Matt Vasquez

Foreign.

Ryan Hunter

Hey, everyone.

Justin

Welcome back to the HAVOC rundown. I'm Justin, and tonight we have a really fun one for you. We are joined by Matt and Jason Vasquez, the brothers behind Whiplash, little ash and 00. If you know Combat Robotics, you know Whiplash. It's one of those bots that feels like it has been part of the sports DNA for years. And tonight we get to talk to the people behind it. Welcome, Matt and Jason. Thank you for hopping on and talking to us tonight.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Jason Vasquez

Of course, we're glad to be here.

Justin

This is also going to roll into the focus of our Rundown roundtable tonight. Since Matt and Jason are brothers and Ryan and I are brothers, we're going to talk a little bit about family dynamics and copy robotics and what it's like when the person next to you in the pits is not just a teammate, but is also family. Speaking of family, of course, I cannot do this alone. So joining me tonight is first up, he is my brother, our game corner general manager, and the man most likely to turn a simple segment into a full spreadsheet, or it is Ryan Hunter.

Ryan Hunter

It just so happens tonight's game has a spreadsheet in it.

Justin

Next up, he's always ready with sharp questions, smart insight, and the kind of common analysis this show desperately needs is Thomas Carroll.

Thomas Carroll

As they say in Fast and Furious, family.

Justin

And for this site, our creative powerhouse fantasy trophy architect and resident maker of dangerous ideas, It's Tony Baker,

Ryan Hunter

the one

Justin

that proved little Ash was number one in the world. And he was supposed to be filling in the fifth chair tonight, but he is having some power issues. So we have a five in Focus question from Tim Hebert, but he is not able to actually join us live on the podcast tonight. But he was supposed to be our fifth chair, so thank you, Tim, for stepping in. And it was unfortunate you weren't able to join us due to some power issues that are going on.

Thomas Carroll

Hit by lightning and then his cat exploded.

Justin

I don't know, but the cat exploded.

Ryan Hunter

That's not what happened.

Justin

That's not what happened. Thanks, Tom.

Matt Vasquez

That's it.

Justin

Before we get into the roundtable, we are going to stop off and visit Ryan's game corner. Tell us what we got going on, Ryan.

Ryan Hunter

All right, today in the game corner, I have an activity we have done before with a little bit of a fun twist to it. We are going to be doing a bot draft today. It will be a snake style draft where we go in order until we hit the last person and then turn right Back around and go the opposite way. The draft has three categories. The categories are the best name bot, the trend sending the trend setting bot, and the most underrated bot. You may select any robot in existence. Whether or not you stay within combat robots is entirely up to you. You should just know you will be judged by the greatest crack team of judges I could find. The combat robotics community themselves. Once we finish drafting, I am going to be posting the results on Discord to be judged and we will see what we will get by the end of the episode and who wins. Does anyone have any questions?

Matt Vasquez

I don't think so. Now I gotta think about these. Yeah.

Ryan Hunter

All right, so let me pop up the screen. Sorry. Now I'm learning how to use this. Okay, cool. All right, so once again, like I was saying, the three category. Three categories are best named bot, trend setting bot, and underrated bot. You can pick anything you want and I will let you pick in any order you want. So if you want to start with your trendsetter bottom, start with your trend setter bot. All right. So you can go back and forth. It's just in order that we're snaking.

Matt Vasquez

All right.

Ryan Hunter

I have already pre selected these. I am going to actually.

Matt Vasquez

Okay, never mind.

Ryan Hunter

I have already pre selected the order the. We will start with Justin for draft a robot. You may select any of the. Any of these that you want.

Justin

So I'm gonna go with best name and I don't remember how to spell it. So if you. And I think I'm gonna pronounce it wrong, but I am gonna go for best name with Corey's new £30 that he brought in June to fight against to go opposite of Xenomorph and Getawi. I don't remember how to pronounce that.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah.

Justin

Yes. So I'm going with best name because he named it so that he was. Or no, it's a 12 pounder. He named it so he can go against Xenomorph, which is Dave's. Dave's 12 pounder. And specifically he went in, went deep into the alien lore and found the. The name for those that, that hunt the xenomorphs so that he could have a name that would rival that robot. So I'm going to go with that. So shout out to Corey. You're getting my best name.

Thomas Carroll

Do these have to be edit your robots?

Ryan Hunter

No. Any robot, any robot. All right, Matt, you are second.

Matt Vasquez

I think best name. I feel like one of the best names that I've heard in like the last few years. Maybe it's like Chainsaw Kitty. That's just like a really good name.

Ryan Hunter

Okay.

Matt Vasquez

I feel like it's a. Yeah. I don't know. It's kind of creative. It's like very memorable. It's a very marketable. It's a. And it helps that it's also a good robot. Yeah.

Jason Vasquez

And the position is nice. I do like that one. It's cool.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, exactly.

Ryan Hunter

Jason, you are next.

Jason Vasquez

This is a tough one for me. I. I chose Tombstone because. Okay. I think. I think just Farouk saying it has just like been so ingrained in so many people's heads. And that's got to be one of the most, like, well known names throughout all of combat robots. I mean, before it was a heavyweight, it was a super heavyweight. It's got like, it's been around a while kind of thing going on.

Matt Vasquez

And battlebot name ever, probably.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Hunter

I also.

Justin

I can't think about Tombstone without hearing Farouk's voice in my head. Say Tombstone. Announce Tombstone. Just elongate Tombstone. Like whenever I hear Tombstone, I just. Farouk's voice is in my head saying it so.

Jason Vasquez

Exactly. Yeah. And I think it invokes a feeling in builders when they hear they're going up against it, so.

Justin

Oh, yeah.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah.

Ryan Hunter

I like it. It's iconic. I love it. Thomas.

Thomas Carroll

Okay, I'm just getting ready to pronounce this one.

Ryan Hunter

My thought is.

Justin

Oh, God. Is it.

Ryan Hunter

Did you just DM it to me?

Thomas Carroll

Yeah, I just sent it to you.

Ryan Hunter

Okay.

Thomas Carroll

It's the Reef Trigger Fish. It's a robot from G Scroll, driven by the Sir Slicey Team. If you've ever faced it, you've been flipped over many times. But the most important part about a robot name is not about striking fear into your opponent. It's not about describing what you're going

Matt Vasquez

to do to your opponent or what

Thomas Carroll

you're going to do yourself. It's about making the announcers suffer and struggle to pronounce it all day.

Ryan Hunter

And now I am. I am suffering because now I have to figure out how I'm going to fit this whole name into this box. And I am not.

Thomas Carroll

See, that's why. That's why this name is so good.

Ryan Hunter

New.

Justin

It's not allowed to take over my box.

Ryan Hunter

No.

Thomas Carroll

I can just win by picking the longest name.

Justin

He's just gonna get rid of all of us. I honestly thought you were gonna go with. What is it? What's his name? Spot The.

Ryan Hunter

The.

Justin

The fish. This is one that has the Plector Hankus.

Jason Vasquez

No, no, no, no, no.

Thomas Carroll

That one's. No. You probably would have had a buffer overflow issue trying to type that in.

Ryan Hunter

All right, Tony, I'm going old school.

Matt Vasquez

That's a good one.

Ryan Hunter

What was it?

Matt Vasquez

The Impaler.

Ryan Hunter

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it.

Justin

I like that. Tells you exactly what's about to happen.

Thomas Carroll

Yeah, yeah, but it's too easy to pronounce.

Ryan Hunter

All right, we are turning back around. Tony, you get to pit. You get to draft again.

Justin

He started the big Wheels. I'm gonna have to go with huge.

Ryan Hunter

Hell, yeah. I love it. All right, Thomas, wait.

Thomas Carroll

It goes to me next.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah.

Ryan Hunter

Oh, man, it's a snake draft. It goes. It goes around.

Justin

Okay, trendsetter.

Ryan Hunter

You don't have to do trendsetter. If you want, you could do underrated

Justin

too, but either way, you gotta do trendsetter.

Jason Vasquez

Okay.

Ryan Hunter

Okay.

Thomas Carroll

I'm not gonna go trend setting of a robot archetype, but robots itself. And that's gotta be Blendo.

Ryan Hunter

Oh, okay.

Justin

Yeah, I like that.

Ryan Hunter

Excellent. Excellent. All right, Jason.

Jason Vasquez

I was gonna go with a similar robot to Blendo, but last second, I changed it to mixtape. I think it kind of revolutionized the small flamethrower robots, and I think everybody's kind of with it.

Ryan Hunter

Excellent. I. I really. No, I like. I like mixtape. Mixtape's great. And it definitely was like the first. Oh, flamethrowers will kill people. Okay, cool. All right, Matt.

Matt Vasquez

Well, it's funny you said mixtape, because mine was links. Because if you look at the. The Beetle weight class, even if it's not a beater bar, a lot of the four wheeled birds, they look a lot like Lynx.

Justin

Kelvin.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, exactly. Just Calvin.

Ryan Hunter

You want links?

Matt Vasquez

I think links. We want to have a weight class that has, like, 80 robots registered for a given event, and half of them look a lot like Lynx. That's a. I think that says a lot.

