BattleBots Return - And They're Powered by VEXpro!

[carpedav000]

Originally Posted by IKE

I actually thought it would just be a box full of a bunch of cardboard that would act as an energy absorber. IE, it would take a lot of damage, but slow down the spinner enough that it would not cause real significant damage. and allow the other robt to push it around.

I thought we were gonna see a minibot drive through the box at the beginning of the fight.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

I agree partially. However, the target audience should be for those that are interested in Robotics.

Why? (That's a rhetorical question).

Do the potential viewers who are interested in Robotics spend more money on advertised products than other viewers do?

Or to look at it another way, doesn't ABC already have your eyeballs using the existing format? It makes perfect sense for them to try to attract as many other consumer eyeballs as they can, and for them to push the format as far in those other directions as they are able, without losing your eyes.

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Ideally the target audience should be people NOT interested in robotics.

Again a rhetorical "Why?"

STEM inspiration advocates would certainly agree; but according to ABC, I'll bet the target audience should include whoever they can attract (more than once if possible) that has the most disposable income burning a hole in their pocket.

ABC isn't PBS.

Is ABC an important example of "changing the culture"?

Discuss...

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

I agree partially. However, the target audience should be for those that are interested in Robotics. The WWE format is a bit of a turn-off for me, but my 7- and 8-year-old boys love the robots in action!

Ideally the target audience should be people NOT interested in robotics.

The show is awesome, and I hope my team gets a chance to compete next season.

[Amanda Morrison]

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

I don't really see this show staying on the air very long. There's no real analysis or commentary. It's all so...shallow "Oh, these robots are SO DIFFERENT!". I guess that's what you get when none of the commentators have any technical experience.

Actually, Battlebots has debuted to strong ratings against its competitor networks and has had some pretty great reviews thus far. I liked this article best, personally.

My opinion appears to differ sharply from yours. I'm no engineer but have worked for companies in robotics education, production, or engineering consulting for my entire professional career. As a result I hold myself as a fairly decent barometer between the never-exposed, technically clueless and the well-versed robotics community.

At first I was uncertain when I saw that they are using sports reporters alongside STEM personalities. That changed sharply when I saw Bobak Ferdowsi featured, and when I heard Kenny Florian explain the transfer of kinetic energy in the first episode (he's actually very articulate without the appearance of dumbing it down for the masses and I've come to appreciate his weigh-in on the matches). While for nostalgia's sake I was sad to not see Mark Beiro return, they've captured that boxing introduction element perfectly with Faruq Tauheed.

See, if we keep touting that we're participating in a sport for the mind and if we keep trying to get our schools to lend robotics the same legitimacy that sports programs enjoy, we have to include that sports community in what we're trying to accomplish. I'm not saying the whole of America are completely stupid, but Jim Jefferies said it best in that "we have to walk as slow as our slowest person to keep society moving". You cannot introduce someone to Battlebots for the first time and assume that they understand the complicated intricacies and history of robotics competitions. The net-in-a-box was a great example - the casual viewer probably thought the birthday surprise by Complete Control was awesome, but the rest of us knew that there was no way the refs were going to let that fly. Made for great TV, though!

Yes, they weigh categories such as "Defense" and "Aggressiveness" which are somewhat subjective, general, and atypical metrics that you would use to analyze a combat robot. As a community of strategists and robot builders, we know that. America may not know that. Those arbitrary stats are a great general indicator for, say, a small child who has never been exposed to robotics before Battlebots. This show can be a starting point without having exhaustive analysis and still get the point across.

In the blurbs that have featured women engineers/builders on the show, they have all been shown as equals to their male peers without expressly calling that out. There's very little of the special, rare unicorn mentality and these women have done an amazing job of spreading the message of "I wanted to do this, so I did it." The message from all builders, from all backgrounds, of all genders and ages, has been that they are interested in competitive robotics and they do this because they think it is cool. I could go on and on about how I think ABC is doing this particular part of the show so very, very right, but I'll keep that for another post at another time.

By showing the builders, by explaining their professions and backgrounds, the masses will start to see that building a robot is an attainable goal that isn't just for the super-nerdy male engineering stereotype. It gives them the opportunity to build allegiance to a team and that will keep viewers coming back week after week to see how "their" robot has done. It's the same as shows like Amazing Race or the Bachelorette or whatever, right? You always want "your" contestant to win. So even those that are watching with no intention of getting involved themselves, they become invested in the outcome. Maybe they have kids who watch alongside, and discover the robotics team in their school. And just like that, you have a new generation invested in learning about technology application and getting ready for their big trip to Louisville or St. Louis.

