Yeah the force needed to launch a 250 hunk of steel 15 feet into the air is ridiculously high, so us humans, with bones made of calcium and not industrial-grade steel, would have our legs and spine launched upwards towards our brains.

tl;dr - no, you would die

Things scale you know? You just need enough force to be able to flip something 250 lbs and the builders behind the blue robot were able to do that.

In fact, they were debuting new technology to do that (it's confusing but you can read about it here ).

Pneumatic systems in robot combat have been doing this for decades. Here is another example from 2015. And here is another example from 20 years ago in the UK.

Yes, there are referees at ringside that will count down from 10 if you're not able to move. If you don't move, then the fight ends by knockout.

So it's not instant, since theoretically, Big Dill could have used its weapon to flip itself back over, but it looks as if the lifter had broken anyway; earlier in the fight, it was underneath Blip (the blue one) and was not able to fire the weapon.

updooted for GrabbyBot Nation

It's very easy to find yourself over the weight limit with all the stuff you need to fit in the robot and the weight of the materials you need to make it this battle-tough.

You can ask on /r/battlebots how many robots are skirting the fine line of the weight limit. Most of the builders on the show are actually on there and will happily answer any questions if you don't believe me. They're super approachable when it comes to this stuff.

Funny, /u/teamtestbot is a builder and he already found this thread and replied to one of the other comments in this chain.

Anything, thinking logically, these guys are some of the top minds in engineering. Why would you not attempt to get as close as possible to get the maximum destructive potential for your robot? If you're competing to win, why would you settle for less?

No, they are surprised it fit within the weight limit and got it that close.

Most teams have to cut weight to fit within the rules, sometimes drilling holes into their armour/weapons.

Think about it this way, if the weight limit is 250 lbs, you have that much to allot to armour and weapons (there is a lot more to it than that like drive power, but for the sake of simplicity, we'll just talk those 2 things).

Now imagine you had to fight a 250 lb robot. If you only built a bot that weighed 170lbs, you would be severely disadvantaged as you would have maybe 40 lbs less armour and 40 lbs lighter of a weapon in those 80 missing pounds. Again, a weapon bar itself is allowed to weigh 80 lbs. Without spoiling any fights, this exact situation happened this past season as one robot took so much damage in a previous fight, ran out of spares, and entered the arena over 80 lbs underweight, only to get completely dominated by its opponent.

Battlebots builders are some of the most wholesome people out there. They're all friends with the simple goal to push engineering as far as it will go, all while putting on the biggest, most entertaining show out there.

Some teams have been known to allow other teams completely obliterate their robots, even if they've stopped moving, just for the spectacle of it. Emmanuel (the builder of Big Dill) probably is just excited to see his robot do something amazing that'll be seen by thousands of people, regardless of whether his robot is dead or functional.

And going back to the wholesome thing… once the dust is settled and the robots (or what's left of them) are back in the pits, you'll always see everyone helping each other out. Everyone wants to see 100% functional bots fighting each other and putting on the best shows possible. It drives the TV ratings and helps kids get into science.

If I had more of this growing up instead of being forced to just repeat math questions, maybe I would have ended up in engineering instead. Destruction is fascinating.

(Copying this comment from another thread and expanding it for more detail as others here are doubting it)

These are /r/battlebots. Nearly every robot of its class is 250 lbs.

There are lower weight classes but the show is focused on the heavyweights (250 lb limit).

You underestimate how powerful the weapons are and how thick the armour is. These are not RC cars. As much as it's getting tossed in the air and how Blip (the blue robot) makes it look easy, a lot of engineering went into it to come up with a weapon that powerful.

The size of the arena and camera positioning make these not look as big as they are. If you look behind the protective glass, there's a cameraman there. You can get an idea of the size. And couple that with the fact that these are usually armoured in AR500 steel, have weapons themselves that can weigh up to 80 lbs, and house a ton of motors, batteries, electronics, etc.

These are 250 lbs. Most actually struggle to fit within that weight limit with all the armour, weapon systems, etc.

The heaviest robot to compete on Battlebots was Chomp. Because it used legs instead of wheels, it was given double the weight limit to play with, and it weighed 500 lbs.

Not the full story. It gets better.

After having their weapon deemed "too unsafe to compete" as it was flinging metal shrapnel into the crowd every match, they were given co-champion status with a promise not to compete again that year.

They turn up with the same robot next year, start flinging bot parts into the audience again and badly damaging the arena walls, and are asked to stop competing again for co-champion status.

Funnily enough, when Battlebots was on TV, it entered but as robot design evolved and opponents (and the walls) were able to take the hits, the design had aged out, and it didn't win a single one of its 4 next matches before retiring.

You would not want to get launched by one of these robots!

The amount of force behind the flipping arm is so immense that if you were standing on it, your leg bones would probably shoot into where your lungs are. Remember, they are launching 250 lb robots made of similar steel that are used in tanks, not squishy fat and muscle that humans are made of.

A lot of people think it would be fun to be thrown by one of these (there are pneumatic people launchers at swimming pools, but they're rated for much lower PSI), but they should do a Mythbusters sort of thing to really reinforce how dangerous these things really are.

Robot reliability and weapon power have both gotten exponentially better.

Here's Valkyrie vs. Rotator, one of my favourite fights of the reboot era. As much as I like creative weapons and brute force, seeing 2 robots slug it out with weapons firing on all cylinders for such a long time is admittedly one of the most exciting things you can watch.

You should watch the new episodes. Nowadays, everyone who's competitive is using a spinning bot again.

There's a lot of kinetic carnage, but the bots are way bigger than those lightweights from Comedy Central!

There are different weight classes, but the "pinnacle" of the sport revolves around 250 lb robots. (/r/battlebots is an example of this, and UK competitions and Chinese competitions are about 242 lbs for a heavyweight). The heavyweights are really the only ones that make TV, though smaller weight classes may have Youtube streams, etc.

Lower weight classes and competitions for them are more widespread and far more accessible (one heavyweight team will have to spend anywhere between $5,000 and $80,000 to run a team for one season).

You can probably find a local competition where the robots are 1 or 3 lbs.

Anyway, the fact that one robot is strong enough to launch another over 15 feet into the air (and the one on the receiving end can generally withstand falling from 15 feet multiple times per match) shows how crazy the engineering is on these things. You have some of the world's best engineering geniuses in this sport.

EDIT: There are a LOT of comments arguing about this being fake and Big Dill not weighing anywhere near 250 lbs. I posted a thread on /r/battlebots about this to get a sense of the builders' take on the weight issue and how close everyone is to the 250 lb weight limit. Pretty much every verified builder says they are at or just a tad below that limit. You can read that thread here.