Episode 101 - Robots

Robots have been evolving, both IRL and in popular culture. Today, Christine and JJ break down the look of science fiction robots from the 1950's and 60's, through the 70's, 80's, and 90's; from Robby the Robot to Data and C3PO. Then the pair turns their attention to modern day robots and their wild and crazy lives as groovy dancers and fight-to-the death gladiators! 

Transcript

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JJ Hunt: 0:03

Talk description to me is Christine Malec and JJ Hunt.

Christine Malec: 0:27

Hi, I'm Christine Malec.

JJ Hunt: 0:28

And I'm JJ Hunt. This is talk description to me, where the visuals of current events and the world around us get hashed out in description rich conversations.

Christine Malec: 0:47

Today, it's all about robots. And it's true that I am a sci fi geek and JJ, to a lesser extent, but this really came out of this bizarre preoccupation I've had lately with robot fights. And so we're gonna get into that a bit later. I know robot fights, I just love even saying it. robot fights. I love the phrase. So what we're going to do is talk about the evolution of robots, and how would they, how they've been portrayed, kind of infection, and then into what they look like in the real world. And then the PS to resolve resistance, we're going to talk a robot fights. Okay, so, JJ, where should we start with depictions of robots?

JJ Hunt: 1:29

Well, I mean, pop culture, depictions of robots that go back to the 50s and 60s. I mean, that's a really interesting evolution to the end, by the way, like, some of these descriptions are going to be of cyborgs, not robots, or AI is and whatever. But like, listen, we're already geeky enough in this conversation. We don't need to, we don't need to turn this into like a Reddit debate on a robot or whatever. So just broadly speaking, so the 1950s and 1960s automation was starting to appear in the workplace and this fascinated and terrified people. So there was a real surge of robots in movies and in TV. But the state of Hollywood special effects meant that if you wanted a robot on screen to move, someone had to be in it, like there wasn't no tech that was going to allow you to get a lot of movement from a robot without a human move moving around inside a costume, right. So that's, that's the starting point for a lot of these early robots. So think 1956 Robbie, the robot from Forbidden Planet, one of the most famous early robots, it's a big humanoid because this costume had to fit around an operator. The legs and the feet of Robbie, the robot are just a series of stacked metallic looking balls with one big ball around the kind of pelvis and hips area. On top of that, there's a big wide ring around the torso. Right in the center of that of that ring is a is a rectangular control panel that centered on the chest. And there are two stubby arms in bendable tubes that stick straight out the front. So this is a really important concept. If you want to try this at home, tuck your elbows in your sides, put your hands straight forward. So now your forearms are parallel to the ground, hands, straightforward. Elbows at your sides. And now you can move your forearms. So up and down, side to side, but your elbows have to be pinned at your sides. That's really important. And that is, first of all how everyone imitates a robot like an old fashioned robot. I am a robot, your elbows are pinned at the sides and you're just moving your forearms that is so useful. It's it's that is still to this day, how people think of like I am a robot. And it's a bit of a mechanical movement of you know, very jerky. And it all comes back to this costume with the arms sticking straight out the front in very simple stubby looking. Yeah, so that's and the arms in this costume are kind of wrapped in what looks like a corrugated tube. So that's what the arms look like in there are just three boxy fingers on each hand. So we have gears in his head. Yes, so the heads like this big glass bullet shaped dome. And inside our glowing gadgets and transistor looking doohickeys looks a little bit like an old switchboard with a few small gyroscope looking things in there. And then there are sensors that stick out to the sides of the head with like, These are metal rings on short masts, and they rotate. So there's some glowing elements inside these good rotating sensors on the outside. So for the time. Pretty cool. That looks pretty cool. But try like when you imagine trying to walk in this costume. It's really rigid. It's really awkward. And so that's how robots moved back then you know that they had to be rigid and awkward, and stunted in their movements because of the costumes themselves. And that's the same for like the Lost in Space be nine from 1965, very, very similar. In this case, the legs were stuck together, and the stack balls were flattened. So again, they look more like corrugated tubes. And instead of walking on feet, it rolled on these belt treads. So these are like the kind of treads you'd find on a tank or a bulldozer, and kind of rolled on those. But again, the exact same arms sticking straight out the front, just the forearms. And in this case, instead of a glass bullet shaped head that had more of a glass doughnut that was lying flat with blinking lights inside. So that was very much the look of the costume robot. And then, I mean, even for like the Daleks, from Doctor Who these were tapered, cylindrical shaped robots, that were kind of had a wider oval shape at the bottom, and then would tapered up toward this rounded cap for a head, big rubber bumper and circling the solid frame just above the floor, I'm sure that was for practical reasons. And here, there are no actual arms that stick out the front. So there's obviously a human in there pushing this thing around. But the the arms are like poles, so there's like one that's a pole with a plunger on the end of it. And the other one looks like a tube shaped wire, whisk that sticking out the arms. And then the whole body is a looks like it's wrapped in bubble wrap these big, rounded shapes in rows and lines that are all around the body. And then there's another plunger looking things sticking out of what would be the face and two lights that stick up where ears might be. And these are metallic looking, painted in silvers and bronze colors. So but again, you had to have a person inside that was important. That's the only way your robot is moving in the 50s and into the 60s.

