Servo - August 2015

Isn’t It Violent? No, It Isn’t.

As a veteran BattleBots builder’s wife and former BattleBots employee and a mother of two boys, I’m thinking that some mommies out there hesitate to jump on the fighting robots bandwagon because they think “it’s violent, and we don’t allow violence.” When I started posting news about the new BattleBots show, I saw a lack of Facebook “likes” from a certain demographic. The mom demographic.

So, let me say to them what we’ve been saying for, oh, about 18 years. Battling robots are not violent, but they are destructive. Why promote that?

Well, what did your toddler do with every block tower? They KNOCKED IT DOWN. Blocks everywhere. And then what did they do? They BUILT IT AGAIN. AND AGAIN. Even if the blocks were all over the room.

Now, let’s talk about culture today. Everything is disposable. You don’t fix it; you throw it away. Appliances, relationships, you name it. Why bother to salvage anything?

This sport — and we do consider it a sport — involves people using all of their tinkering, engineering, and imaginative skills to apply math and science (or maybe just a good working theory) to bring a machine to life.

After working on it for hundreds of hours, they know it is going to get destroyed in some way, shape, or form. They know it is not going on the shelf to be displayed and preserved.

So, they bring their creation into the arena where something destructive inevitably happens to it. It gets its armor shredded, frame bent, maybe expensive electronics go up in smoke and flames, etc., in an attempt to beat the opponent. You win some, you lose some.

Do you throw away your robot afterwards? No. You rebuild it. Sometimes with only a short timeframe before the next match, you need to improve your bot and quickly learn from your mistakes.

You look for design flaws and ways to beat your next or most formidable opponent. Sometimes your bot literally limps back into the arena to advance to the next fight, and you head back into battle.

It can be nerve wracking. I often find myself shaking, a lump in my throat, adrenaline off the chart when I see my husband’s robot in the BattleBox before the start of a fight.

But is it violent? When I worked in the BattleBots office, I fielded fan emails and phone calls. I will always remember the communications I got from parents saying, “My kids were watching wrestling and jumping off the couch trying to kill each other. Now, I can’t get them away from their LEGOS, because instead, they’re designing fighting robots! Thank No, it’s not violent. And schools have caught on. Robotic combat programs are alive and well in high schools. Our current online store ( www.robotmarketplace.com) is a supplier for these schools, so I know firsthand. I personally believe that the combat element is more impactful than say, building a robot to complete a task.

There is deep, intense emotion involved in seeing your creation get broken or mangled, and that helps you deal with the inevitable tragedies in life differently than say, the disappointment in scoring low points on a task.

You have to sort out all that raw emotion and salvage what you can of your robot from sometimes literally pieces of scrap. Hopefully, you come back stronger.

That’s not violent, that’s a life skill. It holds incredible life lessons. So, let your kids watch the battling robots because it will only spur them on towards imagination, engineering, science, and hands-on tinkering.

If they knock down the block tower, they will always want to rebuild it. SV

by Erica Smentowski

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• Bot wife and widow since Robot Wars 1997 • Former BattleBots employee from Comedy Central era • Currently co-owner of www. robotmarketplace.com with husband, Jim Smentowski of Team Nightmare (BattleBots)