I think they have found the perfect intersection between those who have no technical expertise and usually tune in to watch Honey Boo Boo-esque programming, and those who are professional engineers who are dying to build their own Battlebot. What you're perceiving as shallow is playing Mozart to the masses in the starting format of a children's lullaby. It will catch on, and the show can improve on some of the technical commentary once it has been further established and approved for more than just 6 quick episodes. This is an exceptionally difficult middle ground to navigate, and frankly I'm pretty pleased that ABC has done it so well. It could have been rebooted very poorly and the sport would have significant hurdles to overcome before being televised ever again, but the program's success is shared success for the acceptance and beginning of mainstream competitive robotics.

Fingers are crossed for Season 2 to be announced any day now!

[Necroterra]

Originally Posted by gblake

While the foam is deccelerating the spinning blade, the will be plenty of equal and opposite reactions going on that will affect both robots.

Also, in general, anything that does a lot of deccelerating in a short distance starts to be more like tire rubber, or loops of steel cable, than it is like foam.

I think I would prefer trying a mixture of sloped armor, mechanisms that would anchor me to the floor when struck, and/or actively grabbing the spinner while it is slow after a hit.

I'll admit I don't know much about the topic, but if you used the right density of foam (or maybe layers of scaling density), wouldn't the deformation absorb the impact and send you flying less? Solid steel won't get shredded by a spinner, but instead it just launches you away.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Necroterra

I'll admit I don't know much about the topic, but if you used the right density of foam (or maybe layers of scaling density), wouldn't the deformation absorb the impact and send you flying less? Solid steel won't get shredded by a spinner, but instead it just launches you away.

Shock absorber deformation slows/reduces the accelerations, but doesn't decrease the total energy involved. So, yes, shock absorbers tend to attempt to reduce shock magnitudes by spreading energy over longer times and distances, but they don't make the energy disappear (some is turned into heat, the rest shows up in rebounds, etc.).

If a spinning blade does hit a large, inflexible mass, BOTH the item that gets hit AND the device holding the blade experience roughly similar shocks. A difference is that the spinning blade device's designer knew exactly where that shock would hit, and could build in compensation for the shock.

Protecting (in the sense of surviving a head-on hit without being affected) the exterior of anything physical from attacks that can come from any direction an attacker chooses is usually hard to do.

Becoming a more difficult target to hit head-on, or finding a hole in the attacker's strategy is often easier than choosing to be on defense and then going toe-to-toe with them.

Blake

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

Agreed, so far all I have learned about the rules of this competition is that the rules don't really matter.

I have no desire to violate my NDA by posting the rules in question, but rest assured there was a rule which would in fact disallow the use of the net.

[Joe G.]

For anyone who is interested in the specifics of the rules involved, they have now been made publicly available, in response to a viewer email along the lines of the questions in this thread. They were released along with a disclaimer that they expect these to change for any further seasons, and that the highly experienced intended audience allowed them to be more concise (and unfortunately, apparently vague) than they would otherwise be.

[Ryan Dognaux]

I think the show is great. It's entertaining to kids and adults alike and is awesome for someone who doesn't know anything about robots. You have to remember that we aren't their target audience - they assume we will watch. It's the other 99% that they need to reel in. I think ABC is killing it and I hope season 2 happens!

[asid61]

Those rules are a lot looser than I expected them to be. They don't appear to put limits on springs.
Also, you can fly. I thought there would be more quadcopter robots.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by asid61

Those rules are a lot looser than I expected them to be. They don't appear to put limits on springs.
Also, you can fly. I thought there would be more quadcopter robots.

Copters would satisfy the crowd-appeal criterion, but what payload would they carry that would help a team win a match?

[Cuog]

Originally Posted by asid61

Those rules are a lot looser than I expected them to be. They don't appear to put limits on springs.
Also, you can fly. I thought there would be more quadcopter robots.

I think part of the reason they were so loose is that they only had competitors who had been there before. So the first line of the rules to me seemed like an unspoken: "you already know the rules"

[asid61]

Originally Posted by gblake

Copters would satisfy the crowd-appeal criterion, but what payload would they carry that would help a team win a match?

I was thinking of powered drilling with (if you can get the tech) synthetic gecko feet to stay on top, but I guess that would be counted as damaging the electronics.

EDIT: you could go for the power switch, but that could be hard to get.
You could try to lift them off the ground! And then drop them from a height of 8-10 ft! If you can clamp on that well, anyway.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by gblake

Copters would satisfy the crowd-appeal criterion, but what payload would they carry that would help a team win a match?

Depending on superstructure armor and location of certain critical items, of course, if some copter had a payload on a quick-release (probably want it on a winch as well) and a targeting camera aka "bomb sight", I suspect that a fair number of robots could be damaged or disabled in their internals--see "frisbee on power switch" in FRC 2013. Naturally, the power switch would be the primary target, or anything that happened to be moving.


That being said, I rather suspect that that would be rather difficult given armor considerations and best-guess payload-carrying capacity.

[Darkseer54]

Everyone here saying tombstone is the best, but you gotta remember, tombstone was beaten by mecanum wheels.

EDIT: My brother just pointed out that on the battlebots website, the tombstone builder said Alcoholic Stepfather is his favorite robot.