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400 Battle Bots Fight, Toss Enemies At RoboGames Competition

Posted by Soulskill on from the why-are-we-training-them-to-fight dept.

Andre writes "The 6th annual RoboGames were held in San Francisco last weekend. They welcomed a horde of 400 non-sentient, metallic warriors to do violent battle — against each other, of course. This army of remote-controlled and autonomous combat robots, along with walking humanoids, soccer 'bots, sumo 'bots and even androids that do kung-fu, was put to the test. Among the big winners was Canadian-made 'Ziggy' — one of the combatants in the 340-pound, super-heavyweight division (the biggest division) — who took home a gold medal for the fourth year in a row. The bionic brute proved its might against its final opponent, the 'Juggernaut,' by tossing it around like an empty pop can (and promptly making a mockery of its name) using a pneumatic flipper. Ziggy's newly-improved weapon results in unwanted (but totally cool) free-flying lessons for its opponents. At full power, the flipper can launch an opponent to the arena ceiling."

4 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. The arena ceiling!? by JCSoRocks · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That is *awesome*. How is this not on TV anymore? Anyone know if it's on the Internet someplace? (other than really awful shaky YouTube crap.)

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    You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
  2. First rule of Robot Fight club by gijoel · · Score: 4, Funny

    Is we don't talk about robot fight club. The Second rule is ...

    *pulls out a flash card*

    Oh, ah no smoking.

  3. im not fooled by sentientbeing · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah thats how it starts off "ohhh awwww look cute little robots arent they funny"

    Then later its with the running and the screaming and the shooting and buildings blowing up the time travel. Then its with the "Hello this is a final recorded message from john connor last of the humans"

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    beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
  4. Ignore the "battle bots". Check out the humanoids. by Animats · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The "battle bots" are mostly the usual stupid R/C "battery-motor-wheels" stuff. But some of the humanoid hobbyist robots on display are getting good. Dynamixel servos, which have useful feedback to the controller, are taking over. (They have a 1mb/sec polled serial link shared by all the servos. It's RS-485, which is 1970s technology, but that's progress over the usual one-way PWM interface.) The latest prototype Dynamixel servos can reach 500 degrees/sec, which means there's hope of making legged running work. Some of the humanoid robots have a 6DOF inertial unit, although balancing software is way below the Big Dog level and none of the humanoids had force-sensing feet.

    The better hobbyist humanoids are almost at the hardware level at which Asimo/Big Dog performance becomes possible. The more advanced robot hobbyists now understand about ZMP. We're getting there.

    For better coverage, see Robots-Dreams, which also covers the Japanese hobbyist robot scene.