We catch up with Adam to learn about his recent travels, from guest judging in the new season of BattleBots to visiting inspiring maker spaces in the midwest. Adam also shares the story of the first test drive of Blendo, Jamie’s infamous BattleBot!
One Day Builds
Adam embarks on one of his most ambitious builds yet: fulfil…
Show And Tell
Adam recently completed a build of the royal St. Edwards cro…
Making
Viewers often ask to see Adam working in real-time, so this …
One Day Builds
Adam and Norm assemble a beautifully machined replica prop k…
One Day Builds
One of the ways Adam has been getting through lockdown has b…
Making
Adam unboxes and performs a quick test of this novel new hel…
Making
When Adam visited Weta Workshop early last year, he stopped …
One Day Builds
Adam tackles a shop shelf build that he's been putting off f…
Show And Tell
Time for a model kit build! This steampunk-inspired mechanic…
One Day Builds
Adam reveals his surprise Christmas present for his wife--a …
I applied to the company I’ve been with for the last 16 years specifically because, as a spare time project, they built Thor for Robot Wars in ’95. He’s still on a shelf, maybe we’ll get him back up and running someday.
Here’s the page for Thinkbox:
http://thinkbox.case.edu/
And a video of Adam’s visit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNHtj8NRXNg
I am not ashamed to say that listening to Adam talk about Cleveland made me tear up. So much for the last year or so there has been little but hate and nastiness in the media and the internet. It was so good and refreshing to hear about people trying to seriously do good and make the world a better place for the right reasons and not just to try and make themselves look good.
I had a robot with a chainsaw in Robot Wars (#3). During initial testing I had trouble controlling the robot as well: only when the chainsaw was running and especially when the chainsaw was throttled up.
My dad had two suggestions: switch to a carbon spark plug and use a wire mesh to shield/ground the wire running to the spark plug.
Yep. The “noise” from the spark plug was interfering with the radio reception. After the two changes the robots was fully controllable.
I will be very excited to learn more about these projects
Great podcast guys! I’m really hoping they will air Robot Wars in Canada. I would very much like to visit the human rights museum in Memphis and if you’re ever in the area, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg is a pretty spectacular building that was pretty recently completed and I would recommend it to anyone. It’s interesting to see how it is already changing as we are working on some really difficult issues with the indigenous population.
A video clip that shows Jamie starting Blendo with the drill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J8N3lXmEw0
I don’t know what is scariest, Blendo or Jamie’s arms?
Spotted you at Trader Joes Norm.
Couldn’t get the guts to say hi.
HI!
There’s actually a bunch of Blendo stuff on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0aHu3UVpw0&list=PLVPuTL8g30RQdATCDH3M_vbJfYXl7ENxP
My public library in Eugene, OR just added a whole maker space with 3D printers and other tools for creating projects. I remember using Kidpix in the 90’s at the library for hours. I’m really excited to see what kids will make these days after having access to these tool at such an early age.
is jamie still involved with Tested?
Yay for the shout-out for TechShop! I’m a member of the DC TechShop and I love it.
Oh man, the Explain-something-to-a-3-year-old game gets insane when they’re in VR and you aren’t. “Maddening” doesn’t even begin to describe it. This is from a good session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4JsRgkG0Qo
My son doesn’t know left from right very well yet either, so it’s a real exercise in description and instruction. I’ve come to enjoy it but it’s tedious as anything I’ve ever done.
Hey Adam,
You should come visit our FabLab in Somerville, MA once we have it up and running! There’s a lot that goes into it, but it’s been a lot of fun so far!
Adam, with all due respect, I humbly submit a correction: Blendo competed in the second Robot Wars in 1995. The first Robot Wars was 1994, and there was a form of horizontal spinner: the first incarnation of the South Bay Mauler had a spinning bar with maces. Our robot, the X1, beat it and won the middleweight category. Subsequent versions of Mauler had the whole body spin instead. I saw Blendo get started a few times, and it scared me too. I was also scared when it started continuously carving pieces off of DoMore and showering them over the rather short arena walls. Team Blendo was one of the first teams to use costumes and attitude to intimidate the competition, and they did it well. Thanks for the memories!
What is Adam talking about at the beginnig? A movie? Which movie can be better than Lost in translation?