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Possibly of interest to those of you who are Americans and have access to Comedy Central. The latest season of Battlebots is starting this Tuesday at ten pm. I've heard that the first fight will be Warhead (Team Razer) vs. Phrizbee (Team Logicom). The fight is a spinner-spinner matchup, so it promises to be fairly spectacular.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, Battlebots is like Robot Wars, except with a different arena, different rules, and idiotic presenters. I have no idea why they thought hiring Carmen Electra was a good idea.

I went to see Battlebots once when they were out at Treasure Island here in the Bay Area. It was an interesting experience. I went on the one of the days before filming. So it was the quarter finals, that meant no lights, no special effects. We lucked out the announcer guy came in on his own time and called the matches.

These are the important lessons I saw during that day.

1) FINISH YOUR BOT: You would not believe how many robots were unfinished. Quite a few didnt even make it off the starting block.

2) LEARN TO DRIVE: A well driven robot will defeat a poorly driven robot even if the poorly driven robot is superior in design.

3) BRING SOMETING TO EAT: There were no facilities for food, they didnt seem to care if you brought your own snacks. I didnt. They did have a BBQ at lunch, but it was terrible.

4) SPINING ATTACK WEAPONS: They are fragile and tend to break.

5) KISS: Keep it Simple Stupid. There might be nothing exciting about a simple robot design, but they won a lot of matches especially if you follow tip #2.

6) DONT GIVE UP: The crowd loves it when you fight to the end, even if its hopeless. They will cheer you and respect you for it.


Will Wright, the creater of Sim City and the Sims, was there. He sat in front of me for a few minutes. I thought that was cool. I didnt bug him.

I always thought it funny when the guy with the pointy stick for a weapon beat the guy with all the spining blades and sharp edged arms.

Thats because all the spinning blades tend to fail. They are easy to damage. The most brutal one I saw was a giant hammer. It smashed everything it hit.

Battlebots is far superior to Robot Wars for two reasons. The first is that they have the more advanced machines because Robot Wars was in stasis for several years and wasn't recruiting competitors. The second is that the matches aren't decided by whoever is driving those ridiculous house robots and decides that they should get a piece of the action.

I used to like battlebots, but I tired of it.

The main problem is the rules - the contraints on weight, weapons, etc. are far to limiting.

Ideally, the weight limit should be at least 500 pounds, and allowable weapons should include things like flamethrowers, low-power explosives, and low-caliber firearms. A lot more action, damage and mangling of robot guts would go on if that were the case.

I'd love to have a big bad mother fucker of a robot about 12 foot long, containing a few "fighters" which were based off of a commercially available R/C car chassis, and launched down a ramp from inside the big "mothership". They would be small and fast, with maybe something like an air rifle or .22 aboard, fixed in the forward-facing position while the "mothership" would have something like a 12-gauge on a pan/tilt mounting, with a limited ROF but heavier damage capability.

Maybe the fighters could be used to harass a difficult opponent and keep its attention until the slower mothership got close and hammered it.

It would be especially good if the mothership and the fighters each had a video camera, with each of my team members controlling their particular fighter via the video feed.

OK so I'm having a WET DREAM but who gives a fuck.

Weapons like that are much too dangerous for a competitive spectator event. I wouldn't want to sit at ringside with flamethrowers and explosives in use, and I don't think that thin sheet of Lexan will make me feel any better.

Graeme Dice wrote:Battlebots is far superior to Robot Wars for two reasons. The first is that they have the more advanced machines because Robot Wars was in stasis for several years and wasn't recruiting competitors.

Bah. I saw this "advanced" robot with big claw legs get stuck on a wall and was dead.

The second is that the matches aren't decided by whoever is driving those ridiculous house robots and decides that they should get a piece of the action.

1. You only get killed by a HR if you A. Go in the PPZ which shows bad driving B. Aren't moving C. Are stupid enough to attack one without the weapons to back it up

2. The HR aren't invincible. Razor litterly sliced poor poor Matilda into pieces. Shunt got a taste of his own medicine when someone started axing away at him. Killalot has caught on fire more then once.

