Hi.

Welcome to BattleBots Destruct-A-Thon The only battle box arena in the world.

Come on, Ill take you backstage.

Welcome to the ultimate showdown of steel and strategy.

This is BattleBots, No scripts, no second chances.

live nightly in the heart of Las Vegas.

Hi, I'm Bil Dwyer.

I'm the host of BattleBots Destruct- A-Thon a live show right here in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I grew up, just outside of Chicago, in a town Evergreen Park, Illinois.

I think I was a loud kid, because I'm loud now, and I was also the youngest, so nobody, really, nobody really cared or looked after me at that point.

Once you're the youngest of five, we're good.

We know what we're doing.

You'll be fine.

I moved to LA not knowing anything.

And did standup a couple times and was terrible.

I'm not one of those guys who, started off and I, I won the contest where everybody was laughing.

I was, I was pretty terrible.

Am I interesting?

Am I interesting?

Okay I don't know what most of this stuff is, but I am taking you to a very special guy, the founder of BattleBots.

Come on everybody.

Trey Roski, this is the guy who brought me into the Comedy Central fold 25 plus years ago.

But you were doing it before that.

We were you made the show.

Yeah, that's right.

Tim, the L.A. Sheriff's Department has a robot, but you won't find it in the battle box Youre the one that made us we made it to TV.

You made it funny.

You made it good.

I helped.

Comedy Central loved you because you were funny.

Looks aren't everything.

Right, exactly.

Thank goodness.

Looks arent everything.

My name is Edward Roski, and my friends call me Trey.

And I'm the founder of BattleBots.

Executive producer.

Coach.

Man with many hats.

my cousin Greg and Garner were, we're that the trio, We kind of grew up together.

both Greg and Garner were, in Northern California, and I was in Southern California, and we would spend a lot of our free time at one of the mother's houses.

I kind of grew up breaking things, We, took a lot of things apart, put a few things back together.

So in second grade, I was diagnosed with dyslexia, very severe dyslexia.

I had a high IQ, but couldn't read.

Couldn't write very well.

I had to learn differently.

Took me seven years to graduate college.

I couldn't learn the way they were teaching me.

Math did not make sense.

You know, you go into math teacher, and he'd say, okay, today we're going to learn pi.... 3.14 That's a circle.

And this is, you know, an equation.

And I go, What the heck does that mean?

And then when I built a robot, when I built a battle bot, and I needed that pi equation to figure out, I wanted a robot that went 15 miles an hour in two feet.

How do I figure out the calculations?

Then math made sense, and when I got to touch it, things made sense.

When I got to touch things, you know, and see things that make sense to me.

towards the end of college, Robot Wars came up in, San Francisco, So we built a middleweight robot an 80 pound robot.

La Machine, was a very simple robot.

We spent about 200 bucks on the entire robot and everything was recycled.

that year we won the one on one competition with the middleweights, hands down.

this is, I don't know, in a place with has all sorts of unusual things.

This is pretty unusual.

Bryan, you've been working on this.

This is Y2K2 everyone.

You may think of me as the original host of BattleBots, but this guy actually hosted a pay per view special in 1999.

Hi.

I'm Y2K2 BattleBots mascot.

and he was kind of left for dead.

Right, Bryan?

You brought him back to life?

Yeah.

So unfortunately, after the original creator of him passed away, he kind of sat in storage for, like, 30 years.

So my job when I got, promoted over here was to take him apart one by one, replace all the electronics, clean up all the rust, replace anything that has been rusted away.

And just reprogram him.

Will you do that for me?

In 30 years?

He's gonna replace you already.

It's going to be a lot of rust, Bryan.

Wait.

He's replacing me again?

You wanna see what he can do?

Yeah.

Let's see.

Hi.

I'm BattleBot the official mascot for this event.

And if you think being me is fun, well, you got it!

I made up of hundreds bolts, wires and computer chips and an assortment of electromagnetic impulses.

That makes me the wild and crazy bot that I am.

