Welcome Robot Fighting League member Guerra De Robots, a confederation between IEEE, IEEE Mexico, and UPIITA
Their motto is “Luchando por nuestra identidad tecnológica”, or “Fighting for our technical identity.
We expect great things of them in the coming months, mostly involving solving highly refined technical problems in order to bash the living hell out of the other robot in the arena. ¡Que tenga buena suerte, todos!
Yes, it’s
COMBOTS CUP V
October 23-24th, 2010 at the beautiful San Mateo Expo Center in beautiful San Mateo, Ca. Tickets are on sale now at Combots.net!
COMBOTS CUP V is so stupendous I am contractually obligated to spell it in all caps.
COMBOTS CUP V is robot combat at its best, with competition from the tiniest 1-pound ant weights to 220lb heavyweights (which are on the biggish side).
Thank You Mad Overlord for the hi-def videos from RoboGames 2010, whoo.
See the thrill of victory, and the smoke and flames of defeat! See small children getting into hard core mechanical engineering and software programming! See who wins some of our $3500 prize purse, and who goes home in a bucket.
Those of you familiar with combat robotics know it's way better live, with crashing, bashing, flaming and those interesting smells that usually spell catastrophe. All safety measures will be taken so you can see robots launch themselves at each other in a brilliant display of engineering and sportsmanship.
Tickets are available now at Combots.net, but why not compete? Build a robot for any one of our five weight classes, then register here!.
Not competing in October? Come get a taste of things to come, then go home and build your machine for THE INTERNATIONAL ROBOGAMES, coming April 17-19th, 2011
Spread it far and wide, like hydraulic fluid gushing from an injured heavyweight! Bring your friends! Bring your enemies! Enjoy delightful beer and snacks on a genteel afternoon filled with WANTON DESTRUCTION and delightful precision mechanics, with some of the nicest people you’d ever want to tear apart your lovingly crafted machine.
Seriously, it’s fun. You should go. And bring your robot.
Ray Billings’ Last Rites vs VD6
If ever there was a ComBot that made you say “OH $#!%- RUUUUNNNN!!!!” it was most likely built by Ray Billings, of HardCore Robotics. Ray is an ex-prison guard, and became interested in combat robotics after the fact, when he was working at an adult college, and a colleague introduced him to the sport. He was hooked, and so this week, our BotLight is on Ray Billings. Interview below!
If you’ve ever been to a ComBots event, odds are that you’ve run into Wendy and Matt Maxham. Together they form Team PlumbCrazy — the plumbiest, craziest, yellow shirtediest couple of robot fanatics at the competition (They’re the nicest, too. Believe it- they let me use their drill once!). A big thank you to Wendy, who donated her time to appease this starving intern (did I mention I’m a starving intern?), by giving her thoughts and revelations on robotic combat, and what it takes to make a winner.
Greetings, humanoids, robots, and humanoid robots. My name is G[REDACTED]io… I… I mean Intern. They call me Intern. At least I think they do. They starve me. The hunger does silly things to your memory. Anywho, I’m here to provide you with awesome interviews and coverage for RoboGames 2010 and beyond, starting with a BotLight On Marco Antonio Meggiolaro of RioBotz.
<– AKA that guy.
Marco has well over a decade of hands-on robotics experience, and has been involved in ComBots since 2003. He graciously offered his time and insight on ComBots, teamwork, and how to avoid pummeling random passersby with 120lb steel cylinders from 100 yards away! See our exclusive interview with the founder of the RioBotz robotics team below!
(more…)
RoboGames 2010 is coming up quickish, and with it we will be featuring in this space some recaps, explanations, and OMGWTFSPARKLEPONIES!!!1!1! moments for your edutainment. First up: Mech Warfare!
Here’s a video, courtesy those prolific bastards over at Botjunkie:
Ah Mech Warfare, developed in part by the kindly loons at our very favorite Trossen Robotics, it consists of several little robots going head-to-head with several other little robots, all on their cute and merry way to totally obliterating each other with airsoft guns. Good Times!
You can find a whole world of options and excitement for mechwarfare and a bunches of other stuff at the Trossen Robotics Community. As for parts, you can pick em up here! And here! And here and here!
To register your masterpiece for RoboGames 2010, go here! Questions and abuse, please direct to knickers at suicidebots.com. Thanks for playing!
Hang on to your grinders, your hydraulic lifting arms, your CO2 fire extinguishers and sand buckets, and brace yourselves for the most fun you can have with esoteric hardware and fatty snacks! That’s right, bitches, it’s COMBOTS CUP TIME!
