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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?"
Pah. The first (and last) time I watched one of these "battle bots" programmes, I was left thinking "where are the robots". All I saw was (somewhat dangerous) remote controlled toys.
When your battle bot can battle even somewhat autonomously, then I'll watch.
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... it's the bots that turn me on, so I'm not sure I understand what the loss would be.
(seriously though, I think focusing on the main content instead of "babes" will give the show much better longevity -- while Kari Byron can be pretty in MythBusters, that's not the main reason to why I watch that show)
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I remember being SO excited for the BB premiere and being totally disappointed at how lame it felt to actually watch it. It was all WWE-style hyperactive and the announcers were just annoying as hell and wouldn't shut up with their inane drivel. I remember one bot had a cheesy head thing mounted on it and they went NUTS when it got knocked off, even though it was just a superficial piece and in no way connected to function of the actual robot.
Sounds like they're taking the right approach this time!
As much of their crew are former competitors in the BattleBots league. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadblow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blendo Grant's bot was Deadblow - it ranked #2 in the middleweight division and had quite the badass hammer (I remember it putting holes in a number of competitors). Jamie and Adam's robot was Blendo, and my favorite quote from the wikipedia page: "Blades attached to the shell caused grievous damage to its opponents, removing bodywork and in some instances causing them to be thrown over the Lexan safety shields into the audience. After two fights it was deemed too hazardous to compete by the event supervisors and the insurance company. It was given co-champion status in exchange for withdrawing from the competition."
Wow, I've never seen a dll linked from that position before! :o
which is totally what she said
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.
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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...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
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, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
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?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
- 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
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