. . from our friends at Robot Fight Club:
Speed Controllers: $180 each
Motors: $280 each
Keg: $200 + beer
Labor: Hundreds of hours
Riding a flaming beer keg down the halls of a major university……
Holy Moly. Wendy Maxham of Team Plumb Crazy got some sweet footage of the arena breach at The Combots Cup at Maker Faire this past weekend.
No one was hurt, and the hey-ooge hole in the wall was a vertical compression fracture, not caused by a direct impact. The wall that was breached was on the judge’s and contestant’s side, facing the pits, so the audience was robbed of the opportunity to have the bejeezus scared out of them.
The arena was fixed in record time (luckily this was the last match of the day) and is brought to a psychotically paranoid state of safety by our crack team of materials specialists, welders, arena engineers, and brute force technicians.
We get a great wholesale price on bulletproof polycarbonate, so we’ll be back atcha with crystal clear windows for Robogames.
Poor Suicidebot, we hardly knew ye.
The kooky kids from Robot Fight Club sent their auxiliary bot, Suicidebot, into battle for an exhibition match against CM Robotics’ Texas Heat, a cute little flamethrower wedge.
Here are Suicidebot’s charred remains after we peeled it off the floor of the arena:
Suicidebot lived up to its name and had the back end of its keg can armor handed to it on a flaming platter.
Robot Fight Club’s other robot, Beer Bash, made a great showing against the Mortician, but not without taking a wee bit of damage itself. Here’s a nice little family portrait:
Let us give our best to Suicidebot and Beer Bash, for fighting valiantly and losing with grace and pyrotechnics.
So it seems that during the last fight of the day, Brutality versus Last Rites, Brutality got a little enthusiastic.
Both robots are horizontal spinners with a ton of torque behind them, and during one golden moment, Brutality caught Last Rites juuuust right. Last Rites sheared Brutality’s 55-pound tool steel blade, flung it into the side of the arena, and blew a nice hole in the polycarb.
Bugger.
Our crack team of Arena Repair Gnomes is hard at work right now repairing the damage and double-paning the judge’s wall.
We’re going to be spending a leetle more on polycarbonate than strictly necessary, but the arena will be way over-engineered for RoboGames, you betcha.
Here’s a picture of Paul and Ray, showing off their handiwork:
We are very proud and amazed that they built such machines, and we’re looking forward to pacing the technology with the arena. We salute Team Brutality and Hardcore Robotics on their fine, fine craftsmanship.
Jerks.
Fight updates as they happen at Missy SB’s Twitter Stream! Keep up in case you can’t be here, and get the inside scoop if you can!
We are here at Makerfaire, ready to roll. Our crack announcer Scott The Voice is entertaining the crowd with information. Gad this kid knows his stuff. We found him via his blog, where he chronicled in loving detail every single match of the first Combots Cup. He’s up here from San Diego and we’ve never seen a bigger fan.
Missy SB would like to state that Tecate is the perfect libation for robot combat. Thank you David Cutler.
We are starting right now
UPDATE - First heavyweight bout was GREAT! LNW (Leave No Witnesses) versus Last Rites, LAst Rites wins after LNW taps out. We love the smell of shaved metal in the morning.
More later! Fight updates in the twitter window to your right!
Excellent interesting event At the Alameda County Computer Reseource Center! (ACCRC)
From Le Boing:
ReMake: Bay Area electronics recycling event starts tomorrow!
This weekend, MAKE: and the Alameda County Computer Resource Center (ACCRC) in Berkeley, California are holding a 24 hour event for makers to build stuff from the tons of fantastic gear collected by the electronics recycler. BYOT! (Bring your own tools!) Here are the details:ACCRC in Berkeley, CA and Make have been collecting household electronics–including old projects, failed inventions, half finished prototypes. All of these items will be diverted to ReMake, a 24-hour event beginning at noon on Saturday, April 28.
Come find parts for your new projects and work with others to create something new from salvaged electronics. ACCRC will provide internet, sleeping quarters, food, and plenty of toys to aid makers to encourage us to recycle and ReMake. Bring your tools and anything else needed to create. You can also bring anything you ReMake to the upcoming Maker Faire, May 19-20 at the San Mateo Fairgrounds, where we will showcase how a little innovation can make the old, new again.
Where: Alameda County Computer Resource Center (ACCRC), 1501 East Shore Highway, Berkeley, CA 94710
When: Noon, April 28, 2007 - Noon, April 29, 2007
Head over there early to look for your robot parts, because friends, there’s still time to RESGISTER for The Combots Cup!
$10,000 (yes, that’s $10,000 Smackers!) disbursed to the lucky first, second and third place winners!
