petty is legendary. So I'm going for Richard Petty.

C

Okay. Julian goes with Richard Petty. Joe.

A

So I got a little bit of background info. I've actually driven a Richard Petty Motorsports car before.

C

Ooh.

A

I'm feeling a connection there, but I have to save my ego. I'm going Kaza light because at least I lost to Kaza Light. So if they're winning this out, I'll feel better. You know, you gotta sleep.

F

Right. Heart of the streak.

C

All right, we are even now. Thomas is a tiebreaker. Thomas is a tiebreaker.

D

Yeah, I, I don't know. I flipped the coin. If it was heads, it was gonna be kazaw. Tails.

A

Richard.

D

And it landed on Richard, so.

C

Okay, I, I, I don't know. All right, Thomas goes with Richard Petty. The answer is kaza light. With 15 consecutive wins versus 10 consecutive

D

races in a row.

C

Yeah.

F

That's impressive.

A

Yeah, I feel better. Yep.

C

All right, next, who has a higher win rate, Bobby Fischer or Lars Elliot?

B

You're gonna have to explain who Bobby Fischer is, because I don't remember.

C

Thank you.

E

Bobby Fischer's a chess. Chess grandmaster.

B

I found.

C

Bobby Fischer is probably the most recognizable chess grandmaster.

B

Oh, okay.

F

And he was a little. He was very good, very young.

C

Yes, yes, he was good. Kind of throughout his life. He had some. There's a lot of things that happened in Bobby Fisher's life.

F

We don't have to get into it.

B

No.

C

But Bobby Fischer is probably one of the most recognizable chess players. He does. I will say that Bobby Fischer has definitely played well. Way more matches than Lars has ever fought.

E

Yes.

C

Robot matches.

B

I'll go first again. I'm, I'm, I'm feeling Bobby Fiser on this one, so I'll do that.

C

Okay. Jess goes with Bobby Fiser.

E

I'm gonna go with Lars.

C

Okay. Tony goes with Lars.

A

Bobby Fiser.

C

Okay. Joe goes with Bobby Fischer.

D

Thomas, I've got a brand new strategy. So the online coin flipper that I used before didn't work. So instead of going to justflipacoin.com, we're going to flipacoin app. If it's heads, it's Bobby. Tails, it's Lars. Okay, let's see. Tails, it's Lars. Easy.

C

Okay.

D

Website. Well, not family.

C

Okay. That means we are split now, and I believe Julian is the tiebreaker.

F

I believe when you're really good at chess, you're facing other grand masters and you're all super turbo nerds.

C

Yep.

A

So I am picking words.

C

Okay. Julian is picking Lars. And it is a good thing he did because lars win percentage is 75% versus Bobby Fischer's 72.5. I should be very specific. I should be very specific here. That is his chess scoring win percentage. Technically, his win percentage, if you Just do wins, losses and even is lower. Just putting it out there in case somebody's listening is going, but Bobby, pictures, you know, that's where. That's the calculation. Okay.

E

The next time you should do Bobby Fisher's ELO compared to Lars's glecko score.

C

Okay. All right. Which is heavier? The world's strong man record for dead deadlift or every single opponent Psycho has ever fought combined? And I will just say in order to make this calculation even and easier, I only. I rounded them all to 30 pounds even. I know that the number will be wonky. You mean they're not close?

A

Yeah.

C

12. Yeah, 12 even.

B

Because he's a hobby.

A

Yeah.

B

Okay.

C

Yeah.

B

So this is. How many £12 has Psycho fought?

C

If you took every single opponent Psycho has ever fought, even the same bot, multiple times and you took him once

E

or did you count him multiple times?

B

They.

C

It's counted them multiple times. If you took every match that he has fought and you took the robot really out of the cage.

E

Matches times 12.

B

Yes, yes.

C

Oh, yeah. I was trying to make it more fun than that, but yes. Psycho's matches. Okay.

B

Yeah, I'm just going, just going by now. I'm going to go. I'm going to go Psycho.

E

Okay.

B

I'll just get mine. Mine in right now.

E

Yeah, I'm going to go Psycho.

C

Okay.

A

Is this the Natty record or from the Enhanced Games?

C

Whoa, this is, this is the World Strongman record.

A

Okay, so natty record, not. Not the Enhanced Games. Okay, wait, wait.

C

I want to make sure. I am, I am. I'm going to look at it again to make sure that I am giving you the right information.

A

Yeah, because that record just went up at the Enhanced Games this year. Like it just changed. There is a number there. Joe knows ball knowledge, son. We got ball knowledge.

D

He also knows how many fights Jamo's fought. Would you say you got ball knowledge?

A

No comment.

F

Not that kind of ball.

C

I don't think this is the Strongman standard bar equipped Deadlift.

A

Seiko all the way set in.

C

Set in 20, 25.

A

Okay.

C

Joe is going Seiko, Psycho. So so far Psycho has Justin, Tony and Joe. Can I get anybody for the world Deadlift record?

D

No, Psycho, I don't actually know.

C

Is everybody going Psycho?

F

I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go Deadlift record.

E

Okay.

C

Julian is going deadlift right now.

A

It's like over a thousand pounds and

F

I'm not sure if Psycho has that many fights that nhr. I don't know if he's got like

D

on fights not that many fights. That's only like. It's only 90 fights or something.

E

Over almost a hundred of them, actually.

C

Well, the.

E

The.

F

I think the deadlift record is going to be higher than a lot of people were thinking.

A

I think.

C

I think it is. I'm not. I'm not gonna.

D

Wait, wait, before you say the number, I'm gonna guess both weights and I'm gonna be within 3% of both of them.

C

Okay.

D

Once everyone's guessed,

C

I believe you were the last guest.

D

Oh, was I, Thomas?

C

Yes.

D

Okay. The world's strong man record is for deadlift. For deadlift is 1550 pounds. Whereas Psycho has fought 226 times for however much weight that is.

C

Okay. If those are the numbers you want to go by, those numbers are both inaccurate.

E

Way inaccurate.

D

Wow. Strong men aren't that strong any day these days. Back in my day, we were deadlifting cars.

C

Thomas, Thomas, which one do you think it is?

D

Oh, I said Psycho.

C

Okay.

D

Psycho is the strongest robot, and the strongest man is actually a fake.

C

He's. He's not a fake.

D

Fake.

C

So the. If you take every single. If every single match Psycho has ever been in, you count that as £12 and you throw it into like a weight for somebody to lift, it would weigh 780 pounds. The current deadlift is with Strongman. Deadlift is by the literal mountain from Game of Thrones. And he was able to lift 510 kg or 1124 pounds.

F

Told you people. Be strong.

D

Yeah, that's pretty weak. Jimmo. You gotta up your numbers.

C

Okay, okay, one last. One last one and we'll get. We'll get going. Which number is higher? The number of monkfish matches or the world record depth for extreme ironing in meters?

D

When you say extreme record ironing, you're gonna have to give a little explainer to probably everybody listening.

C

The world record for depth of extreme ironing.

D

Yeah, yeah, you said that. But like.

C

Like there. There is an Avenger sport called extreme ironing where you take an iron to extreme places and you iron with it. Like, you have to take it, you have to make it hot and you have to iron with it. People have ironed at the Everest. The Everest base camp. People have ironed on the side of mountains.

D

Okay, so you said this is the diving below sea level and they've gotten the iron hot.

C

Yeah.

D

What is the depth in feet? Meters? Inches?

C

Meters.

D

Microns.

C

Meters.

D

Okay. Okay. Meters. I'm going to go to matches in meters.

C

Okay. Tony goes extreme.

B

I'm gonna go with extreme irony.

C

Yep. Okay, so just to be real here, you guys have two points, and I have two points as far as the house winning. So just to put it out there. All right,

D

well, submarines exist, and the Navy likes looking sharp.

C

Okay?

