THE BASH

The BASH
Participation Information
UK Series	10 (World Series)
Other Names	BASH
Team Information
Team	Team Tie-Rip
Team Members	Jeroen van Lieverloo Niels van der Berg Jeroen van der Loo Kirsty van den Brink
From	Oss, The Netherlands
Robot Statistics
Weight	83kg
Top Speed	9mph
Power	Lithium polymer battery
Drive	24V wheelchair motor
Weapons	Crushing jaw and Pneumatic spikes
Statistics correct as of its most recent show/competition appearance, or if not applicable, qualification attempt.

"Nope, he hasn't swapped sides, it's an homage to legendary House Robot, Sgt. Bash."

— Angela Scanlon

THE BASH (also simply referred to as BASH during its introduction) was a robot which represented the Netherlands during Robot Wars: World Series, part of the tenth series of Robot Wars. It was entered by Team Tie-Rip, and was an obvious homage to the House Robot Sgt. Bash. However, after being immobilised by UK champion Eruption during a Tag Team battle, THE BASH withdrew from the competition, to be replaced by Tough as Nails.

Design

The internals of THE BASH. Note the pneumatic spikes

THE BASH was designed to be a scaled-down 83kg replica of Sgt. Bash, using the same colours and aesthetic details. Thus, it was a two-wheel driven robot armed with a hydraulic pincer at the front, designed to grab robots for THE BASH to push around the arena. A flamethrower turret was positioned on top of THE BASH, although this could not actually throw fire, as flamethrowers remain an illegal weapon for competitors. The turret was capable of turning sideways, providing THE BASH with a unique self-righting mechanism. At either side of the pincer, THE BASH was also equipped with two pneumatic spikes, for additional damage output. However, like Sgt. Bash, it was relatively slow at 9mph. THE BASH also featured exposed wheels, and its armour was generally thin. Its turret also came off easily during its one fight after being flipped over, leaving it without a method of self-righting.

The Team

Main article: Team Tie-Rip

THE BASH with Team Tie-Rip

THE BASH was entered by Team Tie-Rip, captained by Jeroen van Lieverloo, a security design engineer by trade. Team Tie-Rip had previously entered the first two seasons of Dutch Robot Wars with X-Bot and Impact, with its captain Jeroen van Lieverloo also competing with √3², Gravity, Tough as Nails and Cobra in various series leading up to the creation of THE BASH. For the World Series, Jeroen van Lieverloo was joined by his long-time partner Kirsty van den Brink, alongside Niels van der Berg, a seasoned Dutch roboteer who was part of the Nelly the Ellybot team during Series 9 applications. The captain of Team KODOX, Jeroen van der Loo, also joined Team Tie-Rip to enter the World Series, bringing his own robot Tough as Nails with him, which ultimately replaced THE BASH once it irreparably broke down.

Qualification

"After the series, we got the idea to build a show robot with a bit of a twist. Since the reboot of Robot Wars was missing old favourite Sgt Bash, we came up with the idea of rebuilding it and entering it as a competitor. Applications opened and I submitted my idea in video form. Yet again, the waiting game began..."

— Jeroen van Lieverloo

After Team Tie-Rip were not selected to compete in Series 8 with his robot Gravity, Jeroen van Lieverloo surmised that creative designs were the key to being selected for the rebooted series of Robot Wars. After competing in Series 9 with Cobra as part of Team Rubbish, Jeroen van Lieverloo conceptualised THE BASH, and created three videos to compliment its application for the main competition of Series 10. This prompted the producers to select THE BASH as a representative of the Netherlands in Robot Wars: World Series, alongside TMHWK, and reserve competitor Tough as Nails.

"there were fewer robots accepted this series than before but I got a call that they were planning to do a special: The World vs the UK. They needed more than one Dutch robot and they had selected The Bash. Also selected were the Dutch Robot Girls with TMHWK, and Cobra, and I was part of the team for all three robots. For some reason they did not want Tough as Nails but they asked us if we could bring it anyway as a reserve robot."

