Grant Imahara's Battlebot Deadblow

hey everybody adam savage from tested here i am  actually in grant amahara's shop with fawn davis   uh and we are looking over some of grant's uh  loveliest creations and in front of us is one we   both have a long history with is grant's battlebot  dead blow i think you always were like entering   battlebots as kind of a lark as kind of like a let  me just see what i can get let me see what i can   learn from this oh yeah yes we had a completely  different approach and grant's approach was i want   to kill i want to destroy i want to make the thing  he was always aiming to win i just wanted to put   on a good show so there is a legend that i heard  from john foreman about the hammer here yes um   i was not in the room when this is made  but am i right this is titanium correct   yeah he he started with steel and then that  was not good enough so he went with magnesium   and that was not good enough so he did titanium  i remember the cnc'd so i was his cr i was part   of his pit crew for the first battlebots at  long beach and i think that was a steel hammer   and then he came back from that because that  got so beat up but this titanium hammer was   machined at ilm yes you were in the room  yes okay talk to me about that because john   the way it was described to me sounded crazy oh  yeah it looks like it's like a fireworks show   because it just sparks a lot when the cutter cuts  into the titanium it just it's a very very white   spark and a lot of sparks right and then also what  john foreman was telling me is because titanium   work hardens almost instantaneously you've got to  turn all your feeds and speeds up to the maximum   which sounds from a machinist standpoint crazy  yes well that was his approach on everything   turned the machine up to full speed but he was  always right about it it was terrifying but he   was always right about it oh my gosh and then this  one lasted this one did not give up the ghost that   is correct it's impressively heavy for titanium  yeah i mean like because that's so solid yeah   exactly all right i'm gonna let this  settle can we take a look at the guts oh right i forgot it was compressed co2 was that  what he used yeah well it's oxygen just like   you would use in scuba diving okay then  uh custom-built gearboxes for each wheel   independent four-wheel drive um yeah and a  massive cylinder for the hammer i mean every   other hole that something's not in is a  witness mark to a different configuration of   motors batteries electronics and everything yeah  just like most of us he would rebuild this uh   almost from the ground up every single event  because you would always find things that you want   to improve every time you go whatever defeated you  in your last match is what you wanted to correct   right but then you also learn from watching other  people's robots get beaten up like what kind of   i mean the amount of force these things take  the amount of abuse is absolutely shocking   even when you're trying to picture how bad  it could be oh yeah yeah it's remarkable you   also learn a lot from just being around other  builders that's one of the things that i really   loved about battlebots it was competitive but  it was never so competitive that we wouldn't   share our secrets nobody hid their bots no no  because you wanted a good fight right right it's   that loud suit thing right you want your opponent  to be at their best yes you want them to last all   the way through the match absolutely the other  thing that i want to point out is i don't know   if i ever really saw him sweating over the spot i  saw him working on it constantly but i don't think   i ever saw him in a state of like when am i going  to finish this spot like we all get to that spot   but i don't know if i ever saw him at that spot  he planned everything so carefully yeah you know   lots of lists and just lots of notes and um yeah  i mean that's how he approached everything really   yeah there was always a calmness about you know  his calculating his thinking and designing and   thinking well it's totally evident here right yeah  um were you did you ever support him at one of the   at one of the competitions um you know i always  had my own robots so they weren't on the same team   but we we certainly uh helped each other at ilm  when we were working on the different robots and   traded a lot of notes and of course while  we were there were in constant contact   yeah it was i remember one of our  colleagues was working on his robot   uh during lunch hours and it was a whole bunch  of lunch hours and when he got eliminated out   of battlebots his supervisor was like  i think you owe me a few lunch hours   it was like that extra 10 minutes every lunch  hour added up um how do you i can't remember   how many blows he could get out of a single tank  but it was a lot yeah it was a lot that's one of   the reasons he switched to the air originally it  was co2 but that was not enough this gave higher   higher compression and more and more iterations  wow yep a lot more dangerous but he was you know   of course he was always really safe about that  stuff there's i mean i just feel so much uh uh   i yeah so much grantness in the in the precision  and the neatness i mean it's like a tidy house   in here oh yeah that's not the way i built things  i know me neither you and i are on the same page   i'd rather be done than than perfect yeah  no i know and i remember i'd be like enough   it's always just enough to to be uh good on camera  and get the job done but he always wanted it to be   just machine flawless every single one of  his uh screw spacings is measured and perfect   i know i would be seeing him machining these  parts at lunch hours and stuff and be like oh   man you have eight of those to make yeah and this  is i was this is this is always beautiful to me   yeah he has a really good uh metal armor but then  these lightning holes everything's lightened as   light as you can get it and was  this all cnc or is some of it routed   um no he did all cnc i think you're right i used  to do the routing thing because i was in a hurry   i love the routing trick when we were all first  doing this the institutional knowledge we had was   zero right and so like the bots just constantly  they were their own worst enemy they were and   then over the years everyone sort of built this  great set of understandings and a better deep   knowledge of what it took and this just feels like  such a maturation over those early years oh yeah   yeah i remember we we would use a lot of surplus  parts early on because we didn't want to commit to   the cost yeah you know i think at some point this  was a like a 35 000 robot that's like a car wow   wow right because that's what these things cost  there was no robot marketplace that's correct this   is like you bought this from industry yeah they  were hundreds of dollars a piece the batteries   were that doesn't that doesn't account for  the amount of hours right right you know   six months work evenings and weekends uh  for uh when battlebots was on comedy central   and then before that we used  to have a year which was great   you used to have a year between oh right right  right yeah but then uh when it went to comedy   central it was every six months and it was  actually kind of brutal it became work for sure   but i remember you know there's all those  teachable moments there was one match   where uh dead blow caught on fire inside the the  speed control because there was a shading of light   i remember you remember this i was like these are  the kinds of things that you have to think about   the subtlety of of a piece of aluminum shaking  into the electronics causing a short and catching   it on fire i remember that specifically being  blown away by the like oh my god how could we have   ever foreseen that but sure enough there was an  open top and this little thing found its way yeah   yeah it then that's all it takes it's always  the most unlikely thing i feel like um the   other kills your robot the other trick here's  what i really specifically remember was that   every time he was working on it and he got  it to a stage of some completion you could   be guaranteed to see him drive it in while  standing on it yes that was that was his move and it was just that i just saying yeah i'm seeing  that delight and pride on his face as he's like   doing his superhero stance on top of dead blow  riding it into the i remember the testing anytime   it was something uh especially destructive my  favorite memory is that maniacal laughter yeah   we had this very distinct laugh that was specific  to destroying things i feel like and you were just   great success maybe and there's no artifice in  that lap that laugh was completely autonomic it   was like a sneeze right that's correct oh man  i just i could spend an afternoon just kind of   staring at the pieces i know huh you kind of want  to hug it it really is yeah as weird as that is   as weird as it is it totally controllable urge to  hug grant's robot i'm sure there's more behind it

Channel: Adam Savage’s Tested

Views: 453,507

Keywords: tested, battlebots (tv program), grant imahara (tv personality), grant imahara, battlebots tv show, battlebots awards, grant imahara battlebots, grant imahara adam savage, fon davis, battlebots deadblow, battlebots deadliest, grant imahara robot wars, grant imahara shop, grant imahara robot, adam savage battlebots, tested adam savage, adam savage, adam savage fon davis, grant imahara battlebots deadblow, fon davis battlebots, grant imahara shop tour

Id: Uoh4Q-I03tQ

Length: 9min 8sec (548 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 05 2021