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Television Media

Battlebots Starting On Comedy Central Tonight 153

Posted by Hemos from the look-at-a-different-screen dept.
Hitch writes: " Comedy Central begins broadcasting BattleBots tonight at 10:30 EDT. Tonight's episode: Prelude to Battle - introducing the idea to those unfamiliar. For those who want to take a look early, the BattleBots Web site gives a lot of good info, including RealVideo clips of previous battles. "
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Battlebots Starting on Comedy Central Tonight More

Battlebots Starting on Comedy Central Tonight

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  • All the contestants are nerds, and they use their nerd powers to build devices that smash each other into little pieces. It's at least as newsworthy as any other attempt by mainstream media to notice linux or other icons of hackdom.
  • For thsoe in the SF bay area, our local PBS station (KTEH) has been showing England's RobotWars show-- this looks to be a pretty similar.

    RobotWars admits they were inspired by the underground competitions that were (still are?) staged in this area. (They were underground,as I udnerstand, because insurance would have been prohibitively expensive had the real nature of the exhibitiosn been known before-hand.)

    Robot Wars is narrated/officiated with great gusto by Craig Charles-- Lister from Red Dwarf. he really adds a lot of value to the show.
  • RobotWar was an excellent game... I've seen several progressions of the idea including a few that used java as the control language for the bots but I don't think any of them worked well enough/had a wide enough user base to become recognised.
    Shame really cos it was a really sound geek alternative to snail fighting.
  • so you're saying your contempt was EXTREME!?!?!?!!!

    (heh heh heh)

  • I was unfortunate enough to catch a few moments of WCWWF PsychoNitroSlapMyBitchUpDown or something whilst randomly channelhopping and it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

    "Grr. I'm hard, me. I'm going to come round your house and punch your face in with my forearm and then leap off the furniture onto you!"

    This freak show^W^Wsport is a pisstake, right?

    The dead giveaway, of course, is the much higher than normal preponderence of mullets...
    --
  • Where the hell did you read that?
    I saw something where they did blood tests on Lawyers and found abnormally high testoserone in the men AND the women.
  • "Bet on wedge shaped robots with a flipper on the upper surface. The flipper will invert the opponent, and can also act as a self-righting mechanism."

    Well I saw the opening episode of Battlebots last night and was thouroughly entertained. And there was a little fellow named "Disposable Hero" which was equipped with a flipper just as you described. Unfortunately, the other bot was armed with a giant high RPM spinning disk which made short work of little "Hero." Parts flew off. It was ugly. =)
  • oh my gawd, i, like, totally agree.

    could they make a cool show any more stupid? surely there has to be a better format for this than some jock-strapped sports show.

    you take a bunch of really smart people, have them build robots, and then send in fourth graders to talk to them.

    Yeah, okay.

    now, if they put jon stewart in there, well, then i'd be taping the show...and that might begin to counterbalance the inanity of the rest of the crew.

  • Sci-Fi doesn't exactly have a huge treasure trove of quality original programming, but give credit where credit is due. For example: Farscape [scifi.com], despite having Wizard of Oz syndrome in the casting room ("Okay - we need an Alien Warrior, Exotic Priestess, Loveable Rogue, and Good 'Ol Boy - get casting!"), cheesy intro-outro music (think closing theme to ST:TOS style wailing), and awful villians (C'mon. A guy named Scorpius?), has some of the best dialogue to ever grace a sci-fi show, some truly mind-fscking plot twists, and some great special effects. Not to mention, many bonus points for Claudia Black [8m.com]. Rrowl.
  • Utter rubbish. Robot Wars is a full-fledged competition with rules too. The people build their own robots according to the rules, and battle it out. I never heard any complaints of rigging, and it's certainly not a show for kids ... more a show for geeks, some of whom are kids.

    Fact is, the UK got this show *way* before you guys, and Battlebots is just a recompilation of the exact same source code. Not a single new idea in there. You don't even have the adorable Philipa Forrester presenting.

    UK: 1
    USA: 0

  • God, Lexx really sucks.
  • As a matter of fact, given the choice, I'd rather have someone smack me in the crotch with a baseball bat than watch a single minute of that drivel.

    -pf

  • Exactly what I thought when I looked at the site. They're just expensive RC toys with game geeks controlling them. If one toy tears another to shreds, it's just meanspiritedness on the part of the human controller, making up for his (it will invariably be a he) lack of endowment by bashing some other goof's toy to smithereens, all for the benefit of WWF-descended network execs.

    By contrast, when a well-written program in MUSE Robotwar or one of it's many successors (like Robowar [robowar.co.uk]) wins by a landslide, you feel a sense of fait accompli. But the people making real-life robots that can actually make their own decisions have better things to do than try and one-up someone else's work.

  • Robot wars is far cooler. As with anything british that is later americanized, this is no different. You have way too much human chatting about this and that, no House Robots, (house robots are part of the fun of Robot Wars, how can you even think of doing a show without them?)

    I will say the only redeeming value of the show is it seems the rules for the bots are looser than they are for RW. While this is fine, I personally think that without that almost impossible to beat adversary, its a joke. Kinda like playing doom with the God Code. After awhile, its no longer fun.

    One of the things I noticed is, its very similar to Celebrity Deathmatch. With their newsdesk type of setup. Rather lame.

    Its really sad to see another quality Brit show totally and blandly redone american style. I lamented when they started the American version of "Whose line is it anyway".

    I can just imagine what will be next. There are some formula's that just should not be tampered with, this was one of them.

    Ill continue watching RW on our PBS station, I think BB sucks ass. Its a very poor american ripoff. Despite what some people here think. Everything aside from a few details has been replicated, including a vacant blonde in the staging area.

    BB could have been better done.
  • I thought the ladybug was genius, myself. It got me thinking, what would the rules say about enclosing an opposing robot in a Faraday cage to prevent RF signals from reaching it. Technically, it's not electric and it's not actually *jamming* the signal...


