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January 13, 2016 6:05 AM Subscribe
The BBC have announced it will be resurrecting cult favourite Robot Wars
Top 10 Robot Wars Battles according to Robot Wars Wiki 1 2
Philippa Forrester in Leather Trousers.
Spaced - TFU
Spaced - Robot Fight Club
Top 10 Robot Wars Battles according to Robot Wars Wiki 1 2
Philippa Forrester in Leather Trousers.
Spaced - TFU
Spaced - Robot Fight Club
Ah this was filmed down the road from me*, it was a really good show in person with both Philippa and Craig Charles being excellent hosts. I too echo the sentiment that the original presenters return; though I doubt it will film down the road, I believe it's now a housing estate.
The robots were all available to view etc in a large side room that also had lots of other cool demonstrations and things going on; including the largest number of Aibo I've ever seen gathered in one place playing with a ball. I desperately wanted one after playing with a bunch of them for a while but was far too young to have that kind of money available.
Fond memories of a particular great time in my life and a good bunch of mates.
* Seems my memories are mildly inaccurate, only season 4 was shot near me; though Elstree studios isn't more than a stones throw away. It clearly made a lasting impression, being able to walk to where it was made.
posted by diziet at 6:50 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
The robots were all available to view etc in a large side room that also had lots of other cool demonstrations and things going on; including the largest number of Aibo I've ever seen gathered in one place playing with a ball. I desperately wanted one after playing with a bunch of them for a while but was far too young to have that kind of money available.
Fond memories of a particular great time in my life and a good bunch of mates.
* Seems my memories are mildly inaccurate, only season 4 was shot near me; though Elstree studios isn't more than a stones throw away. It clearly made a lasting impression, being able to walk to where it was made.
posted by diziet at 6:50 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
I just hope they Jonathan Pearce doing commentary again, because he would be very hard to replace successfully
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:52 AM on January 13, 2016
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:52 AM on January 13, 2016
Who will be the first team to enter a robot called The Fuckest Uppest?
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:09 AM on January 13, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:09 AM on January 13, 2016 [4 favorites]
Question: didn't robot wars kind of work itself into a corner where three robot designs became dominant in a kind of rock-paper-scissors scenario, thus undermining the whole design and invention appeal of the hobby?
*edit*
I think the three main categories were spinners, flippers and wedges... would love some elaboration on this topic.
posted by Vindaloo at 7:11 AM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
*edit*
I think the three main categories were spinners, flippers and wedges... would love some elaboration on this topic.
posted by Vindaloo at 7:11 AM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
I reckon this version will include drone vs drone wars too. Would be missing a trick if it didn't.
posted by Brian Lux at 7:17 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Brian Lux at 7:17 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
I would like the following please:
1) Flame throwing drones
2) A hyperventilating Craig Charles
3) A Muslim winner
4) A Daily Mail meltdown over the BBC funding weaponised drone design in a family friendly time slot.
posted by vbfg at 7:20 AM on January 13, 2016 [5 favorites]
1) Flame throwing drones
2) A hyperventilating Craig Charles
3) A Muslim winner
4) A Daily Mail meltdown over the BBC funding weaponised drone design in a family friendly time slot.
posted by vbfg at 7:20 AM on January 13, 2016 [5 favorites]
Fix the rules, bring Rex Garrod back in, all is forgiven.
posted by delfin at 7:20 AM on January 13, 2016
posted by delfin at 7:20 AM on January 13, 2016
My school built the first winner, Roadblock. So... nyaa, or something.
posted by pipeski at 7:42 AM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by pipeski at 7:42 AM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
Question: didn't robot wars kind of work itself into a corner where three robot designs became dominant in a kind of rock-paper-scissors scenario, thus undermining the whole design and invention appeal of the hobby?Robots had a variety of different attack methods:
*edit*
I think the three main categories were spinners, flippers and wedges... would love some elaboration on this topic.
* flippers (Roadblock; Wheely Big Cheese)
* pushers (remember getting a robot into a pit was an instant-win)
* whackers (hammer; spike; axe)
* flame-throwers
* spinners (Typhoon 2; Hypno-Disc)
In practice, whacking a robot with an actual weapon rarely worked.
