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.
Image by Claude Warren.
Spiny Norman (right) gets
pulled around by Andy Roid
(left) at Robot Wars 1994.
Image by Michael Bungay.