    The major flaw in the lady bug was that the saw blade was attached to the upper casing. So that if a bot caught the casing with something the saw blade could be prvented from reaching it. As soon as the Lady bug goes up against something with an offense other than flipping (A saw blade or something) it's going to get destroyed. If the saw blad had its own movement system whereby it could move around under the shell more it would be far more effective.
    My own design that I'm working on implementing is well nigh invincible in every test so far. I hope to actually get the full sized model built and entered in the contest eventually.

    Kintanon
  • My girlfriend, who was a big Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan was looking around a while back a the Gizmonics website [gizmonics.com] and happened upon Joel and his brother Jim's coloring book. [gizmonics.com] One of the pages of the coloring book (page 22) has the caption: 'Production supervisors for "Robot Wars."' By any off chance, is this Comedy Central program these "Robot Wars" that Jim and Joel Hodgson are working on? I missed the show, so I didn't get a chance to check the credits.
  • Tell me about it. In this version, you're even restricted as to what kind of decals you can put on the bots -- they must be "tasteful" and suitable for viewing by minors. Sheesh.

  • Aha: a loophole (Score:4)

    by Captain Pillbug ( 12523 ) on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @06:17PM (#832107)
    There is no restriction on the number of different types of materials that can be used to construct your BattleBot.

    I'm going to build my battlebot out of rabid wolverines.
  • (ref your sig)

    And NBC is testing those idiots on an island...hmm, they just found a better idiot.

  • Uh, is that show on NBC? Or is it CBS?

    Eh, who cares.

  • Not a ripoff (Score:4)

    by RevRigel ( 90335 ) on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @06:24PM (#832110)
    I'm seeing a lot of posts to the effect that this is a ripoff of Robot Wars UK. It's not. Robot Wars has been around in the US since 1995, but that effort was plagued by legal troubles and general bad blood, and the Robot Wars name got auctioned, I guess to Mentorn (who does Robot Wars UK). Battlebots has been around for a while now, and they've been having competitions for over a year. BotBash exists too, although it's somewhat different. Battlebots exists primarily to fill the void left by Robot Wars's absence in the US, not to imitate Robot Wars UK. They actually take the time to put together events that aren't necessarily always in the same place in the US every few months, which is a Good Thing. Meaning..shows that those of us on this side of the Atlantic can go to, possibly. I've got a few gripes, though, really. The Robot Wars UK people live and breathe stupid jargon. They're basically sports announcers, but really horrible. And also..it's more like Robot boxing, or wrestling, than Robot Wars. If you want to get a few dozen robots, put them out in the woods as separate teams, and let them fight it out, that might be more deserving of the moniker.
  • Battlebots and Robot Wars can be fun to watch, but I have no interest in them beyond the spectacle. It isn't that I don't like robot bloodsports, it's that these things aren't really robots. They are radio control toys that pump iron.

    If you really want to know how to build autonomous robots, there are several competitions with the same level of excitement as Battlebots et al, but with the added benefit that you can imagine it might eventually be a good thing to turn the resulting machines loose in the real world.

    For instance, Robot Sumo is quite popular in Japan and the US. You can find the rules and links to competitions at Sine Robotics [sinerobotics.com]. Another big competition is the Trinity College Fire-Fighting Home Robot Contest [trincoll.edu], wherein robots navigate a known maze (a model house floorplan) to put out a fire (simulated by a lit candle).

    Another nice thing about these competitions is they can be cheaper to get into than Battlebots (less heavy iron and welding). And there are lots of good people and organizations who can help you climb the learning curve. Just a few of my favorites are the Seattle Robotics Society [seattlerobotics.org], The Robotics Club of Yahoo [yahoo.com], Raleigh Triangle Amateur Robotics Group [triangleam...botics.org], Portland Area Robotics Society [rdrop.com], Robotics Society of Southern CA [earthlink.net], and the San Francisco Robotics Society of America [robots.org].

    Finally, here's a few places you can find parts, books, plans, kits, and lots of links: Mondo-Tronics [robotstore.com], Acroname [acroname.com], and Robot Books.com [robotbooks.com].

  • One of the Discovery channels was showing it in the US earlier this summer under the title "Junkyard Wars". That was a great show. Personally, the floating Land Rover was the best IMHO.

    "All those tubes and wires and careful notes!"

  • Some people like watching legos run around a maze.
    Some people like watching gross displays of violence and destruction.
    personally, I'm in the second group.
  • Ooh. Gas and liquid fuels are also allowed. There's a pressure limit on gases, and 10 oz of liquid fuels. I wonder how quickly a grinder uses up fuel...


    Speaking of this, did anyone see if there is a specific restriction against Flamethrowers/Explosives? I couldn't find anything specifically prohibitting, but I imagine their effectiveness would be limited... Would make for an interesting show though... >:)

    Kintanon
  • I lamented when they started the American version of "Whose line is it anyway".

    Well, it would help if it wasn't on a Disney-owned station. They have to keep everything way too clean. Though they're getting away with more than I would have expected, especially so early in the evening.

    -A. Aria

  • Thanks for the kind words. The brit series is all taped, its now the directors/editors turn to go heads down and turn more than 100 hours of tape into a coherent 50 minute (44 for the US market) whole. (they usually have 6-8 cameras going while building, and often more than that while testing) No more flying over to London at the TV companies expense till next year.

