A giant thank you to all our staff volunteers competitors and everybody else who made this all happen!

The results for this year’s RoboGames are up at The Official RoboGames Website, thanks for playing, we’ll see you next year!

Those clever Aussies. Really now.

A Man Built a Robot To Kill Him. And Succeeded.

An 81-year-old man from Burleigh Heads, Australia, downloaded plans to build a killer robot from the Internet, built the complex machine, and then used it to kill himself in his driveway.

Big Dog, Blah blah Boston Dynamics Etc etc Little Dog, DARPA d3ThB0t, etc etc, BTDT.

But none of that makes up for how freakin’ eerie this thing is.

So there has been a humongous amount of foofaraw and kerfuffle bout the possibility of Battlebots coming back to TV.

We here at SB are enthused by this idea, we love robot combat in any form and have close ties with Trey Roski and Greg Munson, the guys who brought it to TV in the first place, and with a little luck, are bringing it back. Battlebots made it possible to make robot combat attractive to entities that can support it. May that day come again! (Please? Please.)

Some trustworthy media outlets are shouting this from the hilltops like it s a done deal, but according to the Horse’s Mouth, nothing is quite a done deal yet, but they are shooting for a college competition sometime in the next year, maybe as early as June, maybe November.

In the meantime, RoboGames is a done deal and will be filling San Francisco this June 13-15th with hundreds of robots. So polish that bot and sign up for RoboGames.

Apropos of Whurley’s account of his near-death robot experience, imagine what they coulda done with another robot and a giant bulletproof robot arena?

Here’s two other superheavyweights, Ziggy (the white one) and The Judge (both of whom you might recognize from some TV show or other:

Keep in mind that though they look small on the screen, these guys are each 340 pounds of solid robot muscle. They regularly tuna-can the arena bumpers (those I-beams inside the arena) with very little effort. They also take three or four people to load in and out, and they are sharp and pointy.

Here are two more ‘bots that I know for a fact are never, ever, ever tested or demo’ed anywhere where there is even a remote chance a human might get in the way, and these guys are “only” 220-pound Heavyweights. Please take note of the squeals of childish delight as the mechanisms steadily beat the shit out of each other:

This is Brutality Vs. Megabyte. Megabyte has been a robot combat knucklehead since small times, and is truly the major reason we had to buy and entirely new arena. Brutality is notable in that Little Paulie Ventimiglia, age 19 at the time, beat the living heck out of previously undefeated world Battlebots champ Biohazard.
On his first ever robot combat outing. With his first ever combat robot. I love evolution.

Here’s another video that shows you don’t have top have a Spinning Thing Of Death to kick serious ass:

That was Sewer Snake Vs. Original Sin, both of whom tightly conform to Judge Dave’s Rule, “Learn To Fucking Drive”. That match was at MakerFaire 2007 (which coincidentally is coming up soonish!)

Here’s another video that shows exactly what kind of physical forces we’re the dealing with here. There’s a reason we have an arena with a roof:

Once again, these robots are as large and heavy as Steel Reign, the robot which figured in the BarCamp Austin Anomaly. Look at how big the robot is compared to the humans. We’re not talking tinkertoys here, boys and girls.

The best part about this whole debacle, is that it is proven that it’s WAY better live.

So get your tickets to RoboGames and bring your freakin’ earplugs already.

Whurley alerts us to teensy weensy, tiny, itty bitty almost nonexistent leetle accident that happened in the parking lot of BarCamp Austin featuring Team XD, former robot combat contenders.

Click below for the video.

It appears that during a demo in the parking lot, Steel Reign got a little bit big for his britches, plowed through the crowd and managed to take out the A/C unit on the neighboring building.

Good Times.

FiGHT!

[Thanks SeanBonner!]

HoooBoy.

9 South African Soliders were killed in an exercise which involved an autonomous Oerlikon GDF-005 anti-aircraft machine. The machine went haywire, spraying the soldiers with bullets after it appeared to become jammed during the exercise.

Sources say it was a software error.

(The video above is from a few years back but is making the rounds with this story. Info Here.)

Helen? Are you Sure?

[via Wired]

So those who have been playing along at home may or may not know that MissySB has unavoidable fixations on many things [Ya damn skippy she does -Mr. Robotics and The Rotor].

One of these things is the inestimable, the extravagant, the culturally-enriching 31-ton behemoth RoboSaurus, star of air shows and monster truck rallies everywhere.

Well boys and girls, the Day Of Reckoning has come:
RoboSaurus is on the auction block.

ZOMGROBOPONIES!!!!!11!1!!1!!one!!