Ryan Hunter

Awesome, Justin.

Justin

So I was gonna go with Clyde before you pick mixtape for the flame thing, but I kind of changed direction. I'm going to go with Maximizer for the Thwackbot friend setting.

Matt Vasquez

Or Thagamizer.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah.

Justin

Or Thagomizer. Yeah, sorry.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah.

Ryan Hunter

Thwackbot is. Is different. Thwackbot is the overhead. Yep.

Justin

Yeah.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah.

Ryan Hunter

All right, cool. Justin, you get the last category. Underrated Robot.

Justin

I'm going to do a shout out here because I know that they are both listening, but I'm going to go with Happy Birth Slayer.

Ryan Hunter

Okay.

Justin

I was gonna go with Rain. I'm glad that I got it first. Rain is an amazing driver, and he's. He's Just a little thing and he's just gonna explode and just get better and better and we're gonna have another Lars on our hand. We're gonna have another. You know, it's just gonna be amazing. So I'm underrated. Happy birthday.

Ryan Hunter

You just know that Che is going to vote on this and that's why you put that there. So you know, at least one guarantee. All right, all right, fair. All right, Matt.

Matt Vasquez

It's funny. I changed my answer at the last second because it just popped in my head. But this is like a very old robot and we'll be surprised if you guys know. But harriga pounden if you know that robot.

Ryan Hunter

What was it?

Matt Vasquez

It was, it was from called her gounden and it was in the early like Comedy Central BattleBots days. If you look at H E R R. If you look at them on Google, it'll pop up. But okay, it was hair. No H e r ha. But I think it was probably the first melty brain robot ever and it competed for like over 20, nearly 25 years straight.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, it was a lightweight.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, it was a 60 pounder. It fought in like the Comedy Central era Battlebox starting in like 2000 and fought every year through all the robo games through 2023 and remained pretty competitive. So I'll say that's my answer.

Ryan Hunter

Okay, you're going to have to spell it for me. I have theories on it.

Matt Vasquez

I'm going to Google them. Okay.

Justin

H e r Hair gap.

Ryan Hunter

H E R R G E T

Matt Vasquez

O U N D E N And

Jason Vasquez

there's a space after the. The Rs.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, sorry. There you go.

Justin

As soon as you see Ryan, you're gonna know exactly what they're talking about. I didn't know the name, but as soon as no em like. Oh, okay.

Matt Vasquez

Okay, There you go.

Ryan Hunter

Here we go. Pounding. Okay.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, just like a very simple looking two wheel drive robot. It literally had like a, it was like a whatever store bought hammer off the end of it and it would just spin in place and could translate around and was like always a middle of the pack robot, but for like 20 years straight, which is ridiculous. He's 19 and 18, you know, over

Justin

the literally 24 years.

Ryan Hunter

Oh, wow. Okay. I looked it up. It's pretty awesome. Okay, Jason.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, for underrated, I kind of took it more so from just like the cool. It's a cool robot. And that isn't like spoken about enough is. I think the name is Crab Rangoon. It was. I only saw it from the Instagram on NHL but, like. But just, like, I was trying to think of a creative way to get the weight advantage on a horizontal with 0. 0. And, like, theirs is just such a cooler way to get the weight advantage with the horizontal. Yep. Yeah. And just the fact that, like, even if legs start to break off, like, the blade is still sitting above the ground, like, I. I just think that's really cool, and that's, like, a pretty realistic way to get a walker to actually, like, hold its own in combat. So I want to see more of that thing. I want to see people copy it. I want to see. I want to see more of it. So underrated.

Ryan Hunter

All right, Thomas.

Thomas Carroll

It's gotta be Anubis, Even though ranks fairly high at 14, has yet to win a golden dumpster. He's made it to quarterfinals, like, four times. Semifinals, finals. Anubis keeps doing Anubis things, But mark my words, Anubis will win a golden dumpster.

Ryan Hunter

I. I agree.

Matt Vasquez

I.

Ryan Hunter

It's only a matter of time before he does, because he is everywhere. If you. If you. If you see a beetle event, Anubis is registered. It's the craziest thing. Okay, let's end this out with Tony.

Justin

I'm gonna go with caldera.

Ryan Hunter

Okay.

Justin

He's been around forever, fighting them, and it's like, I think he's just overshadowed

Ryan Hunter

by all the little.

Matt Vasquez

The kids and stuff that come into this, which Caldera. I don't care.

Ryan Hunter

Any of them.

Justin

I was literally gonna say. I could say Glenn, we could do that way.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah.

Ryan Hunter

Okay. All right, well, so now we have our draft board. I am going to post this in a couple discords, including ours, and we will see by the end of the episode who has the best draft board. All right, that's. That's me for the. For the game corner. Thank you for participating, and we'll have an answer by the end.

Jason Vasquez

Okay. Nice.

Ryan Hunter

Very cool.

Justin

Thank you, Ryan. All right, so we're now going to move into the rundown roundtable, and the segment theme for this is family dynamics and common robotics. Since Matt and Jason are here, Ryan and I felt like the perfect time to talk about family dynamics. There's a lot of families in this sport, so it's. The sport itself already has enough pressure built into it, Designing, building, traveling. So it's. It's nice to have a family member there to kind of share with that. Sometimes it's nice. Sometimes it's difficult because, you know, just siblings are like that, and families are like that sometimes. The first thing that I want to start out with, though, Is Matt and Jason, when did you first start working together in combat robotics? What is the kind of the history there?

Matt Vasquez

I think immediately is the answer.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, my. My spiel about that is pretty much our dad started out doing this as a hobby the year I was born. So I just always grew up around it, and it was just another one of our hobbies. So Matthew and I were pretty much always outside growing up. So we'd either, like, go hit a tennis, like go play tennis together, like go ride bikes, or, like, just work on robots. And it was kind of all the same, but we've been doing it forever.

Thomas Carroll

Okay.

Justin

You said that your dad was involved, of course, which I believe. I remember hearing that in the BattleBots days. So it's always been kind of like a family affair.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, exactly. Like, has he like, a. Like, at the time, he wasn't like an engineer or anything, but he was just kind of like a tinkerer sort of. And I think, like, 1999, he saw, like, the BattleBots pay per view, and he was like, oh, I should do that. Then. Like, took a couple years, but eventually he built, like, a 60 pound robot and, like a middleweight 120 pound robot, and he fought in Comedy Central battlebots. And he didn't make, like, too many of the TV rounds or anything, but I was, like, just old enough to go and, like, barely old enough to, like, remember even being there kind of. But like you said, it was the year Jason was born, so.

Ryan Hunter

Right.

Matt Vasquez

But yeah, then after that, like, we kind of, like, he, like, took a break from the sport for a while, as some people do, and we were still super into it. I was definitely still super into it. So eventually we kind of got him to get back into it, and that was like, kind of Robo games days. And, yeah, we just kind of never stopped.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah. And to bring it back to that, like, family dynamic portion, like, the first robot was called Matt's Bammer. The second robot was called Deadbot after my mom. And then the third robot was called Jason's Revenge after me. So I think part of my dad getting my mom to be excited about it was naming the robots after all of us.

Matt Vasquez

But, yeah, it only worked if we liked it, too. And lucky for. Exactly.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah. So it was kind of inseparable from the family, like, since the beginning.

Justin

Okay, what roles do you guys usually naturally fall into on the team? I know you guys each have your own bots, but, like, when you guys had Whiplash and BattleBots, like, what. What kind of roles do you guys work Synchronous synchronously. Wow. I'm saying that really badly. Or do you guys have certain roles on the team that you fall into when you're working on your robots?

Matt Vasquez

It was kind of weird because, like, the, like, before BattleBots came back on TV, like, we were just in, like. Like, middle school, high school, and, like, we were just both, you know, home all the time, because we're just in school. So we would build our own insect bait robots and stuff, and kind of did our own things and would collaborate a little bit, but mostly did our own stuff. And, like, by the time we were really seriously doing BattleBots, I think we were both in college, or maybe you were still in high school, and I was just starting college. So, like, we weren't physically near each other that much, but whenever we would. We're able to, like, come home, we would try to kind of grind as hard as we could. Just lots of hours in the garage building for Whiplash. I did, like, most of the design work, but as far as, like, the actual building of the robot was a very collaborative, collaborative thing. And, you know, as the seasons went on, we like, kind of, like, build up. Built up, like, a pretty decent shop in our garage because, like, every year you get a little bit of sponsor money and you have a little bit left over, and then it's like, all right, time to buy a manual mill. Time to buy Bridgeport. Oh, we need a lake now. Because, like, who's going to make these parts, man? You can give your perspective, Jason.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, I mean, I pretty much nailed it on the head, but, I mean, like, growing up, you were mainly focused on the little robots, and we'd be competing against each other, so we would both kind of just do everything and then test out our skills against each other, I guess. And then once BattleBots kind of came around, we figured we'd be more. More powerful if we teamed up to build one robot again. So that was really fun. And then obviously, with Matthew being the older brother, it kind of makes sense for him to take a little bit more of the wheel in regard to, like, design and driving. And I think that's panned out pretty well with his driving and how renowned that is at this point. So it's pretty cool. And, I mean, you had your own, too.

