Robots In The Ring

So, you don’t watch football, baseball, basketball or any of the other stuff that has been made into a political mess and are just sitting around with nothing to do.
You look around the room and spot the wife’s Zoomba sitting in the corner and wonder, “gosh, I wonder if this thing could be converted into a fighting machine?”
So, you go to work on the computerized floor sweeper from your new living quarters in the garage and with a little work, your accomplishment finds itself in the middle of a ring, fighting with someone else’s wife’s converted Zoomba and a new sport has emerged.
Now, I don’t know if the sport is worthy of a bunch of guys watching “Battle Bots” on pay per view and eating Cheetos and drinking beer, but I binge watched about 20 of the matches tonight and find them absolutely fascinating and even somewhat exhilarating.

Here’s an example of some of the matches I watched on YouTube.
.

 

I saw those battles on TV a few times and enjoyed watching them. They are a great teaching tool for aspiring geeks and it gets them away from dry text book learning.

 

The variety of the “bots” is most intriguing to me and the actual battles show how those varieties work. Some of them sling hammers to crush their opponent and some have saw blades and other spinning components. Almost all of them have wheels but one from the UK has grasshopper like legs albeit the leg thing wasn’t very well planned because against a more agile opponent it suffered some devastating pounding.
Here’s some more examples of a couple of varieties that are quite different from the 1st video I posted.

 

For the matches in the UK, I noticed the sponsors were listed when they introduced each robot and I believe one was even sponsored by Apple so we’re talking major bucks and a lot of tech going into each machine.

Compared to the list price of $29.95 for the boxing robots that I remember from my youth, the present ones are wayyyy out of my reach. Anyone remember these guys?

 

I had to do a double take on this one. After a bit I thought it was possibly fake but nope, Boston Dynamics says it’s the real deal.
Let’s dance!!

 

Yep, love those things. They get tossed and for the most part land on their wheels.
One thing I had not known from the first couple of videos is that the majority of the bots weight upward of 200-250 lbs. Until I saw them being carted into the ring they just looked like a Roomba that had been experimented on at the Isle of Dr. Marrow.

 

I’ve been watching them on YouTube (obviously) and the more recent ones lack a lot of the hoopla that the ones had before the virus junk hit.
No audience and no wild commentary during the battles. Just a couple of machines tearing each other up. Bang, boom. Fizzzzz. Next case.

One great thing about the battles is that ESPN hasn’t picked them up yet or they’d be bogged down with some kind of political junk that no one really cares about to begin with.,

 

Ya know, you and @Joe Riley are indeed a pair to draw to. It seems that you and he see the humor in between the lines much better than most.

 

I have to be honest and write that I only watched maybe 4 or 5 episodes of Myth Busters. I’ll go pull one up tomorrow and see if that’s him though.