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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).
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.
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Those of you who do not have a TiVo may think the above is a joke. It is not. I love Battlebots, I hate the crappy announcers who seem to think that this is some sort of WWF episode.
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
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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.