Join the best fighting robots in the country doing what they do best – thrashing, crashing, smashing and obliterating each other inside our specially built bulletproof robot arena. Yeah, this is what they used to have on TV, but it’s way better live – the sights, the sounds, the smells, the NOISE. Mm, noise.
Image courtesy Quinn Norton for Robot Magazine
See everything from 1 pound antweights to 340 pound super behemoths duke it out in the ring, the loser carried out in pieces! $5000 prize purse for the best of the heavyweight division robot gladiators!
See Sewer Snake go up against Original Sin in a match that is sure to be Biblical! See Last Rites offer twisted metal condolences to its unfortunate weaker opponents! Cheer as the 120,000 lb bulletproof robot fighting arena shakes with the most twisted forces physics can manufacture!
We’re proud to be in our new location this year at the delightfully centrally located San Mateo County Expo Center! Lots of parking, easy access to Caltrain and tons of space to spread out and cheer on your favorite robot team!
Fun for the whole family, a massive circus of science and engineering complete with popocorn and cotton candy! Collect trading cards of your favorite robots, browse our robot midway and see all your favorites up close and personal. Hobnob with teams, find out how you can get involved and enjoy a grand day out at the 2009 Combots Cup!
BUY YOUR TICKETS FOR THE BEST EVENT YOU WILL EVER GO TO, EVER, (except for Robogames) RIGHT HERE!
More from the irrefutable Magnus Würzer:
This is Mr. Robotics’ progress on his Mechwarrior, which so far he has spent exactly a day and a half on, using parts we had lying around at home, deep down, as a procrastination tool. He will still kick ass and/or take names.
Magnus Würzer of RoboExotica and Shifz fame has taken this video in my very own kitchen. It is of our Intern’s marshammlow roasting robot, a fine tetrix-based contraption that results in burned sugar par excellance:
See more awesome like this at this year’s RoboGames, oh boy that’s a lot of robots.
So, for a little background: Stephen Nelson is one of our favorite people that most of the six of you who check this site regularly have never heard of. He builds things like power tool racers and, more importantly, robots.
His stable include Evelyn, a Modified Dawg (watch out, 16mg video download); Eva, the beer retriever, and his latest and gnarliest creation, Ethel, (named for the Zappa song). As Mr. Nelson says, “The goal of building Ethel is a learning experience with software and vision system on a off road robot.” At least this was the goal when he started, she has since sprouted a flamethrower and a portable DJ rig, amongst other things. But I digress.
I will now turn over the tale of the latest adventures with Ethel to Mr. Nelson himself posting from his garage while nursing his road rash:
The advent of this robot clearly means Rosie the Robot is imminent, so people can stop asking, already.
From Bre Pettis and Adam Cechetti, here are the fruits of a long, punchy night at NYC Resistor:
Bre has established that Skynet will enable itself via tasty cheese-filled snacks:
This is one of those robots that I swear is alive. The noises it made were like an animal and it seemed that everytime we looked the other way, it was coming to life and changing things with the setup.
It shows that the revolution will come via Arduino and reprap controllers, and will be commented on by XKCD.
…Until someone loses an eye. Then it’s a game of “Find The Eye”. Mister Robotics has seen fit to start us up a nifty little RoboGames Flickr stream, and we humbly bring it to your attention by showing off pic of this weeks arena build in Austin, Texas, site of the Austin MakerFaire this weekend.
We have a whole gaggle of fighting robot goodness from all over the country in town for your discerning mayhemic pleasure, including our crack arena crew staff, represented above by our very own good ol’ boy Mutt Posey, Arena foreman and Lieutenant Awesome to Mister Robotic’s Captain Fabulous.
Robots, beer, and crowd pleasing antics will sure ensue in this weekend of Good Clean Fun.
Wish you were here, but here’s a wee small writeup we got in the Austin American-Statesman about the show this weekend.
. . .From the adorable Grant Imahara:
Yeah, do like Grant did and get yerself one-a them sexy stickers over in the sidebar there. Then you can say you were one of the cool kids way back when.
[Thanks Grant!]
I wrote a wee piece on io9. It’s an interview with Mythbuster Grant Imahara, an interesting lunch date and all around neat guy.
Check it out over there, then come over here for some upcoming awesomeness about Giant Killer Robots.
io9.com interview with Grant Imahara
Channel Nine’s priorities are straight, of course, in a data set where giant killer bipedal robots firing airsoft pellets are top priority. Which they are. So have a watch and get all slobbery over MechWars, and then build one and inhale the awesome.
This Week on C9: Dynamic Silverlight, VSTS, buying Caio, and Mech Wars
[Thanks Andrew!]
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