The First AUTONOMOUS BattleBot!?! (BUILD VIDEO)

To emphasize how good Gluten Free (Steven & Peter) was, they were literally a team of 2, while most teams had tens of members. They had a robot during the Skystone season, that quite literally had an almost perfect autonomous period, which was thought to be impossible. They are legends of the FTC robotics world.

not sure people here are realizing just how insanely impressive this is

Battlebots is great, but my favorite is the smallest class NHRL fights. It is unbelievable how much destructive power they can cram in such a tiny robot.

FYI both Chomp and Switchback use AI in their bots, but only for aiming. This would be the first fully autonomous Battlebot though.

I loved watching you and battle bots when I was younger, and I swear if I see an episode featuring Hacksmith!? I’d finally get to die in peace 😌

As a competitor on the show, I can confirm just how much time and effort goes into one of these 250 bots, that I feel often gets overlooked by a lot of people, so I appreciate you showing the whole trial and error process of building a battlebot. This video also really took me back as well, from receiving your first parts, to driving it for the first time, there just isn't a feeling like it. Best of luck on the competition, the bot looks fantastic!

As a judge for FIRST Robotics Competitions and a mentor to another team, I'm so happy to see this collaboration! Giving students access to a machine shop and networking with industry professionals helps cultivate future talent. Our own Maker Space, the Arch Reactor, sponsors several local high schools. We have two labs full of 3D printers, lathes, laser cutters, etc. but we're not as large as you guys. Can't wait to see you guys compete!

Having competed against both Steven and Peter in their robotics competition, it is amazing to see what they are doing now. :)

I feel like it’s impossible to build a battle bot without blowing up at least a few ESCs and that goes for all teams

This is primetime Hacksmith content. We LOVE you guys & support this type of content & storytelling. I'm grateful to see this commitment to being high quality all these years later. Much love 🙏

Awesome!!!! As much as I LOVE BattleBots, I teared up when I noticed the meeting room name. That's even better! Thanks for holding his memory James.

Always dreamed of seeing Hacksmith take part in BattleBots, now the dream has come true, thank you for making my dream.

BattleBots is like the real life version of real steel and I’m totally down for it. You guys did an amazing job

FRC 4336 Here, love to see FRC and FTC represented in Media. Our students took home our teams first blue banner this year at Magnolia Regional and got our second ever ticket to world champs. Deffinetly sharing this video with my students. glad they have such great people to look up to!

Great to see how much work and resources goes into creating one of these machines, looking forward to seeing it fight!

Great to see more tech tested in BattleBots! I cofounded the Glitch team and it is an insane challenge that I have to strongly applaud your efforts despite the time crunch. I also love seeing the giant billets of material, you should see what we had to start with! As always good luck and keep it up

I feel like if they had another button to orbit the other direction that might help. Gyro forces on their opponent's blade would help them turn one way, but severely hinder them the other way

So awesome to see you guys involved in this, I love watching Battlebots with my kids

Words cannot describe how loved you are.
You and your team have brought so much joy and excitement to our lives.
Like a light in the darkness you have helped many find their way to happiness and comfort.
Probably not a good idea but you can talk to anyone in your fan base if you need an ear.
We are all here for you guys and will do our best to help in any way we can.

These guys just got the coolest internship without even realizing it.
Want to bet we see some of them return for future projects??

That is an interesting concept and certainly an interesting development for the build! As a Battlebots fan it's certainly quite a cool robot, and the twin counter-rotating verts could do some serious damage, especially if the drives are independent. I am quite concerned about that armor: those wedges look quite a bit thinner than what you often see on bots, which is often enough slabs of titanium or AR500 thick enough to be all but bulletproof to small arms - and even armor that thick we've seen defeated by sufficiently energetic weapons. Best of luck in your fights, and don't pull a Fusion!

I would love to see more autonomous bots, especially in the Meltybrain build style. To have a bot that could instantly retract its weapon to avoid flying through the ring, would be game changing. And run off lidar since it’s already spinning massively fast. Also all of the weight could be spent on drive motors (since they’re also technically weapon motors) and batteries to have a much better weight to weapon ratio. I forget the name of the white meltybrain bot in NHRL making waves but this style of bot will be a force to reckon with in the future.

any plans to have a video somewhere detailing the programming aspect of the bot? i think it would be super interesting to see how the autonomous system works.

I love to see companies helping out students. Nice work.

id love to see something like this become a series. either robotics, or just straight up sponsoring people to do stuff like this,

Welcome to the wonderful world of combat robotics you guys! Its absolutely great to see you guys in the space and wishing you all the best in the competition. If you guys want to try out some smaller weight classes (can be a challenge in and of themselves and cheaper), would love to see you guys down at some Kilobots competitions (3lb, 1lb, 150g) either in Alberta or Saskatchewan!
Edit: Also recognized from the beginning and love your shot at trying to cancel out the gyroscopic procession, as even at the smaller weight classes it can be quite the problem, and its something I would love to see more of!

Man, I've watched a lot of Battlebots, but seeing one during assembly is really something else. Mindblowing how thick all those pieces of metal are.