    You may not believe this, but that tape was made the first day the team had ever met in person. (our common friends were suprised we didn't already know each other, there were several that knew all three of us) We were originally going to describe how a Mr. Coffee worked, how it got cold water from the bottom mounted resivoir to hot water out the outlet over the basket, without anything resembling a pump. But it was late on Sunday, and we couldn't find a matching pair to bisect on camera... (Crash had brought his sawzall to the session for that purpose). Geo suggested sewing machines, so we rooted around the junk in his loft, and found the makings of the machine. (yes, the bobbin is Cat 5 ethernet cable, in electric blue) Took us about half an hour to build.
  • Have you seen the sequal? It looks like it might finally be completed soon.

    http://www.omf.com [omf.com]
  • Actually, I remember seeing that MIT has had robot battles for some time. Last spring, at Spring Carnival, Carnegie Mellon introduced a new event to the Mobot [cmu.edu] festivities: MoboJoust [cmu.edu]. Basically, two robots started at opposite ends of a narrow "arena," and the first one to cross the other's goal line (or get closest in 30 seconds) won. It was hilarious seeing some of these robots pulverize their opponents. In fact, on the promo for the next BattleBots, I was shocked to hear the name "Overkill," also the name of the winner of this year's MoboJoust. It's not the same robot, though. Oh well.

    Don't underestimate the power of private funding, though. The Mobot people get assistance from such companies as Dell Computer, Lockheed Martin, and Schlumberger. They have some good tech at their disposal. Literally. :)
  • I love the announcer guys. They're a lot better than the PPV announcers. The blond guy is actually funny and the brothers are great. And the fact that they arent trying to push Donna D'errico as a legit commentator makes it even better.
  • Not without Philipa Forrester. Mmm. If I knew what hot grits were, I'd pour them down her pants.
  • Steel Survivor. Or perhaps titanium.
  • That game was incredible. It was the first shareware program I ever registered, and they even sent me two copies of it, complete with manuals and disks. :)

    OMF was also the first game that caused me to get so mad I started shouting "choice" words and smashing my keyboard to bits. My parents made me buy another one.

    It wouldn't surprise me to see it's Abandonware, although I've seen some blocky 3-D games that are still damn fun after all these years. In addition to wireframe classics like Elite and BattleTanks (their imitations, Void and Tank Pilot, play well on the Palm) I remember playing MCGA classics like 4-D Boxing and Stunt Driver. Those games 0wned, and they could be cracked rather easily.
  • Sure, after reading all the negative comments from fans of Robot Wars UK, I think I'll give it a try. Let me just flip to my nearby BBC affiliate.

    *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click*

    Hmm, I don't appear to have one. I guess I can't watch Robot Wars UK, because I'm not in the UK! I'll have to settle for BattleBots then.

    And BTW, I _loved_ the premiere.
  • You've obviously not been watching it then! Cassius and Chaos2 both had wicked air rams which would flip another robot over - it's now quite a popular design.

    Not surprising. Sawblades in general seem like a bad idea - it would take too long for them to cut deep enough to do any damage. And the lighter robots wouldn't be able to put enough pressure behind the blade to dig in, anyways. But a ram could inflict massive damage in a single stroke, and could easily flip over lighter or less stable robots.

    But it seems like the design goal behind a lot of the robots is "Make it look scary to humans", rather than "Make it able to absorb and deal out heavy damage from/to other robots". The sawblade bots, for example. And what about Mechadon? I admit, it looks cool as hell. But I'd imagine that it's quite unstable on those legs, compared to something with a lower center of gravity. And it's effectively unarmed.

  • You have to remember that this is geared to the mainstream. Having it simply be robot vs robot without hype or backstories would limit it to just techies. Like it or not, most people need a to latch on to a personality to stay interested.

  • This is cool... and some important info (Score:5)

    by cr@ckwhore ( 165454 ) on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @06:25PM (#832126) Homepage
    I watched this (it should have higher ratings than survivor) and it's very cool! I'm actually considering building one of my own... that desire will probably wear off in a week, but I may as well waste my own cpu cycles thinking about it.

    I checked out their website and read the rules. They recommend using PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) transceivers to minimize interference among the many controllers around the competition. There is NOT any rule about hacking the PCM signal of your opponent!! Whadda'ya think? How about a bot that uses some high tech weaponry, rather than saw blades and missles. Let's get smart here...

    Anyway, I like this show and I think it should stay around for a while. The website mentioned that 16 more episodes are scheduled for the upcoming tournament in November, somewhere in Las Vegas.

    --cr@ckwhore
  • They have Bill Nye science guy.

    not that that really helps...

  • I'm going to build mine out of magnesium, with a balloon of water balanced on top. Saw blade hits H20 and kaboom!
  • Robot Wars had that guy from Red Dwarf!

    But Battlebots does have that babe [comedycentral.com] from Baywatch. She makes up for her absent geek-value with other, ahem, assets.
  • You and Willie Brown!
  • Actually, although RobotWars was the first robot combat based organization, relatively soon after they began (a few competitions) it was "taken over" by corporate interests and the founder, Marc Thorpe was essentially kicked out. After somewhat long and drawn out legal circumstances and various canceled robot combat events (such as Robotica) BattleBots was born. Also, BattleBots has had several competitions, however it has always been PPV only before.

    You can get a more in depth history of the sport at http://www.robotcombat.com/history.html

    Flabble
  • And if that doesn't work, then technical expert Bill Nye [comedycentral.com] should build a baking-soda volcano in Comedy Central's CEO's executive offices.
  • But the British Robot Wars, lister or not, is an adaptation of the original US Robot Wars, which was never broadly televised, at least where I am. From what I have seen of the original, and now the Battlebots incarnation, the Battlebots seems to be much more like the first, being more of a deathmatch between the bots all the time rather than the bots vs. the environment, aka the almighty House Bots.

    Plus, just watch the the match with Backlash fighting in this new one. I have never seen one bot throw another several feet in the UK version, sending motors and speed controllers flying...

    Now they just need the voice from Q3 to say "Excellent!", and "Humilation!"
  • The reason why the weapons on Robot Wars are weak compared to BattleBots' is the maximum weight allowance.

    A RobotWars robot in the 'Heavy Weight' category can be as heavy as 90 kg, or about 200 pounds. A BattleBot can weigh up to 488 pounds, or about 221 kg. So the engineers have about 250% more weight to work with...

