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Revenge of the Battle Bots
Richard Finney writes "The Village Voice does a good article on 'Battle Bots.'" I've attended a Robot Wars event, and these things are a lot of fun, even if you haven't entered a weapon of mass destruction. Highly recommended.
Is there a mindstorm division?
Should be a good reason to start investing in lego.
I've been seeing advertisements on my cable system (Cox Cable in Fairfax, VA) for the upcoming Battle Bots competition. I believe they are set to air the last week of January. They show some of the "highlights" of the last tourney, and it is definately cool. Whirling saw blades, and big axes mounted to wheels.. its great!
If this Battle Bot thing interests, you should check out Survival Research Labs at www.srl.org. These guys are way over the top.
I was a little confused. It seems foams, liquids and lasers are illegal, as well as electricity. But since the robots are radio controlled, does that exclude jamming on all frequencies but your own, then killing the other bots at your leisure?
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
I've been trying to get some folks together to do something a bit cheaper: Lego Mindstorm Battlebots. All the parts must be Lego (with the exception of the rubber bands. Many lego sets come with rubber bands, but they'll break and should be able to be replaced), and the winner is the battlebot that can still move under its own power. Battering rams to whack the legs out from under something, scooploaders to try to flip the bot...
You should look into the FIRST Lego League - This is a mindstorms-based robot competition. Information can be found at the FLL site at http://www.legomindstorms.com/fll/. This is geared for younger students, but it still an excellent foundation to build any type of competition from.
I've been waiting for the past few days now for something like this to come up. Too bad Rob or Jeff would probably never post it...
Some of you may or may not have heard of the FIRST Competition. It is a robotics competition which involves High School students, along with their corporate partners, Universities, or what have you. This year's competition was just released on Saturday. FIRST's Competition homepage is here. This competition is far superior to almost any other. There will be ten regional events this year, and the National Competition will be in EPCOT Center in Disneyworld, FL. There is no other robotics competition with such spirit or fire behind it as this one. Please check out the Homepage and support the FIRST cause in any way possible. The competition has grown from 28 teams in 1992 to over 380 teams this year. There are teams from all over the USA, Canada, and even a team from Brazil.
Some of you were wondering about mindstorms... They have a Mindstorms Competition called FIRST Lego League! Check it out here!
General Information on FIRST can be found at www.usfirst.org
Also, see http://home.earthlink. net/~macshack/robotwars/publicity.html for "The History of Robot Combat- The 'Nutshell' Version". Quite an interesting read, and a good example for any nerd out there with a good idea to be aware of.
however good our animation was the year we won, you should have seen it two years ago, when we got disqualified for sending it in on beta... it got the head of animation a job at Kinetix (sp?).
:)
this isn't exactly the only place I'm looking. however, the bay area is chock-full of teams, and while many are well funded (*cough*gunn*cough*), there are simply not enough companies to go around, not to mention many who think we're insane. it's a lot easier for a company to sponsor a proven winner than a team in less-affluent area, with no track record, and the only engineering expertise coming from first and second-year engineering students.
let's just say I'm an opportunist.
Lea
speaking of helping out, a lot of teams need not only money, but real engineering help both in EE, programming, design, and construction. I was a member of the Gunn High School team (GRT -- we won animation a few years ago, seeded 5th two years ago, and made it at least to the semis last year) and now mentor a team from Berkeley High School which is run entirely by high school students and college mentors.
the Berkeley team has exactly 0 engineers helping and exactly $0 besides the entrance fee (which NASA is sponsoring). I know there are other teams in this situation, so if you can't help a team with your time, talk to your company and see if they will sponsor a team with money, tools, or by assigning engineers to work with the team. it's an investment in the future -- I know several very talented engineers who lacked direction until this competiton. many teams lack even the most basic tools, liability insurance (I won't pretend this isn't dangerous: a student from Palo Alto High School got his hand caught in a belt sander last year, and several bay area students almost cut off fingers. another good reason to have trained engineers to teach), and a place to work.
if you'd like to help the Berkeley team, contact me at chialea@uclink.berkeley.edu. I can also put you in contact with a team in your area.
it's very rewarding and exciting work, and the competition is going on right now, so don't delay -- it's 6 weeks of excitement, plus the regional competion, plus the main competiton in Florida, which is braodcast on ESPN2. so, please, sponsor a team.
Lea
The battlebots are cool, but expensive. I've been trying to get some folks together to do something a bit cheaper: Lego Mindstorm Battlebots. All the parts must be Lego (with the exception of the rubber bands. Many lego sets come with rubber bands, but they'll break and should be able to be replaced), and the winner is the battlebot that can still move under its own power. Battering rams to whack the legs out from under something, scooploaders to try to flip the bot...
:)
And the great thing is, when your battlebot gets shredded, you can put it back together.