D

And I'm gonna say that at least at some point, somebody has ironed clothing on a submarine at depth.

C

Okay?

D

So I'm just doing that.

A

They did it in a cave.

C

That's not diving.

D

That's not diving. I would say you're saying that a submarine diving isn't diving.

C

Doesn't count. It is not a person diving.

D

Oh, okay. So if a person's diving, it's different. Fun person diving. I don't like these rules.

C

Okay, so who already has the ironing?

E

I have the ironing.

C

I believe it was Tony. Justin, what do you have?

B

I said ironing.

A

Okay, I'm going monkfish.

C

Okay. Julian's gonna go monkfish.

A

I'm suspicious of meters. I'm gonna go monkfish as well.

C

Okay. Joe's gonna go monkfish as well. Thomas, once again, you are our tiebreaker.

D

Okay.

C

Which one is it?

D

So I think. I think you picked monkfish for a very particular reason. Aren't these the ugly looking fish that go really deep down?

A

Yes, yes, yes.

D

So I didn't pick monkfish. I think that is why you picked this specifically. The monkfish goes, like, super deep. So, yeah, take that. Extreme ironing. Probably go, like five meters.

C

Okay, so you're going monkfish.

D

Yeah.

C

I am excited to tell you all that monkfish has 41 matches on its record where on June 16, 2018, a free diver named Roland Piccoli ironed a T shirt at the depth of 42 meters in the world's deepest pool in Italy for the first time ever. For the first time ever.

F

Need a recount.

C

The house has won a game.

B

No, you've won before.

C

I am very happy.

B

You haven't done it a long time.

C

And I think this is the game's corner.

D

This is close to the monkfish. Might have snuck a match in somewhere, maybe. Oh, yeah, you're grudges.

C

I control. I control this game corner, and I say this game is over.

A

This game is fixed.

C

Rigged.

B

Rigged. Okay, well, we're gonna move on from the rigged game corner, and we're going to move right into our rundown roundtable. So this is the part of the show where we sit down and really dig into the biggest topic that we have in Combat Robotics right now, or a topic that we have that we want to talk about, specifically with the guests that we have on. And tonight, we're going to be talking about the first ever NHL Pro Tour, which took place this last Saturday from when we're recording. And it was the invitational for the robots at NHL to come together and compete in a more pro setting, I guess we would call it. And it was the first event that was streamed by Dazn, who is a new partner with nhro, that we're going to be talking a little bit more about hopefully in the future. And the first thing that I want to talk to our guests about, because not only did Joe compete, but Julian also competed in the Beetle weight weight class for the two of you and I guess everyone else, because everyone except for Tony was there either working or competing. Um, how did it feel like it went. Did, did it feel like a pro atmosphere? Like, how did the matches feel like? How was the general feeling for you guys for Pro Tour?

A

So coming in on Friday, it was kind of daunting, honestly. The, the pits were empty comparatively to most other opens. Walked up, talked to some staff and you know, they all kind of shared the questionable thoughts about that and the real reason why I think it was just the collection of people. Everyone was prepared. People started showing up a little bit later just throwing robots through safety. Everything was flowing amazingly well. Just kind of fell into place and just worked how it should going into the event day. It just continued that kind of theme, you know. Julian, what do you. Do you agree with that?

F

I agree with that. It was weird that the whole place was pretty empty on Friday. I like to get there even when I'm ready just to hang out. Um, but yeah, it was, it was very exciting that like, literally everyone came ready with robots ready and literally everyone was there to, you know, kick some butt. It felt like the world finals basically. Um, you know, no matches were going to be easy. No one, you know, felt out of place and kick, kick butt matches all day. I thought, I'm not allowed to say the A word, am I?

C

Here?

B

You're fine. I think we, we walked in there on Saturday morning and I think Ariel came up to us and said, there's only three bots that have not passed safety. And that, that's a very weird thing to say, especially since most of the normal competitions have builders who have only built once or twice before, or this is a brand new bot and they don't have multiple copies or they don't have a test gauge at home that they can test it up. So they've never seen if the bot even works. And they get there and then it doesn't. Uh, I Think we had one forfeit throughout the entire day, not counting the Kazaa one.

C

Right?

B

Cause the Kaza one was a weird. That, that was a whole other thing. Um, yeah, so that was very good. Everyone was, Everyone had multiple copies of the robot. Uh, it was, it was very nice. Um, as far as the fights themselves, was there a different energy when you went down to fight, knowing that this was on a bigger stage? Because YouTube is a global stage, but Dazn is a more global stage. I guess it's a more professional sports, like actual broadcaster. So was there a different feeling when you guys went down to fight that, you know, this is different than I'm usually fighting, or was it more of just I'm just going to fight my robot kind of thing?

F

Yeah, it sort of felt like prime time right from, from the get out. Because like, like I already said before, you knew you were facing, you knew they're all going to be good. And production knew all the matchups too. So, you know, they had little clips ready for each bot. I thought that was very cool. And I think, you know, they were able to do that because of the smaller field. So I think there was initially some like some dubious thoughts about if this was a good idea. But I thought it was great. And yeah, I felt the energy all day. Of course I'm bringing the energy, but like, I wasn't faking it. It was all real.

A

Yeah, the energy was there. It was pretty interesting because all the fights you had this like back of your mind pressure of I'm not going to tap. I just want to put in a little bit extra effort and put on a bigger show. You know, it's not just about being competitive. It's also about putting on this enjoyable show for all the new fans and exposing the sport that we love to them. You know, newbies aren't going to come in and see two control bots with no weapon just kind of pushing each other around. They want to see big hits and stuff they can talk about and relate to without any, you know, firsthand knowledge. So it's kind of fun going in and putting on that type of show for them.

C

They want to see a 30 pound robot just do break dance moves in the middle of the cage.

A

I knew that was going to come up. You got to do what you got to do

E

to the other major event that happened on Saturday night. NHRL's fights lasted a lot longer than the 15 second MMA fight. So therefore prime time was way better this time for the pro league.

B

That was the Ronda Rousey fight, right?

E

Yes.

B

That's the one you're talking about.

C

Yeah, yeah.

B

Where they built it up. She walked in, hit her in the face, and then, yeah, that was it, all done. So I am. We haven't done this before, I don't think, but I'm taking Nick from Crafty Cat Combat's question from the mailbag and inserting it here because it goes into this segment very well. But Nick asks, what are your opinions on the format of the Pro Tour, especially the round robin system?

A

I enjoyed it. I loved it, honestly. So you knew who you're going to fight? I'm somebody that brings three copies to every event, so I could actually have three robots ready when I show up for the three people I'm going to fight in my group. And that kind of sets the pace for the whole day is how well you do in the preliminaries. So it definitely a thought, gave me a little bit of edge. I also enjoyed the fact that we had times for the fights. There was no unknowns. We had plenty of time between the fights to repair. And to the point where I was walking around helping others, even though I knew I had to do a couple more tasks. My robot, because I knew I had an hour and a half before my next fight. And the schedule did not change. There was no fights being pushed up. They stuck to that schedule. And that really gave you peace of mind and made it really enjoyable.

C

It really helps stick to the schedule when we're just doing it in two cages, like kind of three, but two cages. Like, it really helps stick to the schedule. And I think everybody, all the builders there did a really, really good job of like being ready on time for their matches and everything like that. Not that that's like the most important thing in robot combat, but, like, everybody was doing an excellent job making sure that they were repairing between those matches. I think every single. Almost every single match was really good to watch, especially Justin. And I had, like, a extremely easy day just managing you guys, just like, oh, one match at a time. We could do this. So I was able to watch way more matches than I ever do at a normal event. And I just, I just have to say, like, everybody who fought definitely deserved to be there. And it was. If you introduce somebody to the sport and you just show them bro door. I think almost every single match, you. You would get the person to be like, I love this. This is the best thing ever. And I mean, like, that's the point of it. That was the whole point of it. And I don't think we could have had a better introduction into a medium like to zone than anything else. And I really appreciated it.

