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Robot SmackDowns Wants To Bring Robot Death Matches To an Arena Near You
Business Insider profiles Andrew Stroup, Gui Cavalcanti and Matt Oehrlein, who are trying to get off the ground a robot competition league, called Robot SmackDowns. The idea, as you might guess from the name, is to showcase violence and drama to draw on the crowd-appeal of wrestling, NASCAR, and monster truck rallies: this is definitely not Dean Kamen's FIRST — it's giant mechanical beasts shooting at and otherwise trying to destroy each other. And it's not quite right to call them robots in the usual sense; they're more like mecha: "In a MegaBots battle, a two-member team sits inside the bot's upper torso, where the controls systems are housed. Although the co-founders assure me that the pilot and gunner are well protected inside, the situation presents a heightened suspense. Each 15,000-pound robot is equipped with six-inch cannons inside its arms that fire paint-filled missiles and cannon balls at 120 miles per hour. Good aim can cause enough damage to jam its opponent's weapons system or shoot off a limb." They'll be launching a Kickstarter campaign soon; according to the article, "Assuming it raises enough money to build a fleet, [the company's] plan is to take the bots on the road. They will tour the country, face off in epic battles against other MegaBots, and build a fan base. Stroup says (without giving specifics) networks have reached out and will closely watch how MegaBot, Inc.'s upcoming Kickstarter campaign performs. The possibilities for distribution seem endless, though the team is tight-lipped about the exact direction it's headed."
everyone wants a fighting robot league...it's like jetpacks, hover boards, and other stuff featured in sci fi depictions of "the future"
fighting robots are awesome...this is not in dispute...
here are the 3 most salient factors as to when we will have a fighting robots league:
1. technology...especially materials science...we've gotten to the point conceptually that we can model any form of robot, but it's making the materials stand the stress, and batteries to power it...those are our limitations now
2. $$$...fighting robots are expensive...a league needs money
3. competition > PR...they have to be the opposite of MLS or WWE...this has to be done right and not over marketed or over simplified (how it can go wrong: something like the random narrator voice in Mythbusters)
this is your formula for a robot fighting league
Thank you Dave Raggett
I'm torn between "We spared no expense" and "God help us, we're in the hands of engineers".
Are these the first steps toward the wars of the future?
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In what sense can an armed and armored mechanical vehicle operated by a human pilot and human gunner be termed a "robot"?
Such things were new in France a century ago.
Why stop there? Can we just put everything in a virtual environment where there's no physical limits, no expenses and the robots could duke it out without damaging anything in real life?
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seems like a ripoff of Robot Combat League that was on Sci-fi -1-2 years back
The Robot Combat League was fairly interesting given the limitations of the machinery that they are using.
The technology of Robot Smack Downs would have to surpass that of the Robot Combat League by a pretty large margin before it became half decent, and I don't see that happening any time soon.
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No need to throw your sabots into the whole process.
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Slapping some armour and an axe onto an RC car doesn't make it a robot; it is just an RC car with anger management issues. For a real robot battle the robots should be fully autonomous; they enter the ring, are activated, and have at each other. I suspect that the first generation would mostly just go straight into a corner and hack at the wall. But with enough prise money AI routines would start to creep in and then it could get interesting. I would love to see them adapt to damage, or take advantage of their opponent's damage.
The only sad part would be if this is where genuine AI was born.
What's the fun in that?
This is how you know the current site demographic is just too young.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
It looks interesting, but why in the world are they piloted mechs? Remote control them with a simulated cockpit so you don't have to make a bunch of convoluted rules so no one is injured. If things take off and the tech improves you can also ramp things up from a simple paintball game type setup to bots that can actually inflict damage.
Back when BattleBots was the thing, I considered building one... but you hit on all the major problems, which were only slightly less intractable back then.
To have any chance of making it past preliminary trials, the robot would have to be somewhat successful. That ruled out most of my creative designs. Even making a boring spinner still would have cost a hefty portion of my paycheck, and the required workspace wouldn't have fit comfortably in my apartment. Transporting the thing would have presented more logistics challenges, and even if I'd solved those, the time and hassle to build something just to be torn apart was a pretty steep expense.
Fighting robots is not an everyman's sport. It's a more modern fox hunt.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Yeah, tanks a lot.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Robot death matches won't really be interesting until they become self-aware, and they realize we're having them kill each other for our amusement.
You are welcome on my lawn.
BattleTech is so awesome, there's actually a core canon novel that addresses that concern about the Solaris arenas. It's called "assumption of risk".
Short version: if you know something can kill you, and you do it anyway because you want to, if you die, it's your fault.
It was very entertaining, and fun to see people come up with brilliant (and not so brilliant) solutions.
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That's a terrible name. What are they, fourteen?
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
Or, Battletech.
--- Pork is not a verb.
Anybody else remember this game? Sounds alot like it.
Somebody watched Robot Jox too many times.
Battlebots was boring after the first season. This sounds more like Robot Jox or real-life Mechwarrior with restricted weaponry. Remember that movie? Yeah... guess I'm old now. Screw it, giant robots with humans in them shooting and beating the s**t out of each other sounds pretty cool to me! What the hell are you going to power it with though?
No need to throw your sabots into the whole process.
Indeed. But sabot rounds would be acceptable.
... Robot Wars (as in the British television series back in the late 90s), except with people inside? I thought that was a pretty good show, but then, I was a teenager at the time, so of course I would think that.
War has become too destructive of lives, yet we can't seem to stop. Let's go back to those naval dreadnaughts of WWI and WWII; let them have great battles offshore, where people could watch, only remote/robotically controlled.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Recall the battlebots episode of Malcolm in the Middle when Walter White got way too into it and came up with the ultimate weapon; a bee cannon. Not aimed at the other robot, but at the human controller.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Right.
What's the fun?
Why isn't everybody doing virtual boxing? I mean, mate, WTF? Why would I be hitting a virtual heavy bag 30 minute a day?
I want the REAL thing, and if I could I would like to be in one the these getting real bruises, getting really exhausted, smelling the smell of metal (I loved the scent of grease on metal)....
FUCK!!! I can't wait !!!! I want this shit right now!!
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