-F
The Robot Wars TV series over here in the UK is in it's 3rd or 4th season now. It's interesting to see the brutal darwinian evolution that teams force their robots through between seasons. It's also amusing (if somewhat sadistic) to see university engineers spend £1k+ on a robot only to have it beaten by a £200 robot.
Last week there was this robot called "Chaos 2" that could travel at 20mph and had a pneumatic ramp that could flip 80kilogramme robots 3 feet into the air!
Awesome geek entertainment, and the delectable miss Philippa Forrester just makes it a perfect evening.
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
Since the article did not contain links to the web sites that have some pictures and movies, here are some of the well-known sites:
- www.battlebots.com
- www.robotwars.com (look at the History section)
- www.botbash.com
- www.robotrumbles.com
- www.dangerousmachines.com
- www.sorc.org (Society of Robotic Combat)
- www.robohoo.com (a Yahoo-style index of all things robotic)
Have fun!-Raphaël
Team Delta Site:
j an&content=eventitem.asp&month=jan&shortna me=BATBOTS
http://www.teamdelta.com/robots.htm
Delta's Link list has some good info too:
http://www.teamdelta.com/misccomm.htm#flinks
Pay Per View information:
http://www.ppv.com/frames.asp?page=events&item=
Yep, I remember this from last year. Discovery channel news ran a blurb about last year's compettition. 10 minute segment and they spent maybe 20 seconds on the self-controlled AI bots, mostly to note they were there, and pretty much jsut bumped intoeach other with long pauses.
It seems like it's going to take a while before AI bots will have the same actionand excetement as the radio-controlled ones. (aside: if I use two RC racers in a demolition derby, can I call the 'robots' ?)
JMC
A pay per view worth paying for!
Almost all of this stuff is computer controlled and some of it is controlable from the web. Thet are even looking for people.
Also there is Pumpkin Chunkin Delaware's annual "Lets see how far we can launch a pumpkin out of a cannon"
With all of the problems (and commercial attemps) with robot wars, I think it needs a few years to mature to something that is viable in the long term.
Some of this years entrants have been really quite impressive, and might acheive parity with the US creations in the 180lb division. We haven't had any really good walkers yet though.
Okay, we've got the geek quotient to do it -- we just need Andover.net to sponsor the project and a few folks out there to kick in some time. Let's put together our own competitor for the Battle Bot scene!
count me in! I'm a hardware geek through and through. I didn't see whether they allowed projectile weapons or not though... I would guess no.
How about something with a ton of ceramic magnets (Like from inside a hard drive) mounted on a couple of thick arms to lock it to its opponent, then a set of sawblades mounted under the body to carve the enemy up... To avoid those damn flippy bots we'd go into the light weight category and mount the body between 2 giant tractor tires so that it was suspended from the ground. Power it with a gocart engine or something similar...
the hardest part would be to make sure that it could turn the wheels instead of just spinning itself around a lot....
Heck, I could probably build that with 500$.... >:)
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
I had a look at the battlebots and robotwars websites. I haven't seen any actual competitions yet but it seems that the winners are always robots that try to immobilize the opponents by a "flipping or tossing" strategy - like the battlebots reigning champion - Biohazard.
An easy way to combat flippers is to have your Bot not care what side is up or down. Mine would be a large metal ball slung between two big tractor tires. I'd put a cutting device on it, and possibly some big ceramic magnets so it could clamp onto the competition and cut them apart. To avoid side flipping just put convex metal covers over the tires so that it keeps rolling. It would never lose to a flipper, but a smasher might take it down.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
I had a look at the battlebots and robotwars websites. I haven't seen any actual competitions yet but it seems that the winners are always robots that try to immobilize the opponents by a "flipping or tossing" strategy - like the battlebots reigning champion - Biohazard.
(check out the description of battles and see pictures here: http://www.robotbooks.com/biohazard.htm )
It seems even robots that have some protection against this, i.e. an arm to right themselves or a wheels on both sides, end up getting flipped into some position they can't recover from.
Do the robots that go for outright blunt destruction ever win? Kind of boring if flipping is the only viable strategy.
I enjoy the programme, Robot Wars, on UK TV, my only worry is the definition of a robot.
Maybe I have been reading too much Asimov; but I do belive that a remote control toy has very little to do with any normal meaning of the word robot.
I would be far more interested in genuine robots fighting, a much better test for geeks - as this would involve both hardware and software hacks!
These things are really great, I've seen them on TV. It blows my mind to see people put a tremendous investment in time and money on the line in a battle that could destroy their bot.
You can check out the offical site for Battle Bots here.
PS I am not associated with Battle Bots in any way.
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
The BattleBots are coming! Soon, one of these techies are going to do such a good job that the bots will not only battle successfully, but will learn how to reproduce! Then, it is obvious that the robots will decide that they don't need man anymore, and start killing everyone.
Within a year or two, civilization will lie in tatters! Our cityscapes will look like something out of Terminator's future. Escape now, while there is still time!