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BattleBots & ESPN Strike TV Deal

Posted by Zonk on Tue Mar 11, 2008 02:29 AM
from the hope-the-hosts-are-good dept.
Robotics Media Television Science
NMajik writes "Although BattleBots has been largely removed from the public eye since episodes stopped airing years ago, a new deal has recently been struck with ESPN to return combat robots to the living room. Episodes will be broadcast as a series on ESPNU and ESPN2 after filmed at the competition in June 2008. This is the first notable progress towards televised combat robotics in years."
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Submission: BattleBots & ESPN TV Deal by NMajik (935461)
[+] Hardware: BattleBots Delayed, Will Go Brains Over Babes 125 comments
An anonymous reader writes "We got all excited earlier this week about robo-combat returning to TV with ESPN, but now PopMech super geek Erik Sofge talks to the folks at BattleBots and finds out that because of so many early entries, the competition will be delayed until at least November. The reason? Gone are the babes and predictable wedge fights, in are eager engineering students, a crazy ramp arena and lots of new rules. Worth the wait, or do we miss the Comedy Central version?"
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  • pretty sure (Score:5, Funny)

    by deathtopaulw (1032050) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @02:33AM (#22712980) Homepage
    we're way past stirke three with the editors inability to edit
  • o Is liquid nitrogen legal? o What about high voltage? o Blue-tack? o What's the maximum weight of demolition hammer allowed? o Are battle-bots allowed to be equipped with smooth bore cannon? o Are capacitor-fed tack welders permitted? o Cowboy Neal?

    • Re:Ah but it's fun to speculate... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Dutch Gun (899105) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @03:12AM (#22713156)
      o Why o Why is my text not formatted correctly?
    • How about equiping a robot with EMP?
    • A robot that plays the all time hits of Britney Spears when hit/attacked. Further attacks would continously increase the volume of the loudspeakers.

      Win by default?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by PhireN (916388)
      FTA:

      New Experimental Class
      For both competitions, BattleBots would like to open the door to a new "anything goes," experimental class. There are NO rules and NO weights for this class.
      So the answer is yes, as long as you enter into the experimental class, otherwise check the rules.

      • Re:Ah but it's fun to speculate... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Torvaun (1040898) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @08:32AM (#22715066)
        This guy [news.com] is going to kick ass in the experimental class.

        The rules are here [battlebots.com], if you don't mind pdfs.

        Weapon types that aren't allowed in the normal class include electricity and electromagnetic weapons (no EMP or Tesla coils), weapons that require significant cleanup (sand, oil, liquids, ball bearings), weapons intended to obscure vision (smoke, strobe lights), thermal weapons (no explosives or cutting torches, although you can use explosives to, say, drive a piston), mechanism fouling weapons (nets, tarps, caltrops), and no mutually destructive mechanisms.

        There are also restricted weapons. Projectiles are allowed, but must be on a tether of no more than 8' in length. Covering weapons are allowed, but must be rigid and controllable. Airbags are allowed, but must conform to the rules for pneumatics, and can't be used as mechanism fouling weapons when deflated. Flywheels need to be installed properly, so that they don't fly off or apart while spinning. Large springs (20 lbs of force to extend or compress) need to be armed by the bot, not manually, and need to be able to be released manually without causing damage to the person doing the releasing.

    • Re:Ah but it's fun to speculate... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Merk (25521) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @10:08AM (#22716656) Homepage

      I think more important than what's allowed on the robots is what kind of surface will they be playing on. When they're played on very smooth, very flat surfaces, it becomes all about wedges and flippers. Every robot has a skirt with less than 1cm clearance on all sides, and the winners are the ones that can slip under that skirt.

      If they changed it so that the games were played on uneven, non smooth surfaces, maybe even some dirt/grass, water, etc. you'd have to have exposed wheels / tracks. Wedges / flippers would no longer have a massive advantage.

      Survival of the fittest in robot fighting competitions is, like all other survival of the fittest contests, based on the environment. If the environment is varied enough that one niche player can't dominate everything, you'll get much more interesting fights, and much more variety in design.