Justin

You had a defender.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, I totally did.

Justin

How did that. How did that come around?

Jason Vasquez

Yeah. So, I mean, in 2020, Whiplash got second, which was awesome. And that was actually one of the years that I was pretty, like, neck deep in college and math. You had a little Bit more time. But actually, I think Covid was a big part of that too, because we

Matt Vasquez

only got second place because Covid.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah.

Matt Vasquez

So we don't have time to work on the robot.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah. Where many teams were like separated and forced to be separated. We were forced to be together.

Thomas Carroll

Yeah, we were.

Justin

Oh, okay.

Jason Vasquez

So that. That really kind of helped us get ahead. But yeah, from doing good in that we managed to leverage more sponsors. And I knew, I mean, there isn't much higher you then second with Whiplash. I was like, okay, like, I feel pretty successful with that. Like, let's try something new. And I figured that was the perfect opportunity to start driving. So that was kind of the story of Defender.

Justin

Okay, that's kind of cool though. But most people are like, what is your Covid hobby? And they. They hold up like a sourdough bread. And it's like, what's your covet hobby? You hold up Defender.

Matt Vasquez

Well, it's crazy because go anywhere. And especially like the summer of COVID like, you literally just like, we had nothing else to do. We're like, all right, we're just going to build this thing as good as we possibly can. And I think this battle boss season that year got postponed to like two or three months or something. So, like, had it have happened when it was supposed to, we probably would have been kind of behind. But with those extra few months and us being stuck at home, it was

Ryan Hunter

just like perfect at this point. What is in that? You were talking about collecting like a Bridgeport mill and all that sort of stuff. What is in that workshop now? Is it. Is it like a full professional, like, workshop at this point?

Matt Vasquez

I don't know to define professional shop. I guess it depends on your definition. Like, we don't have any CNC machines in there or anything. It's all manual machines. But, like, we got like a Bridgeport in there. We've got like a decently sized lathe that is definitely. We bought all the stuff used. The lathe has seen better days. It only has like one gear that works, so you can only go one speed. But it's. But it's made some good parts. Yeah, like a drill press, belt, sanders, you know, table saws.

Jason Vasquez

Still functions as a garage as well. And it kind of still has the garage vibe and never really like got that professional, like, clean slate makeover kind of thing. It's just always just kind of been more and more and more. And I think it still has some like, good charm to it because of that.

Matt Vasquez

I think a good way to put it is like the shop at Nhrl, we basically have everything that's in there, plus a little bit is what I would say. So.

Justin

Okay.

Ryan Hunter

But you do not have the tip of Linden's finger, so you're missing.

Matt Vasquez

No, we do not. Luckily we avoided that.

Ryan Hunter

Do you. Do you use it for like home renovation stuff too?

Justin

Does.

Ryan Hunter

I mean, it's at your parents house. Lyndon's favorite thing. Great.

Matt Vasquez

I think my dad uses it because he had like some little side businesses where he would like, prototype ideas for people and like, work on like some like TV show and movie special effects stuff. And we've like built robots for like commercials and things. So the shop is definitely. We've built all that stuff just on that shop.

Ryan Hunter

That's so cool. That's really awesome.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah.

Justin

So as far as the, the. The brotherly relationship goes, when you're talking about, like being in an event or something, does it make it easier having that history versus, like, working with another teammate that you may not have that history with? Like, having that relationship, Just being able to understand each other a little bit more. I'm sure that goes into helping you build the robot and knowing what each other needs, especially in a high, high stress environment like BattleBots and stuff.

Matt Vasquez

I think so. I think like, with team members you're maybe not that close with. Like, like, for us, like, I don't know, like, for example, at finals back in December, like, we were grinding super hard to like, get ready for our fights because we had a ton of fights and you could just kind of be like, hey, I need this thing now. Go do it. Like, no questions, like, vice versa. And like, no one's offended and like, they just get it done. And like, whatever the thing you ask works and. Yeah, I don't know.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, and I'd say there aren't many, like, scenarios that we run into in the last few years that we hadn't seen previously. I feel like what can happen at an event, we've pretty much been through it all together, so I think we're really good at kind of like going to where the ball's going to be, not where it currently is, and we could kind of like guess what needs to happen next before even talking. And just all that stuff is really big. Just like the unspoken direction that just kind of just comes naturally at this point.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, that's a really good point. Like, if we're like, preparing for like, once you're on the bracket, things move really, really fast to NHL. And like, for example, like, while I was prepping for I don't Know, the chonky fight. Maybe last year, getting the wedge ready, which was a giant pain in the butt. I was just like, jason, like, if we win this fight, like, we're going to need this, this, and this for the finals match. Like, go do that. And so, yeah, I feel like we've gotten pretty good at that. Like, maybe sometimes that strategy doesn't pay off, but if it does, it really does pay off.

Justin

It's easier to be blunt with each other than it is against teammates that you may worry about, like, offending them or something like that.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, yeah, totally.

Matt Vasquez

Me and my brother don't get along

Justin

very well, so I was like, has there any situation where you guys were,

Matt Vasquez

like, like, in the heat of the

Justin

battle and everything else actually go after,

Matt Vasquez

like, yell at each other and stuff?

Jason Vasquez

I'd say, like, during, like, my prime teenage years, when you're just naturally more annoyed. Like, I'd say it was worse than it is now for sure. But last few years, it's been pretty. Just smooth sailing. And I think we kind of just both recognize, like, what our focuses are and how we go about things. So it's just. We kind of just know what to expect with each other, and we're just pretty positive.

Thomas Carroll

So.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, I agree. I think once we hit, like, a certain age, like, any amount of bickering really disappeared or, like, it doesn't mean that, like, we'll never get annoyed with each other at an event, but, like, it's, like, really not a problem, so.

Ryan Hunter

So the main thing that Justin and I have is I am pretty. I have a tool set of the small screwdriver, right? And I have all the bits. And I am very, very particular that if you use a bit, you put it back, right? Use a bit, it goes back into its place and everything like that. And I have the bits in the right place and everything like that. Justin is a. Oh, I'm just gonna switch out a bit. I'll put it down. And then it's like, is there anything like that for you guys? Of, like, oh, you have, like, a little bit of differences of how you do things, or are you, like, smooth? F1 Pit Crew, like, that sort of thing?

Jason Vasquez

It's been pretty smooth lately. I'd say, like. I mean, number one, like, after college, we both, like, I've been separated. We're on the opposite ends of the, like, California, so I naturally bring my own toolkit. He naturally brings his. And then we'll kind of, like, text back and forth before and be like, hey, like, I don't Want to pack this? Can you bring yours?

Ryan Hunter

Or.

Jason Vasquez

I don't have this. I won't get it in time. Can you bring yours? And that kind of saves us from, like, that specific type of thing. But, yeah, I think just being prepared really makes it a lot easier for us. Looks like we may have lost Matthew with some wifi issues. I noticed he froze before he disappeared,

Ryan Hunter

so I think, yeah, we'll probably get him back. I'm sure he'll. He'll come back, probably.

Justin

Do you guys have. Do you guys fit into certain roles? Like, one of you is more of the calm one. One of you is more, like distressed. Or do you kind of share that kind of thing? Because. Because with Ryan and I, like, Ryan is a lot more anxious than I am about stuff, and I kind of have to calm him down at times. So we kind of like fit into those roles and, and balance each out a little bit. I think it goes out and zens out on, you know, soldering.

Ryan Hunter

Yeah. Justin likes the fumes.

Justin

Yeah. Well, I've been doing electronic repairs and electronic work for a very long time, so I came into this sport knowing how to solder and enjoying it. And that's one of the things I've learned is a lot of people hate soldering, and I just don't understand it. It's a very Zen thing for me. So if soldering needs to be done, I'm the one who's doing the soldering.

Jason Vasquez

I like soldering. It just feels high stakes. It's like if anything's not perfect, like, that is going to ruin my day at an undisclosed time. I think naturally, like, whoever's driving is going to be the most stressed. So I think kind of like at BattleBots, if Matt had a fight coming up with whiplash, like, I would try and calm him down, not that he gets particularly stressed, and then vice versa. Like, if I'm driving, like, I'll go to him to calm me down. And yeah, I think kind of the nerves kind of mostly falls on the driver and then just whoever isn't driving, it's kind of their responsibility to hype them up. And I think even, like cage shot, like, while you're fighting. I like, I think even more so than, like, giving him, like, direct driving advice. It's more so just like, confidence and like, you got this kind of thing. So. Yeah.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah. I feel like at this point we've become pretty similar in this regard. Like, there's not much of, like, a yin and yang. We kind of have the same, like, outlook and maybe the Same strengths, probably. It just has to do with doing this for so long together. Right. But yeah, my second. All this stuff Jason said.

Ryan Hunter

Is there any plans that have a. I'm sure everybody asks you this. Is there any plan to have a double robot, a

Matt Vasquez

driving multi bot?

