Slashdot Mirror
BattleBots Going Mainstream
quamper was the first of zillions to submit to us this msnbc story about the ever expanding world of BattleBots. I'm officially addicted to the show (thank god Tivo will save this weeks battle for me while I'm at the Atlanta Linux Showcase).
Once again gender stereotypes rear their ugly head. Slashdot moderators, when will you realize that women are not mentally inferior? that women CAN like Battlebots? (I like Battlebots and I'm female.) that women are entering the IS (i.e. `geek') industry in droves?
You will have to deal with these questions eventually. Stop sticking your head in the sand.
Even when there's an intriguing weapon like a buzzsaw, most of these things have so much armor that nothing much really happens. And usually the more menacing-looking bot loses. Either it loses its weapon for some reason, or it's less mobile and gets dragged over the saws.
If I were producing this show, I'd make some rule changes:
- Only armor permitted is 1/4" acrylic. The best bot I've seen is that female-operated one that looks like a bug. They can't flip her, they can cut her but it has no effect, and she eats the competition by trapping them and cutting them open. More of that please.
- Projectiles are permitted. That's why the audience is behind bullet-proof glass.
- More than half the weight of the bot has to be an offensive weapon.
- Jabs don't count in the score.
- Flipping a bot over doesn't count in the score unless you radically pummel its underside.
- Chemical agents are permitted. Flame throwing is permitted. Unlimited remote controls and two drivers, permitted permitted permitted.
This is television dammit: I want serious violence.And as for autonomy, the obvious approach is semi-autonomy, like the auto-aiming cheats in Quake. Let the human drive, but let the bot decide when the sledgehammer comes down, or something. I bet that could lead to serious advantages.
--
Hmm.. why can't you do that with a conventional VCR? Sorry.. I'm not about to shell out that kind of money for a system that locks you into a proprietary format. Tell me when the encoding format is cracked and I can start backing up programs that I record on it to permanent media like I do with my VHS tapes and I will think about getting one. That and getting rid of that requirement to subscribe to their monthly service. Ugh. Just what I need.. yet another company invading my privacy by tracking what I watch.
what else it needs?
BattleBots versus inanimate objects. Like cars, soda machines, lawn mowers, watermelons, perhaps even a small, furry, endangered animal or something.
That would enormously increase the entertainment value.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Dont forget steroids, cybernetics, and DNA alteration!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
They did have one "free for all" a couple of weeks back, a bunch of lightweights. Turned out pretty lame, but the concept got me exited.
.
We need to get back to the flame-throwers and projectile weapons though. I mean, if this is going to be radio-controlled, what's the challenge? (beyond finding a driver who can fight his way out of a paper bag) just escalation in weaponry, right? Maybe make that lexan a bit thicker. .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I think the idea of Battlebots is great.. SME has a yearly robotics contest and we entered the Sumo competiton several times.
What I don't like about BB is that they are remote controlled... that's on where near as fun as watching to autonomous bots go after each other...otherwise its just remote controlled power tools, you know?
---
Nobody would watch it if it were called "Waldo Wars."
I can see the fnords!
Actually, for BattleBots this is definitely NOT for the programming crowd. I mean, they can program but can they build lots of small, fast-moving parts needed for a BattleBot?
This is actually more suited for automotive and aerospace engineers, people who are used to working with lots of small, moving parts. Can you imagine what kind of BattleBot a bunch of engineers at Lockheed-Martin's "Skunk Works" on their spare time can come up with using aerospace materials? (boggle)
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Voltron would lose. Voltron always fights first as the lions and gets their asses kicked, before they decide to form voltron. They wouldn't have time in battle bots because the rounds are 3 minutes long, and the stock voltron forming footage, "Form legs and arms! Form feet and hands! Form...", takes like 5 minutes.
An epsisode of battle bots is 30 minutes long, and contains 3 battles. Each battle lasts at most 3 minutes, and usually one battle will be over in 1 minute or less. So you've got about 7 minutes of robot fighting and 23 minutes of commercials and, well, mindless drivel.
If they actually talked to the designers about the bots, how they are built, what kind of batteries they use, running time, what they use for armor, cost, etc. it would be interesting. But instead they say things like, "the one bot, like, hit the other one, huhuhuhuh, bang!, huhuhuh. Ram, ram, ram!! yeah! ram him with the rod! huhuhuh! The bot with the rod is totally mondo super cool, dude!"
If you pay attention you can spot clever things they designers have done, like little hooks on the side of the bot to stop wedges from getting under, or fenders that flip up to prevent the bot from getting tipped. It would be more intesting the the drivel the have now if they let the designers give a "tour" of the bot and point these things out.
Robot Wars with Lister is SUCH a better show. IT isn't so ESPNlike with BattleBots. Also, it's an hour long with various competitions, not just 1 on 1. Mind you the house robots are nearly impossible to beat, but it makes the show much more enjoyable. The tug of war and king of the hill competitions are fun.
There seems to be a lot of snchronicity in TV at the moment. Or possibly companies who are not licensing shows from overseas.
Big Brother and WWTBAMillionare get licensed all around the world, and yet other shows spawn derivatives rather than clones, either because the producers think they can improve on the format, or beause they don't want to buy the licsense. I wonder which?
I presume that Battle Bots owes something to the success of the BBC Robot Wars, which in turn is derived (and I think licensed) from the original US Robot Wars (which I think went bust): Can anyone confirm this chronology?
Can anyone who sees both tell us how much robot builders are peeking across the pond? Mauler sounds like a clone of Hypnodisc, which must have first competed in the UK about 15 months ago, and reached the final, but was beaten by Chaos-2, a flipper-bot whose flipper is powerful enough to throw other robots right out of the arena. But of course it could be the other way round, or they could be independent.