B

Um, so you talked about the round robin and knowing your competitors, knowing who you're gonna fight before you went into it. Uh, did Joe or Julian, did either of you make specific changes to the robots, knowing who you were gonna go in? Like, was there anything specific preparation you made before Pro Tour? Because you know, Jillian, I know you had that cheese block that was on top of Turbo Fiend.

F

I've always got the cheese blocks ready. But I knowing the three opponents right away and knowing they were all tough, I really dug down a lot into my driving strategy, into my driving practice. Where in most events like your first matches are the easier ones. They're not easy, but they're the easier ones than you face, you know, the super hard opponents later in the day. It was, it was really interesting to have to, you know, deal with the super hard opponents right in your face right away. And I enjoyed it because it, you know, gave me time to prepare two to two and a half copies of the exact copy I wanted to, to face them with and really nail down my, my driving strategy and driving practice.

A

Uh, so yeah, yeah, pretty similar situation. Uh, we knew I think what, two weeks plus out in advance and I was able to spend some time at work, make some weapon discs, throw in the water jet. Uh, that was our large disc for Jameson was actually meant for a few other robots and we're able to order extra fireproofing, some carbon components and really just lock in on our preparations just so we could show up to do a better preliminary event.

B

Um, did and I mean this is open to Brian and, and Thomas and Tony. Tony, did this feel more like a professional sporting event board to zone than normal or was. Do you feel like the production value was around the same and it was just geared towards Dazone. Like we saw some production changes.

E

They had a lot really noticed anything like major on the production side. They were talking a little bit more. They had like some of the like little like extra videos like they normally do during prime time.

A

Yeah.

E

But NHL, as much as I'm annoyed with other things they do, they do an amazing job of production.

A

They really do that well.

C

So.

E

And it just, it's still showing.

D

So yeah, they've really just been gearing the stream to be. They don't have to make any changes. They've got it already set up to point the point where this is just ready to go. They've got their prime time down to three Hours right where they want to be for like the same as a football match or a football match, depending on what country you're in. So I don't think, like, there's really no reason to change it on a day that's already going to be more stressful for them. I mean, there were very couple small things like them. Just by having the best of the best robots there in 48, it makes it a lot easier to focus on. Just, you don't have to worry about the bots being ready. They're going to be ready. So it was really just that that made it a better day overall. But yeah, no, it didn't feel any different, at least from working perspective there.

B

I know, Ryan, we heard at one point that I. The Zone was controlling a little bit of the timing more than they're used to being able to put up the YouTube stream whenever they wanted to. That. I know when we were going into prime time that we had to get the robots downstairs. I mean, we always do get them downstairs on time at a specific time. But we did hear that there was a timing thing with the Zone, that the Zone had a specific exact time that they had to start, that it couldn't be pushed any further. Um, so I'm sure there was some production stuff and, and maybe we'll. We'll talk to Kelly or we'll. Well, we're not going to spoil some other thing that we're planning right now,

D

but the same thing as like network TV, the, the game, the fight, it starts at 7:00pm and if it doesn't start at that time, there's dead air. It's a mess. So they just had to make sure

A

they started at the right time.

B

Yeah, but we've seen in the past where they've had a little bit more leeway if things are happening, they're controlling the stream rather than going YouTube.

C

It's like, yeah, you could just have YouTube. You could have the YouTube audience just sit there for a little bit longer.

B

Yeah. So is there anything as far as the formatting or. Because we have how many more of these? I should have looked that up before.

E

Two more.

B

Two more. Is there two more?

E

There's supposed to be one in July and I think there's one in end of October.

C

November.

E

Ish.

B

Yes.

C

Right, I believe. Yeah, there's one in October and one at the end of July that is. Supposedly there's some announcement that hasn't happened yet about it, so I don't know. We'll see.

D

Keep on looking.

C

So far This. I like the pro tours. I feel like it's good production. It's good. Like, it's one of those things. Like, I hope it felt for all the builders, like it was a celebration of them even, like, as like a part of this and actually being pros and actually being like the chosen people out of this and like, earning it. I feel like NHRL is probably pretty happy with it. I mean, like, let's be real. This is the kind of event that is easier and better to run and easier to market for them than a tournament with, like 200 robots in it that, like, half the robots are gone by like a quarter of the way through the day. And that's not really something most people want to watch. You know, like, no matter how much I want to watch every single robot fight, most people would rather watch, like just the prime time. And this was prime time all day. And I think that's like, peak to your point.

B

We can talk about that with any kind of sport. Uh, just take. I mean, I. I love baseball, and you could take baseball as a thing of. There's some people that will watch every single team's game and they're invested very heavily in baseball and they want to watch as much of it as possible all the time. And then there's the casual fans that have their one team and they watch all of their games. And then there's even more casual people that just watch it every once in a while when it's on. And you have to be able to kind of COVID that entire spectrum and not just cater to one or the other. So I, I think this caters more towards those last two groups, but is also good for the. The first one as well, if that makes sense. So is there any changes or anything that we would like to NHRL to address? Anything that we feel could be done better in July, could be done better in October? Anything to add that we think NHL should add? And not saying that they're going to listen to this or, or listen to us at all, but I'm just saying in general, is there anything that.

C

To make Pro Tour better you're talking about?

B

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. Pro Tour specifically. Yes. Is there anything that we feel that could be added to make it a little bit more better or easier?

F

I think examining, like, the, the round robin group thing could be worthwhile. I, like, I enjoyed it, but I did think it was odd that there were some robots that like, went one and two that wound up in the tournament and then others that went 2 and 1 in a stronger group or weak or I guess weaker group, however you want to look at it. That felt a little weird. I suppose I'd have to watch as a spectator because maybe it makes up for it that like you watch one fight and you say, oh, I like that robot. So I'm going to pay a lot of attention to that group. I don't know. I just. That that never quite feels right where it's like someone went two and one wound up sitting out.

E

I'm almost wondering like, because Robot Rebellion does the like round robin type setup with their matches and since they have those already done make nice little 20 minute videos with just the round robin fights in it. So that could be a nice little thing even on the zone and whatnot. Like little cut video or little episodes and stuff like that. That might be. They might be thinking of.

B

Yeah, I mean we've been talking about the episode format for a really long time. We've, we've always been proponents of doing it that way and creating little episodes in the way that BattleBots does. But that's a whole other thing. I know one thing that was talked about on our discord was making sure that Judge Losses still got at least a point. I know there was an issue once or twice during the day that there were like ties that they were trying to figure out in the points because the round robins, depending on how, just like our, our fantasy league works, depending on the outcome of the matches, you got a certain amount of points and your points allowed you to move on. Um, but Judge Losses didn't get any points and there was an argument for Judge Rosses should at least get a point, if not two points. Because when we were putting the Fantasy league together, the reason that Judge Roll us has got the points is because you survived. It was a, it was rewarding the survivability of your robot for going the full three minutes. And I think that there's some kind, there's some viability to that in any kind of format that you do like this And a round robin is the same thing that I, at least for me there should be points awarded for going the full three minutes for surviving in the cage that survive the survivability factor. So do we think that Judge Loss should get a point that maybe that could be tweaked?

D

I don't know.

F

It's interesting. I like. It feels like it gives more fight more fights, higher stakes. Because even if you're losing, you might want to fight until the bitter end, which does make for better tv. But Also makes for worse repairs. I don't know. It's something to think about for sure.

B

Julian, you're saying this in I think your last fight you were very obviously losing with turbofan and you decided, you decided to sit there and have Sam hit you as many times as possible until his robot fell apart. So are we talking from personal experience?

F

I was just, I thought my comeback was coming any minute and then at the end I hit that tap out button by accident.

C

Oh, it was by accident. Okay.