I don't have cable so I've only seen a few battlebots but TPJ is right good driving is what allowed Minion to win the Super Heavy Wieght division even though his killer saw got killed the first match, that and he had great speed and wedges are l33ter than all.

Spinning weapons have been getting better lately. A number of teams have figured out how to make them last, and they have ridiculous damage potential.

Still, I prefer hammers. Was that hammer bot you saw called "The Judge"? That one's a favorite of mine. Shame about what happened to Killerhurtz last year, eh? The builder came back with a new machine, but he wasn't able to finish it on time. Too bad, it looked fearsome.

I wasn't actually in attendance, but I've heard event reports from people who were.

Was that hammer bot you saw called "The Judge"?

Yees. Yes, it was. Man, that thing was a giant brown box with a mallet.

I saw it do battle with a bot that was shaped like the top of R2-D2. Just a dome. On top of the dome it had a 36" circular saw. When the "Judge" hit the saw a big pie shaped pieces broke off. The second hit caved in the front half of the dome. The third and final hit smashed it even more. It was the fastest victory of the day. Under 10 seconds.

Funny bit of history about the Judge: When it made its debut, it's hammer was tipped with a sharp spike. The event staff made them replace it with a blunt head after it made dime-sized holes in the quarter-inch-thick steel arena floor. One fight later they made them change it back. The blunt hammer didn't punch holes in the floor; it pounded in massive dents. Those little holes were comparatively minor damage.


Nice to hear it's still doing well.

Oh, and you shouldn't talk about tv-round matches before they air. Spoilers, and all that.

I understand objections presented on the topic of arming robots with 'real,' non-wussy weapons. It would make it an unnecessarily dangerous spectator sport. But why not find some large tract of unused desert/swamp, etc... that is absolutely useless and stage it there? Viewpoints would be from RC aerial vehicles and cameras on the robots themselves. In fact, cameras would be needed for targetting purposes since the controllers would be kilometres away.

Then, we could start building the kind of robots I want to see on the show. Like a self-propelled 14.5mm anti-tank rifle (the kind of which is actually legal here in Canada) or a shotgun turret with a co-axial 30_06 with maybe a Ruger 10/22 with a 25-rnd mag for suppressive fire. That would kick ass compared to the crappy robots currently on T.V.

Armour design would be key in those robots as would good optics and situational awareness. No more clumsy robots spinning on a flat surface, flailing helpless as a pathetic hammer slowly chips off pieces of armour. Noooo, we will see tracer fire streak towards the enemy robot, puncturing it, the smoke and sparks signalling yet another kill.

Nobody has the resources to build that. You'd only get a couple competitors, who would finish their first fight in the opening shots to mutual destruction from across the arena.

The weapons currently in use are not wimpy. Ziggo's wok stores over ten thousand joules of KE, and that's just a lightweight. Quite a few fights have ended in shreddings. Increasing destructive potentials won't accomplish much more than making the sport more expensive, reducing the number of competitors and the diversity of designs.

I, personally, prefer the up-close and personal battles produced by banning ranged weapons.

Nobody has the resources to build that. You'd only get a couple competitors, who would finish their first fight in the opening shots to mutual destruction from across the arena.

Not only would the matches be prohibitively expensive and short, but the safety issues in the pit areas remain. First time someone accidently discharges a firearm in the staging area and hurts or kills someone the show is over.

Oh, and you shouldn't talk about tv-round matches before they air. Spoilers, and all that.

Im not giving anything away, this event took place what I believe would be last season. And the day I went, nothing was shown on TV anyway.

Bah, I guess they'd have to close down all gun ranges since accidents happen from time to time as well. There wouldn't be a live audience at all, just competetors who had been briefed and well-practiced in fire discipline. It would be their own liability.

TrailerParkJawa wrote:

Nobody has the resources to build that. You'd only get a couple competitors, who would finish their first fight in the opening shots to mutual destruction from across the arena.