Christine Malec: 7:06

Same with C3PO. Right.

JJ Hunt: 7:09

Well, that's right, it really does continue into the 70s and 80s. Right so in 1975 Star Wars you've got RTD two and C3PO and both of those required human operators. The difference is you didn't need a huge costume to put around an actor, the the tech change the suit could be more minimal. So for Threepio the costume was formed fitting me actor who was cast Anthony Daniels was really quite slight. And so the character ends up looking like a man in Golden, this brassy golden color armor. So there are big knee joints. There's like a codpiece thing around the hips. And there's a like a round vent like shape over the chest. But what really made see Threepio I think, look look built and made and real and frankly vulnerable is the fact that the upper part of the costume and the lower part of the costume are separate. So right across the midsection, there's an opening, so you got a chest piece, and then you've got this kind of hips, this pelvis cod piece that goes down below and in between right around the waist, there's an illusion that you are seeing the inside of the robot, it's just wires in the middle. So as the body moves, the top piece moves separately from the bottom. And in between, there are just these this like this tangle of vertical wires and cables running up and down the body. So it's really cool for the movement and allows the actor to move a little bit. But the illusion is that you're seeing inside this body, and it's just wires really, really cool. And so again, you know, the movement is short and choppy. Be you know, and in this case, the elbows are not pinned against the body, but they are in fact sticking out. So you kind of have the same angle of elbow, but the elbows are pointing out pointing out a little bit and so there's a there's a bit of a toggle with the elbows to the side. Oh right right. And that's like that's kind of the how the voice and the in the movement of the body go hand in hand. And then for our two d two was was a much smaller robot. So they needed a smaller actor. So they got an English actor by the name of Kenny Baker, who is three foot eight. I love this actor. He's known for one of my all time favorite films time bandits love that movie very cool actor. And so Kenny Baker was put inside this cylindrical. I mean, they talked about him being a moving garbage can and RTD too does kind of look like that is this cylinder with a rounded cap top. And the robot moves on kind of two arms and a roller foot so roller arms on either side so they connected to us. shoulder joint goes straight down caps over the wheels. And then there was one kind of foot directly under this canister. And so between them, the robot could move around. And because the connection points to these, these arms had shoulders, that meant that the body that are 2d to his body could tip back and forth. So it allowed our 2d to, to essentially look up or tip the other way and look a little bit down. Yeah. And so the body of the of our two is white, usually a little bit dirty, covered in panels, and like inset do hickeys and whatnot. And the head is a is a silver with blue accent panels and a couple of lenses, like camera lenses that would stick out and you know, and the whole headpiece could spin around and around and around independently of the body. So that's our two, and C three Po. And it really wasn't until, you know, into the 80s that we moved away from the idea of needing a human inside the robot because our understanding of robots was starting to change and robots were based on the technology of the day. So then we kind of got into two different kinds of robots in the 80s that giant mega bots and Androids. So for the giant mega bots, I'm thinking of things like the transformers and Voltron. So these are transforming cartoon robots where you had, in the case of Voltron, you've got multiple robots that are, you know, Lion robots, that then click together to make an even bigger giant robot. And in the case of transformers, you've got, you know, giant cars and trucks and planes and whatever that can transform and, you know, into, you know, a robot that is made of the technology of the day trucks and cars and planes. And in the case of androids, you're talking about humans that are playing robot characters, or humans that are playing Android. So in some of those cases, you're not doing anything and make up the end, they look visually exactly the same. So if you're thinking about like, Blade Runner, or alien, these are just actors who are playing Android characters. And if you're talking about like data, in Star Trek Next Generation, the only thing you're doing is changing skin tone, skin color, and putting contact lenses in so that the eyes are slightly different. So these androids and robots our technology had our real life technology had come to the point where we're starting to consider the possibility of robots that look just like us.

