The first rule of Robotwars: Bring your own pen
July 20, 2017 2:56 AM   Subscribe

 
We (myself and the 5yo) have really enjoyed the "rebooted" series, the robots are mostly so much tougher and more destructive than the old days (before my kid's time, of course). It's amazing seeing the spinners like Carbide disintegrate other bots. I wonder if the apparent increase in weapon power comes down to ease of manufacture (3D printing/CAD), lower prices on powerful components, more money being sunk into robot building...?
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:14 AM on July 20, 2017 [2 favorites]


Carbide's spinner sends the other bot's armour through the ballistic shield on the edge of the arena.
Nice Carbide fact from the website:
Biggest Weakness: The weapon cannot be tested between battles as it is considered too dangerous.
(Big fan of Carbide here if you hadn't guessed).
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:18 AM on July 20, 2017 [3 favorites]


That 150g class looks like it might be a lot of fun...
posted by Leon at 3:26 AM on July 20, 2017


I misread that as "150kg class" and was starting to worry ... I mean, starting to welcome! ... Welcome our robot overlords!
posted by nickzoic at 4:03 AM on July 20, 2017 [4 favorites]


Yes! New robot wars is amazing! We have a small group of people round to watch it whenever it's on. None of us are or have kids, but we're the right age where the original run was our childhood.

I reckon a good chunk of the increased performance of the modern bots is advances in (and increased affordability of) battery and motor tech. More power available in a drive system that's also both smaller and lighter leaves more room for weapons, even if they're pneumatic or hydraulic.

(I am also very much team Carbide. Love me a good spinner!)
posted by Dysk at 5:15 AM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


I was impressed that Jellyfish was flipped into the air, against the wall several times and landed on its wheels (looking closer was it able to run one either side?).
posted by sammyo at 7:57 AM on July 20, 2017


I love Robot Wars, and hope they continue to produce the show. One of the things they did well last season was pick teams who weren't completely "in it to win it", but instead brought diverse casts, built colourful robots, and died with flair.

It's funny - I help run a FIRST robotics team, and we do about 8 competitions of similar size (or much larger) per year. There are more than 3000 FRC teams in the world, but ask anyone about robot competitions and they thing battlebots. That's the power of TV :) But the show is reviving an amateur combat robot hobby, so yay more engineering sports!
posted by Popular Ethics at 8:56 AM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


Now that I've seen videos of those little autonomous Japanese sumo robots, I'm bothered by the fact that these aren't really robots.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:04 PM on July 20, 2017


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