Lisa Winter is one of three current permanent BattleBots judges, alongside Derek Young and Fon Davis. Having previously been a guest judge during World Championship III, she secured the role permanently ahead of the 2019 season. Alongside her father Mike Winter, she previously competed in the show, best known for the ladybug design Tentoumushi.
Her interest began as a child when watching VHS tapes of the 1994 Robot Wars competition. Three years later, she made her competitive debut with a robot called Doughboy. The robot consisted of a metal box with a horizontally-mounted spinning lawnmower blade on top. The parts were almost entirely bought at a local mid-western farming store. Despite this, Doughboy made it all the way to the semi-finals of the competition.
Lisa Winter's second and most famous robot was a lightweight called Tentoumushi, which debuted in the first ever BattleBots event in 1999. It featured a large sandpit which could capture opponents. Inside the shell was a spinning blade which would aim to cause damage. Despite its cute appearance, Tentoumushi found success in the BattleBox, becoming a lightweight quarter-finalist in Season 1.0 and never failing to chalk up at least one win in each of its subsequent competitions. Tentoumushi even won the Funniest Robot Award at Long Beach 1999. Lisa Winter's ladybug robot became a crowd favorite, reflected in its appearance in the MiniBot and McDonald's toy lines, as well as the canceled BattleBots video game.
Alongside her father, she flew to the United Kingdom with Tentoumushi to compete in the televised Robot Wars show on BBC2. Tentoumushi defeated a British middleweight called A-Kill in a UK vs. USA fight dubbed the "War of Independence", before also fighting in a larger middleweight rumble. Lisa Winter and Tentoumushi made an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in 2000 to advertise BattleBots on Comedy Central, demonstrating and "fighting" their robots on set. Leno would later appear on the show with Chinkilla.
As BattleBots returned to television screens in 2015, so did Lisa Winter. Her 250lb build, Plan X, competed in the first ABC competition with little success. Following this, she returned in 2016 with Mega Tento, a 250lb successor to the iconic ladybug design. Although she would not compete again after 2016, Lisa Winter became a guest judge for BattleBots in 2018 before accepting the role permanently from the 2019 season onward.
During Episode 4 of World Championship VII, Winter featured in a spoof cold open which parodied charity commercials, highlighting cruelty to Minibots with snippets of commentary from Chris Rose and Kenny Florian.
For more on Lisa Winter's involvement with other robots, see Robot Action League.
Outside BattleBots[]
Outside of BattleBots, Lisa Winter graduated from the University of San Francisco and worked part-time for her father's robotics company before landing a job with an industrial design company. Since 2020, she has worked as the Engineering Project Manager at the toy manufacturing company Mattel. She co-founded Robot11 in 2011, a company which produce smart toys. She is also on the Board of Directors for Women In Robotics, and volunteers her hardware skills to the Marine Mammal Center.
She was also one of the women mentioned among the Top 25 Women in Robotics that You Need to Know About list produced by Robohub.org.[1] Lisa still has the remains of the original Tentoumushi, but several parts were used for her more recent projects. Several of these projects have been documented on her YouTube channel, including making custom AirPods, a mirror stand and a radioactive-themed Halloween candy chute.
See Also[]
Trivia[]
- Lisa Winter is a fan of the NFL side Green Bay Packers.
- In her spare time, Lisa Winter is a keen violinist.
- Lisa Winter announced in January 2019 that she had been diagnosed with Celiac disease.
- She is also vegan.