Christine Malec: 12:45

Now, when I brought up this, the idea for this episode, you mentioned viral videos about robots? What what's going on there?

JJ Hunt: 12:52

Yeah. So Boston Dynamics, which is this, an American engineering and robotics company, I think it's a spin off of MIT. They make amazing robots that are really mobile and can do things that in the past, robots just weren't able to do. It's it's been tricky to get robots to do things like walk and jump, things that humans find quite simple. But it's been really hard to get robots to the point where they're doing that, and Boston Dynamics has cracked it. And so they have a series of robots that can do amazing physical things. And not only are they building cool robots, they're also very, very good at filming them, putting these videos of their robots out into the world, and they become viral videos, because they're so amazing. And so one of the they did in, I think it was the end of 2020. They're like, you know, the world's terrible, everything's awful. We're gonna put out this feel good video of their all of their major robots, doing a dance performance to the 1962 Motown hit. Do you love me by the contours. And the video is amazing, because it's a synchronized dance routine, like it's every bit as intricate as a dance performance by human dancers. It's fantastic. So you know what we've just talked about the movement of Robbie, the robot from Forbidden Planet, and how that movement looks creaky and stiff, tipping at the waist and rotating from side to side. But that's not we have to erase that idea now, and come up to a new idea of how these robots move because these robots from Boston Dynamics are they're much smoother. There's a little bit of jerkiness and a little bit of precision in their movements, to be sure, but they are able to move to a rhythm to a beat, they're able to synchronize the shimmy, they jump, they're playful. It's amazing. So I mean, there's kind of no point in describing the like linking to the video and describing it based on that because that it's just purely the song. That's the only audio so it If you want to be listening to the to the soundtrack, by all means we can't afford the rights to play the Motown hit. Do you love me, but by all means, fine. Do you love me? And I think maybe what I do is just like, describe in general terms, what these different robots are doing during this viral video. Does that work? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right. So the video was filmed inside a it's a big testing lab, like a long room the size of a school gymnasium, blue padded floor, glass walls. There are some exposed pipes and ventilation ducts on the ceiling. And there's one robot that stands in the opening shot. This is a robot called Atlas. Atlas is a fully mobile biped robot about five feet tall, more or less proportioned like an adult human. The body has white and gray casings with look like hard plastic, there are some exposed cables. So you know, it's got legs with knees and ankles, it connects to a distinct pelvis piece that's, you know, right at the hip level. And then the torso itself is tapered, so wider at the chest and narrower at the hips, and arms are connected at shoulders. The only parts that are a little bit off of the human model is that the head is squat and boxy with no neck. So it just continues straight from the shoulder area up into the head area. And it looks like it's wearing an integrated backpack. And there are cables that run from the shoulders to the wrists that are strapped to the back of the arms. And they connect to the lower torso to the top of the thigh, bypassing the pelvis. So that's how this this creature, this being this atlas robot looks. And what makes it amazing is the fact that it's got 28 different hydraulic joints, so ankles and wrists and knees and hips and shoulders so we can really move like a human. So the song starts in the song. This starts with like a little sad monologue, you broke my heart because I couldn't dance. And so the robot stands alone in the lab, and heaves a sigh, and tips forward just a little bit at the waist with its head hung, the shoulders drop. And the robots not frozen and rigid, but like moving just ever so slightly, like a person who has high heels decide some shoulders, and then the singer sings, or says, Now I'm back to let you know, I can really shake him down. And at this point, Atlas perks up, stands tall, reaches out and points directly at us, and then leaps into the air and does a jumping jack and then lands and starts to dance. And this is when the music shifts to like to the song do you love me. And so the robot so Atlas starts shifting from side to side, tapping his toes, and I say his butt, I mean, whatever it's, it's a robot Atlas, it starts tapping their toes, does a bit of a four step like a backwards four step really cool spins in time with the beat, and then runs in a circle kind of leaning toward the middle to run in the circle, and then does this pointing in the air lifting up the foot and tapping the opposite toes. So think about the coordination point in the air, lift your foot, tap the toe down and then the opposite direction and the opposite like and then does the twist while jogging on the spot. Whoa, all amazing. And then the camera pulls back and it reveals a second Atlas and the two atlases faced each face each other and then they start to do the twist together. So again, they're leaning forward, they're kind of shoulders are shimmying, their hips are shimmying as they do the twist, and then a yellow dog shaped robot hops into the lab and joins them. This is spot spot is a narrow tube shaped dog like robot with four legs, the legs go back from the shoulder or hip joints and then have like a reverse knee joint and go forward again and the legs narrower as they kind of bend a little bit down toward the rounded feet. And spot in this version of spot has a long neck with several joints in it. It's this is actually a mechanical arm. And so the head of this dog is actually is a gripper and it looks a little bit like a snake head so it's got a top pad and a bottom pad that can grip things so like this if it needs to can grab a doorknob and turn it and oh you know, manipulate all kinds of things. Yeah, but in this configuration, it looks like a long head, long neck and a head on a dog. So spot bounces in on these delicate little BOUND bounding actions and lands between the atlases and starts dancing between the two atlases, the two atlases they do the running man this is a running dancing thing together and then spot kind of hops backwards away from the two and turns to us. turns to the camera lifts its head and uses this mouth to lip sync. Do you love me?

