In Front of the Cameras
at Rob Games
This year, we competed at RoboGames with our
heavyweight, Gruff. Since Gruff had
competed at the Combots Cup V,
we had been contacted early by the
production company that would be
producing the “Killer Robots” show
for the Science channel. We had
already given them a bit of
information about our robot, but we
really had no idea what to expect
once we got there. Though our
teammates in the USF Robotics
Interest Group brought four other
robots to the event, the TV crew
was only interested in the
heavyweights.
● by Sam and Liz McAmis
their shops, those of us who had
not met her slowly realized that
the woman with the scarf was
the director of the TV crew and
started to line us all up for the
photo.
Each heavyweight robot was
led into a dark room with a
pedestal. A few minutes went
into setting up the robot, and
the ensuing small talk about
what the robots actually do and
some of their back stories.
The robots were then
photographed while spinning
around a couple of times on the
pedestal. Multi-bots like Death and
Taxes had to do separate shots for
each robot. Safety inspections were
still going on after the photo shoots,
and many robots were waiting for
time in the arena, since it had only
just been completed. The TV crew
seemed very surprised by the
builder’s comments on the fact that
many of them would be there all
night making sure everything was
working properly for the
competition in the morning.
Friday morning came around,
and Simone Davalos (Dave Calkins’
wonderful partner in crime and the
person most visibly in charge of the
combat event) gathered all the
builders for a safety meeting. In the
process, the producer was
introduced and he talked to the
builders about what was to happen.
They revealed that the double
elimination tournament would be
portrayed on TV as a single
elimination bracket for the Killer
Robots premiere, “Because the
general public would find a double
elimination too hard to follow within
the time frame we have allotted.”
Most drivers assumed that a
Multiple cameras both inside and outside
the arena caught the action.
reasonably similar bracket of the
matches will be constructed. Some
spent a bit of time wondering what
could happen if someone climbed
the loser’s bracket, but all in all
everyone was very excited about
finally having robots in the spotlight
again. To have your robot show up
on TV, to have that brief moment of
camera time, made it worth it.
The first fights of the day were
the Featherweights — not involved
directly with the televised portion of
the competition. However, in order
to practice the fluidity of the motion
and to get some phrases from the
builders as the day went on,
Featherweight drivers were hooked
up to the microphones.
As the result of a schedule mix-up, Liz had to be wired up three or
four times. The sound crew was nice
and friendly; over the course of the
weekend, they continued to
remember your name and robots.
The director was ever present
throughout the many fights, being
kind to drivers even when things
were out of their control. The video
cameramen got to know everyone,
36 SERVO 08.2011
