“He fits our team so well,” Bales said in an email message.
“I was just hoping someone would pick me up at the airport.” He soon learned that qualifications for joining the team included technical and creative talents - and not being a jerk. He flew to Miami in March to meet members of HyperShock, including team captain Will Bales. 28 he was surprised to receive an email inviting him to join the five-year-old HyperShock team. “Some friends I race with vouched for me,” Royster said. He bought a jacket from the HyperShock team for his wife, Natalie (who shares many of his interests), and mentioned, “I’m from Kentucky and have a machine shop and I’d like to be part of a (BattleBots) team.” “I’ve competed against ‘BattleBots’ people” at Power Racing events, Royster said. More: 'I love Henderson County Schools': Longtime educator, superintendent Marganna Stanley retires (Collin customized his Power Wheels to resemble the ice cream combat truck driven by the insane killer clown known as Sweet Tooth in the Twisted Metal video game series.) Royster and his father, Robby, several years ago also became interested in souping up and customizing Power Wheels battery-powered electric kids’ vehicles and competing in the Power Racing Series, racing against other teams from around the country. He has worked in media ranging from metal to fabric to 3-D printing to paint - even in applying makeup to himself and friends when they masquerade as zombies.
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He has a lifelong interest in all sorts of fanciful and sometimes gruesome entertainment: science fiction movies, dark video games, graphic novels and the like.īut he is not merely a consumer of such entertainment using his vast and varied expertise in machining, mechanical, computer, design, painting and more, Royster produces life-size creations of characters and objects from games, movies and comics, from a “Star Wars” battle droid to the menacing Executioner from the Resident Evil video game series to a host of objects from his own bubbling imagination. We’re delighted that, despite COVID-19, we were able to film such an amazing new season for our millions of ‘BattleBots’ fans around the world.”Īs for the 33-year-old Royster, his path to “Battlebots” was anything but a straight line. “We discover new heroes, a few legends are felled, and newbies emerge as ‘BattleBots’ stars. “This new season is our most exciting ever, with constant surprises, upsets and technical innovations,” Trey Roski, creator of “BattleBots,” said in a statement. Though Royster said he isn’t permitted to say when he and his team will first be seen on television, he expects HyperShock will appear in multiple episodes.
The first two-hour episode of the new “BattleBots” season will premiere at 7 p.m.
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In October, he spent two weeks in Long Beach, California, where HyperShock was one of 60 bots that fought as cameras rolled to prepare for the TV show’s upcoming season. Royster this year joined the long-running HyperShock team, custom-producing components for the bot from military-grade titanium as well as aluminum. More: Hendersonian’s creations inspired by sci-fi, games exhibited here He also couldn’t know that he would personally manufacture some of the key components for one of the mechanical pugilists.īut even then, at age 12, he was already developing technical skills as a machinist and designer - working with his father and uncle at Royster’s Machine Shop and Royster’s Production Machining (RPM) in Henderson - that would open the door to him becoming a member of a BattleBots team. When a young Collin Royster first tuned into the robot combat TV show “BattleBots” two decades ago, he could scarcely have known that he would himself appear on the show years later.