Christine Malec: 19:58

Oh no! Oh My gosh!

JJ Hunt: 20:00

It's amazing! So that the Atlas is or they become the backup dancers, so they're dancing behind spot is dancing for us. And then another robot wheels in. And this is like a robot on two wheels with a counterbalance body and a long extended neck. So it's kind of like this neck is jumping back and forth like a long neck pigeon, with its wigs tucked in. And, and this, by the way, has only taken us like a minute and a half into the video. It's like a full dance routine. Absolutely extraordinary. So the action difference between that Robbie the Robot like I am a robot, right? This is so dramatically different. It's just, it's just another world. Well,

Christine Malec: 20:45

And speaking of another world, can we get to the robot fights? We talked to my talk about the big the big robot. So what I'm hoping for is a description of, you know, a couple of them, and then what they actually do.

JJ Hunt: 20:58

Yeah, yeah. So the battle bots. So battle Bluff is a TV show. It's an adaptation of a British show called Robot Wars. And at the core of the show, it's a competition show, you've got three minute matches, in which remote controlled robots that are specifically designed for battle, they fight to the death, and in this case, death means immobilization or complete destruction. So it's a competition show. They've got teams of remote controlled robot builders and operators, and they send their vicious little creations into an arena to do battle. This kind of like dogfighting or cockfighting but with robots. And, and you know, when these robots are anywhere from 60, to 340 pounds, like some of them are the size of coffee tables, but they're very sadistic coffee tables. None of them look like humans. These are not humanoid robots. This is all about being vicious and nasty, and, and battling. So you take the you take the human look out of the equation, and you just build for destruction. So let's break down the arena first, because that plays into how the battles play out. So the arena itself as I think 48 foot square steel floor bulletproof, clear plastic walls all the way around, because the teams and audience have to be protected from flying debris when these things are destroyed. And there are a series of booby traps that are built into the arena that can damage the bots. So you have a bot gets too close or gets shoved into one of these traps the they find themselves in serious trouble. So there's things like they're called the pulverizers. These are 50 to 150 pound sledge hammers that are rigged up on the inside walls of the arena. So they can at any point slammed down and hit a robot either because it's just found its way there or because another an opponent bought has pushed it into the pulverisers. There are killed saws. So these are circular saw blades that rise up out of slots in the arena floor and rip into the bots from below. Yeah, there are things called screws. So these are horizontal bars that run along the inner walls just above the floor line, and they're outfitted with barbed corkscrewing like sob blades that are angled toward the center of the bar. And so what this means is, if one of these, these screws, these rotating screws, snags a bot, the corkscrewing action will drag it toward the center and then it kind of gets chewed up from both sides as an opponent continues to attack so that's the arena now we got some the robots themselves so I watched a bunch of these videos. I can't believe you've got me doing this Christmas.

Christine Malec: 24:02

So grateful. I know this is not your thing. I'm totally obsessed though. So I'm really I'm really appreciative. Thank you. Well, I

JJ Hunt: 24:08