There's a few things I disagree with there, however.

It is a smart looking piece of hardware.

So BattleBots started in 1999 as a competition, a sport, We went and knocked on all the network doors.

We really didn't know about agents and agencies and all that.

We just went and knocked on doors and called up people and just about every network laughed at us.

and said, robots are going to fight to the death.

That's great.

Don't call us.

We'll call you.

we actually went to Comedy Central and they laughed at us and thought, this is funny.

BattleBots had shot all the fights before the first season, we put the show together, we created all the content.

We, filmed it all, and then they started looking for their their host and announcers, almost every stand up comic worth his salt, auditioned for it because it was pretty exciting.

So like everybody, I thought it might have been like, a robot, like Tobo Or Robby the Robot or that weird.

thing on Lost in Space.

Just rolling around and fighting things.

they sat me down.

They said, okay, here's what it looks like.

And I. Oh, so that kind of robot.

Okay.

and I thought, oh, this is going to be fun.

this is fun.

The first time I met the creator of the show, Trey Roski I was, I was really struck by his very soft spoken.

And he was very happy to bring me on board...

It actually made me angry at the beginning.

Bil had never seen a fight.

And here he is commentating on the fights.

I was kind of like, who is this guy?

He doesn't know what he's talking about.

I think I got chosen to host the show because of, this gorgeous thing.

Frankly.

I mean, come on, look at it, look at it.

and then I fell in love with him.

he really dove in and got to know everybody and fell in love with the, teams and the engineers and our crews and everything else.

And, you know, I'm so glad, that I was able that, you know, to get him back for Destruct-A-Thon Let's go.

we couldn't do the show without the engineers.

They are the heartbeat of this show.

So let's meet one of them now.

Elijah Neal, who works specifically on Witchdoctor.

Big E!

What's going on?

Tell everybody a little bit about yourself.

He looks like a kid, but he's not.

Prior service military.

I did 22 years and retired Thank you.

Sir.

Retired out of Nellis Air Force base.

Worked on helicopters, either special operations or combat search and rescue.

it led me to where I'm at now.

I know that all of our bots are built specifically for Destruct-A-Thon, so they're not exactly TV legal.

So some of them are over 250 pounds.

Oh, yes.

Witch doctors over 250.

But 340 last time we checked.

340 because it needs to take all that damage.

Of course we've got to do this in such a regular basis.

Needless to say, we have to do a little bit more reinforcement.

Yes.

Thicker plates and steel and heavier, you know, so she can take that solid hit and come back strong again Thats a reflection of me that goes in that arena.

Right And it's a great Bot.

I try my best.

What's it like to repair that bot night after night?

It's tedious, but at the same time, you start to kind of learn a little bit tricks and tips and tactics.

So it's easier each time.

Now I does get a lot of abuse, but yeah, same time we're good at what we do.

It's got to be a really special thing to build bots.

How would someone else, maybe a young kid, maybe even an adult, how would they get into building robots?

Start with an idea and don't give up.

Cardboard, popsicle sticks, Clay Who knows anything that you can get your hands on that you can shape into your own design Start with that, and then automated after and then just keep growing.

thank you for giving us some of your time.

Your valuable time.

Have fun.

Have fun.

As I.

Do.

All right, let's go.

Come on, come on.

after season one, we would go to the live shows and it was madness.

So the first wave of robots came from, model makers, pretty much, you know, and science people.

it was single elimination back then.

So if you lost, you went home.

Didn't matter if, you know, your wire fell out and you never really got a chance to to fight or show off, There were so many different bots back then.

There were four weight classes, lightweight, middleweight, heavyweight, super heavyweight, There was 700 bots waiting in the parking lot to come in they'd fight move them out, fight, move them out.

it was so much fun and we would bet on every fight.

I don't know if that was legal or not.

those events basically, they come and they prove it to us that they belong in the TV show.

They don't necessarily have to win.

They just have to show us they've got something really, really cool and something people would want to watch on television.