Ryan Hunter

Thank you.

Jason Vasquez

You guessed it. That's been like on our to do list for the longest time. I, I'm trying to like dive into other projects that aren't combat, but just that one just keeps getting to the top of the list. Right now we're eyeing the 12 pound weight class, but I don't, I wouldn't say it's fully set in the stone. Like, we haven't actually started CAD yet, but I have some pencil drawings that were, I think pretty happy with. So yeah, it's absolutely overdue. We should have done this a long time ago. And I think not, not this Norwalk season, but maybe next we'll be eyeing that. So. Okay.

Matt Vasquez

Jason's been kind of like spearheading this effort and like you were the one who like really pushed for it and I've also wanted to do it as well, so. But we're also going back and forth between like, does Jason just designed two identical robots or do we like both design our own just completely unique one? So we'll see what happens there.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah. And then fun facts. I think this robot fought at one event, but we did have a 12 pound multibot. Previously they were called the Doorstops of Doom and they were as you could guess, just kind of like doorstoppy wedge fork robots. But yeah, that was pretty fun. I think. I think they got like top four or somewhere around that event. But it's fun and I think we could complement, complement each other driving well enough.

Ryan Hunter

So.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah,

Justin

sorry, No, I was just gonna say you, I mean you could run wedgebots. You just gotta throw a little flamethrower in it and it's perfectly legal.

Thomas Carroll

And work.

Matt Vasquez

So not work. We're thinking spinners. We'll see.

Jason Vasquez

We're thinking spinners. Maybe one of them would be a lifter, but likely two spinners.

Justin

You could whiplash and, and, and just separate it, just tear it apart. Just make one half. Whiplash is the lifter and ones that's.

Jason Vasquez

That has crossed my mind for sure.

Ryan Hunter

Or you, you could stash or you could steal the homework of battlets and you could do a mini whiplash and also a mini defender and then you'd have the team. There you go.

Jason Vasquez

I think the defender strategy would be pretty hard to lift a robot that's twice the weight

Thomas Carroll

probably.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, that'd be pretty brutal. But I, I do like the, I like that idea though.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, no, the, the whiplash design already struggles having basically no armor, like when it's the same size as his opponent. So when I make it even smaller, that I don't know, then that'd be something.

Justin

And I think the last thing I have is what advice would you give to siblings or family members who want to build together but just haven't done that yet?

Jason Vasquez

I think one of my biggest ones is, I mean, just coming from like a younger brother perspective. Like there were definitely periods when I was like, oh, Matthew's always going to be older than me, he's always going to drive whiplash. And like that was kind of like a little stressful. So I think just like recognizing like how you want to see it evolve early on is like really kind of important just for like a personal kind of growth kind of perspective. But like, I wish I started defender a little bit earlier. I wish maybe like we traded years driving whiplash or something earlier on. But with that being said, like, I wouldn't trade how it all played out for anything. Like whiplash did better than we like ever imagined. And I'm like, yeah, I couldn't be more happy with how it played out. So.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah. And also like, maybe like figure out like what like your team members like want, like do they want to drive their own robot or they just want to be pit crew or someone want to, you know, whatever. Because like in this day and age, like most of these people would probably be competing at NHL or some smaller event. Like there's no reason you can't build three beetle weights, you know, so. So yeah, or just everyone works together on a bigger 30 pound robot. So yeah, just kind of like decide what, what your team team members want, you know? Totally.

Jason Vasquez

And I think also just making sure you keep good connections like out in the robotics community that you could eventually see on your team. Because like, if another battlebot season comes around and you do want a bigger team, you don't want to be like too limited, like from reaching out to other people. So I think it's just good to keep other connections and other teams that you would potentially want to merge with. Awesome.

Thomas Carroll

Very cool.

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Justin

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@ Havocrund.com again. That's Havocrundwn.com that's where we're posting Combat Robotics news host hosting every episode of the show and running the largest Combat Robotics bot registry that's ever been put together. Stats, history, teams and 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 conversation. All leagues, 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. Okay, so that was the round table. Before we get too much into your your background or the history, I wanted to move into our signature segment, which is our 5 info. So I'm not sure if you guys ever listened to the show before, but each of us, including Tim, who was supposed to be the fifth chair, have a question for you. They could be about your past, your, your future. BattleBots, robots, whatever. But I am going to have Tony go first. So Tony, take it away.

Matt Vasquez

All right, you guys have competed in

Ryan Hunter

a ton of events all over the place.

Matt Vasquez

What is one international event that you'd like to go to and compete at? I think it's a. Well I was supposed to go to New Zealand this year to compete at the Robot Rampage event and just had some things happen that just made it so it was impossible which was very sad. But I think I hope to go next year and I think I was like the first US team to actually agree to go to this last one. I had my flights and everything and it just didn't work out. So I think next year I'll probably go. But second to that the event we've always wanted to go to is a Robocop in Brazil because like we've been competing with a lot of the teams who go to that event for like I don't know, 15 years or something. Since like 2011 we've been competing against a lot of those people. So it would be really cool to go to go visit them and compete at that event.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, I think, I mean I really was looking forward to New Zealand too. So that's obviously up there. We've always talked about Brazil so that's obviously up there. And I mean like I could just go off a name. Every country that I've heard has had an event before to be honest. But I mean I haven't heard of a China event in a really long time. But back when I was in high school forever ago I built a mini bot for one of the king of bot robots. It was gonna fight with the MAD Cater team and I finished it. It actually won a 12 pound event. Like I think I had to leave before the finals and Matthew drove it in the finals for me and it like, it, it was like a really fun event. But anyways like they gave me the money to build that robot for him so I gave it to them. And then my visa like didn't work out in time so the robot went to China without me.

Ryan Hunter

Oh wow.

Jason Vasquez

So that was. I wish that one worked.

Matt Vasquez

We're going to for international events.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, we have good intentions. We just, we can't get out there somehow. But yeah, I mean like even some Russia events have looked really cool and I mean yeah, we're definitely open to traveling. I think that's, I mean even like in Europe like I know they used to have really cool 30 pound events. I'm not sure if those are still around but a lot of those robots were scaled down heavyweights too so I think it'd be pretty cool to fight a scaled down whiplash against scaled down UK robots.

Matt Vasquez

So cool.

Justin

Yeah we have learned through our, what we call our summer series talking around and we're going to do it again in the next two months. But we've talked to Australia, the uk, you've talked, there's, we're talking to China, Canada, just literally anywhere you are in the world, some kind of combat robotics happening. And it's just becoming bigger and bigger and more of a thing.

Ryan Hunter

So yeah, actually starting. Sorry. We will actually be starting the summer series. Next episode will be the first summer series with Bot Brawl Canada, which is super fun. Yeah, nice.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, awesome.

Justin

So Tim Hebert was not. Is not here. But we do have his five in focus. His five and focus Question is both of your heavies are complex to drive and you choose to drive them solo. What do you attribute your comfort with that level of drive complexity to practice, I think.

Matt Vasquez

Well, for whiplash. Part of the whiplash lore is that part of the reason I drove the robot and part of the reason it was that design is because I had a beetleweight robot. It was like a four wheel drive camera saw robot when I built it when I was like 15 or 16 years old or something, long time ago. And it did really well at events. And like when 2015 came around and like Battlebots came back on the air, we're like, we got to think of a design that's like a little bit different. So whatever. This beetle weight had an actuated spinner and we're like, all right, this is going to inspire our heavyweight. This is maybe the most unique robot we have at the moment. But so anyway, I'd been driving that beetle weight for like a couple years and had already gotten pretty good at doing both like running the spinner and the arm. So yeah, it was just kind of a no brainer to make it one person. It's like a, like I know some people like, like Scorpios will have someone on the saw and someone on the arm or no, someone driving of someone on the arm. But like in my mind, combat robots is like, like really important. Things could happen in like a split second and any amount of communication required between you and your second driver could just be like a death sentence. And then on the other end, your robot is also doing things you're not telling it to do because someone else is doing it. So to me it sounded like an absolute nightmare, to be perfectly honest. I don't know what your opinion is, Jason.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, I mean Defender is based off of like 150 gram robot I had called a crabby. And I'd say the one difference which was really annoying is that the 150 gram was servo actuated. And then on the heavyweight, I had, like, these custom, like, gearbox kind of things going, but the flea weight was a lot easier to drive, and I thought that that would all carry over to the heavyweight. But because my actuators didn't work like true servos, it was more difficult. But just. Cause, like, the return to center wasn't as, like, instant. But yeah, I think just the confidence came from driving a little robots, and we both knew that we would be busy driving our own heavyweights at BattleBots, and we just. It just kind of made sense. And I mean, there have been seasons with Whiplash where we were testing out, like, brushless weapon things for the first time on the blade. And, like, I would run the weapon, and I mean, the only time we ever really felt we needed that is just when, like, spin up needed to be, like, paid close attention to and just the fact that it would be on the same stick as the lifter. For Whiplash, we're like, okay, like, let's just, like, simplify this a little bit. But I mean, that's really simple because, like, your blade doesn't need to be that coordinated. It just keep it spun up as much as you can and don't, like, burn it out. But yeah, I mean, ideally, one person to robot has made sense for our family forever.