mean, you say is not my thing, but I only needed to watch a few of them for the research and an hour later I'm still watching tombstone versus the Minotaur. Oh my goodness. Oh, yes. So Tombstone is a low profile. A lot of these robots are low profile that's really effective strategies to make your robot low, low profile black metal frame. Main wheels are near the back on either side. And it looks it's you know, really flat and boxy. That tapered at the nose. So why don't the back tapered at the nose? And at the front of Tombstone is this black metal blade like a propeller blade, and it spins horizontally. So as it spins, like it's kind of going halfway into the hollow shell of the robot, and then It's extending out another, I don't know, six, eight inches, maybe a foot in front of it as it whips around and around and around an incredibly high rate. And this slices into any opponent that it can attack from the front. So that's tombstone. Minotaur. Again, another low profile bought, bought shaped, kind of like a pie box. So like, you know, Picture those dimensions is short, I mean bigger than a pie box, but it's squat and rectangular boxy, and it's got a black metal case with a with like a painting of a humanoid bowl on the top of it like a, you know, a bull with a big muscular chest and whatnot. And Minotaurs got two main wheels on the sides that are kind of inside the casing for protection because the wheels are one of the most vulnerable things on a lot of these robots. And there are two low wedges that stick out at the front corners. These are like the Minotaurs horns, and these low wedges can get under and then lift an opponent that's the idea behind these wedges. But the main weapon for Minotaur is this brassy colored horizontal metallic drum that runs across the front of the robot and it spins at 10,000 RPS and has these low dull teeth. So what it does is it grinds against an opponent so it'll slam into an opponent and if it traps it, it will like sparks will fly in because you're grinding metal on metal. So uses them that uses the these wedges that stick at the front to lift up the opponent, get underneath it. And then this this rotating drum will grind it from the bottom. And that's how Minotaur causes its damage. Chomp. So most of the robots are really speedy and nimble. That's not chomps thing chomp doesn't go in for this really quick movement that zipping around the Rena chomp is big and just dares you to come at it. And it's there have been lots of different incarnations of chomp over the various seasons. But usually chomp features a towering green arm so it looks like a like a construction tower arm. But it's got a pickaxe on the head, and it slams down on its opponents. So if anyone gets too close, wham this pickaxe comes down. And it's also outfitted with flame throwers. So while it's chopping down on people, the flame thrower comes I mean it's just outrageous. Bronco, Broncos main weapon is a single hydraulic forklift. So it's this like low profile steel gray bar with rubber wheels on the side. But this forklift fronted, it looks like it when it's tucked down. It's integrated into the body and it just looks like a simple kind of foot like wedge sticking out the front of the bot. But when it activates that wedge flips up really high, this hydraulic home flips up and actually tosses other robots high into the air and they come crashing down. And then when they're trying to write themselves, it pushes them into one of the booby traps all around the inside. Yeah, and then there's bite force. So bite force is interesting because it's more of a platform with with weapons that can get swapped out. I'm not sure if they get swapped out season to season or if they get swapped out opponent to opponent but like the platform is white steel. And there are these four big blue wedges that stick out from the front like like tines on a fork, and then centered in the front there's this sometimes it's a vertical spinning wheel or like a saw blade or something like that, that can chop up or chew and opponent but I've also seen it outfitted with like this thing that looks like a cobra head made of Blue Steel. And in that configuration the to center wedges are swapped out for lifters that are the so they can lift up and the steel blue Cobra head can clamp down. So you've got this latticework Cobra head clamps down and you've got these lifters that come up from below and some biting action for bite fours I queasiness these vicious little robots destroying each other Christine just destroy.