    That makes a big difference folks.

  • I hope flaming goo is not allowed. Napalm leaking into the floor of their arena would make an even bigger mess than what happens above the floor.
  • From the rules [battlebots.com]:

    11.2 Forbidden Weapons
    The following weapons may not be used:
    [snip]

    3. Explosives or Flammable Solids - This includes, but is not limited to the following:
    • DOT Class C devices
    • Gunpowder/Cartridge Primers
    • Military Explosives, etc.


  • On the other hand, Merriam-Webster [m-w.com] specifically mentions automation (meaning, an automaton), and doesn't mention remote control. Pocket Oxford doesn't mention remote control and also wants it to look like a human. Dictionaries differ, none of them is gospel, and very few of them are written by robotics experts. And there's more than one way to shoot off your mouth. ;)

    More importantly, your definition is too broad - by that standard your VCR is a robot when you tell it to play, rewind and eject a tape. If we extend "complex actions" to include solid-state devices, so are a lot of other things with no ability to run even the simplest program.

    The popular definition of robots makes them automatons. Many people will also agree with Oxford that they ought to be human-seeming, though that's changed in the last fifteen years since most people have seen a car-building robot. The remote-control devices in this game show aren't much different from the video representations in an arcade game where you select your player's abilities from a menu and then whack on your opponent with the punch and kick buttons. That doesn't mean it won't be entertaining to watch, though, and it'll probably be popular among the subsection of the teen male crowd that's too proud to watch actual human wrestling.

  • Re:Keep the robots, dump the humans! (Score:3)

    by jbarnett ( 127033 ) on Thursday August 24, 2000 @05:02AM (#832138) Homepage
    why not inclose the robots in a bullproof, safety glass, plexglass transparent container? Or put then in a steal cage. Or take the crowd out and just have carmea's, all the metal flying, but no one gets hurt.

  • I went to the last BattleBots show in San Francisco, and man, it sucked!

    Each match was 2-3 minutes and there was at least 10 minutes of nothing between them. We didn't even get an idiot presenter, or music!

    I really expected it to be better than SRL [srl.org], but it wasn't. SRL's problem is a complete lack of pacing, and I thought that with the directed goal of a competition, that would give BattleBots the pacing that SRL so desperately needs. But they totally blew it by having so much dead air!

    And how many times can you watch one triangular wedge bump into another triangular wedge? I was particularly impressed at how badly they pilotted their vehicles: you'd think they'd spend some time learning to drive RC vehicles first, wouldn't you? I guess they spent all their time building them and none driving them... It appeared that each match was won by accident, not by the skill involved in either driving or construction.

    I'd watch it on TV, but I'm sure that whatever else is on at that time will be better.

    SomethingAwful.com [somethingawful.com] has a review of the TV version of a recent Robot Wars. It sounds differently awful, but very similarly awful in many ways.

  • It's a shame.

    Imagine black, small, disk-shaped robot looking completely harmless. It just sits there, not even trying to move. It produces no sound, even if you listen really carefully. No fire-throwers, no blinking lights, no hammers, cutters nor any other medieval stuff.

    All around it battle rages on and the robot is motionless.

    But you would be mistaken to think that it does nothing. In fact, it's scanning the ether for signals. It listens, learns and reasons. It guesses frequencies used by all contestants. It figures what each command does by building the map of battlefield with help of proximity meters and sophisticated heuristics extracting valueable information from command sequences radioed to fighting robots.

    Soon it can control its opponents. Using powerful transmitter hidden inside its hull, it oh-so-slighly "enhances" orders of operators. A bit more to the left here, so that that arm could reach you. Trying to strike forward? Let me delay you for a second, just enough for this fire-blowing robot to get in your way.

    Complete control over the battlefield. The last remaining opponent just uses it's weapons on itself and the victory is ours.

    --
  • The only physics it demonstrates is Ke=1/2mv^2, and you don't get to see them building the things.

    There is a real "Iron" chef like mechanical challenge show, in the UK it goes by the name Scrapheap Challenge [channel4.com], when shown in the US, they call it Junkyard Wars [junkyard-wars.com]. It too features a Red Dwarf actor as host, this time Robert, the guy that plays Kryten (without the mask however).

    Basic premise: Two 3 person teams are each provided with a specalist, identical workshops, and equal access to an 800 ton pile of scrap metal. (literally). Dragged from their beds at the crack of dawn, costumed in flameproofed jump suits, they are given a problem to solve (something "simple" like a one person glider, or a 4 person amphibian. How about A diving bell, or a MPG marathon machine. It might be something that can solve a problem, say retrieve a car sunk underwater), and they have 10 hours to build a solution, using only what they pull off the scrap pile. The next day, the two machines are run head to head, and the better one's team advances to the next round, and a harder challenge.

    I organized the first US team to compete. We think its a whole lot more fun than Survivor [the-nerds.org] or Iron Chef [the-nerds.org]. The obvious questions are answered in my FAQ [the-nerds.org]

    In the UK, the show is carried by Channel 4, and the new season starts Sept 17. In the US, TLC carries it, but not particularly well. (they have show 6 of the 13 existing episodes, and haven't yet agreed to pick up the third season. They have commisioned their own version, to be shown in Jan/Feb timeframe.)

    -dp-
    We flew over, we built, we can't say what we got to build, or how we did until the shows air, we had a truly great time.

    This planet needs a lot more kids that think taking the lawnmowers' engine apart is more fun than playing nintendo.

  • Re: Robot Wars? SRL is better (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This stuff is interesting, but it still pales in comparison to Survival Research Laboratories [srl.org], who've been staging battles between bigger, scarier robots (railguns! gerbil-powered flamethrowers! helicopters with spikes on the bottom! cow carcasses stuffed with rotten dairy products!) for years.

