Dan Danknick is a robotics expert and physicist who served as commentator for the Las Vegas pay-per-view BattleBots event in 1999. He also competed as part of Team Delta in several early Robot Wars and BattleBots events, including the inaugural Long Beach competition. He worked as a firmware engineer at the time of getting into the sport, and entered the US Robot Wars championship with middleweight Agamemnon in 1996. He did well in the competition, winning in his division.
Entering heavyweight Agrippa into the 1999 Long Beach event, he was eventually eliminated by the British entry, Razer. Following his brief commentary stint during the Las Vegas competition, Danknick competed in the following year's middleweight event. Forming part of Team Delta alongside Tony Buchignani, he earned three Giant Nut wins in Seasons 1.0, 3.0 and 4.0 of Comedy Central BattleBots with their vicious middleweight, Hazard.
Dan Danknick with Hazard.
Danknick also joined up with Team Delta to enter the superheavyweight division with War Machine, and in Season 2.0, the lightweight competition with Evil Fish Tank. Though neither achieved the same success as Hazard, they held respectable finishes. Danknick also had a brief appearance on the UK show Robot Wars, making up part of The Mangulator alongside UK roboteer Adam Clark and Team Raptor's Bob Pitzer for the War of Independence special which followed Series 4. Representing the USA, The Mangulator ultimately lost to Ming 2 in the opening round of battles. The Mangulator was present for the unaired MTV pilot for an American version of Robot Wars, but would not compete after that event. He would later become a member of the production crew for both seasons of Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors.
- "I was hired to test the original Robotica arena with a robot and then provided on-site technical aid for the builders using TD and Innovation First components. A few months later I was amazingly banned from the BattleBots Treasure Island event even though I was shipping 20-30 orders per day in the weeks leading up to it. So I went backpacking with my teammate Bob Brewer instead."
- — Dan Danknick reveals why he was not present for later seasons.
Dan Danknick (right) with other on-camera Robotica presenters.
His involvement led Danknick to serve as the chief technical liaison for Mentorn, who were the main production company behind Robot Wars at the time. However, this work led to conflict between Danknick and BattleBots, with whom he had previously represented and competed with. As such, Danknick was essentially blacklisted from Season 3.0 and was not present on Team Delta for any future seasons.
In 2001, he broadened his work away from BattleBots, serving as the "science correspondent" for the final two seasons of TLC's show Robotica. He offered expert analysis on competing robots and introduced upcoming events in on-camera roles.
Outside of robot combat, Dan Danknick featured on the 2003 Comedy Central show I'm with Busey, Monster Garage and has worked as the technical editor for SERVO Magazine.
In 2022, Danknick auctioned off his 1996 Robot Wars trophy won with Agamemnon to raise funds for the show's founder and creator Marc Thorpe, in his fight against Parkinson's disease. According to the description of his trophy auction, he now works for a company that treats cancer.[1]