Very excited to watch Battlebots get Gluten-Free'd, they absolutely revolutionized FTC software by adding significant additional autonomy in a way that raised the bar for all teams that came after them, I have a feeling they're going to do the same for Battlebots. Also go Bacon lol, was great meeting you at HRI (and I assumed you're still on the team although I didn't see you in a quick skim through the video)

This is a really impressive machine! Well done to everyone on you Battlebot team on such a great project, I'm excited to see how it plays out! 🧡

1:30 this whole vid is great and interesting and definitely lives up to your wanting to help and encourage STEM. That being said I noticed in the corner that you held that pitch meeting in the Grant Thompson room...I love that you gave the King of Random a bit of remembrance /honor in the naming of one of your compounds rooms.

This is really cool to see a full intelligent ai controlled robot. I know the NHRL fights have had an autonomous robot fighting

I was under the impression it was a higher level of AI. Still so impressed with what they’ve done, but it shows how far we are from true autonomous AI!

it is amazing to see how much you guys have evolved i have been a fan since the exo stuff, congrats, the content just keeps getting better !

Love this video. So great to see all the different builders come together.

A project that where we can see the practical results of your work, like a BattleBot, is a great idea, and sponsoring a great team like this is a good compromise if you don't have the time to do it all yourself.
And I can't wait to see how useful the AI component turns out to be. I often dream about next level BattleBots that fight autonomously. I also dream of a racing competition where all the race cars are autonomous. One day.

Imagine reaching out to your engineering heroes for a sponsorship and they not only say yes, but they hook you up with all their sponsors and serve as enthusiastic mentors. This channel is so cool.

As a huge robot combat fan and small weight class roboteer, this was awesome to see, and looking forward to seeing more of this machine

You have the power to make awesome things and share them with the public, and that's amazing

There was a robot called Chomp that used autonomy with a form of AI for a while. It wasn't an overly successful bot, but definitely unique.

This is AWESOME. Great collab and community engagement, lucky to have you awesome folks in Ontario

As someone who has built multiple robots including 3d printers and cnc machines as well as developed software for them, this would be my dream job. I wish I could get paid to build and program robots like this. I have wondered for a while now when robot wars would start using AI and autonomous operations. Very cool.

Oh man, this is legit the perfect project for y'all, hope to see this as a series. Much love to y'all!

This was a great video, great idea, great execution, very interesting and seeing everyone get behind this idea was cool

Awesome!! I know a few students who spent all-nighters working on their battlebot in the lab, crazy deadlines and talent! Way to go to you guys!
As a prospective engineer, I am wondering why the team used Unity over Gazebo or NVIDIA Isaac Sim?

You guys are Amazing. Glad to be part of this build.

It must feel amazing to be able to support a student team like this, so cool! Can't wait for the next video.

Seeing the battlebot hit the unbreakable box truly put into perspective the insane amount of power this thing can attack with. Amazing (and terrifying)

From a fellow FTC world champion it's nice to see FIRST going places and creating cool shit.

It’s nice to see easily one of the biggest UAclipsrs helping a new team.
So Obritron for me anyway and a few others has been described as a modern day counter revolution, ( if you familiar enough with the show.) twin vertical discs cancel out the gyro effect and you can drive normally with both weapons at maximum speed. The only thing is if there’s another robot who has a very long, and heavy weapon it could spell trouble very quickly, in their case Team robogym with their new under/overcutter spinner and flamethrower, Roundhouse.

I love how this video feels so natural, it reminds me of some of the older videos

It’s awesome how you are also reaching out and helping teach and help other people in their projects

This is what i imagined when you guys build the "Campus". Bringing in talent and supporting creative brains.

My high school only has vex because they refuse to give us a budget of anything but it still brings me joy to see people putting their skills and experiences to use to create awsome robots like this. Also, i feel that time crunch, it is always chaos in the workshop in the week before our first competition.

That is an awesome concept. I was watching the crazy micromouse competitions recently and my first thought was how cool it would be at full battlebot scale. Im keen to see how well it does in the fight!

What are the key technical challenges one faces when designing and building the first autonomous BattleBot?

this is my 2nd year in FTC and I really loved this video, it really had me enjoying every second, amazing people to look up to

Amazing! Anxious to see the results that AI can bring to the battle bots table. When will the fight take place?

I do FRC robotics and this is absolutely incredible!

This is probably one of your guys coolest video in a long time well done to the young and old team❤

I personally am unsure about a fully AI battlebot, to me the human element of control is what makes the sport interesting and it gives an extra layer of personality each bot.

This could be really cool. An AI division could be a really fresh idea for robotic combat and breath some new life into the sport. You can have both R/C and AI classes and make the competition even bigger.

Good luck at the Battlebots my friend, im sure your robot was very powerful and can pierce through any armors of the Robots armor, Dont forget to improve the armor^^

I loved robotwars as a kid growing up, great show, glad you guys got a version of it over there!

I love you guys supporting people who have the knowledge but not the funding.