The first series was won by a flipper - none of the other competitors seemed to have foreseen that eventuality and were easily bested. Following series saw more and more defences against flippers (flusher bodies; self-righting mechanisms; invertible robots), but series two, three and four were all still won by flippers, each more powerful than the last.
While spinning discs competed well, flipper-dominance was only overturned from series five - a new entrant, Razor, simply crushed its foes to death. Both series six and seven were won through robots which took advantage of the raising of the allowed specifications, focusing on speed and power to push their enemies into the pits (the final winner had a disc too).
posted by Aethelwulf at 8:10 AM on January 13, 2016 [8 favorites]
This is brilliant. You should have heard my colleagues (30s, engineers) hoot with delight when I shared the news at lunch. I would like to see an autonomous category (even if they were rubbish) and also drone dogfights (even if they'd be very short).
posted by norabelle at 8:24 AM on January 13, 2016
posted by norabelle at 8:24 AM on January 13, 2016
Robots have the right to guns, right?
posted by oceanjesse at 8:31 AM on January 13, 2016
posted by oceanjesse at 8:31 AM on January 13, 2016
Oh fuck I remember Razer! I remember wanting one....
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:50 AM on January 13, 2016
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:50 AM on January 13, 2016
Continuing my recent spate of MythBusters related content, let us not forget Blendo -- designed and built by one James Hyneman, with electronics from one Adam Savage, almost a decade prior to the debut of the show that made them famous. To quote Wikipedia:
It first competed in the second Robot Wars competition in San Francisco (1995). After two fights ... it was deemed too hazardous to compete by the event supervisors and the insurance company after throwing pieces of its opponents over the arena walls. It was given co-champion status in exchange for withdrawing from the competition. Blendo returned in the fourth Robot Wars competition in San Francisco (1997), after the height of the arena walls had been increased to prevent debris from reaching the audience ... After causing damage to the arena walls in both matches Blendo was again asked to withdraw in exchange for co-champion status.posted by tocts at 9:18 AM on January 13, 2016 [4 favorites]
also drone dogfights (even if they'd be very short).
Well, if you can't use projectile weapons - these could actually be hugely fun! Build a big cage around your drone and basically run them into each other.
The meta-game would be to build the most protective cage while still allowing flight and measures to get past the cage. I'm sure there'd be rules about being the ground of the arena, so we'd definitely see grappling robots that work to try and pin their enemies on the ground while they still maintain flight. Could be a hoot!!
posted by mayonnaises at 9:27 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
Well, if you can't use projectile weapons - these could actually be hugely fun! Build a big cage around your drone and basically run them into each other.
The meta-game would be to build the most protective cage while still allowing flight and measures to get past the cage. I'm sure there'd be rules about being the ground of the arena, so we'd definitely see grappling robots that work to try and pin their enemies on the ground while they still maintain flight. Could be a hoot!!
posted by mayonnaises at 9:27 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
The local PBS station ran Robot Wars on Sundays when I first moved to the Bay Area. I remember the first time we saw a self-righting mechanism, after many a flipper winning matches. We all went ooooooo!
posted by tavella at 10:20 AM on January 13, 2016
posted by tavella at 10:20 AM on January 13, 2016
okay so I get to talk about my favorite combatant from the kinda mediocre American version, Battlebots.
I believe this was in the first season: I know it was before the flipper/pusher meta had developed, and people were still trying to figure out what worked. Anyway, so the first proper spinner that I saw, at least, was this very, very heavy, very low-slung thing that looked sort of like a violent oversized roomba. Its chief weapons were these two heavy pointed metal weights that hung from thick chains from the sides, positioned opposite from each other. It spun fast — the maces were just a silver blur when the robot was turned on.
(Maybe this is how all spinners look and work; the American show was deeply mediocre, and the host segment/actual machine fighting ratio was way too skewed in the wrong direction, so I lost interest in the show pretty quickly).
Anyway, so before the first fight the armored-roomba-with-two-maces participated in, they showed the creators demoing it by rolling a bowling ball at it while it was spinning. When the ball hit the maces, it exploded.