Justin

Do you.

Ryan Hunter

Do you have special setups on, like, what kind of. What kind of transmitter do you use? And do you have specific, like, setup on the transmitter? Like, do you have a button? Do you have, like, special. I'm sorry, I'm blanking on words tonight. You have, like, special, like, key presses that do multigoration configurations on the transmitter to make it easier to run, like, just one. Do you have, like, configurations of, like, I. I don't know. Are you using, like, one button press? Does how to use a pocket now?

Jason Vasquez

So

Matt Vasquez

the answer is no. Yeah, I mean, for. For Whiplash and Little Ash, the. The spinner is just on a switch turn. The switch on. Spinner turns on. It's got one speed. That's the speed it goes. If it's stalling out, you just turn it off. And then the. The lifter I have on rudder. And like most. I'm pretty sure 99% of people who run a lifter will have it on throttle. So, like, up and down is the arm going up and down. For me, it's side to side is up and down. And the only reason that is is because, like I said when I built that beetle weight when I was like, 16 or whatever, the. I don't know I was just trying to get on fast. And the return to center, stick on whatever your standard radio is. Rudder. It's not.

Ryan Hunter

Okay. Yeah.

Matt Vasquez

Okay. So I just use that stick, and I just got so used to that for the big one, I'm like, this doesn't really make sense, but I'm, like, pretty good at it, so I'll just leave it. And. Yeah, that's how it's been.

Jason Vasquez

It worked out.

Thomas Carroll

Yeah.

Justin

Have you guys ever had an opponent with whiplash that you felt it was really important to pay attention to the driving, so you passed on the weapon just because you felt like it was very important to pay attention to where whiplash was? Has that ever occurred?

Matt Vasquez

I think, in a sense, almost every fight ever. Because, like, it's. It's like just getting into position is, like, the most important thing. And, like, the nice thing about having the spinner is, like, you could just. I. I personally, most of the time, would just ignore its existence. And, like, I would drive to someone, get an angle of a lift, and then, no surprise, I rip apart off and, like, you know, say. I don't really have to think about that. I'm a. But. But, yeah, drive is, like, the main focus. A lot of the time, the spinner would go down, and, like, we still have the lifter or vice versa. The lifter would go down, and we still have the spinner. So as long as the drive's working, like, we've got a fighting chance against most people. So for that reason, it was always just like, focus on the drive, and everything else comes after.

Justin

Okay, Ryan, why don't you go ahead? Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Jason.

Jason Vasquez

Oh, no, no. I mean, for defender, I have a return to center on, like, the throttle and rudder just inside of the grabber and the lifter that both need to return to center.

Ryan Hunter

Yeah.

Jason Vasquez

So that was. That was a bit of a learning curve. With 00. I've actually paid with the settings the most because, fun fact, I designed the robot before NHL made the mobility rules, which, you know, it was already done. So, yeah, I had to just throw everything I could at it to get it to move better. And one of the biggest things was I have a flip switch which turns both blades up to, like, 30%, and then each stick side to side is also changes the throttle. So a lot of stuff there. And then I have flip switches to reverse them. And the remote for 00 has gotten pretty complicated in the settings, but it moves pretty well now.

Ryan Hunter

Moves way better than these. Yeah, it does. It moves. It moves way better. You could Tell that you've been you, that you've had it for a while, and you've been putting in those reps on it. It's looking good. All right, my question is, you've both been around Combat Robotics for pretty much your whole entire lives. What are some of the most unexpected ways that it's touched your life outside of Combat Robotics?

Matt Vasquez

I don't know. I think maybe the most unexpected thing for me was, like. Because, like, we just, like, love the sport forever. And, like, had it been on TV or even if NHRL didn't become a thing, BattleBots didn't come back. Like, we just. We would probably still just be doing whatever a local event exists just because, like, we really like it and it's that much fun. I think the most surprising thing was, like, BattleBots coming back on TV in, like, 2015 and, like, us having so much success with that. That was, like, pretty surprising, in my opinion, because, like, I don't know, like, looking at, like, our 2018 season of BattleBots, which is, like, maybe our breakout year, where we were on the show just, like, a ton. Like, if I had looked, like, told myself like, three years before that that would happen, it would be on TV and, like, me get recognized in public, I'd be like, what the hell are you talking about? There's, like, no way in a million years that's gonna happen. So for. For me, that's kind of it. That was very, very unexpected, all that.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah. And I mean, Jason, I think for me, like, in my current job, I. I mean, I work at, like, a startup that's doing, like, humanoid type robotics, and I was working at a different humanoid company before, and when I was at my old company, I was kind of looking at the competition, and so was my boss, and we were sitting next to each other, and he showed me the company I'm at now, and he's like, this place, like, these people are doing so good. Like, they. I think they have, like, a really good design to the robot. It's, like, better than the competition in a lot of ways. And I was watching a video, and I was like, I know that guy. And it was a former. Another Battle Ball builder that I had known, like, for a few years prior, and he's the CTO of my current company, And I landed here, and, like, I freaking couldn't be more grateful that not only did BattleBots kind of, like, get me into robotics, it also got me connections in robotics. And just, like by coincidence, BattleBots was one of the threads that connected me to the current spot that I'm at. So, yeah, I think when you're just in it for so long, like, it's hard for happy accidents not to happen, especially like in a small world like robotics. So, yeah, I'd say that was like one of the, like, one of my favorite surprises.

Ryan Hunter

I, I, the humanoid robotics is something that like, really fascinates me and I feel like I could definitely dive into a deep rabbit hole talking about it, like, because I'm so curious, like, what the behind the scenes of that really looks like and you designing and everything like that. I don't know if we have like super time to jump into it, but like, what it. Does it have any, like the robot that you're designing? I mean, like, if you don't want to talk about the actual company or whatever, the robot that you're designing, the things that you do every day, does it, like, is there direct translations to working on robots and stuff like that in your, like, day to day with it?

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, I'd say, like, there's definitely crossover between work and like just combat for fun. And like, it's funny, like, when we were driving to Norwalk this last event, I was asking Matthew about that exact question in his job.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah.

Jason Vasquez

And he's doing like another type of robotics. And like, the answer is just yes. Like, I mean, robotics is gonna have a lot of similarities no matter like, what angle you're coming at it. But I mean, especially in particular because, like, the, like, one of the founders of the company I'm at now came from BattleBots. Like, it's so satisfying to see like, parts from combat robots in the robot. Like, ideally nice from combat robots that are like copied into the robot. Like, it's like, I know where you got that idea from. Like, like you, like and like that's just like such a refreshing way to see humanoid robots because, like, most people have the notion that it's just like closer. Like it's just like science fiction and it's like you're doing the craziest, like, types of engineering and then to see it kind of like grounded in combat robots is really refreshing. Just because that means it's going to be more durable, that means it's going to be more rugged and more just like functional.

Ryan Hunter

So yeah, that I, I love, I, One of the things I love about combat robotics and where it touches in engineering and everything like that is it does touch a lot of different parts of engineering as well. Because, I mean, like, one thing that you don't really think about until you start, like, really designing robots and talking to people about the design of robots is the amount of material engineering you also need to know and amount of stuff that you need to know as far as like the wear that robots go through and different parts on your robot will go through. And that's like down to like how well things will last in the inside of robots. Like things that don't get touched by weapons or anything like that. Like things like how will something be rubbing against another thing inside the robot and is that going to do something wrong? Is that going to short something or something like that has been like one of those really cool things to learn about and that's. That's awesome to know. Like, that that's touching also like humanoid robots and all this other stuff that is funny.

Matt Vasquez

On the, on the flip side, sometimes like I'll design a thing at work and like whatever I'm looking at it and I'm just like, wait. I'm like, this is not, like this is not going to encounter like a horizontal spinner. Like I could remove that gusset. This is not easy to support there for this. Like there's only going to be a force in one direction here, not from like 100 directions.

Justin

You don't need to touch.

Jason Vasquez

You don't need to touch.

Justin

Yeah. With this, with Stan tombstone. Oh man, that's cool. Thomas, you have a secret question. Why don't you go ahead?

Thomas Carroll

I do have a secret question. As you two are brothers, I have a very simple question. Who's wrong?

Jason Vasquez

The tough one.

Matt Vasquez

I don't know who's who.

Jason Vasquez

It is crazy how much we've been doing things in the last like three years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's it. If we ever have to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.

Thomas Carroll

I think how you settle debates.

Matt Vasquez

We don't really disagree that much.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, we're like on the same page to like a weird level at like not a weird level but like, but I guess to bring it back to the like us fighting each other kind of thing and the person who loses is wrong. I feel like over the years my like 3 pounders have probably beat Matthew slightly more, but his. They definitely have beat me like in our last couple fights kind of thing. So as of late, Matthew's right. But like long term, I on average write more often. But yeah, we should find a way to fight each other in smaller weight classes more often. That'd be fun.

Thomas Carroll

Fairies or you know, sumo.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, I think we could. Yeah, I think like fairies. Yeah, yeah.

