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The ROBOlympic Games
Roland Piquepaille writes "The first International Robot Games, or ROBOlympics, organized by the Robotics Society of America, will take place on March 20th and 21st, 2004 in San Francisco, California. There will be competition for combat and non-combat robots, a World Cup Soccer game, and even a robo-triathlon. More than 400 robots are registered for this robotics competition. And the winners will receive hard cash. Nature tells us the story in 'Robolympics contestants shoot for gold.' More details and references are available in this overview which also includes a very nice photo of two robots, the larger one either fixing or rocking the smaller one. And for your information, ROBOlympics is not sold out. So if you are near San Francisco, it's still time to buy tickets. They cost $15 to $25. Entrance is free for children under 7."
There will be competition for combat and non-combat robots
Does it disturb anyone how much effort is put into building robots designed for distruction? I mean I understand building robots that solve puzzles, and robots that overcome obstacles, but the idea of designing robots primarily for violence kind of bothers me.
Maybe this is a little off topic, but it's an interesting thing to think about.
in San Francisco, California
Will the governor be taking part too?
Free XBox, PS2
The fact that Nature is bringing us this robot story?
MmMmmmm . . . irony.
--
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
One event called Ribbon Climber, in which robots race up a carbon-fibre ribbon, was designed to inspire 'space elevator' technology that might one day lift satellites into orbit.
It's nice to see they added this event in to draw a little more attention to the space elevator. I personally would rather build a robot to compete in that competition than the fighting ones. It may be a little easier, plus, you're helping towards a cause that would benifit us all, not building a robot purely to smash other things (which is still pretty cool).
...Human Wars. Robots of superior intelligence build highly aggressive, hugely muscular humans to beat the crap out of one another on RoboTV. Eventually they will evolve to become more intelligent than their creators, and we'll go full circle...maybe :P
There was a Techno Games held in England last year. It was really cool cause it wasn't just bots kicking the crap out of each other. They had events such as high-jump, long jump, rope climbing, two-wheeled races, soccer, swimming, rocket-powered races, relay and more.
Some of the bots where truly amazing, especially the rope-climbing ones. I'm not sure if it'll be on this year though, hopefully some of the bots will enter in the ROBOlympics.
"hehe, website" - Homer Simpson
i joined a local course for robot building and the timing worked out perfectly for the robolympics so we entered it in the 12lb combat class - it's going to get creamed in the first round - i started a blog that documented the build progress but i'm too scared to post it here - i only have a small bandwidth quota :) - here is a picture though - that's a stool underneath - it's actually very flat for scooping under other bots and can spin rapidly - still going to be decimated in the first 30 seconds though.
Is this going to be like that DARPA road race, where Wired did a 50-page color article on it, and then on race day none of the robots are able to make it as far as a stray shopping cart in a windy parking lot?
I'm thinking the event will be named something else by the time it becomes the 2nd Annual, since the US Olympic Committee has told them they can't use Olympics in their name.
When I was in high school, we saw the name of the Olympics of the Mind program changed to "Odyssey of the Mind" for the same reason.
What does it mean to wake out of a dream
and be wearing someone else's shorts?
BNL, Born on a Pirate Ship (1998)
Robocup is the real world cup of robot soccer, about 5 years in the running. The 2004 American Open is happening in late April, and it will supposedly be open to the public. And for the really hardcore fans, there's Robocup 2004 in Portugal. See ya there ;) Failing that, you should at least watch a match (4-legged league).