— Jeroen van Lieverloo

THE BASH in the pits at Series 10 filming

THE BASH in its photoshoot

The build process of THE BASH was completed after its acceptance, and Jeroen van Lieverloo also started to release video build diary entries on YouTube to support the creation of his robot. Although Jeroen van Lieverloo remarked that the completed version of the machine was imperfect, and would have benefitted from more available time, the robot arrived at filming and fought its first scheduled battle.

"And so it was time to finish "THE BASH". It was an amazing build on such a tight schedule but I did not get to build it the way I wanted. When it was time to drive to Glasgow, it was tested and working in the van but it really needed a lot of visual work doing. Many thanks to Niels van der Berg for helping me on-site to get the look as good as possible."

— Jeroen van Lieverloo

Robot History

Series 10

"Well we miss Sgt. Bash, really, and it deserves to be in the arena. And this is our tribute to it."

— Jeroen van Lieverloo

THE BASH is loaded onto a workbench

THE BASH represented the Netherlands as part of the Rest of the World team during the second episode of Robot Wars: World Series. It allied with the Russian robot Weber to face the reigning British champion Eruption and Big Nipper in the first Tag Team battle of the episode. However, it immediately started to suffer reliability issues before its battle had begun, as Team Tie-Rip noted that the claw weaponry of THE BASH was not working due to a power wire for the weapon's actuator being loose, after the actuator had broken the day prior, and the robot's drive was also unusually sluggish. Additionally, THE BASH briefly failed to respond to its controls while entering the arena, although this was fixed by reinserting the robot's removable link.

"Time for our first fight. When we were standing in line waiting to enter the arena I noticed that the power wire to the actuator for our claw weapon was loose. We broke the actuator during testing the day before and had had to remove it to do some welding on it but had forgotten to test it a final time when the robot was closed up and ready. We tried to bodge a fix without opening the robot because there was no time to do that but we failed and we needed to go into the arena. I powered up the robot, the LED came on, but when I opened the CO2 I could not hear any gas flowing which was strange. But the turret on the top was working fine so I did have a little active weapon, sort of. The crew instructed me to drive the robot into the corner but it did not drive! A brief moment of panic, but wait. Let’s remove the link and restart the robot – turn it off and on again. It helped and the robot was alive but it barely drove."

— Jeroen van Lieverloo

THE BASH is quickly launched by Eruption

Weber and Big Nipper lift THE BASH

Once the battle had begun, THE BASH waited in an empty CPZ for the first period of the fight while Weber started out against Eruption. After being flipped over repeatedly and chased back by Eruption, Weber tagged THE BASH into the fray. It immediately started spinning on the spot near the Flame Pit, before Eruption drove underneath its crushing jaw and flipped it high into the air.

"Out comes the new BASH. Not a patch on Sgt. Bash. No it is not!"

— Jonathan Pearce, as THE BASH comes out and is immediately flipped

THE BASH is caught between Big Nipper and Dead Metal after being overturned

THE BASH crashed down, landing the right way up, and was immobilised on impact over the Flame Pit. Dead Metal came in and grabbed THE BASH, almost lifting it over and slightly dislodging the turret. Big Nipper then lifted over THE BASH, inadvertently helped by Weber in doing so. This caused THE BASH's turret to come off completely, leaving it without any form of self-righting. It was pushed into Dead Metal by Big Nipper, and took damage from the circular saw of the House Robot. THE BASH was then left alone for the rest of the battle while Big Nipper and Eruption focused on Weber and Dead Metal, with Weber eventually becoming immobilised on its back. With both machines counted out, cease was called and the three points went to Team UK.

"Smash for THE BASH. Bit of a replica, and the House Robots didn't like it!"

— Jonathan Pearce

In the Head-to-Heads, THE BASH was due to face Thor, but was forced to withdraw due to suffering irreparable damage.

Angela Scanlon: "Rumour has it that THE BASH has been bashed to bits. Is it dead?"

Jeroen van Lieverloo: "Dead. Everything's broken."

Angela Scanlon: "Really? What happened?"

Jeroen van Lieverloo: "I'm not sure. I was counting on Dead Metal to protect me."