Christine Malec: 29:23

Why Why am I so preoccupied by this! And these are big spectator sports right like there's people live people watching

JJ Hunt: 29:31

Oh yeah, so outside of the bulletproof glass you've got teams on either side and they're sometimes they're in like the you know a theater or something it's you got people cheering like like the wrestling matches and screaming and holding up signs like go Minotaur chump that just so the fans are cheering and screaming and the two teams are manipulating the robots by remote control and oh it's massive spectator so are

Christine Malec: 30:00

the individual components of a robot, they're moving really fast, but is the speed of combat fast,

JJ Hunt: 30:09

it tends to be. So most of these robots can move very quickly, very nimbleness, zip around inside this arena. So especially at the beginning of a match when the two robots are in fine shape, your a lot of it is about jockeying for the right angle to attack the opponent. So if your robot has something at the front of big major weapon at the front, what you're trying to do if you're the opponent is get around behind, so you can flip them over or push them or whatever. Unless you're something like Chomp, where you just get yourself right in the middle, and you you know, try and attack anyone that approaches. So that kind of speed is really key to a lot of the battles. And then when the robots start getting destroyed, maybe the wheels if it's an unprotected wheel, maybe it gets chewed up, or maybe that front spinning blade on Tombstone is it gets broken because it hits a wall or it gets chopped off in some way from some other robot, then that's weapon is no longer in tombstones arsenal, and what it's got to do is just be just push, it's just got to shove because it doesn't have another attack mode. So then it's trying to get around and lurching around and trying to use whatever power it's got to shove the opponent into one of these booby traps at the side.

Christine Malec: 31:30

Okay, so in a three minute round. Don't worry, I won't ask you to do it. But could you live describe it or is it too fast?

JJ Hunt: 31:39

Oh, you totally could. Yeah, you can just I mean, there are most of these boats have commentators that they

Christine Malec: 31:47

do. And of course, I've checked them out, but they're not really describing they're they're kind of rallying the crowd and Yeah, exactly. They're not great sports describers they're just kind of commentator so

JJ Hunt: 31:57

so and they respond to the great action with you know, hoots and hollers. Yeah, they're

Christine Malec: 32:02

very bombastic early. Yeah,

JJ Hunt: 32:03

totally. So you absolutely could describe one of these things. And, you know, it would play out like a, like if you're describing a mixed martial arts fight or a boxing match. But it's it is quicker at the beginning. And so, so descriptions would be a lot of Minotaur slams, you know, chomp chops, and until it gets to the point where one or both of the contestants are badly injured and lurching about, it's just it's going to be quick, you wouldn't want to try and describe where they are in the like, you know, cut to the right cut to the left cuts around behind that would be really difficult to

Christine Malec: 32:46

Ok. Oh, because they're that fast.

JJ Hunt: 32:49

Tey are really fast. These remote control cars just in general circulation. There's a kid in our neighborhood, a teenage kid in our neighborhood, who's got a remote control car that breaks the speed limits in the neighborhood going over 40 kilometers an hour, oh, my god, incredibly fast these things can be. So you take that kind of tech, which is just available at a hobby shop, and you put it in these situations, these things can really move, even if they're big and heavy, like 300 pounds, these things can still zip about.

