With AlertBot acting as one of the team’s sponsors for the latest season of BattleBots, we caught up with the Vasquez‘s – the fine family behind the successful team Whiplash – to chat about how they got into robotics, their lives outside of the BattleBots ring, and where that catchy name came from…
AlertBot: How did you get into robotics?
Matthew Vasquez: In the early 2000’s, when me and my brother were little kids, my Dad saw [BattleBots] on TV, and at that time, wasn’t even an engineer or anything like that, he was just kind of a hobbyist – good with tools – and he decided he wanted to try it. So, me and my brother were exposed to it from a super early age, and we loved it then and we still love it now.
Jason Vasquez: My family introduced me to robotics as a concept, and brought me to my first event, called RoboGames. And in that event, my first time I bought a one-pound robot that was a kit, and I learned a lot from it and obviously gave me the need to keep doing robotics. Through that event, we were able to prep ourselves for BattleBots. So, once BattleBots came back on the air, we were in a good position to apply and get our foot in the door, and it’s been great ever since.
AlertBot: How did you get started in BattleBots?
Matthew: Me and my brother really got started on the TV show BattleBots in 2015 when the show got rebooted on ABC, and then eventually switched over to the Discovery Channel. But around that time, when combat robotics wasn’t really on TV, we were just doing smaller combat robot events in Southern California, sometimes traveling to Northern California, and occasionally other states. When we saw the show was coming back to TV, it was so exciting and [we] wanted to apply. We wanted to get on the show and kind of live up to our childhood heroes. In 2015, we barely made the cut for the TV show and ever since then, we’ve been competing and it’s been a pretty life-changing experience!
AlertBot: Do you plan on staying involved with BattleBots?
Matthew: I think, as long as BattleBots is going, we want to be part of it in some way. We love competing. We love building. I love driving. I love the repair work. I pretty much love all of it! So, I think as long as BattleBots is around, we’re going to try our very best to be a part of it.
Jason: Yeah, whatever that may mean, I’d like to be involved in one way or another. It’s been great being on Whiplash and it’s been great having my own team. It’s a really great community and I’d like to stay involved in one way or another.
AlertBot: How did you come up with the name ‘Whiplash’?
Matthew: To this day, we’re not 100% sure. I was pretty convinced that I came up with it. There was another very unknown smaller robot named “Whiplash;” I really liked the robot, really liked the name, and I just kind of ended up using it for a different event that was not BattleBots, and then it kinda got carried into BattleBots. But we have other team members who are not convinced that it was me who came up with it…
Debbie Vasquez: Yeah, no, it was me. *laughter* It was me. I remember when I came up with it! I remember thinking I really liked “Backlash” back in the day in Comedy Central BattleBots days. And I was thinking “’Backlash.’ Alright, what else can we name it kind of like that?” And I was like, *Gasps* “Whiplash!” But… some people think otherwise.
Matthew: Yeah… *shaking his head* That’s not true. *Debbie laughs* But, whatever, it’s fine. We’ll never know!
Jason: Well, when people first asked us that, we’d like to joke around and say “Because Whiplash wins!” We chose that name [because] it’s a great name, I like it, and it’s been good ever since we chose it!
AlertBot: Is BattleBots a full-time job?
Matthew: Believe it or not, BattleBots is not a full-time job. Pretty much every competitor either works an engineering job, or some other job, or is a student, but BattleBots is not a profession. We go to our jobs for 8 hours a day, come home, work another 8 hours on our BattleBots and rinse, repeat when BattleBots season comes.
Jason: Well, during the two-plus weeks of filming, it is a full-time job, and up until the event with prepping and getting the robot ready, it certainly feels like it. We usually do it on top of school and our actual jobs, too. It’s a lot of time, but we just make the time for it and make it happen.
AlertBot: What do you do in the off season?
Matthew: I have other hobbies: I play tennis, play guitar and bass. My brother does a lot of mountain biking. But in the off season, there are also plenty of other combat robot tournaments going on. There are lots of local ones. Sometimes we travel out of state to go to different ones, but combat robotics is really an all-year-round sport. But it’s that few months a year where BattleBots really takes over our lives.
Jason: I used to be really big into biking, but right now I’m focusing on school and work and, honestly, other types of robotics. I’m really trying to expand my horizons and just continue learning about robotics. It’s great!
Thank you, AlertBot!
Watch the full interview on our YouTube channel below!
