Blue

Not to be confused with clusterbot Black and Blue.

Blue
Participation Information
Dutch Series	1
Team Information
Team	Team Blue
Team Members	Chris Coates Martin Jackson Karl Jones
From	The Netherlands
Other Entries	Bluemax (Dutch Series 2)
Robot Statistics
Weight	100kg
Dimensions	1.22m x 0.92m x 0.46m
Power	2 x 450W Electric Motors
Weapons	Horizontal Disc
Statistics correct as of its most recent show/competition appearance, or if not applicable, qualification attempt.

"They are Team Blue. Blue, Blue and Blue, and their robot Blue. They are from the planet Blue. They came to Earth to conquer the world. Team Blue... world domination!"

— Django Matthijsen introduces Team Blue

Blue was a robot that competed in the first series of Dutch Robot Wars. Largely considered a joke entry, Blue still caused one of the most unexpected upsets in Dutch Robot Wars when it knocked out Project One, a robot favoured to win the competition. Blue ultimately fell in the second round to Enderbot.

Blue did not appear in the second series, but the captain, Chris Coates, worked with Frank van Oorschot of MaxiMill to create a new robot called Bluemax.

Design

Blue in the arena

Blue's design and inspiration was from the team's disregard of roboteers whom had built serious robots. This in turn led Blue to be built as "the most ridiculous looking machine imaginable". This meant that the robot was considered a joke entry as a result.

Blue ultimately became an invertible box-shaped robot that was painted entirely blue, in order to correlate with the name and theme. It was also armed with a blue octagonal spinning disc for a weapon. The robot's armour was made of chicken wire, covered in Tigger masks and cavity foam, and adorned with blue smoke bombs. This armour meant that it was prone to being easily damaged, as well as prone to fire, as proven in the first round against Project One. To make matters worse, the robot was generally slow and difficult to control at times, especially when facing Project One.

The Team

"The aim was to attend and take the pish out of the people who do it seriously by building the most ridiculous looking machine imaginable and dressing up in the most surreal fashion. Team Blue mission statement: Winning is not part of the agenda!"

— Karl Jones

Blue with its team

Because the robot was largely intended to be a joke entry that was painted entirely blue, the team provided levity by dressing up like blue-skinned aliens who could not speak, with face and hair paint to match. In interviews, the team members, all three of which were referred to as 'Blue', communicated largely via a Dutch-speaking crew member named Django Matthijsen, who acted as their speaker. The team would joke about disabling other robots using their invisible "blue waves", also at one stage presenting Bridget Maasland a hand-written note in English with a philosophical message.

"Clearly the most mysterious team performing today is that of Blue, but let’s hope their robot does not fall silent."

— Eric Corton (translated from Dutch)

Team captain Chris Coates was originally from England, but entered Dutch Robot Wars as he was living and working in the Netherlands. His teammates when competing with Blue were Martin Jackson and Karl Jones. The team made a habit of donating parts of their decorative armour to their opponents, something the show would describe as the 'blue virus'.

Chris Coates would later collaborate with the MaxiMill team to enter the second series with Bluemax, reprising his role as one of the two 'Blue' team members alongside Lionel Pavey.

Robot History

Dutch Series 1

Bridget Maasland: "We have a translator who speaks Blue in order to communicate with Blue, please contact this commentator Django... Django, oh that’s you? What is communicating in Blue?"

Django: "Oh they’re kind of Blue brainwaves and you need to specialise in studying them in order to receive the brainwaves."

Bridget Maasland: "OK well please help me out with that, because they’re going to be in the arena with Project One. What are the strategies for fighting Project One, what can they pull off that Project One can’t?"

Django: "Well they have this phenomenal disc with which they can utterly destroy Project One. Their most important weapon is their blue beams, with their blue beams they can completely immobilise the axe of Project One"

— Bridget Maasland communicates with the team's 'translator' Django (translated from Dutch)

Blue's first match was against Project One, which it entered as a significant underdog largely written off by the presenters.

"We can only hope that this machine won’t “walk a little blue one” during its first meeting with its merciless opponent, because in Robot Wars you don’t make friends! Project One is very excited, it looks like the Blue energy is not affecting them at all!"

— Eric Corton makes a joke with the Dutch phrase 'een blauwtje lopen', usually referring to a failed experience with another person, such as a rejected marriage proposal

Project One uses its lifter to clamp down on Blue

Both robots were sluggish and hard to control, but eventually they met, and Project One tore some chunks off of Blue with its axe/lifter combination. Project One then got under Blue, and in the process of lifting it, tore one of Blue's side panels off. Blue then caught on fire, but was still mobile.