  • On the other hand, a rabid PITA activist...

    Nope, that'll just piss off WETP (Wolverines for the Ethical Treatment of PETA).


    ---
  • Yipe! How close were the spectators? Halon can suffocate people if you're not careful...


    --Fesh
    "Citizens have rights. Consumers only have wallets." - gilroy

  • From what I saw, Junkyard wars (US Name), was airing on TLC on Wed nights. However, they seem to have stopped showing (showed the episodes from last year, and hinted at the "next season" episodes.). Anyone know when / if they'll be back on?

  • Ooh, post a link. OMF was cool.
  • And to continue this thought. Remember, BattleBots is on Comedy Central, not PBS, not Discovery Channel, not local access. What this means is they have to pull a certain level of ratings from the typical Comedy Central watcher to make it worth their while doing.

    Thus, we get the hype and the 'personalities'.

    Let us not fail to realize that what this is doing is making something that is considered tres geek and making it into something worthwhile by pop culture. Anything that enlightens that masses, even by a little, gets my thumbs up. Who knows, those gearheads might make the next super killer robot instead of adding lifters to their musclecar. And super killer robots are a hell of a lot more fun than musclecars, IMHO.

  • nope, against the rules (Score:3)

    by Captain Pillbug ( 12523 ) on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @06:41PM (#832148)
    From the rules [battlebots.com]:

    Electricity - The use of electricity as a weapon shall be forbidden. This includes, but is not limited to the following:

    ¥ Stun Guns/Cattle Prods
    ¥ RF jamming equipment, etc.



    Hacking your opponents' signal would constitute "jamming".
  • It most likely is illegal to mess with your opponents signal. And even if it isn't, it sorta goes against the spirit of the whole thing, which is all about watching robots kick the crap out of each other, not staring at a bunch of ECM devices fighting it out. That'd be interesting to a handful of geeks out there maybe, but wouldn't make for very good TV.
  • I tried my best to keep a little optomism about it, in hopes that we americans wouldn't screw such a wonderful concept up too badly. i was beginning to think we might actually be capable of creating entertainment that wasn't completely mindless, and that this would focus on quality engineering and the versatility of the robots, as in Robot Wars UK. and then they announced donna d'errico as floor comentator.....

  • Do the controllers have direct line of sight to the bots? If so, you could develop one with a secondary IR transceiver and a radio jammer. Or even one with some autonomous functions where it jams the RF signals for the duration of the "move"...
  • Man, this show is so cool. I know Survival Research has been doing it forever, but bringing it to the mass market is great. The format's a little dorky, but those two brothers are pretty funny.

    And hands up-- how many people have always dreamed of a show like this, like since they were a kid? 'Course my dreams had teams of self-controlled humanoid 'bots and tanks, and more guns, but still...

    'Course it really is battle of the Remote Control Cars... but I guess it makes for better battles, leave the AI for the lego 'bot warriors.

  • ...US First gone homicidal! However, I really like the idea - robotics is a field that, AFAIK, is kind of pushed aside. Adding this entertainment element may push more interest into robotics - whether it be for things like prosthetic limbs, or all-out war. The field of robotics IMO is what the next technological push may be towards (ie Bioengineering, AI, and the like).

  • Re:Wonderful!... But still... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Speaking of her *ahem* assets [cybercity.dk] ...
  • BBC USA on Dish covers it- or at least it did when I last saw BBC USA on my friend's cable setup (I've got Dish, I know they carry it- I just don't have budget to add it in light of my DSL line purchase... :-)
  • Check this out linaxe [sourceforge.net]
    Sure, but if you give one monkey one typewriter
  • Trust me their shows are something else. The only problem is that the announce the shows like the day before. I guess they have this problem with the San Francisco police because they seem to get arrested a lot. They have a jet engine they tow around behind a truck that they turn on afterburner and park in front of the Roxy. Right now they are working on a machine that works like a pitching machine that shoots 2x4's. It's powered by a 500hp Eldorado engine.

    Hey I do web design!!! [centric.com]

  • <i>They recommend using PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) transceivers to minimize interference among the many controllers around the competition.</i>

    This is a bogus reason, PCM is just as susceptible to interferance as PPM. They're both just different modulation forms of FM.

    PCM is, however, sometimes a little better at masking the interference by ignoring signals it can't recognize, but it doesn't mean you still have control.

  • I don't think this is correct. I believe that the correlation involves stability of levels of testosterone: aggressive behavior is correlated with unstable levels of testosterone, and an absence of aggressive behavior is correlated with stable levels - this is true, at least, in chimps and some other simians, in the study I saw.

    Also, correlation doesn't indicate causality - there are a lot of other possible factors at work. It is true, for example, that individuals who are given testosterone supplements as part of some treatment or other (include female-to-male transexuals) report an increase in aggressive feelings.

  • And fast forward through the tripe to the meat of the program. I watched the whole 'content' of the preview episode in about 10 minutes.

    Hopefully the later episodes won't be as stupid. I love the concept though.. Very cool.

    ---
  • > American programme

    no, it would be a British programme bassed on an American program. Where's the grammar nazi now that we need them.

    Hmm, if it's about the British usate, does he become the gramarre naze?

    :)

  • Didja Miss It? It's on again at... (Score:5)

    by CritterNYC ( 190163 ) on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @07:06PM (#832170) Homepage
    If ya missed it, don't worry, one of the great things about Comedy Central is how often they rerun the episodes.

    The episode will be rerun as follows:

    Friday, Aug 25 8:00PM
    Saturday, Aug 26 10:00AM
    Saturday, Aug 26 5:00PM
    Saturday, Aug 26 11:00PM
    Sunday, Aug 27 11:30AM

    (All times EDT)

    BTW - Their Realvideo server is currently /.ed.
  • I know what Comedy Central is doing here.