Not only would the matches be prohibitively expensive and short, but the safety issues in the pit areas remain. First time someone accidently discharges a firearm in the staging area and hurts or kills someone the show is over.

I forgot about that. Safety is already a major headache. If this took place outdoors, you'd also have to keep a perimeter guard to make sure nobody sneaks in and gets themselves killed.

Oh, and you shouldn't talk about tv-round matches before they air. Spoilers, and all that.

Im not giving anything away, this event took place what I believe would be last season. And the day I went, nothing was shown on TV anyway.

My mistake. I thought you were talking about the current-season Judge, which is seeded into the tv rounds.

Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:Bah. I saw this "advanced" robot with big claw legs get stuck on a wall and was dead.

Mechadon is advanced in that his construction is advanced, he's not advanced in destructive power.

1. You only get killed by a HR if you A. Go in the PPZ which shows bad driving B. Aren't moving C. Are stupid enough to attack one without the weapons to back it up

The only purpose they serve is to mangle up machines that already need lots of repairs.

2. The HR aren't invincible. Razor litterly sliced poor poor Matilda into pieces. Shunt got a taste of his own medicine when someone started axing away at him. Killalot has caught on fire more then once.

I prefer the lightweight and middleweight divisions, and there the house robots are an unnecessary nuisance.

You must admit that was pretty cool.

As for the episode...damn, I couldn't believe Ziggo got taken out in its first fight of the season! That bot was obviously designed to take down Ziggo, and it did a wonderful job at it. Like Mechavore chewing up Vlad and spitting him out two seasons ago. I wonder how many people are gonna be gunning for Toro this time.
Warhead's got some serious stability problems. The commentators said it had a 55lb spinning head. That weight needs to be cut down to at least 30lbs to try to damp the thing's obviously self-destructive personality. One good hit by another bot and it'll start flinging itself all over the Box like Mauler. The tail looks fragile and the arms look like nice, juicy targets.
Gotta love all the Pomp and Circumstance of the goth team, and then them getting hamstrung by driving a weak-bellied bot over the killsaws.

Ideally, the weight limit should be at least 500 pounds, and allowable weapons should include things like flamethrowers, low-power explosives, and low-caliber firearms. A lot more action, damage and mangling of robot guts would go on if that were the case.

These people already spend tens of thousands of dollars on their machines. Do you think they'd be happy about sending a well-crafted, well-designed, well-driven bot against some hack job with a cheap flamethrower or some black powder bombs? The "No explosive, flame, electrical, chemical, or liquid" rules are there for a reason.

And bots like Nightmare and Son of Whyachi provide plenty of mangling; a hell of a lot more than a .22 would do.

Bah. I saw this "advanced" robot with big claw legs get stuck on a wall and was dead.

That would probably be Mechadon. Mechadon, and most of Mark Ketrakian (sp?)'s robots are not designed to win, they're designed to impress.

1. You only get killed by a HR if you A. Go in the PPZ which shows bad driving B. Aren't moving C. Are stupid enough to attack one without the weapons to back it up

2. The HR aren't invincible. Razor litterly sliced poor poor Matilda into pieces. Shunt got a taste of his own medicine when someone started axing away at him. Killalot has caught on fire more then once.

The House Robots are universally pathetic. Over-machined, over-complicated, overweight, underpowered, poorly designed. Ooh, one's got a puny flamethrower! Look, another one has something that shoots out sparks!
A few saws in the floor and some 70-pound hammers in the corners are vastly more effective and a great deal less lame. And less ugly.

Actually, having multiple robots, or Polybots, is perfectly legal. As soon as 50% or more of the bots are debilitated and out of the fight, the bot is ruled to have lost.

There was this one robot that was utterly hilarious. The builder attached a motor to a Yo-Yo, and released about 10-20 of the things, and they were just rolling around doing JS while the motherbot was getting the crap kicked out of it.

I only saw the first episode of Robot Wars. Much too dark and dreary, and Mick Foley was really lame as an announcer.