Ziggo rules 
I want one!
Anyone else have a new favorite show in “BattleBots”?
not yet, but I know someone with almost exactly that nickname so for the time being I’ll say Ziggo’s my favorite too.
I liked it, but I like Robot Wars better (it’s on PBS here in Chicago). It’s an english show that has an 8-robot elimination tourney every week. BattleBots seemed, well, short.
But I DID like it. Whatever one was the spinny one during the first battle is my robo-hero.
Comes on 15 minutes from now in my time zone. I can’t wait.
Battlebots rocks my world!
Robots…fighting…smashing…the future is now!
This is one of those wierd things that occasionally happen. Namely, people are always claiming that American entertainment is stealing British ideas. Battlebots is kind of a twist on that…RobotWars was taken from an annual contest called RobotWars held at Stanford (I think, might have been Bazerkly). The BBC decided to copy the idea, and the result is RW, which is now being copied from the BBC for ComCent. The funny thing is, my understanding is that the reason it is called BattleBots is because the BBC now owns the rights to RW.
I caught it tonight. This is honestly the coolest show I’ve seen in a long time. Finally, a sport I can enjoy. If it’s got a fault, it’s that the matches don’t last long enough - or they last too long, like the very last one tonight, and no one’s the clear winner.
okay, I accept that BBC ripped off the original idea–but they did it soooo much better than Comedy Central–I can’t comment on the earlier, unbroadcast robot wars sponsored by a group in Stanford (I think), but Comedy Central packaged this cool idea in a annoying and flat manner. “Robotwars” has style, humor, attitude, and that really great guy from “Red Drawf” whose name has been taken from my brain (probably by aliens–or nanobots). Anyway, Comedy Central’s version–a combination of ESN Sports Night, WWF wrestling and celebrity bowling–is a real clunker. So is only having elimination rounds where contestants fight each other. Let the designer’s show off the battlebots with an obstacle course–complete with nasty ‘house robots’ anda little respect for the engineering of these mean babies. I’ll watch “Battlebots” but I’ll be hoping it improves.
Craig somebody. The aliens can’t keep control of my brain forever!!
I think I saw an ad for Robot Wars (or some other robot tournament) on the TV Guide Channel for Pay Per View. I didn’t get a chance to see it, but it looked VERY interesting, and they had a catchy slogan;
“The only fight to the death where nobody gets hurt.”
Robots have always interested me, and the thought of watching them kill each other (as an alternative to watching people kill each other) is intriguing. So I was really excited when I saw the commercial for BattleBots.
However…
I was pretty disappointed when I actually saw the show. Yeah, the fights are cool, but it fails on a few levels. Here is my short review:
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The overall appearance of the show. The commentators use pre-written dialogue at the beginning and they don’t act it out very well. And they exaggerate everything too much. Plus the CGI is corny. This isn’t my biggest complaint, though.
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The traps in the arena. It would be okay if they were random, but the guy on the side gets to choose which traps get triggered! If he wanted to, he could just pick on whichever robot he didn’t like. Not a good idea.
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The robots are remote controlled!!! This was the biggest let-down for me. I thought they would have robots with some sort of artificial intelligence trying to kill each other. It would have been soooo much better if this were the case. I guess remote-controlled robots are still pretty interesting, but the show really didn’t live up to my expectations.
Other than that, it’s an okay show. I’m still going to keep watching it, mostly out of curiosity, and I’m hoping it will get better if/when they have a second season.
Another thing that really interests me is that Robot Soccer thing (which DOES use AI). Unfortunately, I do not have a link to its webpage, if there is one. If I had the money (plus a little more time), I’d build a robot for that competition.
Do we know for sure that they aren’t random? I thought that they were… I saw traps going off when no 'bots were around…
I think that would be cost-prohibitive. I think it’s better remote controlled, the human factor makes it interesting. This isn’t Pokemon with master robot trainers.
In the “prelude to battle” pre-episode, they had a little segment about the arena. They said something about it being invented by some guy a long time ago (as in, before robots were invented) and they showed the guy who had control of all the traps. It’s not totally random.
On the other hand, he may very well be just pressing the buttons randomly.
This is a very cool show. It is like pro wrestling for techno-geeks! It’ll probably be my new favorite show, although I wish there would be more battles and less chat, stories from people’s garages, etc. 3 fights per week is not enough.
Why am I suddenly GLAD I don’t have cable anymore??? 
Parts of it were disapointing, but overall I thought it was pretty good. I mean, I didn’t turn it off. I’m going to give it a few more tries and see how it pans out. And, since we’re on the subject, I have a question about the first match. I believe Ziggo was in the first one, right? The bot it was facing was just two wheels, a stick, and a piece of wood on the end of the stick. What was supposed to have been accomplished with that?
Demo and I watched it. We loved it. Mauler is my personal favorite. Demo’s wheels were turning as we were watching it, I could just tell, I’m afraid the garage may turn into a bot-birthing center.
Between watching this show and playing Starcraft all week, babe, you better believe it. I’d like to get the rules for the bots. I’ll have to check out the website later. The show is too short though and, as always, too much stupid commentary. Just show fighting, why can’t they do that?
Anyway, back to the workshop.
I really enjoyed the show last nite. Sure the first 2 fights ended quickly…and the last one was a whiff-fest…but it was great! I really liked the Mauler…great idea to use the weapon the defense as well…hiding the wheels deep inside the machine, while the spinning blade around the outside keeps anyhing from hitting it. It seemed the robots with the wheels on the outside lost it VERY quickly…i.e. the first 2 fights.
Anyways, as for the trap thing…I think the guy isn’t biased…he just hits the buttons when one of the robots happen to be standing on one of them.
If they made it an hour show, I think it would be great!
Ok, bye now…
I was confused by this as well, especially considering that the battlebots website profile for that robot (Missing Link) shows it with a chainsaw:
http://www.battlebots.com/meet_the_robots/d_lightweights/missing_link.html
The guy running Mauler seemed to have pretty good control, and having the wheels protected is a good idea. However, I’ve seen other robots (on this show, on RW, and IRL) with a similar design (hidden wheels, spinning carapice sometimes) that were really hard to control because the driver couldn’t see where the wheels were pointing. On RW, one robot had a hard time getting through the obstacle course because it kept heading into the walls. Eventually, the house robots smashed it.
Exterior wheels fix that problem, but are vunerable to attack. Those robots that lost their wheels on BB last night didn’t look like they had very sturdy axles. Exterior wheels could probably work if they were stronger.
On Mauler, the whole shell didn’t spin, only the top. And the sides were painted, so the driver could tell which way it was going. That’s probably the best design.
If I were doing it, I think I might do some sort of sheltered wheels, but not entirely hidden.
Battlebots was GREAT! I really enjoyed it even though it was so short. I have seen RobotWars the real original competition and loved it. I Worked in a hobby store for years and was asked for input in the design of one for a customer… dont know the outcome or if it ever happened.
My coworker and I created a radio controlled insect though, walking on 6 legs… that was cool to develop and troubleshoot, it was entirly hand made. Of course it didn’t fight.
The only thing I didn’t like about the show was my EX-GIRLFRIEND/ROOMMATE kept putting it down and telling me I was immature and had to watch my “little boy” shows (she includes the simpsons and futurama and pretty much all my shows in this). I really really do not like that woman.