13.8M YouTuber, Sidemen took part in an epic Robot Wars Battle for this weeks #SidemenSundays production. Collaborating alongside Andy Russell and Adam Hamilton, to design and build the two 110kg heavyweight destroying machines was Labman’s very own Ed Hodges. Ed is a Project Leader Robotics Engineer and of course a combat robot enthusiast. Oh my dayzz!
Within 24 hours of the Sidemen Extreme Robot Wars (Battle Bots) video being published on Sunday, it racked up over 4 million views. In this extremely entertaining YouTube production, the two Sidemen teams both design a robot with the intention of smashing their opponent to pieces. Thankfully they had the help and guidance of Ed’s friend from Loughborough University and long-time fighting robot fanatic, Andy.
Andy already knew Adam from the world of combat robots, and introduced him to Ed. Ed and Adam later joined forces to become Team Immersion. With only 2 months to complete the build, the three of them designed and built the two 110kg robots specifically for the Sidemen production. The Tenderizer, and The Golden Daddy were built to the weird and wonderful requirements of the teams, using a number of components from Accu. Word up.
Team Immersion have built robots for many previous competitions, including Labman’s FightFest held this summer for hobbyists and university combat robotics teams. FightFest was organised by the pair alongside a team of Labman engineers. Adam was also responsible for the design of the particularly spectacular, state of the art, bulletproof arena used at the event at Labman HQ.
If building combat robots wasn’t already cool enough, this challenge was one of the best yet. Ed described it as ‘great to be part of, and very interesting’. Not only this, but Ed is also preparing for the FightFest Winter Challenge 2021 early next month, all after recently tearing ligaments in his knee while bouldering. But they pulled it off to create two fantastic robots which had the Sidemen teams ‘shook’. Thanks to great team mates, lots of late nights at Labman and a mobility scooter.