    • Re:Ah but it's fun to speculate... (Score:4, Informative)

      by MattHawk (215818) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @12:53PM (#22719452) Homepage
      Part of the reason for things being banned is a simple matter of safety. I've competed at several robot combat events with a middleweight, and even with the extremely strict safety rules and the high tech arenas, some of them are freaking dangerous. I've been within a few feet of an arena breach at one point, where some of the heavier robots hit a wall hard enough to come up over the safety stop and almost go through the bulletproof Lexan arena wall (fortunately neither robot managed to come clear out of the arena, but they knocked a wall section out and very nearly did). There have also been incidents of robots with cutting weapons putting holes clear through the wall (and at least one incident I know of where a robot put a hole in a 1/2" thick steel plate that was part of the arena safety system). The safety crew at the events takes these things very seriously - the fight IMMEDIATELY stops if there's any threat of the arena being breached, and the robots are disabled until the situation can be evaluated, but that's with the limited scope of the current rules - many of the things people would love to see in the robots would be damn near impossible to do safely around an audience.

      Even if there isn't an audience, there's still the crews to think about. People have to work around the robots to repair them (many of the rules involve safeguarding the robot when it's around people), and to load them into and out of the arena. Also, some of these robots get torn up pretty badly, hence rules relating to making sure the robots aren't hazardous to clean up after they've gotten heavily damaged.

  • not robots (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jafafa Hots (580169) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @02:43AM (#22713028) Homepage Journal
    Its mildly cool and all, but I'm sorry, remote controlled vehicles are not robots. They're kind of the complete opposite of robots.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Stripe7 (571267)
      UAV's and other military robots are remote piloted, some are 100% remotely controlled others are semi-autonomous, we still call them all robots. The Battle-Bots are generally 100% remotely controlled, but as robot reflexes become faster than human ones, the Battle Bots will change and become more and more autonomous. Who knows, maybe the inspiration for a future War-Bot may be found in the Arena one day. What I find interesting is that Americans prefer their robots form to follow function whereas the Japane
      • UAV = Unmanned aerial vehicle. As for the ground vehicles, they have names like explosive ordinance disposal vehicle, remote reconnaissance system, and so forth. Nobody calls them robots except for the soldiers (they're allowed to) and the ignorant (this is not meant as a jab). A boy with a remote controlled car doesn't own a robot, and neither do people who appear on TV shows like Battle Bots.
    • Yeah remote controlled cars with weapons is cool.

      Automated remote controlled cars is freaking awesome. :)
      A whole new field of malfunctions can occur.
    • Battle Bots is awesome but I agree. It'd be much more impressive if they forced the bots to fend for themselves.

      I always wanted to see a show that combined Battle Bots and Junkyard Wars too. You have one day and one garbage dump to put together the coolest bot you can and then have them tear each other apart. Otherwise it can become to much a competition of who can spend the most money.

      I'm surprised the military doesn't sponsor these kinds of shows. It can only lead to more interest and more experience in b

      • who can spend the most money

        You obviously didn't watch a lot of competitions. How many times was a $10K all-stainless death machine taken apart by a 10yr old girl with a ladybug? A lot.
      • YES... a much cooler show IMHO though I'd give them 3 days to do it not 1 and it would have to be a well stocked garbage dump... ie: buy out an old FRY's electronics store with all the parts still there ;-p

        On ideas for weapons... how about a capacitor that discharges when your bot gets touched by another bot.... very passive aggressive but effective... just send your bot into the kill path of another and see if you can withstand the first hit long enough to totally disable the other bot. Maybe a little bori
    • Yea, but "Remote Controlled Vehicle Wars!" or "Battle RC Machines!" isn't quite as cool a title. And I loved that show.... Anyone calling it "mild" entertainment shouldn't be given an insightful mod. I thought xfiles was sorta ok, here's my thoughts on it. Now mod me way up.

      Jk of course. Loved xfiles but you see my point....

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by BabySledge (756467)
      True enough..They are not robots. But they could very well be the bodies for robots. This show changed my interests from electronics to robotics and I have been back in school ever since. This show/format could produce a viable sport. As it is the original(American) spawned groups across the nation to form and compete with smaller more affordable (non autonomous(ro)BOTS. There were even a few tries at semi or fully autonomous bot battles. Hopefully it will stick around for a while this time. The USA needs s
    • Being a, "robot" in most circles doesn't require autonomy. In common usage the term has grown to include automata, remote-control devices, and anything that can appear to operate in a robotic capacity.
  • I sure hope Joe Rogan does commentary again. The guy is really good, and hilarious as well.

  • Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EdIII (1114411) * on Tuesday March 11 2008, @02:58AM (#22713096)
    I missed that show. My father and I did not connect on a lot of things, but robots thrashing the crap out of each other was something we could both share....