And that makes a great, entertaining fight.

I got an idea.

You guys will work with our engineers and build a robot.

You build this, you come up with some ideas, you'll add some attachment to a robot or build something in the back with our guys.

This is going to be great.

BattleBots is doing something for us that they usually don't do.

Behind us they're building us a robot.

And we have no idea what to expect, but believe it or not, we're actually going to be operating this robot tonight in a fight.

So come check it out and meet the engineer who's building it.

There he is.

- Hello.

Jimmy, what do you have for us here?

This.

This is unique.

Crazy.

So here we have a wonderful Las Vegas slot machine, that we've, souped up a little bit for you to try and give you a fighting chance.

So we've mounted this mini gun to the top of it, Would you guys mind helping me put those finishing touches on and get it in the arena and ready to go?

I'm all in.

I'm all in.

Let's do it.

This is going to be fun.

We're making robot making robots.

This is it.

This is where the magic happens.

This is why builders from all over the world come to Las Vegas to fight In the one and only battle box.

Let's go inside.

Gotta put on my safety glasses This is Rob Bahr, our our head of safety here at BattleBots Destruct-A-Thon.

Can you take us through the box and the various hazards?

Absolutely.

We do call these hazards in the box.

This one right here is a flipper.

Kind of like a pinball machine.

If the robots get kind of stuck in the corner, will push them right back out into the action.

We gotta have action Right here next to it is the screws that are on the outside.

They roll backwards normally to kind of drag the robots in, Those spin about about 30 horsepower motors, and about 30 RPMs.

Polarizers are these 110 pound hammers.

The silver section is about 42 pounds, And it comes down with a lot of force.

Everything else is random.

Along with the Whopper, Weapon Operational Programable Reactor.

I didn't understand a word you said.

What are we standing over right now?

So you're standing over.

What are the kill saws?

There's four per section.

For each one of these, they are a two foot diameter titanium blade that come up, and they sound great when they hit a robot.

Do you do you think these would really help if any of this stuff was turned on?

Probably not.

I appreciate your honesty Let's get out of here.

Yikes.

All right.

Lot of hazards in there.

Let me take off my safety... ow Pinched me.

Got to be safe.

Safety glasses ...

So tell me, what is it about this box that keeps us and our audience safe when they're here for this show?

Well, first, let's talk about the doors and the interlocks.

So the gates, like the spike rail around the outside, can close up to make sure that the robots don't drive in and into the door.

The doors themselves have safety pins.

So when the safety is activated or the pins are activated, you can't actually go back into the box This is polycarbonate.

It is an inch and a quarter thick.

It is four layers.

I've actually got a piece here.

All right.

Which is very similar to, like, the stuff that you see the bank, although it's four layers and you can see the multiple layers there.

And all of the nine millimeters do not go past.

Through the.

Through all the.

Layers.

So somebody had the great job of firing bullets at this polycarbonate.

We are in a desert.

And and the reason they didn't go through this is what?

So with multiple layers what it does is it takes your energy from a straight point and disperses it sideways, So we could go into the battle box and fire a gun.

You probably light a stick of dynamite and you'd be okay.

And we've seen it.

If a robot catches fire.

All of a sudden people start moving around here, don't they?

So there's a protocol that we have for when a.

Robot catches fire.

What we'll do at that point is one of the crew bots.

Which, man, the doors Will turn off the other robot, Then we have about three other crew bots that assist with the, evacuation hose that can drag out all the way to any corner of the box.

They'll put that right over there.

And we'll take the fire extinguishers and try to get the batteries down, cooled and off as fast as possible.

All right.

Geez.

Take it easy, will you?

Sorry.

I'll get you a BandAid Im a delicate flower.

All right.

So we're super excited that we're going to be competing in tonight's fight.

And we have a robot that I think is going to surprise everybody.

you're not prepared for what you're going to see.

It's going to come in and demolish the competition.

