“I love destroying machines,” said Bob Girardi as he looked over his weapon of mass destruction called Daisycutter. “This is as exciting as anything I’ve ever seen.”

Daisycutter is a BattleBot, a remote-controlled armed and armored machine designed to compete against other “bots” in combat tournaments.

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

Girardi’s team was busy on Thursday boring a hole in the armor of Daisycutter.

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.

The whirring and whining sounded not unlike the drill of a dentist, which just happens to be Girardi’s day job. He has a dental practice in Seal Beach. He splits his time between the two gigs.

“When I’m not in the dental office, I’m working with my BattleBot team.”

Girardi’s daughter, Anna Girardi, runs the team. She has a master’s degree in engineering and a master’s in theoretical mathematics. Girardi’s son Ken is the bot pilot. Rounding 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.

When Bob Girardi was in high school his lofty goal was to someday own his own radiator repair shop.

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.

“We ran a top fuel car—330 miles per hour in four seconds,” he said.

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.

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.

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.

When Girardi wanted more horsepower in his motor than any of his competitors he had it built by a defense subcontractor.

“It’s the conflict that I love. I think that’s built into human beings no matter who you are.  It probably goes back to early man.”