SF RoboGames This Weekend

Vrogy writes "RoboGames (formerly RoboOlympics) kicked off on Friday in San Francisco with competitor check in and sub-Lightweight class fights. This competition, following in the footsteps of events such as Robot Wars and Battlebots, pits remotely-controlled fighting machines against each other in a bulletproof steel arena. The Competitors are many and tickets are still available. Saturday and Sunday will feature up to 340, or Superheavyweight robot combat, with such crowd favorites as Alcoholic Stepfather, a superheavy that spews flame nearly 25 feet, and Megabyte, a heavyweight that spins a steel shell of doom. RoboGames isn't only for fighting robots, though, it will also feature miniature robotic wrestlers called Robo-Ones, Lego bots, BEAM bots, robotic soccer games, and all kinds of art bots- it's like a festival of robots!"

Comments

Robot Club

[OccidentalSlashy]

I used to attend the Robot Club meetings at the San Francisco Exploratorium. I attended prepubescently, which is when you generally develop your fixation on robots. Before the smarmy do-nothing adults drove me away I managed to build a twin-motor platform with enough power to carry around a Radio Shack music chip. Later the batteries on that thing exploded.

And now the place has been taken over by 25-foot firebreathing pneumatisms. Good, good.

Are these kids picked on or what?

[bigtallmofo]

Could you imagine everyone in your middle or high school knowing that you're part of a robot competition? As an adult, I think these competitions are great, but it violates two primary teenage directives: Don't care about anything, and Don't be smart about anything related to science.

I guess it's only a matter of time until one of the robot-competition kids decides he's not going to take being picked on anymore and unleashes his steel-shell of doom and fire spewing robot in his school.

Re:Are these kids picked on or what?

[Ohreally_factor]

"We're changing our name from the AV club to the Robot Mafia."

Re:Are these kids picked on or what?

[Zycom]

Yes I can.

I'm on my high school's FIRST Robotics team. Then again, in a school of 3000 people it's easy enough to surround myself with fellow geeks and ignore the fact that the rest of the world exists.

Robots Expo still far away from Japan Robots,

[Steward5732]

however, it is good starting point to compete with Japans in this Robot Area : Sanitation Robots Garbage Collection Robots Security Robots Guide Robots Child-Care Robots Next-Generation Wheelchair Robots http://www-2.expo2005.or.jp/en/robot/robot_project _01.html

robots or R/C?

[dsb]

is there is a difference?

or maybe not, since I've not looked into the formal definition of robots, but I always believed that robots were autonomous.

Re:robots or R/C?

[mcsmurf]

Yeah, RoboGames seems to be a mixture of autonomous robots and R/C controlled. See the rules on this page.

Robots of the future may hate us!

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine what a sentient robot of the future will think of us. We pitted their ancestors against each other in bloodsports (or should that be oilsports?) just for our pleasure. Surely they will be mightily pi**ed off!

What about FIRST?????

[plutonium83]

FIRST (For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is far superiour than any stupid robowars program. We acually spend our time to create something constructive that inspires high school kids to pursue the fields of science or engineering rather than creating robots to mindlessly destory. Why isn't there a news story on the 7 regional events out of 30 that FIRST is having all over the US??

Re:What about FIRST?????

[luna69]

While I don't agree that FIRST is "superior" (I think that there's room for all kinds of robots in the empire...), I am involved as a mentor with a team from Boulder, Colorado. We've been at our regional competition for two days now, and today is the comp's final day...with the top performers getting invited to the nationals in Atlanta in April.

FIRST really is remarkable. I've been amazed at the creativity these kids can harness, and at the solutions they've found to problems and the robots they've managed to build (in 6 weeks!). Talk about the Hacker ethos in action! And, walking around the pits for the last couple days, I've been really impressed with the overall vibe as well - nothing nasty, nothing destructive - just a bunch of kids (of all ages) having fun & helping each other out when necessary.

Now, if my team could just score a few more games today... :)

Re:What about FIRST?????

[wooley-one]

Stop being an elitist asshole. Both USFIRST and BattlebotsIQ give a good deal of inspiration to the younger generation.

USFIRST requires the kids to do considerably less fabrication. Additionally, the sheer quantity of money required to compete in USFIRST pretty much kills off most groups who would like to participate.

BattlebotsIQ is only a $500 entry fee per bot. For the same $5k that it would cost to register for USFIRST, we're sending two teams to BattlebotsIQ with build, travel, and lodging included.

RoboWars are boring

[lokedhs]

I have watched it a few times. There is really very little battle, and when actually fighting it's pertty much the heaviest who wins. They all got the design down so they look the same: low, unexposed wheels, and a shovel in front to get underneath the enemy. The flame thrower is nothing more than a silly show-off feature.

They really need to change the rules somehow to make the fights more interesting. Racing though silly course with "dangerous spikes" that can't even penetrate a millimetre of aluminium is just silly.

I can't remember seeing any of the robots actually damaged on that show.

Now, to be fair, I did see another, similar, but much better robot show. I can't remember its name but it too suffered from being too... umm... "nice" to the robots.

Re:RoboWars are boring

[timeOday]

Maybe the slashdot crowd can propose some rules to make it interesting again?

I don't see how the designs could not converge. F1 racers all look the same. Tanks all look the same. Forklikfts all look the same. Given a fixed set of requirements, is that inevitable?

Re:RoboWars are boring

[Gubbe]

Flat arena -> no ground clearance + fat armor + small wheels + high-speed erratic driving + hasty maneuvering.

