Robots in the Wild ~ Combat Arenas and a Wrestling Ring

This was RoboGames in Pleasanton, April 2023. Practically in my backyard, since I work in Pleasanton and lived in Dublin at the time. I went with my boyfriend (now husband).

I had wanted to go to one of these for a long time. I loved BattleBots on TV as a small child and reading Servo Magazine as a teen, which always had a combat section and made the big events like RoboGames sound like the place to be. RoboGames came back after COVID, so I finally went.

A crowd along a rope barrier watching the polycarbonate heavyweight combat arena in an exhibition hall. — The heavyweight arena between matches. Sorry I didn't capture much action. I was locked in on the matches playing out. Let's just put down that there was carnage.

Looking through the arena wall at a lone robot wheel sitting on the scarred floor between rounds. — The heavyweight arena between matches. Sorry I didn't capture much action. I was locked in on the matches playing out. Let's just put down that there was carnage.

I tend to want to build robots that don’t break. There is still something satisfying about watching a lithium battery pop in a cage match against a spinning blade of death. It’s a guilty pleasure.

If I were to compete, the antweight or even fleaweight divisions are the most interesting. The robots are smaller and cheaper, which means they can be replaced. That matters, since the whole point is that the robot is going to get smashed up.

Frame from a video clip: two antweight combat robots in the hexagonal arena, spectators visible through the far wall. — The antweight hexagon with two robots ready to fight for glory.

People still underestimate the danger of the smaller robots. The battery packs are not as large and the weapons are physically smaller and lighter, but they can still catch fire and put a nasty nick in your arm.

I also get really attached to the things I build, so putting one in a death match is scary.

The kung fu robots are more my speed. I love a good match there. That is something worth building for, I think.

Frame from a video clip: two small humanoid robots facing off in a miniature wrestling ring while their operators stand at the ropes. — Two kung fu robots squaring up, their operators at the ropes.

The mech robots (roughly the same size as the tabletop kung fu robots), with their cityscape and target point rules, are also interesting. It wasn’t particularly lively in that corner of RoboGames, there were some technical difficulties, but it’s another thing I would like to try.

There were also vendors at RoboGames, one of which was Omron with their mobile base and robot arm appliance. Brings me back to grad school.

An Omron TM collaborative arm mounted on a mobile cart at a vendor booth, blue tablecloth in front, product banners behind. — An Omron TM cobot at a vendor booth.

I left with a fire to get back into building robots. My mind was abuzz with the ideas of building an antweight fighter or a humanoid robot that could be augmented for kung fu and mech play. Or maybe it was just abuzz from the thick smell of burnt batteries and solder fumes from the pits, hard to tell.

Plenty more where this came from