This is the next installment in our
series of articles about famous figures
from a decade ago. 2002 ended the
popular Comedy Central series,
BattleBots™. 2003 inaugurated a new
era in combat robotics, where our
sport left the spotlight and we tried
to fly on our own. Grassroots events
sprung up everywhere, as
documented in our 2012 series of
articles, "The History of Robot
Combat." Almost a dozen years later,
the sport continues to attract new
builders, and events keep chugging
along.
Combat Zone caught up with
Alexander Rose, co-builder of the
famed Super Heavyweight Toro — one
of the most impressive machines in
our business. Rose and his Inertia
Labs partner Reason Bradley were
dominant in the sport for many years.
Toro, driven by Reason, was also the
other bot in the famous "flip it again!"
clip from BattleBots 4.0 — chronicled
in our interview with Dick Stuplich,
builder of New Cruelty.
As part of the team fielded by
Inertia Labs, Toro fought in BattleBots
2.0 through 5.0, as well as the first
BattleBeach event. Inertia Labs also
built: T-Minus, a middleweight version
of Toro; Matador, the Heavyweight
complement; and a collection of
Antweights. (Rose's Antweight
pneumatic flipper Pele defeated my
rather lame loaf pan bot at
BattleBeach 1. He was a gracious
winner, and I somehow managed to
conceal my pleasure at getting
beaten by Toro's co-owner. I did, to
the bafflement of my young son, yell
"flip it again!")
Combat Zone: Alexander, how
did you get started in the sport?
Rose: Reason Bradley and I both
grew up in a junk yard in Sausalito
that was where they built Liberty
Ships in WWII. He became a
machinist and I became a designer,
and when I came back from college
he mentioned this competition to me
called (then) Robot Wars going on in
San Francisco, CA. It was two weeks
away, and we just started building
every night at the shop he worked at.
We barely made a robot that could
compete at all that year, but we
learned a lot and came back the
following year with something more
competitive. It wasn’t until BattleBots
started up that we had a real
contender.
Combat Zone: What were the
early TV days like? Any special
memories?
Rose: My most vivid memory of
the early days was, I think, the second
BattleBots show which was filmed in
Vegas. It was the first year we
brought Toro, and it was the first
44 SERVO 01.2014
THEN AND NOW:
A Decade Later With Alexander Rose
● by Kevin M. Berry
