Robot SmackDowns Wants To Bring Robot Death Matches To an Arena Near You 82
Business Insider profiles Andrew Stroup, Gui Cavalcanti and Matt Oehrlein, who are trying to get off the ground a robot competition league, called Robot SmackDowns. The idea, as you might guess from the name, is to showcase violence and drama to draw on the crowd-appeal of wrestling, NASCAR, and monster truck rallies: this is definitely not Dean Kamen's FIRST — it's giant mechanical beasts shooting at and otherwise trying to destroy each other. And it's not quite right to call them robots in the usual sense; they're more like mecha: "In a MegaBots battle, a two-member team sits inside the bot's upper torso, where the controls systems are housed. Although the co-founders assure me that the pilot and gunner are well protected inside, the situation presents a heightened suspense. Each 15,000-pound robot is equipped with six-inch cannons inside its arms that fire paint-filled missiles and cannon balls at 120 miles per hour. Good aim can cause enough damage to jam its opponent's weapons system or shoot off a limb." They'll be launching a Kickstarter campaign soon; according to the article, "Assuming it raises enough money to build a fleet, [the company's] plan is to take the bots on the road. They will tour the country, face off in epic battles against other MegaBots, and build a fan base. Stroup says (without giving specifics) networks have reached out and will closely watch how MegaBot, Inc.'s upcoming Kickstarter campaign performs. The possibilities for distribution seem endless, though the team is tight-lipped about the exact direction it's headed."
tech, money, competition first (Score:3, Interesting)
everyone wants a fighting robot league...it's like jetpacks, hover boards, and other stuff featured in sci fi depictions of "the future"
fighting robots are awesome...this is not in dispute...
here are the 3 most salient factors as to when we will have a fighting robots league:
1. technology...especially materials science...we've gotten to the point conceptually that we can model any form of robot, but it's making the materials stand the stress, and batteries to power it...those are our limitations now
2. $$$...fighting robots are expensive...a league needs money
3. competition > PR...they have to be the opposite of MLS or WWE...this has to be done right and not over marketed or over simplified (how it can go wrong: something like the random narrator voice in Mythbusters)
this is your formula for a robot fighting league
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Which quote to use? (Score:4, Funny)
I'm torn between "We spared no expense" and "God help us, we're in the hands of engineers".
Are these the first steps toward the wars of the future [imdb.com]?
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Why stop there? Can we just put everything in a virtual environment where there's no physical limits, no expenses and the robots could duke it out without damaging anything in real life?
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What's the fun in that?
Re: Battletech IRL (Score:2)
BattleTech is so awesome, there's actually a core canon novel that addresses that concern about the Solaris arenas. It's called "assumption of risk".
Short version: if you know something can kill you, and you do it anyway because you want to, if you die, it's your fault.
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Right.
What's the fun?
Why isn't everybody doing virtual boxing? I mean, mate, WTF? Why would I be hitting a virtual heavy bag 30 minute a day?
I want the REAL thing, and if I could I would like to be in one the these getting real bruises, getting really exhausted, smelling the smell of metal (I loved the scent of grease on metal)....
FUCK!!! I can't wait !!!! I want this shit right now!!
Robot??? I don't need no steeenking robots! (Score:1)
In what sense can an armed and armored mechanical vehicle operated by a human pilot and human gunner be termed a "robot"?
Such things were new in France a century ago.
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No need to throw your sabots into the whole process.
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Yeah, tanks a lot.
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No need to throw your sabots into the whole process.
Indeed. But sabot rounds would be acceptable.
Ripoff (Score:2)
seems like a ripoff of Robot Combat League that was on Sci-fi -1-2 years back
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1-2 years? This was going on for a while. I remember watching Battle Bots on Comedy Central (Vlad The Impaler FTW) back around 2004. There was on on the Discovery Channel around the same time as well (Robotica, I think?), each with all types of merchandising behind it. Hell, Robot Wars was started in the early-mid 90's
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Back when BattleBots was the thing, I considered building one... but you hit on all the major problems, which were only slightly less intractable back then.
To have any chance of making it past preliminary trials, the robot would have to be somewhat successful. That ruled out most of my creative designs. Even making a boring spinner still would have cost a hefty portion of my paycheck, and the required workspace wouldn't have fit comfortably in my apartment. Transporting the thing would have presented more l
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The best I have seen so far was on Sci Fi channel (Score:2)
The Robot Combat League [syfy.com] was fairly interesting given the limitations of the machinery that they are using.
