SO YOU WANT TO
FIGHT ROB TS?
Turning Your Destructive
Instincts into a Socially
Acceptable Hobby!
● by Kevin Berry
Mostly, when the general public hears that someone’s hobby is
“robotics” they think of a fragile
collection of wires, struts, motors,
and glowing eye-like things. The
more tech savvy may think of VEX,
LEGO Mindstorms, or even
Robonova. Speak of a robotics
competition, and they might come
up with FIRST, or maybe even the
DARPA Grand Challenge.
If you are a regular reader of
The Combat Zone, however, you
know there’s a dark side to the
hobby. It is a small but dedicated,
continent spanning band of
tinkerers with a perverse interest in
spending months of their spare time
and mounds of money to craft a
nasty looking, remote-controlled bot
that is often destroyed in under a
minute.
We’re talking about fighting
robots of course. It was introduced
to the public on television through
the Robot Wars, Robotica, and
BattleBots series which was
followed by a line of toys distributed
through stores and as Happy Meal
toys through McDonald’s
restaurants. The term “BattleBots”
quickly became a generic name for
fighting robots; a la “Kleenex” or
“Xerox.”
SERVO Magazine has always
been a strong supporter of the
sport, sponsoring The Combat Zone
since May ‘06. Maybe you’ve been
Photo by Sam Coniglio.
reading the build reports,
manufacturing articles, and event
reports since the beginning, or
maybe this is your first realization
that robot combat didn’t die with
the television series. Either way, the
question has to be asked: “Are you
building yet?” If not, why not?
In this article — cleverly crafted
after those FAQ sections on those
page things on those Internets —
we’ll use totally made up questions
to provide real, useful answers.
(Unlike virtually every “real” FAQ site
ever posted, in this writer’s humble
opinion.)
How Do I Get Started?
Believe it or not, the answer
isn’t “build something!” Turns out it
isn’t easy to build a bot that will: a)
work at all; and b) survive more than
14.1 seconds. Really, the best thing
to do is go to an event, check out
the pits, and talk to lots of builders.
After seeing what really happens in
the box, you get a whole new
appreciation for the term “robust
design.”
While there aren’t as many
events as there were a few years
ago, there were more than 30 held
26 SERVO 04.2011