I would LOVE to see your creation in the new season of Battlebots.

That's so cool with Bogdan and Ben. In the picture around 3:43, it shows what looks to be a FIRST Robotics event. I'm part of Team 1126 Sparx and this is my last year as a student and really enjoy doing it.

These guys are my role models they are the coolest I would even go as far as saying they are some of the top engineers in this world today

Amazing video as always. Thank you and congrats to the group

I'm very impressed by both how hard and expensive it is to build a Battlebot.
By the way, it only just struck me how dangerously lethal those things actually are. It made short work of that unbreakable cube in seconds.

I remember battlebots from the old days when Discovery channel still had mythbusters and crabfishers, and dudes building crazy machines in a junkyard. But I had NO idea battlebots still existed!

I've always wondered why no ones ever incorporated a Magnetron on their battlebot.

Wow! I’ve always wanted to see how one of these were made, so thank you!❤❤

I used to play Robot Wars Arenas Of Destruction, a video game of the British version of Battle Bots. Seeing the fairly primitive AI in that still cause all sorts of damage to everyone had always made me wonder how it would work for a real robot. I'm glad someone is trying it.

As a vex competitor, this is impressive as hell.

What a well matched partnership 👏
Congratulations

So excited for this! I was hoping to see something like this since I first found your channel, and now that it's real I'm even more excited!

Chomp I think is actually the first battlebot featuring automation. This would be the first FULLY autonomous battlebot.

Great to see you support this sport! Imagine BattleBots is getting bigger and you have Boston dynamics vs Hacksmith finals !

Really excited to see this robot in the battle soon! Wish you guys have the best to win the competition!!!

I love this so much, I I’ve actually saw this bot a few months ago and got super excited about it. I’m so happy to see this bot come to life, and with the help of hacksmith as well. This couldnt be any better!!!!!!

As an avid warframe player, this makes me so happy to see two of my favorite things combined into one

I'm very interested in learning more. I have plans to start a coding/ robotics club for my elementary students next year.
IMO machining a crown into the wheels would have allowed the tires to be self-centering.

There was a fully autonomous battle bot in the early 90s. Yes, the competition is that old, and so is AI. I went to school with the guys who built it, though they were a year ahead of me.

Now put a light saber in it

Aside from the battle bots I’m super excited over the fact that you do FRC and FTC

Absolutely beautiful video and robot! I wish more builders would post videos like this! Though now I’m just not picking…. But y’all failed to show us the self-righter in operation, hopefully it’s in top notch order like everything else, best of luck!

steven and peter's team gluten free was actually from my town, and the 2 years i did ftc before i moved to frc everyone looked up to them even though they were long gone. the best robotics team in the world

Why'd you have to blow up a Domestik Drone though... all jokes aside, mad props for doing robotics at this level! Glad to see them taking the step up from FIRST as well! Anyways, best of luck to you all, from one former FIRST competitor to the rest of you! (P.S. I don't really consider myself in the same league as you all from a technical standpoint, but it does still amaze me how much carries over into Battlebots from something like FRC, at least judging by the video. It's definitely one of the better ways to prepare! You've got this!)

Hacksmith+Battlebots= something incredible! However, after seeing the damage it took, it sort of worried me a bit. Those disks dont seem to be Hardox or AR steel (The most common type of steel for robot weapons {s7 is also popular but it has its issues}). But what type of aluminum does the chassis use?

Shortly after seeing a preview of Orbitron on youtube, I met Steven and Peter at school in E7 after overhearing them discussing Orbitron. They seemed like really smart and nice guys, thank you for giving them the chance to make us proud!

Beautiful! I wonder how well it will perform in battle.

You guys have 14million subs and are still underrated. I just love your videos 👍

In the first episode of the show, Sleepy Hollow, there is an axe that was heated to 500° and instantly cauterized skin. I was wondering if you all could make an axe that could self Heat to 500° or some other temp.

Steven and Peter retired from ftc a couple years ago, it so cool to see that they are doing battlebots now.

I want to see a super heavyweight class for battlebots. Bots that are so powerful and dangerous that no observers are allowed to be physically within a few hundred yards of the battle arena.

when i was young i thought that battle bots were autonomous (granted i didn’t know what “autonomous” was) so this is awesome to see

i love battle-bots, i was suprised that you did a mandalorian thing and i was very happy, and now battle-bots, man i love you guys. I also hope james is out of his deppression, i wish him the very best. when i heard i was shocked because he alsways looked happy.

I've always wondered why didn't battlebots use 2 spinners rotating in alternate directions to neutralize the gyroscopic effect. Good to see it actually works.

It had a fight against Roundhouse, an undercutting horizontal spinner. I think that durability really got tested in that fight

I see a vulnerability with the design. The attack wheels have quite a bit of ground clearance, so the bot is vulnerable to long flippers like Wheely Big Cheese. Can be fixed by attaching forks that will lift the opponent into your weapon as well as prevent flipper bots from getting underneath you. Further you could leverage the AI to lift the flippers when you are traversing kill saws or other things on the floor.