As you'd expect, the first n fights the spinny macebot was in lasted about five seconds; at first contact, the maces would immediately rip the opposing robot to bits or fling it across the arena or both.
But then in its final fight, by chance one of the chains on one of the maces came loose. At this point the pilots of the opposing robot (smartly) got their robot as far away from the spinbot as possible. As the spinbot kept spinning, the partially detached mace came off, and then, over the course of the next 30 seconds, the now-unbalanced spinbot gradually took itself apart, spinning faster and faster while spewing bits of metal across the arena, only stopping when its now-mostly-empty disassembled shell flipped over.
To my teenaged eye it was an unspeakably beautiful event to watch, though if I were in the audience I probably would have hid under my seat. It was clearly not a safe thing to be anywhere near — as I recall it (or as I imagine it in memory) the mace that started the catastrophic failure flew like a very large bullet when it came off, and the bits of roboshrapnel that came off while the bot spun itself to pieces were incredibly fast-moving and jagged.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:22 AM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
I believe this was in the first season: I know it was before the flipper/pusher meta had developed, and people were still trying to figure out what worked. Anyway, so the first proper spinner that I saw, at least, was this very, very heavy, very low-slung thing that looked sort of like a violent oversized roomba. Its chief weapons were these two heavy pointed metal weights that hung from thick chains from the sides, positioned opposite from each other. It spun fast — the maces were just a silver blur when the robot was turned on.
(Maybe this is how all spinners look and work; the American show was deeply mediocre, and the host segment/actual machine fighting ratio was way too skewed in the wrong direction, so I lost interest in the show pretty quickly).
Anyway, so before the first fight the armored-roomba-with-two-maces participated in, they showed the creators demoing it by rolling a bowling ball at it while it was spinning. When the ball hit the maces, it exploded.
As you'd expect, the first n fights the spinny macebot was in lasted about five seconds; at first contact, the maces would immediately rip the opposing robot to bits or fling it across the arena or both.
But then in its final fight, by chance one of the chains on one of the maces came loose. At this point the pilots of the opposing robot (smartly) got their robot as far away from the spinbot as possible. As the spinbot kept spinning, the partially detached mace came off, and then, over the course of the next 30 seconds, the now-unbalanced spinbot gradually took itself apart, spinning faster and faster while spewing bits of metal across the arena, only stopping when its now-mostly-empty disassembled shell flipped over.
To my teenaged eye it was an unspeakably beautiful event to watch, though if I were in the audience I probably would have hid under my seat. It was clearly not a safe thing to be anywhere near — as I recall it (or as I imagine it in memory) the mace that started the catastrophic failure flew like a very large bullet when it came off, and the bits of roboshrapnel that came off while the bot spun itself to pieces were incredibly fast-moving and jagged.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:22 AM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
YCTAB, I'm not sure if this fight between Mauler and Bigger Brother is the one that you described, but it is certainly a thing of beauty.
New Robot Wars is the best news I've heard all year.
posted by sparklemotion at 10:48 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
New Robot Wars is the best news I've heard all year.
posted by sparklemotion at 10:48 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
Oh hey... here's the shot with the bowling ball!
posted by sparklemotion at 10:51 AM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by sparklemotion at 10:51 AM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
okay I totally wrote that thing up because I couldn't find a youtube video of the fight and was hoping someone would do it for me. thanks!
(now to watch and see how far my memory of it has drifted from reality over the course of the last decade...)
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:04 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
(now to watch and see how far my memory of it has drifted from reality over the course of the last decade...)
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:04 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
aw, okay, my memory embellished the event — in my mind their was much more shrapnel than that. I did like the part where the other bot shoved Mauler under the giant hammer, though. and also watching smoke come out when it finally stopped spinning.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:08 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:08 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
You underplayed the glory of that spin/flip though. The slo-mo is just art.
Also: besides the bowling ball, that whole segment with Heidi and the Tilford family gave me the heebie-jeebies. This is how porns start!
posted by sparklemotion at 11:18 AM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
Also: besides the bowling ball, that whole segment with Heidi and the Tilford family gave me the heebie-jeebies. This is how porns start!
posted by sparklemotion at 11:18 AM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
yeah, Battlebots was an awful show. four minutes of fun an episode, surrounded by 18 minutes of the most offputting filler possible.