    Under fire for removing Mystery Science Theater 3000 from their programming lineup, they need a clever way to reintroduce the show without blantantly admitting their bad choice in taking the show out of their schedule.

    Enter Tom Servo and Crow, the popular, wisecracking robots from MST3k.

    The programmers have the idea to place a show about robots on Comedy Central. On a later date, the 'bots from MST3k will fight it out, sparking a reason to bring the show back onto Comedy Central.

    They're geniuses.

  • tripe (Score:2)

    by Phexro ( 9814 )
    moderator warning: honest opinion follows. mod me down if you must, but at least read my post.

    jesus christ. this show is one of the most horrific pieces of crap i have ever seen.

    don't get me wrong; i really like the concept. i enjoyed robot wars the few times i've seen it. but you'd think that a geeky thing like building and fighting robots would be targeted at... well, geeks. battlebots seems to be in position to take a huge chunk out of the audience of the teletubbies.

    this show is like a terrible, terrible parody of the local 10 p.m. news crossed with "extreme" sports, lobotomized to attract the average american viewer. which means an iq approaching the single digits. after watching two minutes, i felt so ill that i had no choice but to turn it off. so extreme was my contempt for television in general after watching this asinine show, i went to take a bath and read a book.

    i hope they can do better for the real show, versus the "preview".
    --
  • no kiddin', that was some pretty good tv.

    Now they just need to lose those commentators, and go get Madden. He wouldn't know the difference.

    --

  • Re:robot wars anyone? (Score:3)

    by Afterimage ( 44695 ) <nwalls.ismedia@org> on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @09:17PM (#832176) Homepage
    While there's more info from the battlebots site, Robot Wars was started way back, and was sponsored in large part by a record company (Priority?). The creator and his financial supporter ended up fighting over how Robot Wars was going to be handled, including Robot Wars UK. The two camps didn't want to go in the same direction and Priority ended up suing to put a hold on Robot Wars events that it didn't approve of.

    It ended up that one event that was to occur about two years ago in the Bay Area was cancelled, much to my roommates chagrin.

    BattleBots was the community response to the lack of an organized robotic combat arena. The community, largely, the Society of Robotic Combat, developed the rules currently in use with BattleBots.

    So, there may be similarities. I think what it comes down to is how the events were edited for TV. Tonight, what they had as the prelim events were part of the lightweight rounds, which were featured as much as the super heavys. The TV show seems like it is going to bypass the lightweights.

    After being in the audience for the taping, I'm so far less than statisfied with the way Comedy Central put the package together. There were a few errors in fact (the arena is made of Lexan, not plexiglass). Secondly, the announcers seem to be a little over eager and dramatic and stiff. Hopefully, this gets better as the show goes on.

    I also hope they won't edit too much of the matches. We were a tad surprised by how tight the editing seemed to be this evening.

    It was a great couple of days at Fort Mason for the taping. I just hope it translates well for television.

  • The show got much better if you had the patience to wait through the idiot Howie Mandell wannabe.

    I thought the ladybug was genius, myself. It got me thinking, what would the rules say about enclosing an opposing robot in a Faraday cage to prevent RF signals from reaching it. Technically, it's not electric and it's not actually *jamming* the signal...
    --
  • . Explosives or Flammable Solids - This includes, but is not limited to the following:

    DOT Class C devices

    Gunpowder/Cartridge Primers

    Military Explosives, etc.



    But a Flammable Gas/Flammable liquid isn't a flammable solid. So would a gass or liquid flamethrower be allowed? Spraying flaming goo all over your oponents control system could pretty much end it if there are any exposed wires...

    Kintanon
  • Having it simply be robot vs robot without hype or backstories would limit it to just techies. Like it or not, most people need a to latch on to a personality to stay interested.
    I certainly have no problems with backstories. I like the staff to point out strengths and weaknesses of the bots. I want the drivers / builders / designers (assuming they're not all the same person) interviewed. I want to know what their strategies were (sometimes this isn't entirely apparent when the best laid plans fail on the arena floor). I want the driver to comment when things went right or wrong. The bots are cool - the people behind them complete the story.

    Mindless banter, cheap jokes, "oh gosh aren't I dizzy" physical talent, and other gimics don't add value to this show.

    I can appreciate the producer's concern towards appealing to a larger audience than robot-loving geeks. And I'm more than happy to hear an announcer wax poetic about wanton mechanical destruction and the glee of flying debris. But many sports that fuse the human factor with mechanics and technology (various forms of motor racing come to mind) manage to capture an audience without taking notes from the WWF.

    Of course, I'm being fairly critical without giving the show a chance to prove it isn't all gimick - that it manages to strike an effective balance between "personality" and main event. I hope they manage it. I fear they won't.

  • Who cares about PITA? More importantly your 'bot' wouldn't stand a chance! When it's teeth vs rotating saw blades, My money is on the blades.

  • Keep the robots, dump the humans! (Score:3)

    by Nonesuch ( 90847 ) on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @10:11PM (#832193) Homepage Journal
    Comparing this to the classic UK "Robot Wars", the Comedy Central show could be much better if they would just get rid of the stupid "sports announcer" guys on the cast. We don't want to see guys with too much hairspray talking like it is a football game, we want to see machines tear each other to shreds!

    I noticed right off that there is one major improvement in "Battle Bots" - weapons that actually work!

    The 'bots in "Robot Wars" tend to have wimpy little weapons and never do any real damage- saws that stop spinning the moment they come into contact with anything of real substance. Meanwhile, the first "Battle Bot" exhibition match has one robot literally tearing the other to pieces!

    That's what we like to see, total carnage!

  • I'm not into anything macho at all - I have the testosterone level of a randy cabbage - but I think that Battlebots are the coolest things ever, and I want someone to open a Battlebot arena in my area NOW.