F

Absolutely. I thought, I thought I could sneak in another unstick just a little some cheating there. But I knew the jig was up and I ended it a bit early. A premature stoppage. That's what you call it in boxing. Oh, I was about to make the comeback any second.

B

You mean when Sam's robot fell apart.

E

If we're going to allow a point for the judge's decision for the losers, it has to come from the winner's point. There's a one thing that annoys me about hockey is that you get two points even if you win in overtime as compared if you win. But the in overtime the losing team also gets a point. So it actually makes it more beneficial to go to it overtime to get the most points even if you lose. So if you're going to go judge's decision, it's gotta be like the point has to come from the winners thing. So it's still balanced. The number of points for the match is exactly the same.

F

You know, the more I'm thinking about it, the more I'm thinking as robot nerds we do enough rules, lawyering and junk like that. Just leave it how it is. Let's go fight. Go put on good fights. That's what the event was supposed to be.

B

That's what we did.

E

So I say just get rid of the three minutes and let them fight until they one of the bots gets bring back encore.

A

Like literally just wait the three minute

E

ending and just keep fighting until somebody dies.

D

The audience gets to decide when the ma. Oh wait, we already did that.

C

Next thing people are going to be asking for is double elimination. Let's just stop it there.

D

Triple elimination.

B

The last question I'll ask in this before we move on to the five in focus questions is are there any robots that did not get a chance to be at this pro tour event that you would like to see either come and compete or fight against the ones that weren't here that you, you feel either didn't have a chance to, didn't get reached out to or just didn't have the time to come. Is there any robots that you feel should be part of the next Pro Tar?

A

Speaking for 30s, there is one robot I've been very vocal about multiple times, and that's Ammonoid. That bot is a menace. He doesn't compete as much as he should, and I honestly think he could run through a tournament.

D

Okay.

F

That's a good pick. Yeah.

B

Yeah.

F

I don't actually know if this was public or something I wasn't supposed to see, but there were a lot of robots that were invited that turned it down. Like, I know Lynx was invited and like, what's it called? The one with the butt? The torque walker with the butt.

B

Yeah.

A

Droopy.

F

Anytime we can get Lynx and Droopy back in the mix, I would love that. I know they were invited, but, you know, if they can come back, either kick our butts or let someone dethrone them, even though they've been gone for so long, they. They still feel like the kings.

C

Yeah.

B

So I do know that there were quite a few that were invited and said no because there wasn't enough information in time. NHRL was working on a lot of things last minute, and there wasn't a lot of information that was conveyed in enough time for someone to get ready to do this. So especially like Links is. I mean, there's a lot of people that travel for this, not making an excuse. But he's from California, so I. Maybe for Calvin it was that he didn't have enough information and time to plan and all that kind of stuff. So maybe sometime in the future now that there's more information, now that we've been through an event and people see how it is now that builders who have been through an event have more of that information in the background, more people will come in the future. So yeah, I would love to see Links come back. We haven't seen Links in in a while. Foreign.

G

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B

Hey everyone, you're already listening, so you know the fights don't end when the episode does. But the Havoc rundown now lives over@ Havocrundown.com again. That's Havocrundown.com that's where we're posting Combat Robotics news, hosting every episode of the show and running the largest Combat Robotics bot registry that's ever been put together. Stats, history, teams and re results, all built to grow alongside the sport. We're also curating fight videos, rolling out community games and dropping merch for anyone who wants to rep the chaos. And the 2026 fantasy league is live right now. You can create your own fantasy league for a full season or spin one up for a single day event Draft robots track performance across events and compete in a way that actually fits how Combat Robotics is run. This year, our focus is the sport as a whole. If robots are fighting, it belongs in the combat conversation. All leaks, all formats, all rule sets, from local events to competitions around the world. We have got you covered. Thank you for listening everyone. Let's get you back to the episode and back to the chaos right now. So we are going to move into our signature segment, which is our five and Focus. So in our five and Focus, we have one question from each of our hosts to ask our guests. Joe, you've listened to the podcast before, so you know how this goes. I am actually going to kick us off and my question is, Joe, during your during your fight against Jameson Go and Megatron, you mentioned to us upstairs that you were basically going to put Dead Rise into chaos mode. The mindset really stood out to me because your driving style usually feels very aggressive, but still calculated. How has your approach to driving evolved over the years? And how do you decide when it's time to stay controlled versus just chaos?

A

So controlled is a relative term. You can only control these type of robots. So much a large reach for, there's just so much physics involved and so many little things that can go wrong. I just kind of strap in and hold on and try to point it in the right direction. It's been getting better and better. So it's been looking better and better to the outside observer. But when I mentioned chaos mode, that really was a true concept. You know, Jameson is a control bot driver and he's probably one of the best ones out there. And I can't beat that with the large reach vert. You just can't. There's just. I'm sorry, I can't control that situation, but what I can do is remove that element, and I'll repeatedly say it over and over again, is when you add the element of chaos to a control bot fight, they cannot control the match. So I wasn't hoping to do some hoverbot pirouetting, craziness, horizontal spinner move that I did. I was just gonna try to jump over the guy. I had about an inch of bite below my robot, so if I jumped over his forks, I could actually reach down and kind of big wheel him a little bit. And I did. That's actually how we nicked his weapon system. But once we started pirouetting and going chaos, we just kind of embraced it and found out it was relatively controllable. Oddly

B

controlled chaos. I love it. Yeah, you're dancing across the cage is just one of those moments that sticks out as far as robot fights that just stay in your brain. So it was very cool to see that. So what was that moment like of seeing that that worked and then trying to figure out how to do it again and then realizing you could do it again and like, how did that develop in your brain in the moment?

A

So I had a different thought process. It wasn't more of I'm gonna hit Jamo or keep him back. It was, I'm not going to let this man knock me out. I want to end this fight or go the time limit. So if I'm spinning like that, he's not going to hit me, so he's not going to come near me. Worst case scenario, I hit the Lexan and that weapon was going probably about 260 mile an hour with a 38 thick disc. That's really thin for a 30. I was not hoping that it was going to break the Lexan, not at all. Because then it ended the fight Coach AD and it'd be a good, memorable moment. But once we realized we can actually pop it back up onto its wheels and control that, I figured, why not? I've already lost this match to points. Unless I can knock him out with a crazy hit, we're gonna lose in a JD Anyways. Okay.

C

So are you gonna do that again in matches in the future?

A

I'm not saying I won't, but I also will say I can't practice this. Zoe will not let me do that in the cage at home. No way.

C

Really?

A

No way.

B

I wonder why.

A

Yeah, we've already broken enough 3 aplex sand. We don't need to start upgrading to half inch no show.

B

Ryan, you're up next.

C

Okay, Joe, I. I feel like I don't know much about you outside of you fighting with Dead Rise and everything. What. What do you do for living? Where do you generally live? Not specifically generally.

D

What's your address?

C

You live in 31 9?

A

No.

C

What? Tell us about more specifics about you.

A

Yeah, so a little bit about.

C

And let me write them down so that I could send them, you know.

D

Do you have any outstanding warrants?

C

Yeah. No.

A

So, okay, so a little bit about Joe. I'm a 33 year old dad. I have two wonderful kids, a wonderful wife. I was raised by electrical engineer and a teacher, and I had a welder at age 11. That kind of leads into who I am today. I currently work as a research lab manager for University of Maryland. So I get to play with robotics and AI all day long and also happen to work my robots into the mix of things. They're pretty accepting of that, which is fantastic. But before that I was actually a travel technician for the DoD. Still got to travel around the world, go to all types of different bases, work on extremely fun things, and kind of gain new experiences and building techniques and stuff for different aircraft actually kind of comes into play a lot with the robotics. People don't realize how much vibration we're fighting. And you know what, when you work on aircraft and helicopters, that's all you do all day long is fight vibration and wiring issues. So it's kind of played into that. Outside of robotics, I'm just the average dude. I like cars. I like to do competitive shooting on the side, so I run that. I do have my other competitive side as well, but beyond that, this is my life. I do a lot of time over at Team Honeycraft at the Growing Stems Foundation. I work with the students and I work with Zoe and the team and work on a lot of really cool products and trying to build our bots. And I believe we have 10 robots coming next month. We're really trying to push our team out there and just fill the field with them and, you know, let them fly from the hive, if you will.