Combots Cup and RoboGames are going to be occupying the entire Fiesta Hall at Maker Faire this May 19-20th at the San Mateo Fairgrounds.
Pop by and say hi, and enter what you built into RoboGames!
BotsIQ (formerly BattleBotsIQ), just wrapped up in Miami, FL. I had the pleasure of being a judge, and hanging out with some really great kids. They were all inspiring, and I’d forgotten how much I enjoy robot competitions. Everyone was super nice to each other, sportsmanship was the winner of every match, and I saw some amazing robots - the machining skills, electrical skill, and just ideas were all really cool.
I wish I had BotsIQ when I was in high school (21 years ago now, boy am I old.) I probably wouldn’t have ended up fencing stolen computers…
High School 120 pound Combat
1st - Richardson High (Richardson, TX) “Blender”
2nd - Bergen County Academies (Hackensack, NJ) “E2V2”
3rd - Lincoln-Sudbury Regional (Sudbury, MA) “Pneumagic”
College 120 pound Combat
1st - Missouri State U (Springsfield, MO) “Bear Down”
2nd - Carnegie Mellon U (Pittsburg, PA) “The Revenant”
3rd - Univ of Puerto Rico (Mayaquez, PR) “Alakran”
Mixed 15 pound Combat
1st - Bloomsburg Area HS (Bloomsburg, PA) “Maximum Impact”
2nd - Dunwoody College (Minneapolis, MN) “Rugburn Reloaded”
3rd - Team Booyah (Buffalo, MN) “Humdinger”
Table Top Challenge
1st - Carrollton School (Miami, FL) “Venus Fly Trap” (all girls team!)
2nd - Christopher Columbus School (Miami, FL) “Excelsior”
3rd - Christopher Columbus School (Miami, FL) “Devastator”
Best Engineering (by Judges)
Table Top - Christopher Columbus School (Miami, FL) “Devastator”
HS 120 lb Combat - Richardson High (Richardson, TX) “Blender”
College 120 lb Combat - Missouri State (Springsfield, MO) “Bear Down”
15 lb Combat - Bloomsburg Area HS (Bloomsburg, PA) “Xyrus”
Coolest Robot (peer voted)
Table Top - Carrollton School (Miami, FL) “Thriller” (all girls team!)
HS 120 lb Combat - Lincoln-Sudbury (Sudbury, MA) “Roflcopter”
College 120 lb Combat - Univ of Miami (Miami, FL) “Hurricane Katrina”
15 lb Combat - Bloomsburg Area HS (Bloomsburg, PA) “Xyrus”
Outstanding Sportsmanship (peer voted)
Table Top - Christopher Columbus School (Miami, FL) “Excelsior”
HS 120 lb Combat - Pine View HS (Osprey, FL) “Copperhead 2”
College 120 lb Combat - Univ of Puerto Rico (Mayaquez, PR) “Alakran”
15 pound Combat - Plum High School (Plum, PA) “Shockwave”
Does your hi-tech business want to get noticed?
Do you like robots, and want to be seen by tens of thousands of people?
Do you want to help support a sport which is hi-tech, educational, and makes football look slow?
Well then friends, do *we* ever have an offer for *you*!
Step right up and sign up to get a an exclusive space on the RoboGames Midway!
All new this year, we offer YOUR company a chance to tease, entice, excite and unite the over 3,000 people a day that come through the RoboGames Pavilion on the water in beautiful San Francisco!
Your company will have a ten by ten foot space among such noted luminaries as PLEN, Wired Magazine, MAKE Magazine, The Japanese External Trade Organization, and many others!
Spaces are filling up fast, midways space and other sponsorships are flexible and come with a ton of awesome perks like free tickets to RoboGames, VIP receptions, and seeing the pits up close and personal!
Send email to simone@robotics-society.org to get things rolling with Our Lovely Sponsorship Coordinator. She is the operator standing by for all your RoboGames Midway needs!
As a follow-up to the Photo Of The Day yesterday, the ever-prescient Magnus over at Shifz Blog mentions a situation that looks wholly sensible on the surface but goes completely WTF when one thinks about it:
Suicidebots blog made me aware of a Richard Vaughan’s initiative “No Evil Robots” - which basically sounds like a good thing, as the point seems to be to stand up against military-funded development of autonomous killer-appliances … But somehow, I think the slogan “Prevent evil robots from taking over the world:
Just say no to robot weapons and violent robot competitions.” goes a little bit too far.
Susan Reno, Fierce Engineer, has just sent in this dispatch from Mumbai’s Techfest!
Through the machinations of Mr. Robotics and the kind organizers of Techfest, she and a group of folks from all over the world (well, San Francisco, Seattle and Australia) met in Mumbai to fight 30 and 60 pound robots.
