4 posts tagged “robogames 2009”

Posted by Safire

  "It's got what plants crave!"

      A friend gave this to me at Robogames today. After drinking a third of it, another friend looked at my lips and started laughing. Apparently, it turns your lips (and who knows what else) fluorescent green!

Posted by Safire 

      I remember attending my first robotics event many years ago on Treasure Island. Back then, it was broadcast on Comedy Central and called Battlebots. Even with the plexiglass over ten feet high, I still felt that at any moment the shrapnel flying from the fighting robots would slice through the glass and lead to a bloody end for some unsuspecting audience member. Unfortunately, this never happened. I mean fortunately...ahem. It was still a lot of fun.     
      If you've never attended a robotics event, here's a description from Robogame's wikipedia entry:

Competitors from all over the world compete in 70 different events: Combat robots, walking humanoids, soccer bots, sumo bots, and even androids that do kung-fu. About 2/3's of the robot events are autonomous, while the remaining 1/3 are remotely operated (ROV's.) Despite this a large plurality of entrants in RoboGames remain in the remotely operated events, specifically combat robotics.

      For those who can't make it out to see the robotic carnage, Battlebots recently was picked up by CBS College Sports. My favorite robot today is a toss up between a martini-making robot with a touchscreen GUI made from an HP laptop, and a flame-throwing robot that flambéed it's opponent. Charred robot never smelled so good.