C

What, what weight class are they coming in?

A

We have a robot in every weight class. So we have a bunch of three pounders for the new, the newbies. We have some 12 pounders, some old familiar faces, some people returning to our team since they've graduated from their Leatherbox team, if you catch my drift. And then also, I believe B Force has signed up for 30. So we'll see a return of Cody and Stack for B Force, and we're very excited to field that.

C

That's really awesome. So you, you help and you work on the Honeycraft bots too, then?

A

A little bit, yeah. So I started Cryptid Robotics as my own little thing back in 2021, and I showed up at one of the early events where they just kind of opened up the first floor of the large cage and all that. And then I took a. A long break, had had some issues with my bot and just got frustrated with it and figured it'd be a good time to take a break and came back in 2024 under cryptid and at Motorama. I actually met Cody and Zoe and just kind of was chatting, realized you guys are from Maryland too. Oh, sweet. Well, where are you from? Well, they're 15 minutes down the road, so it's. It's a trip to Harrisburg Penns to find people that are 15 minutes down the road, pretty much coworkers in some essence, and way too many crossovers in our social circles.

B

Wow.

A

So we kind of chatted and, you know, I went over there and I'll still do my crypto robotics stuff and using the hive for its, you know, test cage and working with them and learning from them, sharing knowledge. And then just became the point of, hey, we need to work together. Like, this is such a niche hobby that there's no reason we're not on the same team. And we join forces and I think it's been extremely beneficial ever since. We definitely help each other out. I get to play with new products and help design things. Dead Rise actually used the brand new custom motor that we're working on right now. It's a secret, but it might be leaked out on Discord right now. But it's been great and I think it's been great for the kids as well because we have a lot of engineers and stuff like that. But then I can kind of bring in a little bit more technical knowledge from the practical side of things because I have a lot more time down the trenches and getting dirty under aircraft and stuff like that. So I can kind of bring in the actual practical skills and reference them to how the students can use it in the future.

B

That's awesome.

C

I always love learning about everybody that's in this sports outside lives. Because I feel like the more we do this podcast and the more we're able to talk to people, the more like, you realize how cool people are and how cool of lives the people espe that like, get involved in the sport have. But like aircraft. So you were working on the air. Is there direct parts of Dead Rise that have, like, things that you learn from the DoD in it?

A

So there's a pro actually Ed in the shop picked up on this this weekend. We're very proud of it. There's a process used in the small arms area and also an aircraft called staking. And it's where you take your hardware and you have a little recessed slot and you push material from around the hardware into the hardware itself. So you now have a mechanical locking feature instead of just relying upon loctite and stuff like that. And all it is, is just a. It's literally just a center punch pushing the smallest little millimeter of aluminum into that little slot on the hardware and it retains like no other. I didn't lose a single weapon stack this event to loctite or vibratight, heating up and loosening my hardware.

D

They do the exact same thing in automotive locks, at least some of them.

A

See, and that's the knowledge we all

D

locks use the same method and they don't come apart unless you get the cheap ones. How about that, Joe? See, you learned something. We learned something.

C

That's.

E

Or Thomas breaks them.

D

I break a lot of things.

C

That is really a super cool technique. And now that you said it, I hope that spreads out pretty far. And next time I. I'm. Next time you bring Dead Rise, I want to see what that looks like exactly so that I can like, pick it out later.

A

It is not a pretty technique, but I will love it.

D

No, it looks really bad sometimes.

A

Yeah, it looks horrible, but it works so well.

D

I didn't know it was called before, but now I do. Well, all of us till it stops moving.

C

All of us in combat robotics just spend way too much money on just loctite and just loctiting. Every little screw that you're trying to.

D

Loctite is bad. Loctite is not for your threads. It's not for your whatever. It's for eating and eating only. The red taste. The best is the best value.

B

Do not. Do not take Thomas's advice seriously, children.

D

You're not supposed to eat it. Why does it taste so good?

F

Don't look at Thomas. The blue kind is better.

B

We are not getting into this fight right now. Before we get further down this rabbit hole. Tony, what's your question?

E

Um, so I. I know you do a lot of other events, and we

A

just heard you work with the Honeycrack

E

team down there and the growing stems. What is one part of NHRL that you wish could be reproduced at other local events?

A

The production. Honestly, if there is a way to box up their media kit and their racks for controlling all those cameras and to be able to pop that up into a existing cage, it would be amazing. We have a few cameras at Honeycracked and, you know, I think. I believe we use OBS for controlling those during events. Doing, like, very limited editing, but I'm designing my own.

B

Yeah, I was going to say that Tony's literally working on that.

A

Perfect. We might need to talk sometime about July. Yes.

B

We have, like, Tony's design, like, the overlays and all that kind of stuff. Our first event was Boxylvania that we did the production on, and we're kind of learned from that and figuring it out, but Tony's our mastermind behind that.

A

I would love to dive a little bit deeper on that, too. There's a little bit of AV nerd back here, but it doesn't get flexed much often.

E

We can talk sometime. We'll see what we can do. Because I think. Because honestly, that was my thing. I think, honestly, the big thing that NHRL has is the production and the pathway to YouTube and everything else and that exposure that most other local events don't get. So it's like, I would love to figure out some way to be able to do that for all the events and get that capability out there to them.

C

Yeah, I honestly think NHRL would want all the events to also get a higher production so that feeding into their main events would be, like, easier and better. But I mean, like, Joe, if you. If you could build, like, an exact thing that you would want for production at, like, Hive Asteria, what would you want?

A

So High Vista is a good example, but also as a whole, we do a lot of travel events, and I want a portable, like, 16U server rack chassis and, like, a pelican case that has, like, Black Magic built into it. I want to have multiple cameras that can just run wirelessly to it, maybe on a different frequency. I don't know. I know there's a lot of issues there, but I just want something that's portable, that can be set up into a cage and you know, any cage. That way, if we want to run it in the 12 pound cage at Hive or if we want to run it in our six by six trailer cage at events. You know, we have an event coming up, the air show soon. It'd be really nice to stream that from the air show. It's a cool, you know, it's a very cool image to have a bunch of jets in the background stuff and look really great on camera.

E

So the cameras that I'm actually designing are using Raspberry PI P0, the 2W ones, and I got like a micro camera and a microphone attached to it and I'm literally 3D printing the boxes to go in the corners of the cages. So you'll literally be able to screw it in the corner of the cage and it plugs in and it's completely WI fi enabled. So as long as there's WI fi at the place, it would stream completely wireless except for the power. And actually you can put in a battery pack to actually power it too.

A

Battery pack and have them hot swappable in a mount would be absolutely amazing. So that's what I want. Yeah, what he just said.

B

Yeah. And then, then we could probably build, we could probably build like a custom image on like a small chassis, like one of those small PCs like the intel Nooks or something like that that you can launch into and then auto connect to the PC. Yeah, it's a project.

E

In the real situation, what I want to do is I actually want to design it so that you literally would log into our website and it would be completely cloud based. So obs and everything else would run on the cloud. So you, any computer would be able to just log in, have everything, be able to download, connect up the cameras and you're good to go.

A

Sounds amazing to me.

E

Project.

C

What about the other part of production? What do you think about getting. Having people there to be able to actually announce and everything like that?

A

Yeah, that's. We, we try very hard at events to do announcing and you know, it's just when you're working with the team, you only have so many people that are available to help run events that aren't there to compete themselves. So having the staff as well and the production team to help move things along, to help do cage managing and all that stuff. That way it's not, you know, five people against the world and trying to run a 32 bot bracket. It can be, you know, 10, 15 people. Each person has a job. That way five people don't have three jobs.