"The damage on Blue is not substantial, it’s just decoration flying off. Ew, I still find them scary… Blue’s entire side piece flew up once again, it’s not substantial damage, but it burns very nicely and it is spectacular!"

— Eric Corton (translated from Dutch)

Blue on fire, but mobile

Project One however, broke down over the course of the battle, and Blue's continued movement allowed it to collect a surprise victory, despite losing its decorative armour to fire and largely not attacking Project One in the battle. The team attributed this on their recurring joke of invisible 'blue waves' disabling Project One.

Bridget Maasland: "So it’s completely burnt up, nobody gave this thing a chance of winning, but it just did!"

Django: "It’s unbelievable isn’t it, but that’s the secret of Blue, it’s the blue beams! As you can see, the opponent was immobilised even though they barely got touched. This is real!"

Bridget Maasland: "Yeah, because their thing [gesturing an axe] seemed to be stuck in the ground, of course they couldn’t move…"

Django: "…It’s because of the blue beams! World domination has started, truly…"

Bridget Maasland: "Wow, that’s kinda scary…"

— Post-match interview with Bridget Maasland (translated from Dutch)

Blue advanced to the heat semi-final, where it met Enderbot. Before the match, the Blue team passed onto Bridget Maasland a philosophical handwritten note written in English. Maasland joked that she was 'completely moved', but that that the note 'doesn't actually win you the match', then immediately implying that Enderbot would.

"All matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. We are all one consciousness, experiencing itself subjectively. There's no such thing as death. Life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves."

— A letter written by the Blue team, and read in English by Bridget Maasland before Blue fought Enderbot

Enderbot's first attack on Blue

Enderbot used its axe to knock off Blue's top panel (which revealed a picture of a model as well), leaving its electronics exposed. Enderbot continued to smash Blue with its axe, and Blue lost an entire side panel again. Shunt came in and hammered the panel with its axe, but the panel became stuck onto its axe and couldn't be shaken off.

"Hey! We’re onto them now! I see a regular set of thumbs on that controller. Yes, they’re not blue at all! They’re not from out of this planet at all! And now we can see that in their machine as well, because Blue is being carefully and professionally deconstructed by Enderbot, as the boys of the team had promised."

— Eric Corton jokingly reveals that the team are in fact, not aliens (translated from Dutch)

Enderbot damages Blue with its axe

Blue meanwhile had shed its entire outer shell, and was being counted out by Refbot. After it was officially deemed immobile, Shunt, still bearing the chunk of Blue's armour, pushed Blue onto the floor flipper and then into the pit. Blue was eliminated from the competition in the second round, although they donated a piece of their decorative blue armour to the victor Enderbot for it to wear in the Heat Final, which would later be described as the 'blue virus'.

"Will it break it into fifteen pieces, a hundred pieces, two thousand pieces, oh there we have it, two thousand pieces! Enderbot is no longer getting involved and leaves it to the House Robots. Blue seems to be packing up already because they know how this is ending (as they lower the transmitter). Still, the losers seem to be cheering, are they happy they can get back to their spaceship?"

— Eric Corton (translated from Dutch)

Results

Wins/Losses

• Wins: 1
• Losses: 1

Series Record

Blue in the pits during the Swedish Dub

Dutch Series	Blue Series Record
Series 1	Heat, Round 2
Series 2	Entered with Bluemax

Trivia

• Team Blue and their robot made a cameo appearance in the Swedish dub of Series 4, Heat P, becoming the subject of a brief interview by co-host Micke Dubois.
• No commentary from Eric Corton was heard when Blue's statistics board was displayed in the original BNN broadcast of Heat D, making it the only robot not to receive a corresponding summary. This may have been a production error, but could also be a reference to the team's silent disposition.
• Team Blue donating their decorative armour to other robots in a trend described by the show as the 'blue virus' is not unlike the 'fur virus' trend started by Team Nemesis in the UK series.
• Team Blue and their gimmick bear a strong resemblance to the Blue Man Group, an American theatre group formed in 1987. The group consists of three men with their skin painted blue who are mute throughout all of their performances and even interviews. It is possible that the Blue Man Group served as an inspiration of sorts for Team Blue, though this cannot be confirmed.