Matt Vasquez

I think we build our multi bot and we could build unique ones, and whichever one carries the team is. Is correct.

Jason Vasquez

No, I think we got a fight with identical robots, to be honest. I think that's really what's going to separate test.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, the better driver.

Jason Vasquez

I think the only time we've ever done that is with, like, the little, like, Hexbug Whiplash toys.

Matt Vasquez

That's true. We did. The second those toys came out, we, like, bought the arena and, like, we just, like. I don't know how long we fought for just, like, Whiplash versus Whiplash and the hex Bug out of Bots Arena.

Ryan Hunter

I have.

Justin

I have whiplash. It's one of the ones that I have. I have, like, three of them. One of the ones I.

Jason Vasquez

Nice.

Justin

So my question, the last question of the five in focus. Whiplash and Defender have always stood out because they are not trying. Just trying to win exchanges. They are also trying to control the shape of the entire fight. How do you guys think about control as part of your design and driving style? And how has that approach changed over time?

Matt Vasquez

I don't. I don't know. With. With Whiplash, it's very much a robot. Like, if we don't control the fight, we just lose. Like, this is. That's just it. Like, if we don't control it for, like, five seconds, we're probably losing because everyone is a bigger spinner than us. Basically. Everyone has more armor than us. We're splitting, you know, between, you know, a spinner and a lifter. Right. So Little Ash Ammo Flash are pretty under armored robots, but. But, yeah, I think I just went off there and kind of forgot the premise of your question a little bit.

Jason Vasquez

I could bring it back a little bit, but, I mean, like, just with having a controller robot, I remember the first one I ever fought was in the lightweight class. It was called Hot Stuff. And I remember being picked up, like, it was an amazing lift. Like, just complete, like, grab lift. And just like, I can't do anything. And just, like, I think being on the opposite end of that just, like, makes you recognize, like, wow, that is, like, an effective way to win because, like, my robot's running entirely as it should be. It is just in the air, like, being held up and my wheels aren't touching the ground, like, I can't do anything. So being on the opposite end of that is definitely, like, made it more interesting. And then also, just, like, it's a cool way to win. Like, if something, like, grabs you and lifts you up, like, that feels advanced. And, like, it's like, wow, if Somebody could build that. Like, I want to be able to build that, but, like, in the way that it's, like, evolved more recently. Freaking forks, like, Defender, like, it has a good set of forks. And I realized, like, if I get under somebody with the forks, their wheels are off the ground. I have no need for the lifter. I don't need to lift them up. I just, like, I wanted that because it's cool, but I think it's a blessing and a curse that, like, just if the forks get the wheels off the ground, like, that's all you need to control them. But I mean, the lifter, like, you want to be able to flip them, you want to be able to put on a show. And I want to build a cool robot. I don't want to just build a box with forks. So, yeah, I think just like, the evolution of realizing that just, like, getting your wheels off the ground is enough. Especially with the. Yeah, the cam lifters.

Thomas Carroll

Yep.

Jason Vasquez

Like, I think that's kind of like the latest evolution of control. And, like, that doesn't feel as fun to me. Like, I want to see my robot get picked up and, like, held in the air and suplexed, or I want to do that to other people. And you want to always keep it interesting. So.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, I like watching lifting control aspect. Yeah, no, no, go ahead. But I think the. The, like, lifting control aspect of Little Ash and Liplash is, like, very helpful against fighting, like, big spinners, which is basically 90% of all the other robots. Because a lot of the time, all you have to do to, like, start getting control is just throw them, like, a little bit off balance, and then just, like, chaos ensues. Or, like, a lot of these big vertical spinners do not do well upside down. And, like, they'll get hit by emulsifier, bounce off the ceiling, land back on the ground, keep going. But if you just gently took them on their head, they're like, disable a lot of these robots. So it's a. Yeah, it's a thing that not a lot of people really tap into with lifters. Like, maybe a, like, Red Scarm is a good example of someone who does. Yeah, but. But yeah, and especially with, like, the wall nhrl, like, if you just lift someone, like, the strategy with Little Ash has been like, lift someone onto the wall, get them stuck in the wall, which happens a lot with. In many fights. And then when they're stuck in the wall, I turn around and hammer saw them. They're teed up there.

Ryan Hunter

So.

Matt Vasquez

So, yeah, I think not a Lot of people are really going full control, and I think there are definitely advantages.

Justin

Yeah. I was actually going to point out Red Storm and the suplexes and that I like watching Red Storm control and

Ryan Hunter

suplex opponents and just absolutely smash people into the wall at top speed.

Matt Vasquez

Yes.

Justin

Yeah. I mean, control is one of those things that is kind of been debated over time, especially at NHRL with some people saying that they want to see more of the high octane vertical spinner damage kind of stuff. But I. I think if you go deep enough into the sport, as all of us are here, and you watch a control fight, that's a lot more interesting for me than just watching two verticals just hit each other over and over again. I mean, those. The giant sparks and stuff. But you have to appreciate what goes into being able to control a fight, that. What goes into being able to move your opponent around and win that way.

Ryan Hunter

So.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, and I think those are like the two opposite ends of the spectrum. It's like big spinner control robot that's like, pretty much as far as far away as you could get in, like, control type. And I meant, like robot type. And I mean, my favorite thing about combat has always just been like, you can design whatever you want and, like, there will be a variety. And there is like the rock, paper, scissors thing and like, there are all, all sorts of robots. And I mean, as long as the rules make it so there's like an effective way to have all sorts of things. Like, I'm all for it, but.

Thomas Carroll

Yeah. Okay.

Justin

So that was the five in Focus. We have quite a few people that wanted to ask you guys their own questions. So before we close out the episode, we're going to check our voicemail and see what is in our mailbag.

Matt Vasquez

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

Justin

So Che asked. We have loved having y' all look up to us as a force.

Ryan Hunter

Sorry.

Justin

We have so loved having y' all to look up to as a force in the sport that competes as a family. What is that dynamic like and how is it different now compared to when you started?

Matt Vasquez

I think the biggest difference compared to when we started is when we started, me and Jason literally couldn't do anything because we were children. So a lot of it was like, oh, we have an idea. And like, whenever our dad feels like it, he could help us build this thing or whatever. And then as we get older, we're more independent and just kind of started building whatever we want. So I think that's like over the years been the biggest change is I guess we've become more autonomous, I guess. And once we got to like the high school years kind of we were just building, building our own stuff. And like, especially now we just go to NH Rail together and like occasionally like at finals, our parents came, which is pretty cool. But now it's more of like a

Ryan Hunter

duo thing, you know, as, as a comic robotics family.

Justin

Have you ever had a Christmas or a birthday where the presents were a transmitter or like apart or.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, the answer is yes.

Jason Vasquez

I remember the. I think it was the Christmas before we built our first heavyweight. Like before the first season of BattleBots. It was like heavyweight parts. Like we were all looking forward to heavyweight parts, so we got heavyweight parts and that was like a big deal. And then a couple months passed by, we finished the heavyweight. Then we hear about BattleBots and like that like the timing could not have been better. So good Christmas.

Ryan Hunter

That's awesome. I love that.

Justin

Che also says your parents have been so kind to us when we've gotten to cross paths. I really appreciate how generous you are when it comes to meeting fans. So that was just also a note that she wanted to say.

Thomas Carroll

Yeah.

Jason Vasquez

Shout out mom and dad.

Justin

Patrick from Sad Octopus and Under Destruction says seeing Nora and Cam, who are siblings, cage side across from you two at the most recent NHL was a pretty incredible thing. As a parent, our family has been huge fans of your family for many years. Nora and camera always asks who would win if they fought and they are now one and one in competition against each other. Have you guys ever been asked the same question and how often and what is your all time win loss record

Matt Vasquez

against each other, against each other. Like back in like the early days when we were both building insects like crazy. Like, I feel like Jason was better at beetle weights and I was better at like ant weights. But we fought each other like dozens of times. I, I really. Jason might have honestly had the edge and the insect, the insect bites, but 40, 60 or 55. 45 or whatever.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, it was more than we could count. And like it was always like a fun back and forth and like. Yeah, I think most of the time I want to say it was like knockouts. So they, they were fun.

Ryan Hunter

Okay.

Jason Vasquez

But like both, I think when we

Matt Vasquez

were young, like we both had like a little bit of like a chip on our shoulder for each other. So I think we really both wanted to like beat each other really bad. Like it wasn't like now, like, I feel like whoever lost would be like genuinely Kind of pissed back in those days. Okay.

Ryan Hunter

Justin and I have not fought yet. We have. No, we have never fought. And it's been a thing of like when we brought both bought robots has been like, are we going to fight? No, we don't end up fighting.

Justin

Well, one of our overall records with our robots is a little bit better than the others.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah.

Justin

No, we've never thought.

Matt Vasquez

There you go.

Ryan Hunter

Yeah, right.

Justin

Ryan's robots tend to self destruct.

Ryan Hunter

Yeah. Yeah. In fun ways.

Justin

Tiger Hawk from Our Discord says, I have been a huge fan for a long time. What is your favorite Combat Robotics memory?