C

Yeah, it gets crazy. It definitely gets crazy. Even at small events nowadays, it gets really crazy. I I and especially you go to a lot of the smaller events nowadays and like, most of the bots are, are good enough that they would break a gauge. Like, every bot is like, oh, you, there's like multiple, like tournament winners here all the time at even small events too. But yeah, I, I that's pretty awesome.

B

Thomas, let's do your secret question and then we'll get to Julian.

D

Ah, yes, the secret question. Joe, you are a combat fighter. It's all about the rivalries. I need you to explain the Old Bay rivalry also the proper usage of Old Bay as a Marylander yourself.

A

The Old Bay rivalry. Old Bay versus Jo, or Old Bay itself. Oh, okay, okay. We're deep diving here into some history. So the Copenhaver family actually goes back to my grandfather, who was a commercial crabber. So there is some. If you're talking about me being professional Combat Robotics, who's a professional crabber, and he has some strong opinions against Old Bay, which do not lend to my argument at all.

D

I see.

A

So my family is actually a Jo family for cooking crabs. I am sorry, I apologize to my friends, my fellow Marylanders, and all seafood lovers alike, but if you are steaming crabs, Jo's is superior. And I'm only going to say that here, and I'm going to go silent on the matter very shortly.

E

Now.

A

Now, if we are talking about a representative seasoning of Maryland that embodies the spirit, the pride, the flavor and spice of a steak, Old Bay carries that. Old Bay is literally a brand more than a seasoning nowadays. Because if you're a Marylander, you love two things. Old Bay and our stupid flag. And you are very proud of those things. You're live and die by them. But yeah, that's, I'm sorry, Thomas, but I'm, I'm actually team Jo. I'm very sorry. I've been living a lie in.

D

I've only eaten crabs in Maryland, like, once or twice.

A

Come down to hive hysteria, I'll take you out.

B

And how.

D

What's the process for, like, seizing these crabs? Like, do you just, like, dump it on them?

A

So, okay, okay, we are, we're very ethical people in my family. We ethically dispatch the crabs before boiling them.

D

Is this most people knife and split their brain in half?

A

No, that's lobsters, sir.

C

Put some respect on lobsters.

A

Yeah, we put them into a water bath and electrocute them. Sorry, this is no longer a kid's show, but actually it's a, it's a process used when crabs are being cooked. They pop their claws off. It's actually a defense mechanism when they're trying to escape a predator. But about half your crabs in a traditional crab steam will actually pop their crab their claws off. So if you put them into water and electrocute them, they no longer have that reflex and you're dispatch them quicker so they're not, you know, being cooked alive. And that's just kind of sketchy.

D

This is good. That is a good ethical way.

A

Is a good ethical way. And then, then we seize them. We have a whole bucket. You put like a, I don't know, half a two liter, so about a liter of a seasoning into one bushel crabs and you steam them up and is a, a lovely treat that the whole family of Marylanders can enjoy.

D

Well, how about that?

C

Do you have opinions on the more northeastern lobster compared to crab?

A

So there is a. I, I have a hot take here that I don't even think northeasterns know about. Have northeasterns ever heard of a soft shell crab sandwich?

B

Yes.

A

Okay. Okay, so we're getting close here.

C

In fact, I, I used to make them back when I was a chef. I used to make them in that season. I used to make them all the time. People love, love soft shell crab sandwiches.

A

For those who don't know, crabs molt like other, I don't know, arachnids and stuff like that. Other weird, spooky creatures because I mean they're just underwater spiders.

D

Horseshoe crabs.

A

Yep, horseshoe crabs, sure. Um, so do lobster. But when you, you, you have a soft shell crab, it's only soft for about like an hour and you, you put them in a freezer and then you deep fry the entire crab after removing their lungs and a couple specific organs. Just so you know you're not ingesting a bunch of toxins. But there is such a thing as a soft shell lobster slammer. And it is an entire hoagie roll with a lobster that is soft shell, deep fried and then bacon, tomato and mayo. And that is the only way you'll see me eat lobster. It is decadent, is lovely. And that's the only thing I think that tops like crab cakes and stuff like that is a soft shell lobster slammer. It was ungodly.

B

So.

C

So you don't have opinions on like butter hot versus cold lobster and all that sort of stuff

D

on the playing field? Yeah,

C

yeah.

D

Like he's not in the New York, Connecticut pizza debate. He's in the. Yeah, I, my family goes Back to Greeks recent 15, 20. Like, Joe is. Joe is the most interesting guy in the world.

C

I. I like my crab soft. That's what I like.

A

Who would have known that there's soft my drinks, hard seasoning debate.

B

So, so just. Just a really quick. Because we're going down the rabbit hole on this, but I just wanted to. To do one more crab thing before we got to Julianne's question. What are your. Your thoughts on carcinization? You know what that is?

A

Absolutely not, sir.

B

It is the. It is the Internet meme theory that everything turns into a crab because there has been five different times in evolution, five separate things have turned into crabs. So I. I don't know if you know what that was.

C

Everything turns into crab.

D

Yeah, it's a weird.

B

It's an evolutionary path that five different animals have taken that have turned into crabs separately from each other.

A

As someone who deals with existentialism, this brings me great peace that I can return back to my homeland as a crab. As a Marylander, I have peace now. Thank you.

B

I'll send you more information.

A

Yeah, I'm for this theory.

B

It's a very interesting evolutionary thing that has happened five different times.

D

When I die, I want to be dumped in the oceans. The crab times can feed off of me.

C

Not for the fish. It's.

B

It's now recorded, Thomas. So if you don't have an official will we now have your recording of

D

you saying that's a pretty good way to go? It seems. It seems like responsible or something.

B

Okay, before we get to the mailbag, Julian, you are in our fifth chair. So you have our fifth question. Go ahead.

F

So I want to talk to you about your. Your forks on dead runs. So I believe they're TPU with some sort of stiffener inside them. Is that the case? And if so, why do you go for that sort of fork over a metal fork? Is it just weight savings or does it offer some other advantages?

A

Yeah, so this actually goes back all the way to Deadrise V1. I made a mild steel unit chassis, dead rise, like a 7.8 inch disc on it with an even bigger motor. Laughably, I had no weight or time for forks. So the last minute before Moto, I said, well, it's whatever. I'm just gonna print tpu. Like, what's the worst could happen? But then it worked, which was even more confusing. So I kind of just leaned into it and said, well, okay, you know this. We'll keep going with this. We went and designed V2, which is more of what you See, nowadays the larger disc, the, you know, exposed motor, two wheel drive back then. But we made these outrigger pontoons and that's the TPU you're talking about with a carbon fiber rod inlaid inside of it. Obviously we all work with TPU as builders, but for those that don't, TPU has a memory. So as the robot sat there without the carbon fiber, those forks would kind of curve up and turn into anti forks. And I'm sorry, I'm a large guy, I like an efficient fork. I need to work. But so we started impregnating the, impregnating the carbon into it. And they worked. And they're cheap and disposable and they only weigh like 110 grams combined, which in a 30 pound robot is insane. So it allows us to put a lot more weight into top plate configurations or larger weapons or, you know, treads and cleats and all that stuff. But they have their limitations. And we do actually have AR forks. They didn't come out to play a pro tour. We run. We have. I have multiple feeder forks that are all spring loaded. I use them against jump rope in an exhibition fight and they are amazing. I can't wait to use them on a robot that's not going to shear them off and throw them the ceiling. But the TPU just, it keeps sort of working enough to the point I don't want to modify. And there's a lot of inspiration and stuff. I'm taking, you know, notes from gourd that made some beautiful forks with some spatulas on the end. The outside rigger, the outside forks, the outriggers are actually hard mounted so they don't pivot and they worked all weekend. So we're kind of playing with something like that. But I'm still sticking. Team tpu, they remove, they don't get jammed up if they get hit. They're just kind of vaporized and nothing gets hung up on them underneath of you. So you're not getting high center because a fork gets hit down or it's bent in weird ways and it still lets you feed your weapon into things. So we're still playing with tpu, my friend.

