Servo - March 2016

SERVO 03.2016 21

thick Hardox rammers seen in competition today.

Stone Age

The year is 1987. The event is MileHiCon: a humble science fiction and fantasy convention in Denver, CO. A group dressed up in classic scientist jackets stare at a hotel table, upon which some remote control cars bash against one another. This group is the Denver Mad Scientists Club, and what happens on that table is the beginning of a brand new sport that will one day sweep the nation.

Different from most events that would succeed it, the Critter Crunch (as it was called) is still claimed to be the oldest combat robot competition. Though the Critters (as the robots are called) are less advanced and in far different weight classes than what's common in today's roboteering world, they've always had a sort of charm that enamors whoever gets a chance to watch the fights.

With a limited selection of active weapons, the tabletop event had simple rules for a win: Knock the other critter off the platform or disable him. For four years, the Critter Crunch was the only robot combat event held anywhere in the world — and to its credit, the event still runs to this day.

In 1991, a group of roboteers who had experienced the Critter Crunch held an event at DragonCon, calling it “Robot Battles.” Considering the event's evolution to a more conventional rule set, one could certainly argue that it was the first robot combat event as we know them — one held with more modern weight classes in an enclosed arena.

Robot Battles eventually grew from a single event at a convention to a quarterly series of major events across the Deep South. Like the Critter Crunch they were born from, they still hold events to this day — a lasting legacy for anyone wishing to partake in a robot fight at the sport's founding sites.

Golden Age

Robot combat as people know it today began with the genius of a man named Marc Thorpe. An attempt to construct a robotic vacuum cleaner in 1992 led him to the conception of an event where weapon-toting remote control vehicles would fight each other in an arena, with specific weight classes and rule sets.

In 1994 — after two years of difficulties with financially hosting his event — Thorpe made a deal with Steve Plotnicki of Sm:)e Communications, later merged into Profile Records, and the first Robot Wars event was held in August of that year.

This competition proved to be the genesis of the modern sport. Three weight classes were laid out: Lightweight, Middleweight, and Heavyweight. Though their weight limits were different from today's, all three weight classes have become commonplace in competitions around the entire world.

Robots such as The Master, Vlad the Impaler, and Biohazard became household names amongst the growing community. Innovation spurred a level of technological advancement that saw the first generation of bots become almost entirely obsolete within years of their introduction. The principle of perpetual evolution became key — though those who thought far enough ahead were ready for the next age of robotic destruction.

The Golden Age of robotic combat also brought forth many of the rules found in today's tournaments: no untethered projectiles; no nets or entanglement devices; no gas- or smoke-based weapons; and no electronic jamming.

Arena safety standards as well were greatly enhanced, from simple wooden barricades to full-scale Lexan walls and netting to protect the audience. While a far cry from today's fully enclosed 'boxes,' they were adequate enough to ensure that no one in the crowd got hurt by flying shrapnel. In due time, though, it all came crumbling down. Plotnicki and Thorpe came to blows, resulting in the cancellation of Robot Wars 1998 in a fierce legal battle still spoken about in A Critter finally shoves his opponent off the table during the 1991 Critter Crunch.