Yes! Yes, people do still do that, even if it’s not on TV any more! For a complete listing of competitions and upcoming events, see The Robot Fighting League website.
Last night was awesome. We started setting everything up at about 5:45 for our 6:30ish show. They put us on a stage for our pit and built a ramp down to the 16×16′ arena.
They had fireworks, flame throwers and confetti cannons set up all around the outside of the arena as well as the stage. BeerBot [Susan and her teamates have built a 60lb robot our of an old beer keg] fought twice. Both times with Joe’s 60 lbers.
Now before i tell you what happened in the ring I will need to preface it with what Joe told me yesterday morning. Remember when Speed Bump [one of Joe's other robots] backed off of Enoch [another of Susan's robots] and we tapped out [at Robogames 2006]? Well. . .Speed Bump was dead. He had no movement. He wasn’t giving us a chance to survive. He was bluffing. Joe looked over at us in hopes that we would tap out.
This made my blood boil a bit, but I kept my composure and took my revenge knowing full well we are a good 10 lbs overweight.
I creamed him.
The matches went way longer than 3 minutes and there was no timer. . . BB has a lot of battery power so I decided to use most of it up on showing him who boss. I’m not vengeful at all.
Because I spent most of my power in the first match, I lost the second just ’cause I ran out of batts.
BB’s first fight needed to be a crowd pleaser anyway. We got off to a really slow start. The first 2 robots hit like twice, then played dead. Not a good sign. I thought the crowd was bored.
Andrew, the guy from austrailia won hands down. He has two POWERFUL pneumatic 30lbers. They are awesome. I hope he can come to Robogames sometime.
So, the last fight was a grudge match with 3 30 lbers. . . Andrew just killed everything then did a victory dance, it was great (during all the fights the
pyrotechnics, fire and confetti are all randomly scaring us with their loud booms).The crowd seemed pleased, but i didnt theink they were that into it until the fights were over and everyone rushed the stage! I was signing autographs, answering questions and taking pictures with people (see also: MOB SCENE). . .
We were totally rockstars.
We were escorted out ’cause people kept stopping us.
It was insane. The crowd was NOT bored.
We had dinner at the on campus resturant and then to sleep.
‘Twas a busy day.
Thanks for writing in Susan, we expect some pix and vids soonish, stay tuned. . .
Techfest’s tenth annual festival of technology and robotics kicks off tomorrow in Mumbai (tonight if you are there, and not here in the US).
Mumbai Newsline has a small article on what participants can expect:
The festival in its tenth edition is based on the ideology of bringing the latest in science and technology from around the globe,” said Techfest coordinator and second year IITB civil engineering student Siddhartha Gondal.
The festival which was formally inaugurated on Thursday at IITB saw a brief preview of “Future Living: Vision 2020”, jointly commissioned by the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the British Council. This six part TV series will be aired on Discovery Channel in March 2007.
Keeping its theme in mind, the biggest draw of the festival this year is “Technoholix” or “Techfest at Dark”. “The events of each day will culminate into Technoholix where the latest technology is coupled with entertainment. The basic idea is to show that even technology can be fun,” said Technoholix manager and third year IITB civil engineering student Rajat Sharma.
Our own Mr. Robotics gets a mention as well:
It kick starts with “Robowars” being staged for the first time in India by the Robotic Fighting League, US, which conducts the International Robo Olympics. Robots weighing 30-60 pounds will literally tear each other apart, in a specially built steel cage, to be controlled by remotes.
Super groovy in person, my friends.
Mister Robotics being the gallivanty sort that he is, he’s been working like a mofo in the shop to get ready for Techfest, “Asia’s Largest Technology Festival” for which he departs at Stupid O’Clock tomorrow morning.
I was in the shop a few days ago fussing with his projects, and I had my crappy little camera phone with me.
Here is a tiny photo blog, Violet Blue style*, of the stuff Mr. Robotics is working on. If you are in Mumbai and have a hankering to see 60-lb robots smack into each other at high speed, drop him a line!
*No I am not naked. Sorry.
Here’s “Barry Frutti,” from Berlin-based Frank Barnes. (Unfortunately his site Robocross is one of those unlinkable Flash hairballs so you just got to go there and poke around. Try the “Gallery” section.)
Equally awesome, “you are new Destroyer!” at Destroyed Robot
from Japan (hence the predominately Japanese website, unless of course “�¡‰ñ‚à‚¾‚¢‚Ô” means something in robot code.) That’s “GEEGAA” pictured above. Poke around in the “Battle” section for more gnarly pictures. The Rotor’s Japanese is a little weak, but he thinks this is the work of Kanami Nozu-san.
Wouldn’t it be cool to see robocross, Destroyed Robot, and SRL battle it out for world domination!
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