BYO Battlebot

An anonymous submitter sent in: "With the new season of BattleBots coming up (filmed in SF over Memorial Day weekend) everyone is sick of the same-old design of a glorified R/C car. This site has the full design for a bot that runs on an onboard 486 and is controlled off a laptop with quake-style controls! Build your own for around $100 by using mostly old parts." On the other hand, Coolrobots.com has info on how to build an expensive battlebot.

Comments

Slashdot's Slashbot

[GeorgeH]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned that Slashdot has their own battle bot in the works. I'm also surprised that I came across this on sourceforge instead of reading it on Slashdot.
--

Windows controlling it?

[Soko]

From the site:

Yep! This is a 486DX2/66 running Windows 98 on a 340 meg laptop hard drive.

...gives new meaning to "Blue Screen Of Death", don't it?

Improving BatleBots

[ffatTony]

I'll be first to admit comedy central's battlebots is dull. My friend came up with a way to spice it up. His solution... your 200lb, saw covered robot vs a sack of fluffy animals (puppies, kitties, or duckies would all do).

I didn't say it was a good idea

Re:"Impossible to drive" says the article

[dougmc]

why the hell don't the operators use pistol-grip style controllers?

Many battlebots drive like tanks. With no steering servo, these pistol-grip controllers won't work well, unless you do some sort of mixing (where the steering control adjusts the speed of the two wheels/tracks.) Could be done, but adds complexity, making things less reliable.

Also, you'll be very hard pressed to find a pistol grip controller with more than 3 channels. Of course, if you have a seperate driver and gunner, giving the driver a pistol grip controller and the gunner a standard two stick airplane controller (on two different channels, of course) would probably work great.

Also, the two stick controllers aren't bad for R/C cars at all. I've got both, and while I do prefer the pistol grip, it's not that big of a deal. But then again, maybe I'm biased because I mostly fly R/C planes rather than drive R/C cars.

--

"Impossible to drive" says the article

[IronChef]

Quoth the article: Most battlebots are just glorified RC cars. They use off-the-shelf speed controllers, and stock RC controllers. Unfortunately, this makes them impossible to drive.

It's not the use of R/C car parts that is the problem. A good R/C car is a dream to drive, very controllable. The problem seems to be with the operator's choice of controllers. I keep seeing these sort of twin-stick controllers in use for simple wedge bots with no extra weapons; why the hell don't the operators use pistol-grip style controllers?

I could never really get the hang of twin sticks, but I can pilot a car pretty well with a pistol grip. AFAIK all serious R/C car guys use them, and for good reason.

The Battlebots arena is PLAGUED with really awful driving. I'm sure a heavy bot isn't as easy to drive as an R/C race car, but c'mon, most of these guys could do a lot better, and I think better controls would help. (I saw one guy using a freaking joystick... I think he got his clock cleaned, too. Use the right tool for the job, Chester!) The videos they show of the designers tearing up junk in parking lots... not a great way to practice. A parking lot is a lot bigger than the arena, and poor control won't be punished as much. Especially when you are wrecking a TV or an aquarium, instead of another bot.

I know some bots need more than just movement controls, and a 2-channel pistol grip isn't adequate. Nonetheless, it sure looks like some teams are sabotaging themselves with a poor choice for mobility controls. Mobility is life; precise driving should be the first requirement for any bot.

Seems to me a team should have one driver and one gunner (yep, some do, I know), or perhaps one operator using some innovative controls like footswitches to operate the weapons. A pistol grip with 2 foot switches for the bot's gadgets -- that would be the way to go!

That's still retarded.

[ROBOKATZ]

Battlebots is completely lame because the robots are human controlled. And because they are human controlled, they are cannot, by definition, be called robots.

Just because the device the human is using to control the "robot" is a computer and the "robot" has a computer onboard does not make it a robot.

With the cheap processing power available today and the current state of AI there is no excuse, bar incompetence, for this competition to not consist of truly autonomous robots. Until then, Battlebots will continue to be a show pandering to the lowest common denominator, relying on sex and loud music to attract an audience.

Re:That's still retarded.

[bryan1945]

Until then, Battlebots will continue to be a show pandering to the lowest common denominator, relying on sex and loud music to attract an audience.

Damn, are you watch the Robo-Playboy channel?

Also:
robot
n.

1.A mechanical device that sometimes resembles a human and is capable of performing a variety of often complex human tasks on command or by being programmed in advance.

2.A machine or device that operates automatically or by remote control.

3.A person who works mechanically without original thought, especially one who responds automatically to the commands of others.

I don't see the term "AI" anywhere in there, whiz kid.

You call this a Battlebot?!

[jsse]

I've submit this cool-looking, Debian GNU/Linux powered battlebot TuxBot but got rejected by /. Gods.

Now this rugged oranges box got spotlighted?

What's wrong with you guys?

Slight problem with the $100 robot...

[bryan1945]

and that problem is that when your "Doom-bot" runs up against your competitor's $4000 titanium shell that laughs at whatever sad-assed weaponary you have. There is a reason that the 'bots (at least the ones that win at least once) on Battlebots cost a shit-load of money- quality parts. Yeah, I could stick a stuffed monkey in a Barbie car with spikes on the front, but I think that the kill saws and the hammer will make short shrift of said device. This ain't "lawnmower vs. weed-whacker" kids!

wheel reinvented ?

[beanerspace]

I'm wondering how much time (not to mention cpu cycles) these guys could have saved if these guys had hacked a much simpler operating system ? Perhaps using some old-school PD source such as Tom Poindexter's Crobots or perhaps or one of it's various mutant prodginy such as the linux based C-Robots ?