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Syfy Reality Show Will Feature Giant Boxing Robots
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like the next generation of 'Battle Bots' is here: 'Syfy has greenlit and shot the first season of a new show where eight-foot-tall state-of-the-art humanoid robots will rock 'em and sock 'em in a boxing cage until one is defeated. The future-shock new series is called Robot Combat League and the project has been kept under wraps until today. The action resembles a real-life version of last year's hit movie Real Steel, with large menacing robots pounding away at each other in a satisfying shower of sparks and gushing hydraulic fluid.' Pictures are included with the story."
Syfy? What's that? Sisyphus? Syphilis? Almost sounds like it could be referring to science fiction, like that old Sci-fi channel, but it's spelled much more like that newer wrestling, horror and infomercial channel.
Oh - that's it, isn't it? It's that horrible cable channel that metastasized from the ruin of a science fiction channel. Well, nice to know they're still busy poisoning the very concept of imagination and entertainment in the name of ambiguous shareholder value.
Heh. More like they'll turn it into a reality show where there's 38 minutes of annoying hosts, watching the teams struggle with the design and construction of their bots, yelling at each other, making the token girl on the team cry, trash-talking about their opponents, and fighting at the last minute with control system problems, followed by about three minutes of actual robots in the ring, one minute of actual robot-on-robot attack.
Oh, and nineteen minutes of commercials.
So, in other words, that motorcycle-building show with some intentional, rather than all accidental, occasional mechanical carnage.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I've been involved with robot fighting for over 15 years.
You're incorrect. Autonomous robots aren't as fun to watch as human controlled ones for at least 2 reasons:
1. The current state of the art just isn't good enough.
2. It's hard to root for a soulless lump of metal, whereas you can vicariously experience the competition through the human competitors.
Also, every robot fighting competition I've ever competed in has allowed autonomous competitors, as long as they have fail-safe remote control. So you're welcome to build your own autonomous fighting robot.
Your design to a real part online: Big Blue Saw