{"id":104,"date":"2019-04-19T12:29:47","date_gmt":"2019-04-19T19:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/?p=999946963"},"modified":"2019-04-19T12:29:47","modified_gmt":"2019-04-19T19:29:47","slug":"999946963-battlebots-daisycutter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/999946963-battlebots-daisycutter","title":{"rendered":"Bob Girardi’s BattleBot, Daisycutter, competes in BattleBots television series"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI love destroying machines,”\u00a0said Bob Girardi as he looked over his weapon of mass destruction called Daisycutter. “This is as exciting as anything I\u2019ve ever seen.”<\/p>\n

Daisycutter is a BattleBot, a remote-controlled armed and armored machine designed to compete against other \u201cbots\u201d in combat tournaments.<\/p>\n

The BattleBots television series has been one of the most highly rated shows on the Discovery Channel. Girardi\u2019s team is among dozens competing in a tournament being taped in a Lakewood hangar this week. The series will premiere later this summer.<\/p>\n

Girardi\u2019s team was busy on Thursday boring a hole in the armor of Daisycutter.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Daisycutter BattleBot team pose with their remote-controlled armored machine before entering into tournament competition. From left are Anna Girardi, Ken Girardi, Bob Girardi and Gary Reynolds. Photo by Bill Alkofer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The whirring and whining sounded not unlike the drill of a dentist, which just happens to be\u00a0Girardi\u2019s day job. He has a dental practice in Seal Beach.\u00a0He splits his time between the two gigs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019m not in the dental office, I\u2019m working with my BattleBot team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Girardi\u2019s daughter, Anna Girardi, runs the team. She has a master\u2019s degree in engineering and a master\u2019s in theoretical mathematics. Girardi\u2019s son Ken is the bot pilot.\u00a0Rounding out the team is Gary Reynolds, a retired NASA engineer. Reynolds worked on the Apollo 11 mission. His problem-solving skills shaved three months off the American timeline during the race with the Russians to put the first man on the moon.<\/p>\n

When Bob Girardi was in high school his lofty goal was to someday own his own radiator repair shop.<\/p>\n

Instead, he enlisted in the Army. He went to dental school when he got out of the service, but Bob the Dentist ended up splitting his time with Bob the Dragster. Girardi was involved in professional drag racing for 19 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ran a top fuel car\u2014330 miles per hour in four seconds,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Seal Beach dentist Bob Girardi runs the Daisycutter BattleBot team. Daisycutter will be competing in the Discovery Channel’s robot combat program, “Battlebots,” which is currently filming in Lakewood. Photo by Bill Alkofer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Girardi surveyed the scene of dozens of bot teams working on their machines and noted that it was not unlike the pit areas at a raceway.<\/p>\n

Girardi named his bot after the Daisycutter air-to-surface bomb that was first used by the Air Force during the Vietnam War. The seven-ton weapon was used to flatten forests to make helicopter landing zones. It is one of the most destructive conventional explosive devices ever used.<\/p>\n

When Girardi wanted more horsepower in his motor than any of his competitors he had it built by a defense subcontractor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the conflict that I love. I think that\u2019s built into human beings no matter who you are.\u00a0\u00a0It probably goes back to early man.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cI love destroying machines. This is as exciting as anything I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":213,"featured_media":65636,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","tag-battlebots","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}