Christine Malec: 33:18

I'm still working through why I'm preoccupied with robot fights. But clearly, like, you know, you joked about the things that make you watch. But you did sort of allude to the fact that you kept watching longer than then, you know, you strictly had to for work reasons. So do you have any insights on why it's compelling to watch it?

JJ Hunt: 33:35

That is such a good question. I just, I mean, there's an absurdity to it. Yeah, that it's hilarious. And the way that the they do rally the crowd, and you know, it's big, and it's loud. And so there's that element to it. There's viciousness, and I mean, the chopping and the sparks are flying and flame throwers, and things blow up. But no one is getting hurt. No one is getting hurt. So you do get that. And you know, a lot of us zoos grew up as little kids, what you want to do is at some level for some reason, you want to wreck your toys.

Christine Malec: 34:15

Right? There's a destructive impulse. I think we all have some destruction. This is a harmless venting.

JJ Hunt: 34:22

Totally. And you know, in the folks that have built these robots, there's also something kind of pure about it. Like I said, that you're not trying to make these things look like humans. You're not trying to do anything like that. It's like, How can I create the most destructive little machine possible? It's, it's very single minded. And there's a clarity to being that single minded. In a world when our lives are super complicated. It's like how do I do this? Well, this affects that in this terrible way. And why No, why don't I just build a robot with a saw blade for unknowns and see what I can take down like Think very pure than not simpler than that.

Christine Malec: 35:03

I'm going to ask a question that I just have to ask, do you may not notice but when you look at the operators, are there any women in there?

JJ Hunt: 35:12

Yes. Not I mean, they are definitely are more men than women. But there are teams, teams of people. So let me bring up some images of battle bot teams. So most of the fantastic photos. So for every, every battle bot team looks like they pose with their machines. So here we've got one team. So I'm just going to go through the first images that come up when I Googled battle bot teams. So the first image is a group of six men all brown skin, and they are crouched down bent around their robot and the two men in front and they're wearing matching color shirts like and their two men in front are flexing girl like smiling, snarling at the camera, and then the next photo again another group photo but these men are there five men standing behind two men on one knee and they're posing with their with their bought those are all white men. Another group that is all men, but mixed people of color and and again, three white teenage boys that look like honestly all these kids look like they're teenagers. Then there's the Wicked Witch Doctor team. And that is three women, three men, and they are all wearing tuxedos that are painted with skeleton bones and they have like crazy hats. So they they've got a thing that like their costumes go with their, the, you know, the theme of their robot. And then the next one is for end game. And this group is two women, three men all light skinned, and they are wearing blue and black bowling shirts and sunglasses. So like the different teams, mostly men, definitely some women. Some look like they are part of a robotics club, and others look like they're like wayward theater kids that just somehow got into building you know, death bots. So,

Christine Malec: 37:21

Thank you, JJ. That was really cool.

JJ Hunt: 37:25

You have such a fantastic mind, Christine. I never know where your curiosity is gonna take any of us!

Christine Malec: 37:33

It was so funny when I first brought it up because I could like it's like I said, I had this idea that I really, really want to talk about and I could feel your brain churning. Like, I don't know what she's going to talk about, like sea shanty singers or tick tock videos of people holding peace signs or something. When I said, robot fight. Your reaction was priceless. "What?! It's not what I expected." We hope you're loving the show. We really enjoy the challenge of putting together a new episode each week. To ensure that our efforts are worthwhile. We need to reach as many people as possible. That's where you come in, help spread the word. Maybe send a podcast link to three friends. Post about the show on local listservs and Facebook groups. Perhaps tweet about a favorite episode and tag some followers you think might like it, or show your love by becoming a patron. The broader our reach, the longer we can stay Boyd and keep afloat. With your support. We'll be around for a long time. Thanks for listening and staying connected on social media. It's what makes this so rewarding for us to have feedback or suggestions of what you'd like to hear about. Here's how to get in touch with us. Our email address is top description to me@gmail.com. Our Facebook page is called Talk description to me. Our website is top description to me.com and you can follow us on Twitter at talk Description.