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MegaBots Raises $2.4M To Create League Of Human-Piloted, Giant Fighting Robots (techcrunch.com)
Remember MegaBots? The Kickstarter success story that was raising money last year to pilot fighting robot named Mk II. Labeling it as a contest for world supremacy, the co-founders challenged a Japanese team Suidobashi Industries to a duel with its Kuratas bot. (Which it accepted very gracefully). The idea was to utilize this octane-packed event to sell merchandise products. Here's an update: it worked. TechCrunch reports: Oakland, Calif. startup MegaBots Inc. has raised $2.4 million in seed funding to bring the robot-fighting stuff of manga and anime to a venue near you. According to MegaBots cofounders, Gui Cavalcanti, Matt Oehrlein, and Brinkley Warren, the startup aspires to follow in the footsteps of major sports associations like Formula 1 or UFC. With the seed funding, Warren said, MegaBots will be partnering with a law firm called Latham Watkins to help set up and roll out its league internationally, taking an approach similar to the Olympics. Specifically, MegaBots will be working with Latham Watkins Partner Christopher D. Brearton, who represents the International Olympic Committee, and has helped organized leagues and governing bodies in sports including the NBA, MLB, NFL and others.
I saw this movie already...
It was called Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots the movie...
Oh wait, sorry... It was Real Steel...
Long before that movie was RobotJox. Achilles!!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Link three, the last link in the article, is the one that contains actual information.
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Here's a video of the thing in action. Kind of a cool hack, but I can't imagine full-scale combat with these things being anything but dull.
The Japanese version seems more agile, but......
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The game that taught me how the sound of banging two spoons together, slowed way down, sounds like one robot punching another in the face.
it can be in the usa we just need more H1B's so we can get the people that we need!
But don't forget the SyFi channel's Robot Combat League
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No, this seems like a good place to remind people that "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam."
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This ends with one robot fist smashed completely through the cockpit of a rival and raspberry jam leaking everywhere.
There's only one man who would dare give me the raspberry.
Lone Starr!
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Microsoft owns the video game license to BattleTech, and Topps owns the tabletop side of the franchise.
Neither is anywhere near as likely to sue as Harmony Fucking Gold (may they be tentacle-fucked in Hell).
The core goal of 'Mechs is to pack a lot of firepower into an easily transportable package that requires a single pilot and can traverse ground like infantry.
Tanks are good - on Earth. When you suddenly have to force project across multiple planets, sometimes with hostile LZs from deorbital burns, and occasionally into completely unknown environments, 'Mechs suddenly have a lot of useful qualities as an overall warfighting system.
Once the technology matures to tie them into a pilot's nervous system for balance and direct neural control - and we are NOT that far off, really - they'll be highly effective as shock weapons and expeditionary warfighting platforms.