From the consigners:

“This is without a doubt the largest, nastiest, most intimidating piece of machinery that we’ve ever consigned at Barrett-Jackson,” said Steve Davis, President of the Barrett-Jackson Auction Company. “Robosaurus is the first Life Magazine cover ‘star’ that Barrett-Jackson has ever featured – awesome!”

The auction is scheduled for Jan 2008. Feel free to bloodily wrestle Missy SB for the right to sit right in front of the auctioneer.

[via Robots.net]

This is where we keep The Rotor when we’re not using him.

Wednesday night, DorkbotSF held a fab benefit for Todd Blair, a stunningly amazing artist and teacher who was in a horrible forklift accident at Robodock in Amsterdam.

We had an auction, a silent auction, and presentations by interesting misfits. We drank beer, we ate delicious experimental treats by Mark Powell and we all we absolutely soggy with adoration, family and Pier 33 fish odor by the end of the evening. The die-hards who stayed to the end called Amsterdam to send some of the love to Alex and Todd. There were tears, laughter and jumbo DIY igniter boards. We raised a pile of cash for taking care of Todd and Alex and a good time was had by all on this bittersweet occasion.

Karen Marcelo has uploaded some pictures of the event to the interwebs. Here’s her follow-up note:

hi all

thank you to kyle minor for hosting us at his great space! thank you to eric paulos for MCing and our speakers:

ken goldberg
eric paulos
johannes grenzfurthner/monochrom
steve lassovzsky
joe grand

and especially to mark pauline a great close to the evening with lots of stories of the show at robodock and todd’s contributions to SRL.

also thanks to all our donors with special appreciation to david pescovitz and our friends at boingboing for their very generous donation which is SOLD at auction! and all of you that donated your skills, time, items.

thanks to our auctioneers mike dingle and jon sarriugarte and the rest of the auction team: alan and ellen anzalone, ralf burgert, rafflers sabrina merlo and jill miller.

thanks also to marc powell for catering, hopefully he’ll post his menu - it was awesome! including his tech gourmet crew among them geo wanking guru rich gibson!

thanks to pete macomber and wendi flybutter for bartending and all the SRL crew who came toghether to help make this happen. special thanks to nina alter and david calkins.

thanks to our door queens: lori dorn and simone davalos

and thanks and congrats to tcho amazing chocolate factory by the bay for winning the grand prize auction of the night, the boingboing ad! we appreciate your generosity!

and to all of you for coming out and supporting todd! the fundraiser exceeded my expectations and this does indeed put a nice dent in the expenses todd and alex face but this is a long haul, as you all know, coma / head injury recovery is a process that takes years so stay tuned for the other events coming up. hopefully you’ll have fun while supporting todd blair who has done so much for SRL, dorkbot, CCA, and kinetic art communities.

It was one of those great night where everybody showed up 100% and restored everybody else’s faith in humanity, or at least the humanity that exist among the gear head robot kinetic art people of San Francisco.

SRL went to RoboDock, and came back with some really fabulous pictures of things being torn apart in robotic glee:

It was of course, louder than loud, completely chaotic, possibly life-threatening and wildly inappropriate for children of all ages. We really wish we had been there.

Reminder friends and neighbors, Todd Blair is still in a coma in Amsterdam after his unfortunate and terrible accident. Please kick in and contribute to his cause if you can.

We all knew it had to happen. Wil Wheaton, formerly of Star Trek: The Next Generation, has been doing something other than blogging for the past few years:

Los Angeles, CA – Actor and Internet personality, Wil Wheaton, has been indicted by federal prosecutors on charges of promoting and hosting a robot fighting ring.

Prosecutors allege Wheaton kicked and electrocuted robots that weren’t performing well, as many as fifteen robots. “He just blew their circuits,” said US Attorney Bob Schrumpkin.

That BASTard. We’d certainly never approve of anything as crass as Robot Fighting.

So while Mr. Robotics The Head Rotor and SB undo the wreckage and find out where things are in the post-RoboGames wasteland, here’s the superheavyweight gold medal match between The Judge and Ziggy for your edification:

Thanks to Zannel, a RoboGames Sponsor, for having this available before we could find it anywhere else!

San Francisco’s Dolores Park is usually pretty safe. Unless, of course, you get caught in a Robot Rumble! (Fortunately for us puny humans, they seem more interested in bashing each other.)

More rockin robot rumble results here.

Rumors hint that even more cybernetic cardboard carnage may be unavoidable at RoboGames. You Have Been Warned.

Faithful reader and robotteer Gary Gin sends along this treasure:

Let the avalanche begin, creative types. . .

[THANK YOU Xeni Jardin, for posting about this, thank you Diesel Sweeties Guy, for making it go. DAMMIT.]