Blendo

From Combat Robot

Blendo was a combat robot designed and built by Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage. It first competed in the second Robot Wars competition in San Francisco (1995). Blendo had the first effective implementation of the full-body kinetic energy spinner weapon that became important in the sport.

The robot had a spinning shell made of a commercial wok and powered by a internal combustion lawnmower engine. Blades attached to the spinning weapon caused grievous damage to opponents, tearing away pieces and hurling them over the arena Lexan shields into the audience. After two fights it was deemed too hazardous to compete by the event supervisors and was given co-champion status in exchange for withdrawing from the competition.

Blendo would later compete in several BattleBots competitions. However, Blendo had little success in BattleBots; often the robot would damage itself during battle.

Blendo's creators are now the co-hosts of the Discovery Channel show, MythBusters, which also features fellow combat robot|combat robotics competitor, Grant Imahara.

Blendo is an inaugural member of The Combat Robot Hall of Fame.

External links

• Blendo profile at BattleBots.com
• Blendo at M5industries.com (archived)
• Account of the match between Hercules and Blendo at RobotCombat.com