    That and Betelgeuse from the Howard Stern show.
      • Mmmmm. Slowly with some onions and sardines. Savored every moment of it :)

        Pervert!

        We watched him on TV and laughed at what the chicks did for him obviously :)

  • About time! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by iansmith (444117) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @03:04AM (#22713118) Homepage
    My friends and I always thought that BattleBots on Comedy Central was a bad idea.

    The humor was funny, but the sportscasting was awful. Weird stats, rarly any good discussion over what happened or any more details. The after-fight interviews were pretty much just, "How did you feel about winning?". And the crazy stats and numbers rarely had any relation to the judges scores, which were glossed over and never explained.

    We always wished ESPN would have shown it.. THEY at least know how to host a sporting event. Hopefully they will treat Battle Bots just like any other sport this time around, explaining judge decisions, giving people a better idea of why someone wins, focusing on the exciting parts more than long, long clips about someones garage.

    Here's to hoping we get lucky and ESPN doesn't screw it up this time around. :-)

    • Re:About time! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Matrix2110 (190829) * on Tuesday March 11 2008, @03:13AM (#22713164) Journal
      ...My friends and I always thought that BattleBots on Comedy Central was a bad idea.

      If ESPN treats the sport at least half as well as NBC did with American Gladiators, We may be in for a treat!

      ESPN has a rep to keep up, and sports show crews tend to be fanatics. So there is much upside.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by hal2814 (725639)
        "ESPN has a rep to keep up"

        A rep to keep up? They show Scrabble tournaments!!! I saw a dominoes tourney on there once. I've also seen darts and billiards. If you've seen any of those, you'd notice the coverage crews were anything but fanatic or even enthusiastic.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kalirion (728907)
      The worst part is that only one or two types of bots ever got anywhere. There were some very imaginative and cool designs, but none that could compete with a simple wedge.

  • Honestly... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by xzaph (1157805)
    I always preferred Robotica over BattleBots - the former had interesting courses and whatnot that made things less monotonous than BattleBot's "WWE"-style straight up fight.
  • The idea sounds better then it is. in execution the show was slow and dull, with robots always getting stuck or unable to land the killing blow.


    maybe if it got some funding behind it and some interesting idea's came out of it it's be more fun, but the designs are all predictable and revolve around the overhead axe or a flipping motion.

    • Re:boring (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Bazman (4849) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @03:58AM (#22713318) Journal
      Until some real new idea comes out. On the UK 'Robot Wars' it was turning into a battle of the flippers v the axes, until innovations like HypnoDisc and Gemini appeared. HypnoDisc had a heavy horizontal spinning disk with blades, and a very low CoG. It span up until it had masses of angular momentum, and then all the other robots just bounced off it with massive gashes. Version 1 was liable to being flipped, but in the next series they added a self-righting mechanism. Gemini was a 'clusterbot': the robot split into two independent parts, each with a flipper. Combined they were below the weight limit so it was all legal. Other bots found themselves facing two small light flippers, and so couldn't use the usual tactic of pointing their dangerous end at the opponent.

      • I'd like to see battles involving the house robots from the world's various iterations of robot wars.

        That would be cool.

  • Robot Wars... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Wizard Drongo (712526) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @03:30AM (#22713226)
    Dunno if any of you over the other side of the pond ever got this show, it stopped in 2003, and was presented by Craig Charles (oh he of Red Dwarf fame).
    Was an awesome program, with a whole load of different teams, ranging from a 13 year old girl with her Dad to a major university grad team and a Army engineers team.
    Was pretty decent in it's day. Maybe they should bring this back.
    • Yeah, the Brits always do things like this properly. Any time I watch the American versions I think "yeah, good show, but it'd be better without the commentator being a completely over-zealous tit". Jeremy Clarkson was okay in the first series, but I think Craig Charles and Phillipa Forrester were the best team.

      Big battles are fun, but what you need is the extra skill and variance of the games like Gauntlet and the variety of "trials" they did :)

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_wars [wikipedia.org]
      • Sorry, but yeah, good show, but it'd be better without the commentator being a completely over-zealous tit". + Jeremy Clarkson was okay in the first series, does not compute.
    • Agreed. I saw one of the US version; it was awful, no trials, totally hammed up presenter, almost as bad as the Red Dwarf US version. Given that Craig Charles was in both Red Dwarf and Robot Wars, it's weird that the US versions of both were dreadful.
  • I want to see the DARPA challenge on my TV screen on a more regular basis.
  • I can get fighting robots, but would it kill you to play rugby espn.