I'd really love to see a Robot Wars type show that took a more... old-school PBS approach, say, or maybe went for the Mythbusters aesthetic, rather than the "pro wrestling with robots" feel that Battlebots went for. Something like "Here's some nerds, here's the nerdy stuff they've been up to, here's what happens when we run their nerdy stuff together to try to break it, here's some serious analysis of why different designs work."
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:42 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'd really love to see a Robot Wars type show that took a more... old-school PBS approach, say, or maybe went for the Mythbusters aesthetic, rather than the "pro wrestling with robots" feel that Battlebots went for. Something like "Here's some nerds, here's the nerdy stuff they've been up to, here's what happens when we run their nerdy stuff together to try to break it, here's some serious analysis of why different designs work."
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:42 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
also though legitimate robotics tech has advanced enough that I think there's a lot more interesting stuff that they could do now than they could back in the late 90s/early 2000s. Chiefly, it's probably possible now to have interesting fights between fully autonomous actual robots, rather than the remote control toys from the original show.
In a perfect world there'd be two divisions: remote controlled and fully autonomous. and in the autonomous division, programming the robots to fight skillfully/deceptively would be as important as designing the hardware to deliver ultraviolence.
and yeah the capacity for flying bots now could make for some really interesting fights. maybe fights between teams of robots, some flying, some ground-based?
omigod omigod omigod I just had the best idea.
Drone. Quidditch.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:51 AM on January 13, 2016 [4 favorites]
In a perfect world there'd be two divisions: remote controlled and fully autonomous. and in the autonomous division, programming the robots to fight skillfully/deceptively would be as important as designing the hardware to deliver ultraviolence.
and yeah the capacity for flying bots now could make for some really interesting fights. maybe fights between teams of robots, some flying, some ground-based?
omigod omigod omigod I just had the best idea.
Drone. Quidditch.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:51 AM on January 13, 2016 [4 favorites]
I reckon this version will include drone vs drone wars too. Would be missing a trick if it didn't.
The drone battle has been tried before, it wasn't very exciting. You can't fit a good saw blade or hammer on a little plastic robot.
posted by Peccable at 12:01 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
The drone battle has been tried before, it wasn't very exciting. You can't fit a good saw blade or hammer on a little plastic robot.
posted by Peccable at 12:01 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
I was always disappointed that they were not autonomous.
Can you even call it a robot if it's just a remote-controlled device?
posted by MtDewd at 12:36 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
Can you even call it a robot if it's just a remote-controlled device?
posted by MtDewd at 12:36 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
>I was always disappointed that they were not autonomous.
Can you even call it a robot if it's just a remote-controlled device?
yes, for marketing reasons, and there's nothing wrong with that.
though my god I wanna see a team of flying drones chasing/batting around autonomous quaffles, bludgers, and snitches. I want this so much.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:04 PM on January 13, 2016
Can you even call it a robot if it's just a remote-controlled device?
yes, for marketing reasons, and there's nothing wrong with that.
though my god I wanna see a team of flying drones chasing/batting around autonomous quaffles, bludgers, and snitches. I want this so much.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:04 PM on January 13, 2016
Drone. Quidditch.
You, sir, madam or other, are a genius.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:14 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
You, sir, madam or other, are a genius.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:14 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
Something like "Here's some nerds, here's the nerdy stuff they've been up to, here's what happens when we run their nerdy stuff together to try to break it, here's some serious analysis of why different designs work."
Scrapheap Challenge? I don't know what the US version was like, but the original had a pretty good balance of those elements. And a man called Bowser Munson.
posted by howfar at 1:38 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
Scrapheap Challenge? I don't know what the US version was like, but the original had a pretty good balance of those elements. And a man called Bowser Munson.
posted by howfar at 1:38 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
Whom they later replaced with an (actual) army officer frequently referred to simply as "Major Dick".
posted by howfar at 1:39 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by howfar at 1:39 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
so here's what I think.