The technology of Robot Smack Downs would have to surpass that of the Robot Combat League by a pretty large margin before it became half decent, and I don't see that happening any time soon.
Remote controlled cars aren't robots (Score:5, Interesting)
The only sad part would be if this is where genuine AI was born.
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You and those that modded you up didn't even read the summary did you?
No battlebots tag (Score:4, Informative)
This is how you know the current site demographic is just too young.
No battlebots tag (Score:1)
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I remember arguing with people here on Slashdot long ago that BattleTech never had an animated series.
I bet those people still hold that belief. Yet they'll never know the Jade Falcon.
Piloted? (Score:3, Interesting)
It looks interesting, but why in the world are they piloted mechs? Remote control them with a simulated cockpit so you don't have to make a bunch of convoluted rules so no one is injured. If things take off and the tech improves you can also ramp things up from a simple paintball game type setup to bots that can actually inflict damage.
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Just play Unreal Tournament.
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It looks interesting, but why in the world are they piloted mechs? Remote control them with a simulated cockpit so you don't have to make a bunch of convoluted rules so no one is injured. If things take off and the tech improves you can also ramp things up from a simple paintball game type setup to bots that can actually inflict damage.
Because the mechs will likely be more valuable than the pilots. What better way to get them to be gentle than to stick them in the damned mech itself.
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The closest thing to what you're describing was a 2013 SciFi series called http://www.syfy.com/robotcombatleague [syfy.com].
They were hydraulically powered humanoid robots that beat on each other until either one of them stopped functioning or it went to the judges' decision.
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The closest thing to what you're describing was a 2013 SciFi series called http://www.syfy.com/robotcombatleague [syfy.com].
They were hydraulically powered humanoid robots that beat on each other until either one of them stopped functioning or it went to the judges' decision.
I just watched some highlights and man, is that lame. The robots have legs, and the legs move like they're walking, but the robots are actually just stuck on the end of big metal poles that move them around the ring.
I understand that technology isn't to the point where a bipedal robot can balance itself while executing complex movements, let alone while something else is trying to knock it down. But what they have there is stupid enough that they just shouldn't have bothered.
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Hopefully this setup won't be as cheesy as Robot Combat League, while I didn't watch the show from the clips I've seen it was like a big version of "Rockem Sockem Robots, with fake sparks & some manufactured damage instead of a spring loaded head. While it sounds like this competition will have its own simulated damage hopefully it will be a lot more realistic and more quantifiable than the random whaling that seemed to be RCL.
Not until they're sentient. (Score:3, Funny)
Robot death matches won't really be interesting until they become self-aware, and they realize we're having them kill each other for our amusement.
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Robot death matches won't really be interesting until they become self-aware, and they realize we're having them kill each other for our amusement.
If by interesting you mean a self-aware state that results in them realizing we humans are much more entertaining of a target, well...yeah, have fun.
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If you're referring to the "Chinese curse" "may you live in interesting times" you might want to look up its etymology. Apparently here has never been a similar widely used saying in Chinese history, our wide usage of it in the US appears to date back to Robert Kennedy using it in a speech. No one seems to be quite sure where he got it from.
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I would MUCH rather see a new Junkyard Wars (Score:4, Interesting)
It was very entertaining, and fun to see people come up with brilliant (and not so brilliant) solutions.
Smackdowns? (Score:3)
That's a terrible name. What are they, fourteen?
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That's a terrible name. What are they, fourteen?
Seems like they are just stealing it from Friday Night Smackdown, a WWE show.
I hope they have deep pockets, because I don't think WWE will let Smackdown be used without a fight.
One Must Fall: 2097 (Score:1)
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Played this game a LOT when I was a teenager. Hopefully someone doesn't actually brain dump themselves into a bot!
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Robot Jox, from the 1980s. (Score:2)
Somebody watched Robot Jox [youtube.com] too many times.
Robot Jox? (Score:2)
Battlebots was boring after the first season. This sounds more like Robot Jox or real-life Mechwarrior with restricted weaponry. Remember that movie? Yeah... guess I'm old now. Screw it, giant robots with humans in them shooting and beating the s**t out of each other sounds pretty cool to me! What the hell are you going to power it with though?
So it's just like ... (Score:1)
... Robot Wars (as in the British television series back in the late 90s), except with people inside? I thought that was a pretty good show, but then, I was a teenager at the time, so of course I would think that.
this could replace war (Score:1)