Nobody is ready for this robot in the power it's going to bring.

It kind of feels like organized chaos around here.

Let's meet another one of our engineers.

I think our youngest engineer here.

This is Bryan Duran, everybody.

Bryan, how did you get here?

applied for an internship position for our merchandise.

but whenever I could, I would sneak in and work some other tasks and stuff like that.

And then eventually kind of work worked my way up and started work on other robots.

you're working on chopper right now.

this robot was built specifically for Destruct-A-Thon never seen on TV.

And what makes it different from some of the other bots then?

It's very rugged.

It's probably the most versatile bot that we have here.

This one has the most combinations to fight other robots.

It's great for vertical spinners.

Great for horizontal spinners as well.

Besides the big wedge in the front, it's just pretty encapsulated.

And then it has a pretty good weapon for, like, overhead attacks that most of the robots here don't really defend against.

It looks like we've got a really beat up chopper here.

What do you have to do to get this back into fighting shape?

a lot of the challenges is, what can I repair and what should I completely just replace?

So one of the things that's really difficult to replace are these side armor panels.

These are completely welded on AR500 requires a lot of time.

So I would probably just run this again for, like, the piping that's missing.

I would probably just weld in new pipes.

Probably cut these out, put new ones on.

In terms of, like, mechanical stuff.

If you look at our weapon here, it's kind of out of alignment, but it's good enough for the show.

But as for everything else, our wheels here, for example, are pretty torn up.

So we'll get some new rubber on here.

Quite a bit on this one.

On our other side.

There's not even a wheel there Bryan.

Bryan, there's not a wheel there.

I'm currently rebuilding this one because it's completely out of alignment.

We'll we'll just oscillate back and forth.

So it's not very good for the show.

Let me just let me point.

I think somebody dropped a wrench in there.

See, see, you got to be aware of these things, Bryan.

I don't want to be the guy to show you, but there was a wrench in there.

All right, all right.

During the, filming of the last TV season I was thinking about BattleBots, Destruct-A-Thon at that time and how to do it.

BattleBots had come back to TV for the last couple seasons that were here in Las Vegas the crowds were spectacular, and it was obvious that this was going to be the place that was going to be their home.

And, you know, who could possibly be the best host?

And, I instantly thought of Bil Dwyer.

welcome.

Welcome, everyone.

And they asked me to come here, we have this place, we have this battle box.

It's the only one in the world.

Why don't we use it and do a live show here?

one of the things about seeing BattleBots live is that you don't realize how big and how strong these bots are.

We tell people that it's unscripted and unpredictable, and it is all that.

we really don't know what's going to happen.

Most of the time we have spectacular fights where about gets beaten up or blown up And it's family friendly and kids love it.

Now I'm out here doing the show in front of everybody.

But behind the scenes in our control room, Jason and Fox are taking care of things.

All the TV and video stuff.

You should talk to them.

My name is Fox Weitzel.

I've been working with BattleBots since season six.

I've been working with the live show since its inception.

My name is Jason Pearson.

I've been working with BattleBots for about two and a half years, and.

when I heard that the show was coming in I actually thought that it would be very interesting for Vegas.

Primarily because I didn't think that Vegas had anything that was family focused or family supportive.

We have things that go towards kids, things that are geared towards adults.

But it's also something that's very family friendly and kid focused so in the show, we actually have a mixture of moments.

So for the theater moments, we're going to have a mixture of two handhelds and a PTZ camera to capture the audience interactions.

When we're in the fight.

I'm going to cut with two handheld, two PTZ and three GoPros live into the fight.

my team has a lot of flexibility.

They're allowed to be really creative on the floor.

They're allowed to really make decisions.

and if something is broken, getting it fixed within 75 seconds.

Every day in this.

Absolutely every day.

Something, something.

Probably today we'll go.

We'll go.

We not mean that it goes wrong, but I would say it doesn't go as planned.

it's very unique in Las Vegas, where our audience is, able to feel as though the show is really about them, not about the performer on the stage.

this is very unique.