Angela Scanlon: "Oh yeah. No, not a good idea"

Jeroen van Lieverloo: "He attacked me! So much damage, it's beyond repair. We brought a backup."

— Angela and Jeroen discuss the state of THE BASH, and reveal a surprise return

Tough as Nails is revealed to be available in the pits

Instead, the team's substitute robot Tough as Nails took its place, where it subsequently lost the fight on a judges' decision. Ultimately, Team Rest of the World lost the competition to Team UK by a wide margin.

Some fans speculated that Tough as Nails' replacement of THE BASH had been planned in advance, as the show was unclear in stating what damage THE BASH had suffered prior to its withdrawal. However, Jeroen van Lieverloo refuted this online, detailing the damage that THE BASH had sustained while explaining Tough as Nails' position as a genuine reserve robot.

"After we got The Bash back into the pits, it felt like everything was broken. I tried to find out first why it had not driven but I could find no simple explanation. A gearbox had broke in the battle and the turret thing had failed. I was lost so we decided to swap over to Tough as Nails. It was not a pre-planned decision for the show, but we had the robot there and it did have a chance of winning; at least it would have been a much better battle for the TV."

— Jeroen van Lieverloo

Results

Wins/Losses

• Wins: 0
• Losses: 1

Series Record

UK Series

Series	THE BASH Series Record
The First Wars	Did not enter
The Second Wars	Did not enter
The Third Wars	Did not enter
The Fourth Wars	Did not enter
The Fifth Wars	Did not enter
The Sixth Wars	Did not enter
The Seventh Wars	Entered with Gravity Withdrew from qualifiers with Impact 2
Series 8	Entered with Tough as Nails Not selected with Gravity
Series 9	Entered with Cobra
Series 10	World Series World Series with Tough as Nails

Dutch Series

Dutch Series	THE BASH Series Record
Series 1	Entered with X-Bot
Series 2	Entered with Impact Entered with √3²

NOTE: These series records reflect the qualification record of Jeroen van Lieverloo only

Gallery

THE BASH on the turntable

THE BASH on the stats board

THE BASH in the arena

Rear view of THE BASH

The HARDOX framework of THE BASH

Outside Robot Wars

THE BASH being constructed during "How to build a combat robot"

What remains of THE BASH in 2022

THE BASH was the central focus of a YouTube series made by Jeroen van Lieverloo, How to build a combat robot, where he outlined the build process of THE BASH prior to its appearance on Robot Wars, while informing viewers how they could also build a heavyweight robot of their own. The full playlist is viewable here.

In January 2020, THE BASH's 'flamethrower' was put up for sale on eBay. In January 2022, the remains of THE BASH were sold to Lars Bakker, who also purchased BattleBots competitor Reality.

For more information on Jeroen van Lieverloo and Niels van der Berg's excursions aside from THE BASH, see Team Tie-Rip.

Trivia

THE BASH's statistics board with incorrect weight

• Official Robot Wars tweets and TV listings teased the return of "Bash" in the lead-up to the World Series, implicitly referring to THE BASH.
• THE BASH was the second competitor robot to deliberately reference the design of a House Robot, after Coyote.
• Despite THE BASH weighing only 83kg, the TV show erroneously displayed its weight as 110kg.
• THE BASH was the last robot in Robot Wars to lose its only battle.
• It was also the last robot to withdraw from the competition.
• Team Tie-Rip, alongside the other teams in the World Series episodes, were expressly forbidden from mentioning Brexit, the recent political change which could theoretically have provided motives for European teams to defeat British teams and vice versa.

"We filmed a lot of special shots with the team and some interviews. Funny trivia: The word “Brexit” was forbidden. We made a lot of jokes about it and during one of these recordings a producer got mad and said: "Pretend we live in a universe where Brexit never happened!”"

— Jeroen van Lieverloo

• Along with Weber and TMHWK, THE BASH made a brief cameo appearance in the Grand Final of the main Series 10. Both robots can be seen on different pit benches in the background during Angela Scanlon's interview with Ellis Ware, taking place shortly after Magnetar's Redemption battle against Behemoth.

External Links

• Jeroen van Lieverloo's YouTube channel
• Team Tie Rip Facebook page