    I'd pay $25 an hour to get together with my friends and slam our avatar Battlebot-selves into each other, the vanquished paying for the beer afterwards!
  • does anyone know the difference between this and the bbc robot wars show? ive seen that one on PBS a few times, and from what i can see of this show, they seem pretty similar
  • Personally I'd be most interested in starting an aquatic robotics competition, but I haven't found enough people to compete with to attempt such a thing.

    That would be ultra cool.. except that it would be the same as on land, but everything has to be waterproof. ;)

    One cool thing I can see about underwater battle... a robot has 2 internal cavities, 2 electrodes... and produces their own hydrogen explosion underwater! Imagine literally blowing your opponent out of the water... COOL.

  • Why is CC picking up stuff like this, is the Sci-Fi channel too busy showing softcore wanna be's like Lexx? Other than Sci-Fi's recent exposure series and that psychic guy (i love watching CSICOP disciples go into conniptions over him) that channel has been a magnificent failure and hopefully will go out of business and replaced with something interesting like that proposed anime/martial arts channel. [wildcoast.org]
  • Did Anyone Play "One Must Fall"? This wast a fighting game between Human contrlled robots. Pretty much fun if you had nothing to do.

    I can't comment on the show as I'm in Germany, but the idea seems like the beginning of OMF in reality.

    I saw OMF a couple of days ago in an "abandonware" site. Abandon as in "officially declared Freeware", not "Warez under other name".

    Greetinx
    Aleks A.
    ---
    For a real millenial disaster, computer glitches cannot hold a candle to global warming.

  • A few tips from Robot Wars UK (Score:4)

    by Paul Johnson ( 33553 ) on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @11:10PM (#832212) Homepage
    I've watched a lot of the Robot Wars programs over here. Here is what I've learned:
    • Don't go up against the house robots. Well, I gather that actually there aren't any on Battlebots. This is silly. The house robots were what made RW UK work so well. Everybody loved watching the best competitors go up against a house robot and win! Also when two competitors got stuck together a house robot could move in and unjam things a bit.
    • Bet on wedge shaped robots with a flipper on the upper surface. The flipper will invert the opponent, and can also act as a self-righting mechanism.
    • Read the rules carefully. One team got disqualified for a saw blade that shattered.
    • Saws in general don't work: you need a target that will hold still for a while. By that time you've won anyway.
    • Pickaxes that come over the top can be effective, but they need to hit very hard, and often do little more than punch a small hole. They are also surprisingly difficult to aim accurately.
    • Tracks and chains often come off in combat. Avoid them. Also any tank-type steering mechanism is a tradeoff between traction and turning ability.
    • Car starter motors are cheap and powerful, but tend to burn out. Wheelchair motors are more expensive but have the necessary longevity.
    • You need a zero turning circle, high speed and high acceleration, but you also need fine control. Pay attention to your control circuit design.
    • After you have built your robot, pick it up and drop it a few times at various angles. Anything that breaks wasn't combat ready.
    • Big budgets matter less than ingenuity and good engineering.
    • Although deliberate RFI is banned, the studio is a noisy environment. Lots of robots turn out to be uncontrolable once they are in the arena.

    Paul.

  • hmm.. that suddenly makes me wonder.. would whipped cream cakes make a suitable weapon? would they be solid enough to get out under the 'no liquids' rule? it's certainly tasteful.. and suitable for minors..
  • Huh? I guess you've had the pleasure to never have seen 'America's Funniest Home Videos'.

    You can't get through an episode without someone getting smashed in the crotch by something. Baseball bat, a baseball, etc. At least once per episode, usually more. The worst thing is that the show, or some derivitive thereof, has been running for YEARS.

    And people wonder why I don't watch much TV.


    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
  • i love this show, and i really dig that it's getting it's own slot instead of the usual two minutes each year on the local news that the past robot battle tournaments have gotten

    but shouldn't this be on scifi channel or something other than comedy central? i laugh at it, but i wouldn't consider it comedy..

    well, until the CC folks realize this, i'm going to laugh my ass off at some robots getting mauled

  • Re:Robot Wars? (Score:4)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @05:52PM (#832218) Homepage Journal

    No it is not. BattleBots occurs in the US (last one was in SF, I'm bummed cuz it was sold out by the time I found out about it). American robots tend to be larger and more dangerous, mostly due to the fact that too many americans have tons of money to throw at a hobby. Robot Wars is a great show, but the bots really are rather puny. (even the house robots). Check out some of the various events that are not televised and you'll see some pretty great robots.

    Nuts and Voltz magazine has articals from time to time about the results of robotic competitions (usually going over some of the more interesting robots, like a giant snack that can apply 900lbs of force with it's 3 piece jaw).

    Back in the early days, when there were no real restrictions. Robots would have thermite, dynamite and even raw sewage to attack opponents with. Unfortunetly few places allow such things anymore, mostly because some of the "old pros" lost fingers

    If anyone is interested in thier own robots. Please check out robohoo [robohoo.com]. It's a great little directory for robotics related things.

    Personally I'd be most interested in starting an aquatic robotics competition, but I haven't found enough people to compete with to attempt such a thing.

  • Has anybody told MacAddict about this? (Score:3)

    by imac.usr ( 58845 ) on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @05:55PM (#832221) Homepage
    After all the effort put into the iBorg [2065719203iborgsdp], I think they'd be afraid to enter it.

    (link probably only works during west coast business hours; search www.macaddict.com for iBorg for details or try this link [macaddict.com])

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I caught the primer episode tonight and have come away with a generally positive reaction - with some caution. The trouble is, its hard to decide on first glance. Battlebots has a good basis, but I'm concerned with some of the personalities that are bundled with the show. But then, this could all be a matter of editing. Future episodes will decide.

    The Good - environment.

    Battlebots has the right environment. Simple and elegant.