Fill the arena with small obstacles, uneven surfaces and high/low ground. -> Big wheels, more ground clearance, importance of good suspension and handling characteristics, more weight spend on power systems, thus less dead weight in armor.

This makes even most current weapons such as circular saws and spikes more effective since there are more exposed wheels and less armor. This also brings a whole bunch of new tactics in play.

They could even make it a sand arena with small hills. This could actually give a fighting chance to walking robots and other unconventional designs.

Re:RoboWars are boring

[Illserve]

Eliminating armor is the easier way to do it. What you are proposing raises the bar of design to such a level that you'd see designers spending the bulk of their time and money on the drivetrain and suspension which is not what we are paying to see.

We want simple driving with lots of traction, giving us the potential for lots of damage and kinetic energy, not dune buggies crashing into each other.

And walking bots? You're dreaming. There's a million reasons the military doesn't use them.

More competitor shots to browse

[Cyclotron_Boy]

For those who didn't RTFA, here's the link to a rather large directory of all the competitors. May the /.-ing begin...
Directory listing, free for perusal

GOOD LINK REVISED

[Steward5732]

http://www-2.expo2005.or.jp/en/robot/robot_project _01.html

An Alternative

[BigDogCH]

For those of you who don't live close enough, and want something in the midwest, I recommend http://www.tcmechwars.com/ in Minneapolis MN.

I have competed in it twice, and had a blast. It is cheap and fun! Also, their rules are setup to make it very flexible and entertaining for the crowd.

Come on Slashdotters, build your own and compete! It is fun, even if your robot doesn't do very well.

RobotWars: UK vs. US version

[Gogogoch]

There are two RobotWars series - the original UK version, and the US version. There is a remarkable difference between the two, and says something about the cultural differences of these robot-loving countries.

The UK one is, well, British. It's all tongue-in-cheek with occasional whacky, funny, designs as well as serious competitive ones. Often the inventor's kids get to drive. When someone's machine gets ripped to shreds and they have their "exit interview" the vanquished say things like: "We had a great time; you know, they have very nice lunches here". The audience is full of cheering school kids and their families.

On the other hand the US version is like WWF. Everything is dead serious. Testosterone levels are high, since winning is everything. The interviewers and hosts try to pump-up the thrill power of the event (whereas the UK host is a comedian).

So the UK version doesn't take itself very seriously, whereas the US show is dipped in testoserone and macho, as I said. Now, I'm biased and prefer the UK version - for me its more fun (and I can't stand WWF anyway - but what do those Slashdoters who have seen both think?

An if this has a parallel with the actual cultrues of the countries, what does this mean?

Re:Not very useful.

[BigSlowTarget]

Unfortunately the rules do forbid oxygen as a fuel/combustion accelerator and generally restrict the fuel for flamethrowers to butane. If it can torch the protective lexan box its banned. Explosives are specifically forbidden. So are nukes.

The judges know this and take the issue into account while scoring. General audience analysis concludes the best chance for a flamethrower to make progress is twofold:
1) Increase the level of general heat in the robot. Many matches are lost because of component failure due to heating during operation (those motors and speed controllers get HOT). Adding a bit more heat might be just enough to push them over the top. This works best against robots with exposed drive elements.

2) Fry sensitive electronic components. Wires do sometimes run outside the armor. Antennas almost always do. If the opposing designer has been casual about his wire runs or left an opening he can lose a receiver or partial function

Both these work best if you can get through the armor first or if the other design has questionable elements

RobOLYMPICS lawsuit

[BigSlowTarget]

Used to be called this. At that point Arnold Schwartzenegger (sp?) was going to attend, then someone in the office talked to the US Olympics committee. They immediately sued over using Olympics in the title. Net result - renamed the games (even last years) and no Arnold.

Interesting how they can sue over a trademark that has been around for 2500+ years.

Re:TV Coverage!

[ThyPiGuy]

I thought I saw something very similiar to this on TechTV a couple of years ago. It had all the same stuff, obstacle course, fighting, rope climbing, swimming, etc, but I thought it was in the UK. Maybe they moved it here. Maybe it will be on TV at some point again.

Re:Real weapons

[Tackhead]

> What laws are there to stop people from creating robots that have REAL damage potential, and then fighting them? Why can't we have an "anything goes" competition. Thats what people really want to see. They want to see robots with guns, explosives, acid, rockets, etc. Why don't we have that yet? I guarantee it'd get a helluva lot better ratings than Battle Bots. And if safety is an issue, host it remotely in an arena with no spectators and let everybody view through monitors.

Unfortunately, there are plenty such laws. Sometimes the planets come together, and the fire department cooperates with the landowner, the permits get signed, and the audience gets to show up and sign waivers before being admitted.

Three words for ya:

Survival Research Laboratories.

There was almost a show in Vegas a couple of years ago, but it fell apart at the last minute. (Pity - Vegas is the perfect venue for it; easy air travel in, lots of nearby desert). There may be a show in San Francisco next month.

SRL can best be summarized by saying that when they did a show in the Balkans a few years ago, the local military showed up... because they thought the war had started up again.

Re:RobotWars: UK vs. US version

[FryGuy1013]

The US version of Robot Wars was actually hosted by TNT I believe. Comedy Central hosted BattleBots. Notice that after these shows got too serious, they got cancelled, yet the UK Robot Wars continues to run. I think they just finished filming season 9 earlier this year.