F

Very cool. So what you're telling me is I can build a 30 pounder entirely out of TPU, right?

A

Not in my group. No, you can't. Sorry, yeah, no. Not gonna allow that to happen. But you absolutely could. I have a 30th design. It is three build plates wide on a Prusa XL, but it is all layered with carbon Fiber rods in different directions and about like a quarter inch to 38 thick TPU base plate with the carbon fiber rods in it. I think it'll work, but I'm waiting to kind of field it just as a joke at a possible event in the near future. We'll see.

F

Right on.

D

Thank you.

C

Cool.

B

I like the, the thought behind that and the, the engineering. So that's awesome. Okay, we are going to go to our voicemail box and check and see what is in our listener mailbag for Joe.

A

You've reached the voicemail of the Havok rundown. Please leave your message after the tone.

B

So these are going to be kind of rapid questions. We have quite a few of them up here. And we are going to start off well. Usually we'd start off with Nick, but Nick's got kind of mixed into the main topic tonight. So we're going to start off with Che, who has a question from Rain, who is the driver of Happy Birthday. Rain asks, what got you into Comet Robotics?

A

I'd say hopefully I can say the show on here, but as most people BattleBots. I was a young kid, Thanksgiving Day with my family watching a BattleBots marathon, seeing BioShock and stuff like that. Throw the robots around the arena to the point. Me and my brother went home. We sat in our basement with our giant, you know, ride on push toys. We started screwing on lumber and plows and all types of stuff and just throwing them across the basement at each other to the point. We got other kids in the neighborhood together as like some kind of weird, like battlebot fight club of toys in my parents basement. It got really weird and it's, it was literally the level when I started into Combat Robotics and posting about it. I have friends reaching out like, oh my God, do you remember us doing this as kids? I'm like, yeah, bro. That's what started this. Like, thank you. That was a core memory. But yeah, BattleBots and just fighting with friends and battling toys.

B

Okay, Che, who is Rain's mom, says, do you have a memorable fight? Which led to a change that resulted in a breakthrough for Dead Rise.

E

Ooh.

A

Okay, so this isn't really an engineering breakthrough. It's actually more of a mental breakthrough. Um, our second Motorama and the first one with version two of Deadrise, I was having a lot of like doubts and second guesses of there's a lot of really good robots here. And this is kind of my first real like try hard type robot of actually putting a lot of effort into it and wanting to succeed and we fought Marathon and at the time, Marathon was still an obscenely scary robot and just a brute of a robot and tanked anything you'd throw at it. And we destroyed him. I mean, we tore him apart. And it kind of gave me that thought of, hey, we got something going here. This is working how it should. Let's keep this going. And it motivated us to keep pushing forward and have the confidence. I want to say it was the last. Motorama is a two day event. So that was the last flight of the Saturday and we went back to the Airbnb with all this, you know, next level confidence of we got this and it pushed us through to a third place finish. And that fight still pushed on, you know, to this day of, hey, that was the turning point of like my 30 pound career of, I got this, we have something that works and I'm meant to be here and keep building and fighting with these.

B

Okay, Michael from Team Pandemonium, says, Joe, Nice job getting the pro tour and success you've had so far. What has been your largest challenge in building your Dead Rise?

A

Time management and balancing family duties, work and robots. You know, I, I look at all these college teams and just, just sheer envy of the amount of time and energy they have to put into their robots. But, you know, if leading up to an event, if I can get an hour a night after my kids go to bed and work from 9 to 10, I'm lucky. That's the biggest challenge. If you're, you know, if you're a working adult professional, you're fighting with, you know, work stress and life stress and just other events and other hobbies and just finding the time to actually dedicate to combat robotics is the greatest challenge for me.

B

Okay, Tim of Chubby Unicorn says, Joe, calling your machine Dead Rise implies you're a fan of either naval architecture or the undead. So I'm going to bet on both. So what's your top choice for a vessel and which zombie flick reigns supreme in your book?

A

Okay, so fun fact, my top choice for a vessel actually is a Dead Rise. Dead rise is not just a term for a feature on a boat. It's also the term for a extremely popular Chesapeake Bay crabbing boat. It's got a very steep pitch on the bow of it to crash through waves that are in the Chesapeake Bay. And it's actually called a Dead Rise. That's where the name comes from. I wanted something that represented Southern Maryland and, you know, my family being crabbers and stuff like that. Also, I do love the undead fun Fact is, I almost went to special effects school, the Tom Savini School for Movie Special Effects, when I was a teenager. Love the undead, so it kind of plays into that as well.

D

What haven't you done?

A

I don't know. I gotta find it.

D

You're like the Maryland version of me.

A

Are you living life? You're not just side questing every day? Come on.

C

What is your ideal zombie then? Do you like the fast zombies? Do you like the like more mutated zombies? Or do you like the slow going to get you eventually kind of zombie?

A

You gotta throw some respect on the original zombies.

E

Night.

A

Living Dead, Return of Living Dead. You have to. If you disrespect those man, we are going to be enemies very quick. But if you're talking about fear and just excitement and Entertainment alone, the 48 days later type hyper zombies are insane. I love them to death.

C

Okay, awesome.

B

That's it.

C

That's.

B

I.

C

Do you like. I'm sorry. Now I'm de. One last question and then we'll go back to.

B

Do you.

C

Have you read the actual World War Z book? Is that.

A

I do.

C

We won't talk about the movie.

E

We won't.

A

I did back in like high school, back when it was kind of like fringe culture. And then I believe I got picked up by a larger publisher. But yeah, it's been years since I picked it up. It was such a good book back in the day.

E

Interesting book.

C

Yeah, it's. It's my favorite zombie. Zombie anything is that book. It's so good. It's such a departation from like the way it tells the story. Yeah, it's really good.

E

Like tell the story.

C

Yeah, it's kind of like the iRobot way of telling a story where it's like vignettes, but all the vignettes are like all one story in themselves.

A

But yeah.

C

Awesome. Okay. We could go back to Mailbag. I'm sorry.

B

Yeah, no, you're fine. Uh, Matt. Matt Lantry from the Pandemonium team says. Joe, can you tell us about the efficacy of one by three and two by fours in 12 pound robot construction?

A

Okay, so I am very pro lumber. I'm taking a firm stance on pro lumber. High hysteria is usually a therapeutic event for me. It's my. It's during the summer. It's right around my birthday. It's a nice break from Norwalk and other events. So I wanted to build fun robots, just stuff I could laugh at and burn stress off with. And I decided to field a robot with one by fours, two by Fours, one by threes and whatever else I found at Lowe's at like one o' clock on event day, mid event. And I decided beforehand to build a, basically a full court. We were calling faux court and then later named it Flex Fiesta to be political because I love full court personally, but I don't want to offend Coleman with my, my lumber atrocity that we threw into the cage. And unfortunately it ended up with me having a 6 foot length of lumber with two repeat magnum drives from original dead rise on 6s on each side and some Banebot wheels. And then, I don't know, 12, 14, 10 inch long TPU forks across it. And even worse is it worked. Beat a few robots. The point where I had to start fighting robots I knew were a bad matchup because I felt guilty, you know, taking tokens from other people at this event. And luckily I got humbled very quickly. Matt Lantry split in half, made toothpicks out of me to the point I had to run to Lowe's to build a new robot in the aisle carrying parts of my robot in Lowe's, trying to explain to the worker I'm not crazy, I'm just building a robot. Yeah, if you're not pro lumber man, you need to go research some pliohazard. And even more so Homer from Canada. There's some great wood robots out there. And you know, I'm very pro organic materials. If I can get around to bringing one in Norwalk, I might try again.