    While the backdrop isn't nearly as impressive as the set of Robot Wars (heck - the title animation is amateurish compared to Robot War's but I digress...), it provides a function that limited Robot Wars. Safety. The enclosed arena of Battlebots seems to allow much more powerful robots and weapons systems without endangering spectators. This should pay off with some amazing action. Tonight's match between Backlash and Disposable Hero demonstrated the possibilities - parts flew through the air as Backlash dismantled DH.

    The Battlebots arena is also all about the contestant bots. Two bots pitting engineering, design, and driving skill against their respective opponent. No well funded house bots. No obstacle course. Battlebots is not Robot Wars (though I think both formats are great). Battlebots DOES have a nice layout of hazards such as retractable floor saws, spikes, and ramps to keep the action going and provide another way for a robot to dispatch its opponent and rack up points.

    The Bad - personalities.

    I'm worried about Battlebot's human personalities. There's a whole team of on-screen personalities running around the show - I'm almost worried we won't have enough time in each episode to watch the bots.

    We have the announcers - neccisary, but with too much NFL for my taste. Of course, it could have been worse. They could throw in a heaping measure of WWF. I don't want hyperbole and hype here - tell me whats going on and some interesting facts about the bots and get out of the way.

    We have the female... talent. The physical draw. Her claim to a personality slot? She's a Baywatch babe. And in the short clips she's busy dropping innuendo and playing the ditz. Robot Wars had a cutie to walk the pits... but I tend to remember her as keeping her wits about her.

    Bill Nye also looks to be roaming the pits with a penchant for techno speak. I hope he has something good to say - an eye for the engineering challenges the bot designers face and overcome. As one of the designers just stared at Bill blankly, I began to fear Bill Nye, Science Guy is there to fill dead air with techno babble. That would be a shame.

    The Brothers did a bit involving interviewing the public with a "bot on the street". I hope they bring something interesting to the show. The fear here is that they'll fill up space with cheesy banter while we patiently wait for what we came to see - bots.

    The Ugly - Production

    The whole show, of course, hinges on the production and editing. I can almost hear the whispers in the Producer's ears: "Its metallic WWF!" Resist the Dark Side. Battlebots doesn't need to layer on hype. It doesn't need gimmicks. It has plenty of material in the robot battle, the design and engineering of the bots, and finally the individuals who've designed and drive their mechanized agents of mayhem. And there will be plenty of debris.

    Will I watch the show? Definitely. What they've done with the material they have will decide how long I continue to do so.

  • As I said elsewhere, I watched, and didn't get the overwhelming urge to compete that Junkyard Wars/Scrapheap Challenge left me with.
    I have to agree - Scrapheap definately presents THE show for on-the-fly engineering. It is simply amazing that by the end of the show, teams are able to present a device that actually DOES the challenge task. Even more amazing when both teams produce entries that compete. As an aside, I saw you guy's video entry - how a sewing machine works. Really cool. Good luck!

    Of course, the combative robot arena shows and Junkyard Wars are completely different formats. Apples and Oranges. Some will prefer one or the other. Me... I'd like a fruit salad of Robot Wars, Battlebots, with maybe Junkyard Wars / Scrapheap Challenge to space the two apart. Mmmmm.

  • And the British show Scrapheap Challenge (which may or may not be based on an American programme) is co-presented by Robert Llewellyn (Kryten). It's similar to Robot Wars in some ways, having teams which have to build machines and then compete. (Scavenge for junk and use it to build a land yacht or whatever within ten hours.)

    So what will the remaining Dwarf cast be presenting?

  • Be an active viewer, please! (Score:4)

    by abischof ( 255 ) <alex&spamcop,net> on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @06:00PM (#832239) Homepage
    I'm watching this show [comedycentral.com] right now, and it's really cool :). Unfortunately, the networks tend to be kinda stupid in this regard -- all the cool shows like this always seem to go off the air.

    So, please write to [mailto] Comedy Central [comedycentral.com], or even advertisers, to tell them how much you like the show :). I think that's the only hope we'll have of keeping the show around.

    Alex Bischoff
    Interested in building a roof over your cubicle? [slashdot.org]
    ---

  • Wonderful!... But still... (Score:5)

    by hypergeek ( 125182 ) on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @06:03PM (#832241)

    Warning: Incoherent Mumbling Rant

    Purpose: Unknown

    I think it's great and all that they're doing such a potentially fun/edgykayshunull program... but still...

    Robot Wars had that guy from Red Dwarf!

    What's Battlebots got to beat that, huh?

    In the words of Scott Evil: "*Cough* *Cough* *Ripoff!*"

    Not that I think the show's a bad idea... just that it ought to have something to differentiate it-- y'know... like an Iron Chef bonus round or something (with the chefs made from real iron!)

    See, when you take the time and effort to blatantly rip off two cult TV hits, then you're actually doing the viewer a service, by compressing two shows down to a manageable 30 minute time slot, thereby freeing up everybody's time to go play Networked Pong ("what's your Pong ping?")

    Then again, I hope they don't recycle too many TV favorites... I mean, if Comedy Central gets real cheap, then we might end up watching a gruesome, lopsided deathmatch as some hulking, firebreathing, multiple-chainsaw-propeller-wielding chrome behemoth Mech's mammoth shadow looms over the cowering, doomed duo of Servo and Crow!

    Eep!

    Okay, I promise... this is the second-to-last time that I check the Slashdot headlines right after drinking 2 bottles of generic store brand cola! (From now on, just 1 case of Red Bull oughta last me a whole week!)

    Mmmm... now bring on the educational robotic violence!....

  • Survival Research Laboratories (Score:5)

    by SydBarrett ( 65592 ) on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @06:05PM (#832242)
    I think Survival Research Laboratories has been doing this kind of stuff longer than anyone( since 1979), except that they do only shows (kinda like a circus). They even have videos for sale. The last time I heard of one of their shows, you had to sign a waiver to see the show in case you got injured by pieces of flying metal or something.

    Check it out at:
    www.srl.org

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