How long has the US Junkyard show been running? I think Scrapheap Challenge is now in its third season.
Are there any other US shows in this genre that we might see imported anytime soon?
attack? just point at the opponent and thousands of tiny slashbots swarm to it...
Does each team only get to field one robot?
I would imagine that you could have different types of robots with different sorts of weapons (for instance, I could imagine trying to entangle the Mauler with some kind of Kevlar net).
Oh God, I just realized - this reminds me of POKEMON! *AAAAIEEEEEEE*
I read that as "thank (god Tivo)" instead of "(thank god) Tivo". Time for my 3rd bottle of Jolt...
BattleBots is a cool concept and from what I gather a great show (I haven't gotten around to actually watching it yet :-) )
However one thing puzzles me...*why* is it on Comedy Central of all networks? It's sort of like showing Babylon 5 on TNN!
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
No way...you'd just get 10,000 anonymous requests for the robot to pour hot grits down the other robot's pants.
That and the robot would just sit around waiting for the fight to start, tap the other robot and yell:
FIRST POST!
Then it would make fun of the other robot because it doesn't use Linux, play illegal MP3s, then run away and call Jon Katz gay.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
Botsters started selling out the moment they bought their parts from major corporate entities.
In my day we built our own CPUs from hand.
Kids today, scheeze.
Remember, they are trying to get half a season of 1/2 hour shows out of a one day event.
They were able to go back and interview a couple of the particpants, it is too bad that they don't ask about the details. But they sent the sportscasters, not Nye. They must have only had him for the competition day. (not that they give him noticiable air time)
In fact, the thing I most dislike about the spin they put on the tech stuff is the "You aren't expected to understand this" attitude.
As another poster noted, there isn't computation involved. Its mostly beefed up radio control gear. Some of them might have something pneumatic to operate a weapon, nothing particularly exotic...
Personally, I think they are missing a bet with all the exotic stuff. If I were going to build something, I would give real consideration to cast iron (likely one of the annealed forms for the extra ductility) And an IC engine for motive power, its hard to beat one for energy density. (anything that can chemically store significant electrical energy makes a good anchor) I would spend my weight budget on armor and weaponry. Brute Force and Ignorance can be hard to beat...
(I won't be building, I expect to do another season of Scrapheap/Junkyard. Given a choice between Las Vegas, and London, I will take London every time. I also like the variety, and surprise of the show format. Suiting up not knowing what Robert is going to ask you to build is a lot of fun.)
Organizer:New England Rubbish Deconstruction Society;The NERDS,first US team in the UK Scrapheap Challenge/Junkyard Wars
But it wouldn't be a sporting event without those cloying human-interest stories! "How the Mauler team overcame satanic child abuse while growing up homeless in the South Bronx to finally stand up and defeat the overwhelming favorite," played in slow-motion to the Chariots of Fire soundtrack, and so on...
sulli
RTFJ.
A Match made in heaven. A whole episode can be watched in 10 minutes.
BOSTON SUCKS!
If you're in Minnesota, and more specifically the Twin Cities, then you should check out http://www.tcrobowars.com. It's coming on the 21st and should be pretty good.
--
Comments like, "women leave now", "Comedy Central says that 26% of the viewers are female, but we think they missed a decimal in there" (paraphrased) are not acceptable journalism. I know it's supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. But this stuff matters. Maybe articles like this are why more women aren't interested in robotics.
We need some Voltron action on Battlebots. Voltron would kick the shit out of mauler.
I like food.
It should be called remote controlled wars...
It would be soooo much cooler if the machines were autonomous.
Slashdot should compile a team of people to build a robot. I bet there are a lot of people who would want to participate! Open source robot....
-Moondog
Rednecks -> Monster Truck Rallies
Geeks -> BattleBots
Women -> Oprah
-----------
-----------
If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, forget 'em, because man, they're gone. -- Jack
BattleBots is marketed like pro-wrestling - over hyped "competition", loud music, large breasted women and cliched interviews and commentary. You are giving Joe-six-pack three things that he wants : violence, sex and rock-n-roll. If BattleBots had engineers commentating the matches, Joe-six-pack at home would sit in front of the tube, say "duh, I don't get what they are saying", and switch the channel. If you want the show to remain on television, you have to deal with the fact that it must be dumbed down and marketed to the masses. If you marketed to geeks, it wouldn't last on television - why do you think PBS has such a hard time keeping shows on television?
"Microsoft has made computing accessible to a population who would otherwise not be able to use computers" - B. Kernigha
I competed in this BattleBots, and will compete in the next comp. in Nov., which will be held in Vegas. A few points: 1) Battlebots is not about men, manliness, or any of the other chauvinistic crap in that article. It's about who builds the best bot. We have several female competitors, including Lisa Winter and Amy Sun, and I can only guess how offensive they find that article. 2) If you think autonomous bots would be cooler, feel free to build one. There was an autonomous class in the old US Robot Wars in 95' or 96'. There were only two entrants, and that was the last year anyone did it, for lack of interest. You can talk a lot of smack about how it would be better to have autonomous combat bots, but the reason we don't is NO ONE IS BUILDING THEM. Including you. Plus, if you think the battles are boring now, imagine the bots are wandering around looking for each other most of the time. . . 3) This "open source" stuff is crap. The actual electronics of a combat robot is limited to a PCM radio reciever, a high-amperage PWM speed controller and perhaps some pic chips controlling relays for weapons and such. Fantasies about proving the superiority of Linux over Windows in a combat bot are ridiculous. Both are inappropriate.