Matt Vasquez

Oh, man. Jason, you want to go first?

Jason Vasquez

That's a tough one.

Matt Vasquez

I think I have mine if you don't have one yet.

Jason Vasquez

Oh, yeah, no, go for yours.

Matt Vasquez

I think there's two probably. And they happened like within a year of each other, I would say. The first one was probably at Robo Games 2017. That was like Whiplash's, like, first event as Whiplash and like it's breakout tournament. And I think we beat Toro Maximus, which was like Minotaur in the semifinals. And that was just like completely shocking. And it was at like 10pm at night or something. And like the building, like there were no fans left. It was just like packed with builders. And that was like, pretty, pretty insane back then because I think we were both still in high school at that point.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, that was Whiplash's first big upset. That was pretty cool.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, that was pretty insane. And then the year after that, maybe less than a year, we beat. We fought Bronco at the 2018 Battlebot season and won that fight in like, a very similar fashion. And that was also just like, totally shocking. So I'd say those two moments for sure. There's probably no way this will ever be beat by anything in Combat Robots for us.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah. I think based on, like, just fights alone and like, surprise, like about winning kind of things. Like, those were definitely the big two. But I don't know why. I have so many, like, fond memories of Robo Games growing up. And I remember, like, I think like, before we even had heavyweights going there, like, for some reason, like, other kids were like, asking me for my autograph. And like, we, like, we had never, like, won a tournament. Like, we had never, like, done well. And I was just like, okay.

Matt Vasquez

And I just remember we never.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, like, as a kid, I was like, why? But I was like, just so excited. And then we actually now, like, we'll sign our own toys. So, like, just the full circle of that is like yeah, really excited.

Matt Vasquez

Manifested it.

Justin

Uh, okay. Rain, who is the driver of Happy Birth Sleigh, says, what gave you the idea to make such creative robots? I think you guys kind of said that they came from like your ants and insect bots, right?

Matt Vasquez

Yeah. I think for Whiplash it was, we want to get accepted on this TV show that's only accepting like 20 something robots. So we have to be a little bit outside of the box. Honestly, when we submitted the whiplash design or it was like called Splatter at the time, but it was, it was whiplash, almost identical. Like, I was just like, this robot's not going to do very good, but like, we just need to get accepted and like, kind of out of like pure luck, the design ended up being decently good and started doing really well. So, yeah, a little bit of luck, a little bit of. I don't know.

Jason Vasquez

There's also a four wheeled vertical spinner hidden somewhere in a whiplash, so I think that may have to do something with it.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, but the vert never works. It always died.

Jason Vasquez

That is very, that is also very true. But I mean, for me, like, for building creative robots, like, as we've said multiple times in this podcast, like we've been doing this our whole life and I feel like there are known ways to win and if you're new to the sport and if you want to do really good, really quick, like there are those avenues. But I, on the other hand, feel like I'm the complete opposite. I've been around for so long and like, I feel comfortable building robots. Like, I want to get uncomfortable building robots. I want to try things that I'm not sure I can do. I'm not sure can win fights. And I want to challenge myself that way. Like, I mean, that was the biggest thing with 00. Cause I mean, like, the three pound class is the biggest weight class. And the design, I'm not sure I could get it to move, but I have a few ideas I think I can. And that is what's going to draw me back into combat now more so than like getting to the top of the bracket as fast as I can. And yeah, that's, that's just kind of like more appealing to me now, so.

Ryan Hunter

Shouldn't challenge myself build something.00 is a very cool robot. I, I've. I remember the first time that you were bringing it and I, I remember seeing your name next to it and then looking it up and actually seeing like a picture. I think there was only like a cat or something at that point. Or maybe you had only brought. Fought it once. And I remember being going like, this is the coolest version of this concept I've seen, because it's. It's just like. It's just a weird version of the Droopy. Of the Droopy concept. And it. It looks really cool, and it also does its job so well. I really enjoy it.

Jason Vasquez

Thanks.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah.

Jason Vasquez

And, like, and also, if it, like, inspires anybody to build creative things, like, that's like another, like, I mean, that's one of the biggest, like, reasons to do combat robotics is to, like, inspire people to get into engineering. That's, like, the actual tangible thing in society from it. So if you could build something cool and throw other people to build cool stuff, that's like, a great cycle.

Matt Vasquez

So it's cool because, like, 00 was inspired by a very unique robot in Droopy, which was, like, extremely unique. There had been nothing like it. And you kind of, like, managed to make a spot spin off of that unique robot that was, like, somehow completely unique from the robot you based it off of. Yeah, yeah. It's like, you don't really look at that and go, that's a Droopy clone. It's. It's definitely its own thing.

Ryan Hunter

If you. If you really want to get a Droopy's level, though, you need to get, like, mouse pads like this. I. I remember the first time that they. He had the mouse pads at NHRL with Drew B. I. I was like, give it to me now I just need. Oh, yeah. If anyone listening hasn't ever seen a droopy mouse pad. It is something to behold. It's pretty incredible.

Justin

All right, Brenton from Force of Will Robotics says, outside of NHL, are there other venues where you guys regularly compete with little Ash 00 or any other other robots?

Matt Vasquez

Well, I'm in SoCal, Jason's in NorCal, and there's pretty big scenes in Southern and Northern California. So Jason goes to a lot of the local NORCAL events, and I go to a lot of the SCAR events. And, yeah, we're. I think we're basically regulars for the most part. Yeah, yeah, totally.

Jason Vasquez

Always try and go, like, even if I'm not competing, just check it out. But, yeah, I think the. I mean, I feel like the Southern California Combat group is a little bit more solidified than the Northern California group. I also am newer up here, but I think the Northern California group is kind of slowly but surely expanding, which is cool.

Matt Vasquez

So, yeah, it seems like he's a beetle weight event, like, four times A year or something or five times a year. So that's. That's pretty good. Yeah.

Justin

Yeah. Not bad. I know California has a pretty big convo robotic scene overall, so.

Ryan Hunter

Yeah.

Thomas Carroll

Nice.

Justin

So Dratten says the actual actuated lifter vertical spinner combo is a really rare design. Juxtaposition is one of the other, only other examples I can think of that is real success with that kind of setup. Why do you think that specific archetype is so uncommon? And do you think the rarity of the design helps Whiplash and Little Lash succeed since opponents may not be as prepared?

Matt Vasquez

I think it's uncommon because honestly, I think it's just kind of a hard design to win with, to be perfectly honest. It's like. Well, like I said, like when we first came up with that idea, you know, over 10 years ago at this point I was just like on paper I was like, this is not a great design, but like we're going to submit it. I think it's kind of cool. I think there is some truth to that. It is kind of hard to win with. Like I said, you're splitting weight between two weapons. Don't have a whole lot of armor. I can't really screw up too much, but there is a little bit of secret sauce in that design that I think like some people don't really see and it's part of the reason why it's been effective. But yeah, and also it's like I think a design that gets better as you scale it bigger. So if I was to build a Beetle weight Whiplash, I. I think no matter how well I built it, I don't think it would do very well. If I was to build a 12 pound one, I think it would be maybe like a tier below little ash. The 30 pounder seems to work pretty well. But. But yeah, I think it's like a kind of scale dependent robot. The smaller you make it, I think it's going to get harder and harder to be competitive.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah. And I mean on that topic, like, it's just, it's kind of inefficient to have like the blade on the lifter. Like the only way that really helps us is the overhead over the back. And like that's just kind of like a cherry on top, I don't think. I mean it's one of a few fights, but it's not like it doesn't bring us really. Exactly. So yeah, I think because it is like just a little inefficient in how it's itself. But yeah, I Wouldn't change it for anything.

Matt Vasquez

I love that thing. I'm sticking with it.

Justin

Brumbar says your building style on Little Ash seems to utilize build methods from the heavyweight level, especially with the chassis design and overall construction. You think your larger weight class experience contributes to the success of Little Ash?

Matt Vasquez

Yes, for sure, but not exactly in the way they said. I think like the. So if you take every dimension of Whiplash and cut that dimension in half, you basically get Little Ash. But as far as like, you know the. If you look at like the outside dimensions of the robot, the wheels, the width and height of the frame, the size of the arms, the diameter of the spinner. But like the construction methods I think are pretty different. Like Whiplash is all like a welded aluminum, whereas Little Ash I kind of moved to like a just water jet panels and like a nut strip and using like slot and tab like T slot construction. So there's really no aluminum welding or anything. So that's totally different. The one thing that is nearly identical to the heavyweight is how the arms are made. So it's just a, the heavyweight 2 inch thick uh w arms on the 30 pounder is 1 inch thick uhmw arms and like how the shaft and weapon goes together is basically identical to the heavyweight. But, but yeah, you kind of, as you scale down you kind of got to like pick and choose the things to keep and pick and choose what things you, you know, don't want to scale down. Like in the big one we have like a three stage chain reduction in the chassis and like that's not really something like planetary gearboxes are so cheap and accessible at the 30 pounder scale that like why wouldn't I just do that instead, you know. So it's, it's. I think the, there were very targeted decisions on like what to keep the same and what to change based on the scale. Yeah. Yep.

