BattleBots Delayed, Will Go Brains Over Babes

An anonymous reader writes "We got all excited earlier this week about robo-combat returning to TV with ESPN, but now PopMech super geek Erik Sofge talks to the folks at BattleBots and finds out that because of so many early entries, the competition will be delayed until at least November. The reason? Gone are the babes and predictable wedge fights, in are eager engineering students, a crazy ramp arena and lots of new rules. Worth the wait, or do we miss the Comedy Central version?"

Comments

CC Version Cool Despite Producers Worst Efforts

[hardburn]

First off, what did Comedy Central have to do with fighting robots? ESPN I sort of get (they call Poker a "sport", so I guess battlebots can be one, too), but why Comedy Central.

More to the point, I miss Battle Bots being televised, but I don't miss Comedy Central. The announcers were annoying, Carmen Electra was pointless, and they spent too much airtime dithering about nothing. The worst of it was that the camera angles and microphone pickup made the bots look like toys. Many of these machines took a team of guys to lift them out of the travel van and get them into the arena. Every year, they thickened the lexan around the arena, and every year, something managed to pierce it. These are nasty machines, but they never looked more powerful than an unmodded nerf gun.

Re:Robots?

[chroma]

Why is it that someone always feels the need to say this on EVERY SINGLE BattleBots related thread?

Re:I hope...

[meringuoid]

Blendo, from what I've heard, was very similar in concept to a UK robot called Hypnodisc. Big flywheel, all about the angular momentum. Hugely destructive - tears most robots to shreds.

Trouble was, the robots that rivalled Hypnodisc for the title were always well built and well armoured. So Hypnodisc would utterly destroy the no-hopers, and then when it met the likes of Cassius or Chaos or Razer or Panic Attack it found itself rather worse off. A flywheel weapon relies upon the one-hit kill; it's expensive in energy, so we often saw Hypnodisc running low on power after a few jolts, and left vulnerable. Worse yet, hit something that doesn't yield and you hurt yourself maybe more than the target...

Comedy Central Version

[dunezone]

The Comedy Central version was just pathetic. At first it started off talking about the robots, but slowly turned into a joke. I blame both the contestants and Comedy Central. I blame Comedy Central for taking the show and taking away the nerdy aspects and instead focusing on marketing the show to more people and they did a pretty bad job at that with my next reason.

I blame the contestants for not letting their robots get smashed to bits. Most battles ended with the winner giving pity to the other contestant. Only a few battles featured the other robot getting destroyed. I wanted to see the robots fight to the death. Its like the money shot of the show. They first discuss the robot and how it works, all the aspects behind building it, etc. Then they go at it. I know alot of hardwork go into building these but seriously, when you put your machine in a arena full of dangerous obstacles and a competing robot, do you expect it to come out peacefully.

The majority of battles ended with a robot malfunctioning on the first blow and then if it didn't work after 30-60 seconds they ended the round.

I disagree.

[jd]

The Micromouse tournaments have had systems that can navigate unfamiliar and changeable environments for something like 30+ years. Robot Table-Tennis has been going on for well over 15 years now and competitors can aim at (and hit) very dynamic targets. Robot Soccer is progressing to the point where multiple machines can target an individual object in an environment of moving targets. Open Source code available from NASA simplifies the development of mission-oriented robot devices. Open Source code available from various other groups simplifies the development of autonomous vehicles.

Given where student robotics already is, and given the software availability, what more can you possibly need for a perfectly viable autonomous robot league for Battlebots?

Wish List for Robot Combat Show

[pyro_peter_911]

• Bonus mass allowance for autonomous robots. Remote control is neat and all that, but real robots have senors and logic (and flamethrowers)
• Bonus mass allowance for legged robots. Additionally, there should be terrain features that favor legged bots over wheeled bots. Steps and potholes come to mind. Potholes with flamethrowers.
• Large bonus mass allowance for bipedal legged robots. Hey, if you can make a bot walk and smash things then you're doing alright. If it walks and carries a flamethrower it is just about ideal.
• A venue where flame and projectile weapons are safe (and encouraged). The ultimate bots from the previous incarnation of the series tended towards those that stored up huge amounts of angular momentum. Without the ability to counter this huge offensive potential with countermeasures such as nets or chains or flails these bots were almost unstoppable. I'm not sure how a flamethrower would help here, but flamethrowers make for great TV.

Finally, using the aforementioned flamethrowers, get rid of the WWE style announcers.

Peter