And the fact that it is a show, but also very much really a daily tournament and sport.

I think Vegas is the only place for BattleBots.

Like it makes the most sense.

Fighting is a league.

It's a sporting league.

And to be able to do something daily means that you have to be in a space that supports daily events and live events, and it's it's Las Vegas.

Las Vegas is the space for this.

from Vegas, PBS, the crew from the Vegas All In TV show will be driving a specially modified... Slot machine.

Get ready and get on your feet for one of the scariest robots in BattleBots history.

Let's give it up for Nightmare!

driving?

Nightmare, everybody.

PBS, that stands for Public Beating Soon.

All right, well, listen, they call us, Vegas All In Because once you face off with us, you never cash out.

All right, folks, let's give both teams a little bit of support here.

All together now.

Fight fight fight.

Let the slot bot Battle begin!

I'm going in.

Showering you.

He's showering you with sparks.

He's got his door open.

Oh, what's going on here?

Oh my goodness.

Hey, what's he shooting?

Nerf.

He's littering the battle box.

Oh, I'm caught.

Oh!

Get away!

Try and get the weapon moving.

Hang on.

Oh, here comes the weapon folks!

Come on, Bil, show him what you got.

Let's do it!

Oh, oh, you winged him.

Yeah.

Oh, that's more like it.

Yeah, that's all I want to see.

Crunch, I think you've taken pretty good care of that thing.

Oh, hey, Three Two One Knockout, winner Nightmare.

this is all that's left of the robot.

it got pretty much destroyed in the ring.

I really thought we had a winner.

The engineers are great, and they helped us build the best robot we could, but just not enough in the battle box.

This experience showed us that it's really hard.

This is a really hard competition and I really enjoyed it.

when you build a battle bot and you get it in that arena, and those doors are locked and your robot rolls out of that square, you've succeeded.

you feel good about yourself.

At that point It doesn't matter whether you win or lose.

It's it's fun.

It's just good, clean fun.

what is the best part of working here?

Look at this.

everybody here, we're all friends.

We have the same stresses.

We all have the same things that we have on our mind.

And it's just great.

I mean, you get to play with robots all day long my favorite thing about working here is probably, like, the creativity amongst the engineers.

A lot of the engineers, whenever I like to say I have a problem, right?

Or I want to switch to a different material.

Everybody has feedback on what their experiences on, like, what this material does and stuff like that, and it's always just great to get feedback.

The best part about being part of BattleBots is like watching it grow.

the part that I love most is watching the families and the young kids and the generational sharing that takes place, that is absolutely unique among Vegas.

I really like this job.

I get to see all of the innovative stuff, and that what was what really speaks to me.

That and the inspiration for inspiring young minds.

everybody's helping each other.

They're learning from each other.

And I've just never seen camaraderie like this.

There's more kids who say, I want to build a robot now, like, we just saw the show and he wants to build a robot.

it's fun and things go boom.

The kids really love it.

it wants to inspire kids to try and do things, and not just in robotics, but in science or in the arts, because we we want kids to try.

Just give it a go.

It doesn't matter if you fail.

We just want you to try.

And that that really is the message behind this show.

And BattleBots in general.

We need kids to feel good about themselves and building these things.

Once they build it, they can build it again and again.

They can make it better.

But that's what BattleBots wants to do.

It wants to tell kids, go for it.

You can go ahead and do something.

it's one of these few sports that is, we're equal in anybody can do it.

And it's really a battle of the brain.

It's a sport of the brain.

it's about building something, coming up with an idea and being able to build it La Machine the sole survivor.

The show is.

A lot of it is about the robots.

And it's about inspiring kids, which is what we love.

But did you ever think, like, when you and your cousin Greg were making these robots that you would ever end up here?

The thought never crossed my mind.

Why would it right?

That's the show.

Watch more Vegas All In stories and moments whenever you want to go online and search Vegas All In PBS and we'll see you there.