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.]

. . 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!