The BBC Announces Robot Wars' Return To TV (bbc.co.uk)
Blacklaw writes: The BBC has announced that Robot Wars, the classic metal-mashing amateur robotics competition, is returning for a new series. They are building an all-new battle arena — following the sale of the original for scrap in 2005. "The new series includes a raft of technological advances since the show first aired over a decade ago, and viewers can expect to see more innovative fighting machines as teams of amateur roboteers battle it out to win the coveted Robot Wars title."
The only Robot Wars I want to see is between gigantic bipedal robots piloted by cute blue-haired girls.
Didn't it get tedious towards the end with all the robots being a sort of wedge with a flipper?
What I'd like to see is more autonomous bots, rather than what are effectively RC tanks.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Hopefully, they bring the house robots back, as they provided a lot of character to the show
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
Uh, Robot Wars first aired in the UK in 1998, two years before Battlebots first aired in the US.
Robot Wars also has the non-broadcast event history behind it dating back to 1994.
Now we just need Junkyard wars to return and I can relive my youth!
I'd like to see them include quadcopter vs quadcopter battles.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Nah the Brits love to rip off 'merica.
Cricket is a cheap ripoff of Baseball.
Dr. Who is a cheap ripoff of Star Trek
They even double down by making a Red Dwarf a cheap ripoff of Voyager.
The Office is a cheap ripoff of The Office
And British football vs Football.
Facts just get in the way of a closed world view.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Dont forget House of Cards.
Letting drones compete would be a nice twist. I'm not sure how one could fairly handle letting drones compete with non-drones, though - seems like an either-or situation. Unless... hmm...
Other: Uneven floors and obstacles would be good, and could be varied, even with their own weather - a boulder-strewn badlands, a rainy forest, a post-apocalyptic hellscape, an icy barrens in a blizzard, etc. Maybe get rid of some of their old constraints, such as no fire-based or fluid weapons (although their arena would need be able to be able to handle it). Fire would not just be aesthetically pleasing but open up brand new optimization constraints on defensive techniques, and fluids like adhesives, solvents/corrosives or lubricants could also lead to rather interesting battles. Ranged weapons would be nice, within limits of course. Maybe simply replace the prohibition on ranged weapons to "no weapons that make use of an explosive charge" so that you don't just get a bunch of people mounting handguns to RC cars... maybe also set a maximum projectile velocity and/or kinetic energy too. Hmm, you know, if you allowed some degree of ranged weapons and had a realistic ceiling height, you might be able to fairly compete drones with non-drones. Otherwise you can still use weapons on a tether, but that's a lot harder.
He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
Don't get me started on that faker Shakespeare - he made his name rewriting Hollywood scripts
They could make the fillers a lot less junkey though. It's a show about engineering and destruction, not human interest stories where they praise a retarded design because it was built by a pink haired girl or whatever.
Get some of the bot builders to talk about what they built.
Get some people (possible even two people, I hear there's a pair that might have recently been made available after a certain network canceled a certain show) to test some of the design elements in a controlled environment (e.g. "can this spinning hammer with hardened steel spike used by robot X punch through the half inch low carbon 1040 steel robot Y is armored with?" or "how long will this torch need to be applied to this chassy design before it heats up enough to damage components?").
Do some sponsored material from soildworks/mouser/autocad/mcmaster/etc. talking about cool stuff their products are used for besides designing robots.
Get some of the builders to show off other skills tangential to the robot (I notice that ability to drive it well seems almost as important as design).
Hell, I bet a 3d printing agency could make out like a bandit if they bought commercial time to be a series of tutorials on how to prep a 3d model for 3d printing and made partially started models of all the bots available on their website.