I think that peak interest for this sort of thing is maybe in the Bay Area. Or maybe I just think that because I live in the Bay Area. I propose we meet up sometime late in the spring to compare designs and test equipment. Mosswood Park, maybe, would make a good location — not too crowded, not too far from BART, relatively centrally located for East Bay people, and with lots of large flattish areas to play in. If all goes well, by the end of August we might have invented something that can properly be called drone quidditch.
If the Air Hogs Helix X4 Stunt listed on this page is strong enough to carry a small camera, it might be a good starter seeker. It's not the Nimbus 2000 or anything, but it looks like it can stand up to significant damage and keep flying. The UDI U839 from that same page, if painted appropriately, might make a decent Snitch.
I'm obviously not too familiar with the quadcopter scene, so I know I'm getting a lot of stuff wrong here. but if anyone else is interested in trying to make this something real, please correct my obvious misconceptions about how tiny newfangled flying things work...
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:06 PM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
- cheapish sturdyish quadcopters with cameras hooked up to google cardboard rigs.
- (ideally) some sort of way to make quadcopter motions controlled by the motions of the players wearing the google cardboard glasses, rather than just by conventional remote controls. (this would make it look more wizardey)
- A (smaller?) copter that flies semi-randomly. This is the Golden Snitch
- Play it in a large park. There's two levels of interest for spectators; watching the drones actually pursue the Snitch up above, and also watching the players on the ground in their cardboard VR rigs running around and making ridiculous gestures to steer their copters.
I think that peak interest for this sort of thing is maybe in the Bay Area. Or maybe I just think that because I live in the Bay Area. I propose we meet up sometime late in the spring to compare designs and test equipment. Mosswood Park, maybe, would make a good location — not too crowded, not too far from BART, relatively centrally located for East Bay people, and with lots of large flattish areas to play in. If all goes well, by the end of August we might have invented something that can properly be called drone quidditch.
If the Air Hogs Helix X4 Stunt listed on this page is strong enough to carry a small camera, it might be a good starter seeker. It's not the Nimbus 2000 or anything, but it looks like it can stand up to significant damage and keep flying. The UDI U839 from that same page, if painted appropriately, might make a decent Snitch.
I'm obviously not too familiar with the quadcopter scene, so I know I'm getting a lot of stuff wrong here. but if anyone else is interested in trying to make this something real, please correct my obvious misconceptions about how tiny newfangled flying things work...
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:06 PM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
Despite its unprecedented budget, sources have reported confusion as to who okayed the new series, with one spokesperson remarking "I thought you sent that email?"
posted by lucidium at 5:26 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by lucidium at 5:26 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
Scrapheap Challenge? I don't know what the US version was like, but the original had a pretty good balance of those elements.
We had "Junkyard Wars" (which had a british host, if I recall). It was "OK", but it followed the same formula every time. One team's "assigned expert" would have the team build a reasonable device that functioned well (like building an amphibious car out of an old jeep) while the other team was advised to build some rube goldberg-ian thing that no person in their right mind would consider (like building an amphibious car out of a bathtub and an electric golf cart).
Add in your typical American "reality" show filler of team members bickering over stupid details and fake drama of "will the machine be done in time, or even run?" Spoiler alert, even if the machine was only 2/3 complete, they'd miraculously have it running in time for the actual testing phase.
posted by Mr. Big Business at 9:56 AM on January 14, 2016
We had "Junkyard Wars" (which had a british host, if I recall). It was "OK", but it followed the same formula every time. One team's "assigned expert" would have the team build a reasonable device that functioned well (like building an amphibious car out of an old jeep) while the other team was advised to build some rube goldberg-ian thing that no person in their right mind would consider (like building an amphibious car out of a bathtub and an electric golf cart).
Add in your typical American "reality" show filler of team members bickering over stupid details and fake drama of "will the machine be done in time, or even run?" Spoiler alert, even if the machine was only 2/3 complete, they'd miraculously have it running in time for the actual testing phase.
posted by Mr. Big Business at 9:56 AM on January 14, 2016
I caught part of a repeat of this a few nights ago. Hadn't realised it was 13 years old!
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:53 PM on January 14, 2016
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:53 PM on January 14, 2016
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Hopefully they'll manage to get the original presenters back. It won't be the same without Craig Charles.
posted by leo_r at 6:40 AM on January 13, 2016