Jim Smentowski is a former BattleBots competitor based in Florida, who served as captain of Team Nightmare and as a judge for the inaugural 2002 BattleBots IQ event and several others in the following years.
He is best known for his heavyweight robot Nightmare, which debuted in the very first BattleBots event in 1999 boasting a large vertical spinning disk. Though it went 2-2 in its first competition, in part due to being instructed to run the blade the opposite direction for safety reasons, Nightmare won the Most Aggressive Robot award. He also competed with Junior, which performed modestly. Smentowski's heavyweight would become a fan favorite in the years to come despite mixed success. His middleweight, Backlash, first debuted at the 2000 BotBash competition and subsequently won the Giant Nut during Season 1.0.
While Nightmare would pick up wins against Surgeon General and Mortis in Season 2.0, Smentowski's heavyweight campaign was halted by eventual multi-time champion BioHazard. Backlash again made the title fight, but was stopped at this stage by Ziggo and settled for runner-up. An early exit for Backlash in Season 3.0 in the quarter-finals was perhaps less remembered than Nightmare's two battles. The first of which was an iconic knockout win over SlamJob, and the second was an equally destructive defeat in the Round of 16 to Son of Whyachi. A 60lb version of Smentowski's 30lb robot Whirligig was built for this competition, but captained instead by Jeremy Franklin. This season, Smentowski joined forces with Stephen Felk of Voltronic fame and Paul Mathus to compete in the superheavyweight division for the first time with three-part multibot, The Swarm, under the Team Nightmare name. However, The Swarm was disqualified after its first battle due to confusion over rules of the robots beginning the fight 'attached' rather than side-by-side.
- "Many factors lead to this, but essentially it comes down the fact that multibots were still a new concept in BattleBots, and there were too many grey areas in the rules about how they should be run. We made a mistake, and vowed that it wouldn't happen again."
- — Jim Smentowski regarding The Swarm's disqualification[1]
While Nightmare would make the quarter-finals of Season 4.0, it was again thwarted by BioHazard. Backlash, however, suffered an uncharacteristically early exit to Hexy Jr. by knockout. In 2001, Smentowski would purchase Turtle Road Kill from Team Steyer. While it competed in Season 4.0 under its original owners, Jim was invited to drive the machine. It won four fights, but lost out to El Diablo. The Swarm returned, losing to Swirlee in its first fight by way of a close judges' decision.
Come Season 5.0, Nightmare lost out to newcomer Warhead and Backlash fell in the Round of 16 for a second time in as many seasons. Smentowski would also enter Turtle under the captaincy of his own team, reaching the semi-finals in its division. After winning its first bout against Little Pink Butterfly of Doom, The Swarm then lost out to Final Destiny.
Jim Smentowski would become a judge in between Seasons 4.0 and 5.0 for the first BattleBots IQ competition in 2002, alongside Dave Calkins, Michael Mauldin, Tom Bales and Joanne Pransky. He would reprise this role for several other events, including the 2010 event covered in the Bots High documentary, and the final BBIQ competition in 2011. He would balance judging with competing in the latter, as Team Nightmare entered Grasshopper into the Pro Division, which previously competed as part of The Swarm in Season 4.0. Smentowski would occasionally bring Nightmare out to perform demonstrations during intervals in the competition.
During the dark era of televised BattleBots, Smentowski built 1b robot ShazBot as well an antweight version of Nightmare, aptly named MicroNightmare, for the 2004 NPC Charity Open. Both robots advanced to the championship fight, where MicroNightmare came out on top as guest driver Donald Hutson piloted ShazBot. Smentowski was also invited to compete in the 2006 Cisco Party event as well as the 2009 Pro Championships, both times entering Breaker Box. He reached the semi-finals of the former, while being eliminated in Round 2 of the loser's bracket in the latter.
While Backlash was retired after several untelevised competitions, Jim Smentowski's team rebuilt Nightmare for World Championship I on ABC. Despite losing its initial competition to Warrior Clan, it would win a three-robot rumble towards the end of the competition. Returning for World Championship II, Nightmare lost out to Stinger but received a wildcard and was reinstated. It then reached the Round of 16 after defeating Icewave but losing out to Beta.
Nightmare would not compete again after this, shy of an exhibition battle held during World Championship IV against Mammoth. However, Smentowski would rebuild Breaker Box for the 2019 season, which performed modestly but finished with a 1-3 record and failed to make the tournament as a result.
Smentowski was also responsible for building the Nightmare ShowBots which fight at BattleBots: Destruct-A-Thon. In February 2025, he also attended select live shows as a guest driver.
Outside BattleBots[]
Jim Smentowski grew up in Colorado before moving to Phoenix, Arizona to attend a technical school. He later moved back to Colorado, where he married and set up a family.
- "I grew up tinkering with electronic and mechanical stuff whenever I could get my hands and a screwdriver near them. By the time I was 11, I had taken apart nearly everything in the house to figure out how it worked. (This, of course frustrated my parents immensely, because at that age, putting things back together is not normally included in the procedure). I always had a set of tools and some project of some kind sitting unfinished in my bedroom or in the garage. This, of course, has changed little, and I still have boxes of old projects that I will someday have time to complete."
- — Jim Smentowski on his website
He lives in Bradenton, Florida with his wife and fellow Team Nightmare member Erica Smentowski, and has two sons named Nathan and Ian. Leading up to his involvement in combat robotics, Smentowski worked at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) in 1995, where the late Grant Imahara also worked.[2] He would begin competing in US Robot Wars events in 1997, with his first build being a modular robot named Hercules. He would later build Golem, a non-combat lifting and climbing robot for the 1999 FIRST Robot competition, held at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffet Field, California.[3]
In more recent years, Smentowski has been self-employed, running the Robot Marketplace shop since 2002. He has competed in numerous other US live events, including RoboGames, Botbash, SOZbots, Robot Club & Grille, Las Vegas Street Fight and Steel Conflict.
Alongside his wife Erica, he competed in This is Fighting Robots with Wrecker, a repurposed version of his controlbot Breaker Box.