Ryan Hunter

Okay.

Jason Vasquez

And this is just a little bit of a tangent but I mean like most 30 pounders nowadays are not built like 30 pounders 10 years. Like it's either, yeah, it's either a scaled down heavyweight or a scaled up three pounder. And I think, I mean Whiplash has to be a scale down heavyweight to make that a scaled up three pound. It just wouldn't be a good design. But it's really kind of interesting to see those kind of battle out and like I don't think there is truly a, a better philosophy right now. Just whatever works.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah. You know, 30 pounds is the only class where you're seeing like a full welded AR chassis versus Like a UHMW billet. Like you're not seeing that in any other weight class, right?

Ryan Hunter

Yep. So exactly.

Justin

Completely agree with that.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah.

Justin

So Max Morningstar has a question for each of you. So first for Jason, I enjoyed our match on Saturday even. Well, last Saturday, the last NHL even. If you did eliminate actual size from the tournament, why did you decide to make 00 and what is next for the design? Do you have any post NHL changes?

Jason Vasquez

I designed it because I want to build something different. At first I wanted multibrand multibots. I didn't want them to hit each other and I wanted a project. And coming straight from college, I was like, oh, a three pounder sounds affordable, so let's do that. But yeah, I'd say that like that's where it kind of came from. And as far as where it's going, I might like CNC some stuff instead of 3D printing it. I just finally got access to it CNC. So that I'm looking forward to. But the robot's pretty routine to run now. Like it doesn't require massive overalls, which is really nice. And like I have all the parts and plenty of spares, so I'll probably just keep running it, like just not upgrading it too much. But I am excited about the idea of doing this multi bot thing. So 00, like design changes are probably like mostly tabled for now or shelved so I could focus on some sort of 12 pound or other multibot. But yeah, and I also really enjoyed the fight with his like big wheel robot. It was pretty cool. And definitely like the two biggest three pounders at that event. So that was fun.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah.

Justin

And then for Matt, congratulations on qualifying again for NHL Championships. Same question. What changes are in store post NHL for Lil Ash, especially now that you know that you'll be back in December.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, I think that's a good question. I have. I made like quite a few changes from like December to this event. Just like some more different configurations and just a lot of like reliability improvements and switched like the spinner from bushings to bearings because I was burning up a bunch of weapon motors. And I solved all sorts of like boring stuff between December and this event that maybe wasn't that exciting, but I think worked really well this tournament. I think I might have a crazy configuration or two for December. Something a little more out of the box. I won't say exactly what I have in mind, but I have some ideas. I'm. Yeah, I don't know. I think just a lot of like testing like, you know, tuning my Drive esc's better. I was, I was having some drive issues at the last event that luckily weren't like too fatal, but I did get hit a few times and situations where had it been working properly, I probably wouldn't have been hitting. So, yeah, just try to get the drive dialed in and maybe some new configs. We'll see.

Thomas Carroll

Okay.

Justin

The last real question I have is from Michael from Team Pandemonium. He says, hello, Matt and Jason, what NHL robots or competitors really catch your attention?

Matt Vasquez

Catch my attention. I know. Jason, do you have any thoughts?

Jason Vasquez

That's a tough one. Honestly, there are too many three pounders to keep track of. Just like I watched the NHL streams, but like, I know like a handful of names of three pounders. I mean, in regard to tier zero, I'm mostly just focused on making my thing work. Like, and my strategy against everybody else is the exact same. Like there's only so many things 00 could do. But I mean, yeah, I mean, you obviously think about who you lost to and how you're going to beat the next time. So I'd say just. That's kind of the main robots I focus on.

Matt Vasquez

I feel like sir, slicing beetle weights is cool. I remember I fitted next to them like a year ago and they were like the first robot I saw that had like two like angled birds like that.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah.

Matt Vasquez

So that, that was a cool, cool thing I hadn't really seen because, like it's two dual tip, dual tooth bars. But in the way they're angled, they're essentially single tooth. Right. You're either hitting in the center or hitting on the outside. And I don't know, that was a pretty cool, clever thing. And I think that robot's been doing like incredibly well in the last year. I think like a year ago and I fitted next to them, maybe they weren't doing so well, but now it's like always a contender, which is cool to see.

Ryan Hunter

They, they have won a golden dumpster and I, I fought them once and also like interact with them at NHRL and other places. It is a really cool bot. It is. The father is like a excellent designer and it, it's one of those concepts where you go, I don't know if that's like something that should work correctly or something like that. And it just works perfectly. It is dialed in and that kid can drive. That kid goes like full on focus mode and drives the hell out of that robot. And if you are listening, I really do apologize once again for putting my wheel drunk gunk into your robot that one time. Why I. My robot has huge wheels and I put the, the treatment that most people do, like the plastic and then the, not the, like the glue. Silicone and glue and everything. And it just wraps around. It just wrapped around Sir Slicey's whole weapon setup. And it was crazy, but I almost knocked that weapon out once. Either way, still really cool robot. If you get a chance to like really talk to that family in depth, it is really cool.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like another robot, like I'd shout out is like a xenomorph. Like that was another robot that like a year or two ago. Like it's just like a middle of the pack, lower middle of the pack, whatever. And just like all of a sudden just became an absolute monster. And like it's just so.

Ryan Hunter

Yeah.

Matt Vasquez

And it's like. I also love that it's so massive, that robot. It's like huge for a 12 pounder. Like it looks like a 60 pounder or something.

Justin

Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Hunter

Well, he.

Justin

I could tell you from all the weigh ins that he did, he was never even close to being overweight. Like that thing is. It's dialed in and it weighs nothing.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, it's just full of air. It's just. Yeah, yeah, it's a really cool robot.

Ryan Hunter

Yeah, it's just wide and big and.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, yeah. And like when it turns, you can see the frame. Like the weapon's literally like tilting in the uprights. But it still works somehow. Like. Yeah. Pretty cool.

Justin

Yeah, it's very cool. Like I said earlier, Corey tried to make something to combat it. So we'll see how that does the next time that xenomorph is in the same place as Yautja. Speaking of Corey, the last thing that I have in the mail bag is not a question, it is a comment from Corey. Corey says, uh, no question, just sustain it. It was an honor to fight you. I think he's talking about little Ash.

Matt Vasquez

Uh, I, I very much appreciate that. I was very sad we couldn't be teammates in a. In New Zealand. May maybe next year. But uh, but yeah, no, it was a, A fight that I was like first round synthesis 30. I'd rather not, but if I got it, I got it. But like luckily went our way. But. But yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure we'll fight again at some point. Yeah, yeah, sure.

Justin

Okay. So that's gonna wrap it up for the listener.

Ryan Hunter

Mobag.

Justin

Thank you to everyone who sent the questions and comments. We always appreciate the community being part of the show. Before we end Ryan, why don't you tell us who won the game corner?

Ryan Hunter

All right, I have tallied up all the votes between the Discords and the winner by, by three votes is Thomas. Thomas wins. I, I, he did very well overall. He got 12 votes of everybody who voted. Thank you, everybody. Anyone who, everybody who voted on this. It was a really cool way to get everybody involved, but yes, Thomas, congratulations. Your draft board won.

Justin

Hell yeah.

Jason Vasquez

Should work.

Matt Vasquez

And it's only because no one knows who Harriga Pounden is.

Justin

Well, I, I think it was also because of his best name choice.

Matt Vasquez

Yes.

Jason Vasquez

Yeah, we should have went for funny ones. That was the right strategy.

Justin

Oh, that's awesome. So that is going to do it for this episode of Havoc Rundown. A huge thank you to Matt and Jason for joining us tonight and talking with us about Whiplash00Defender and all of your robotics history and what it's like building and competing as brothers. We really appreciate you guys taking time to come on and share your story with us. Thank you for being on tonight.

Jason Vasquez

Yep.

Matt Vasquez

Yeah, thanks.

Justin

Thank you. Thank you as well to Tim Heber. He ran into power issues and was not able to join us live, but he still sent his five and Focus question for us, so we really appreciate him being part of the episode in that way. And of course, thanks to Ryan, Thomas and Tony for being here. As always. Before we get out of here, make sure you check out everything Havoc Rundown has going on. Head over to havocrundown.com for episodes, links, merch and all the ways to keep up with the show. You can follow us on our social media for episode announcements, clips, community posts, and whatever robot nonsense we get into next by looking up Havoc Rundown. You can find our discord and all that kind of stuff from the website. If you want to support the show directly, check out our merch and our Buy me a coffee. It really does help us keep the show going and continue making more Combat Robotics content. And if you enjoyed this episode, please like the video, leave a comment, subscribe to the channel, follow the podcast and share it with someone who loves Comic Robotics or someone you're trying to drag into this sport and get addicted like we all are. If you are listening on Spotify, Apple or anywhere else, leave a rating or review if your platform allows it. Until next time, keep the bot spinning, keep supporting the builders and we'll see you in the arena. Everyone, say goodbye to our listeners.

Thomas Carroll

Farewell, gamers.

Jason Vasquez

Thank you.