B

Okay, so we already covered this, but I'll just ask. Dan says, hey, Joe, did you know that Dead Rise could break dance like that before Pro Tour? Were you just as caught, caught off guard as us?

A

I knew it could. I haven't had a chance to practice it. I want to say that I've seen other robots that were eerily similar to Dead Rise. Professor Wasp, for one, had issues with what they termed pirouetting. And it would just lift up on side and turn to horizontal, but it would spin in place instead of traverse across the arena. So we knew it could do it. We've designed it to not do it and ended up with the robot that could, so we embraced it.

D

Okay.

B

Tom Farkas says, how has Maryland become such a hot spot for good combat robotics?

A

It's. There's something in the water. No, it's. I think it's because we have such a kind of close community down here. We have a lot of engineers. Maryland goes under the radar. But there are so many engineers here working in all forms of industry and a Lot of our school, like theater schools in the area, have strong robotics programs. You know, I'm going to talk about University of Maryland, because that's our work. But we have the Maryland Robotics center and all forms of robotics classes and lots of funding for projects. They really try to push into that kind of world. And we have a lot of clubs from that as well. Uh, I also think due to the fact we're close to nerc. If you think about it, in the past, you know, 10 years, there was only a few of these clubs that were kind of powerhouses and Northeast Robots, Northeast Robotics, Combat. Nerc. If I'm wrong, I'm sorry, but they were putting on events two times a year, three times a year, and you had to travel to them. So it just kind of made sense that we're co located near that. But this new generation, we're really building up. We're really kind of exposing it to more and more people. We're doing outreach, and it's just we're growing, and we're loud and proud about it. So you see more of us, even though if there's only a few.

B

Okay, I think I will. I'll do two more of these, Max. Morningstar says Joe, explain the flavor of Old Bay to someone who's never tasted it before.

A

Perfection. No. Okay, so Old Bay is made up of, oh, do a good job.

F

So I'm not sure I've ever had it, actually, so.

A

So if you ever want to find out what it tastes like, I have multiple cans. My bench, I have one can that uses a prop, and I have one that's used just for, like, samples. But Old Bay, it's a paprika, celery, salt, cayenne, a little bit of onion powder kind of flavor. So it's kind of spicy and smoky, and it's got a little bit of that pepper hit from the paprika, but it's very kind of mellow. But it's its own unique essence. It's the point where we have, like, hundreds of different snacks and stuff that are Old Bay flavored. You can go to the boardwalk in Ocean City and get caramel Old Bay popcorn. Ice cream shops do caramel Old Bay. Like, it's. It's. It's kind of absurd, honestly. And that's coming from me of all people. But Old Bay tastes like Old Bay. And if you don't know, it tastes like paprika, celery, salt, cayenne, pepper. That's it.

B

Okay, I'm gonna have. I'm actually gonna be there For a week in. In. In July. So I'm gonna have to try that multi ice cream.

C

You could go get. You can go get goldfish. Obey goldfish.

A

Those are amazing. And I. I almost brought some up this event.

C

Okay,

B

We. So Alex said, what does dead rise mean? Which we. We've already gone over. Lyndon says, joe, why are you. Why are you Maryland? I think it says, why are you from Maryland?

D

No, why are you Maryland?

B

Why are you Maryland?

F

Why are you Maryland?

A

Why am I Maryland? Just loud and proud. And nobody else is going to be our spokesperson. You know, somebody needs to step up, I guess. Oh, it's. They pay me. I'm a state employee. Okay. I got to represent my country. I want more people to come here, pay taxes to pay my salary.

D

Okay, understandable.

B

And then the last one is from Stephanie from Dark Horse Robotics. Uh, just not a question, just saying. Hi, Joe. Thanks for selling the Beetle weight that eventually became her first bot, Pacino. So that's all. She just wanted to thank you for that.

A

Il Pacino. I miss that robot. I want to rebuild one again someday. Yeah, I built. That was my little three pounder. I built Hodag for the 2021 event, sold it to a guy in Chicago or Detroit, and then he sold it to her. And it's. It lasted like four years as a. The same chassis. It was absurd.

C

Okay, I remember Hodag. Okay.

A

Yeah, well, no, it never fought. Hodag never fought. That was the weird part. So there's. There's a. Another Cryptid Robotics individual who started a YouTube channel and named a robot Hodag. And I believe he also had a puncher, Antwait. So there is. There is multiple Hodags, but there's only one Hodak.

C

Okay, very cool.

B

So it's gonna wrap up this episode of the HAVOC rundown huge thanks to Joe go ahead thing.

D

So I double checked with Rachel, and she said that Monkfish was at the G to the G Scroll Championship in 23 and 24. She wasn't sure about the fights, but also been to one Tennessee event and two Horde events. Even if it only fought one match per each of those five events, that is at least five events that are non NHL, bringing the total to more than 42.

A

The house loses.

F

I knew it. Yeah, I knew it.

B

Brian's facts are wrong and the House loses. And we.

D

We have to update with some more events.

A

Huh?

E

Those are counted on our Havoc rundown, by the way.

C

Yeah, they are.

D

It said 37 NHRL and 4 Thomas.

A

You gave me false confidence.

D

Well, that's not t. That's Tennessee event. No, sorry, that's events, not fights. Unless she only got one fight at the two Horde events and the 2G scroll. So it's missing both Horde and Tennessee.

C

I have to. I'm looking at it now.

E

We go with the officials until we get the rate results I have on

D

the next episode we're going to have.

C

I am looking at it right now. If, if. And I believe. I believe her that it is her robot. I believe Rachel. I will say we probably do have

D

the four of the 4G scroll, correct.

B

Yeah, but I don't know if we're

D

tracking Tennessee and Horde. I'll have to figure out what the event.

E

I can track them if I get them.

C

Yeah, I didn't. I didn't have that information. The house was wrong in this event. The house has lost the game at the end of the event.

D

Like that.

B

Well, with that bombshell, that's going to wrap up another episode of the Havoc Rundown. Huge thanks again to Joe for joining us tonight and giving us an inside look at what it was like competing in the first ever NHL Pro Tour event. And of course, that thanks as always to Ryan, Tony Thomas and our special guest host Julian for being here and helping break down one of the biggest weekends in Combat robotics that we've seen in a while. Brotor feels like a major turning point for the sport. And whether you're a builder fan or somebody discovering robotics for the first time is incredibly exciting to watch where all this could go next. And of course, thank you, Joe for answering all of our questions, getting letting us get to know you a bit more. It was awesome, you know, hearing all your stories and hearing your background. It is one of our favorite things in the world to talk to builders and the people around the sport and understand who they are as people. So thank you for coming on and allowing us to do that with you.

D

I still can't believe that you're named after the seasoning. That's kind of wild.

A

Hey, hey. Don't go down. Don't go there, man. Been a pleasure, guys.

E

Hi everyone.

B

Yet, Tony.

C

Oh, wait.

D

Oh, sorry.

B

Please make sure to check out our website@ Havocrundown.com for everything. Have a rundown, follow us on all of our socials for clips, updates and future episodes. And don't forget to check out our merch store where new merch is dropping every single week, including two brand new jerseys that just hit the store. We're continuously adding T shirts, pats, anything. If you have suggestions for something that you want our logo or a little Our little Jimmy mascot slapped on, let us know. We can throw it in the store. Yes. And we can customize the jersey. So if you want one of our names, one of our nicknames, one of your names, one of your numbers, anything like that, we can do that as well. If you enjoyed this episode, share with your team, your friends, your local builders, or anyone else who loves Combat Robotics as much as we do. Until next time, we will see you in the arena.

A

Bye.

B

Say bye to every. Say bye to our listeners. Goodbye.

D

Nobody expects the wild card.