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."

Comments

tech, money, competition first

[globaljustin]

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

Which quote to use?

[ArcadeMan]

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?

Ripoff

[Soron]

seems like a ripoff of Robot Combat League that was on Sci-fi -1-2 years back

Re:Ripoff

[captjc]

1-2 years? This was going on for a while. I remember watching Battle Bots on Comedy Central (Vlad The Impaler FTW) back around 2004. There was on on the Discovery Channel around the same time as well (Robotica, I think?), each with all types of merchandising behind it. Hell, Robot Wars was started in the early-mid 90's

Remote controlled cars aren't robots

[EmperorOfCanada]

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.

No battlebots tag

[Khyber]

This is how you know the current site demographic is just too young.

Piloted?

[Dereck1701]

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.

Not until they're sentient.

[PopeRatzo]

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.

Re:Not until they're sentient.

[Dereck1701]

If you're referring to the "Chinese curse" "may you live in interesting times" you might want to look up its etymology. Apparently here has never been a similar widely used saying in Chinese history, our wide usage of it in the US appears to date back to Robert Kennedy using it in a speech. No one seems to be quite sure where he got it from.

I would MUCH rather see a new Junkyard Wars

[toygeek]

It was very entertaining, and fun to see people come up with brilliant (and not so brilliant) solutions.

Smackdowns?

[qeveren]

That's a terrible name. What are they, fourteen?