EEVblog #503 - RoboWars 2013

[reubot]

I haven't followed these robot wars too closely but I am wondering if you studied the development of these fighting robots whether you would see evidence of a form of Darwinian evolution as the best designs became incorporated in the next generation.

As soon as a new type appears and does well it spawns a heap of imitators at the next one. Also, Pete Abrahamson created a Rock Paper Scissors theory about the current types.

[ElectroIrradiator]

Honestly, I think 'robots' may have peaked with Blendo:

Hmm, I prefer the one and only "Spin-To-Win" HypnoDisc. Love how you can hear as the flywheel comes up to speed.

[TerminalJack505]

Honestly, I think 'robots' may have peaked with Blendo:

Hmm, I prefer the one and only "Spin-To-Win" HypnoDisc. Love how you can hear as the flywheel comes up to speed.

I prefer these two clips of "Hypno disc ownage."





 

[TerminalJack505]

Oops.  Forgot this one.  This one is great.  Chaos II takes out a couple of the house robots after beating Hypnodisc.



Some more house robot ownage:

[amyk]

I just never got the attraction of these competitions myself, "robot" to me means there should be large amounts of autonomy or programming at least, all these types of competitions I've seen it's just RC cars with weapons.

Not that there is anything wrong with RC cars with weapons, if that's what floats your boat, I'm sure it's lots of fun, but I think calling them bots, is... stretching the definition considerably.

It looks more like the evolution of the demolition derby to me...

[warp_foo]

Thread necromancy time... 

I just found this video of Jamie Hyneman discussing Blendo:



A bit more technology in there than I thought there was.

m

[senso]

For battle bots and the like, I think that nothing beats Charles blog, its very funny to read, and a lot to learn, and as a MIT student e has access  as he says to infinite waterjet, so his bots are pretty awesome, give it a look:
http://www.etotheipiplusone.net/

[TerminalJack505]

Jamie says there was no countermeasure to Blendo.  That may have been true when he was competing but one eventually evolved.

Ziggo was a spinning robot inspired by Blendo.  He was a two-time champion and was dominating his weight class when he came up against Code: Black.  Code: Black was a robot build specifically to defeat Ziggo.

So did he?  See for yourself.