  • And for all you Battletech fans... (Score:4, Funny)

    by AceMarkE (154966) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @06:25AM (#22713864)

    Next up on ESPN: Davion vs Steiner, live from Solaris VII!

    (maybe we should get these guys [mechaps.com] involved to speed up the process).

  • I can't wait to hear those two girly men scream and nag and shriek about what a moral outrage it all is. The winner can bury an ice ax in Skip Baylis's head.

  • This is the first notable progress towards televised combat robotics in years.
    "Televised combat robotics"? Very nerd. No -- very very nerd.

  • How to improve the show (Score:5, Insightful)

    by IndustrialComplex (975015) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @07:29AM (#22714348)
    Since I'm happily employed and unlikely to end up as an advisor for the show, I'll throw in a few words of advice for ESPN.

    1. Do something about the wedge/flipper bots. There are plenty of methods to deal with them that don't involve a simple ban on the design type. But trust me when I say that BattleBots was being done in by what appeared to be a never ending supply of squat cheese wedges.

    Why spend time engineering a novel robot when you could stick a motor and a hydraulic arm into a wedge and have a good chance at winning?

    2. Give them a real amount of time to fight. Comedy Central tried to cram the whole tournament into something that was far to short. Let the damned things fight.

    2.1: Let the damned things fight. The course doesn't need to be 'extreme' and deadly. Sure, put in a few obstacles but don't turn the course into a third opponent. Nothing like watching a good battle only to see one opponent DQ'd after some goofy piece of scenery flips over for no reason.

    Imagine watching a UFC match. The opponents have separated after an amazing show on the mat. They are circling one another, knowing that if they show the other any opening that it will be taken advantage of. This is a fight to go down in history books gentlemen. I haven't seen one like this since... Opps, there goes the trap door. Bob Tartarsky wins.

    3. It doesn't need to be the WWF/WWE to be entertaining. No need for over the top announcers that act like 8 yr olds on meth. Keep the commentary on topic and interesting, not loud and idiotic.

    4. This one follows number 3. We can get our bikini babes on the internet, you are not SPIKE tv.

    5. Give a reasonable stipend to the robots that compete. These things are expensive, but are expected to enter into a fight where their entire investment could be flushed away. The designer of the robot shouldn't have to be a wiz at getting sponsorship. Don't ban sponsorship, but give the anti-social geeks a chance.

    6. Consider price caps in addition to weight restrictions. I'd be interested in seeing the $10k robots fight the $10k robots.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Chris Burke (6130)
      1. Do something about the wedge/flipper bots. There are plenty of methods to deal with them that don't involve a simple ban on the design type. But trust me when I say that BattleBots was being done in by what appeared to be a never ending supply of squat cheese wedges.

      I think the best way to deal with it is just for the bots to evolve. There were plenty of wedge-resistant bots showing up in later seasons, and it doesn't necessarily have to dictate the entire design. A lot of bot makers were too into maki
  • Battlebots was decent when it first came out on Comedy Central, but once they started replacing Bill Nye with porn stars, it was all down hill. I leaving that series the moment "Buddy Lee Don't Play in the Street" won a match. Now realize that this was simply a stuffed animal sitting in a remote controlled firetruck. It had no weapons at all and was torn to shred by the opposing robot, because it DID have a weapon. Watching that stupid thing win destroyed any remaining interest I had int he series. And that
    • Other than the two of the worlds most popular sports: Soccer & Rugby. Seriously: boxing, gymnastics, paintball all these 'unconventional sports' but nothing about real sports. Probably has something major to do with no 'commercial breaks'. So record the match and play it back and just insert a commercials at throw ins but don't skip play.

      I've never introduced Rugby to a friend who didn't enjoy watching it over American Football.
      • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESPNU [wikipedia.org]

        However, he really is talking about ESPNU. If you even bothered to look stuff up before assuming you know everything about everything you wouldn't have made that post.
      • The parent comment has an 'off topic' mod, yet on reading the headline, my thoughts turned immediately to The Ocho. BattleBots fits right in with poker, Nascar, women's basketball, and the other stuff ESPN airs which aren't real sports.

        However ESPN is the 'Entertainment and Sports Programming Network' and if fighting robots isn't a sport, it certainly is entertainment.

        (Now if only all the commentators were Bob Costas in dominatrix gear...)

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