Jamie From Mythbusters Interview

[Kevin Watson]

Originally Posted by cdr1122334455

besides basically ripping other robots apart...

And why is this a problem? The goal is to build a robust 'bot that can deal with the harsh environment of the battle box. This isn't any different than me taking my Mars-bound avionics and bolting it to a shake table to see if it'll survive the harsh environment of launch and entry, decent and landing. BattlebotsIQ just happens to be a whole lot more fun to watch.

Originally Posted by cdr1122334455

yes i know there is a lot of engineering involved with that, and teams do build apon each other, creating better drive trains, upgrading their weaponary, and changing other stuff around on their robot they don't face the challenges that FIRST teams do.

You're correct because BattlebotsIQ, in many ways, is much more challenging than FIRST Robotics. In FIRST you don't have to worry about moving 300 amps of current through your motors. In FIRST your welds don't have hold up to an impact from a 40 pound sharpened tool steel blade spinning at 2000 RPM...

It's getting tiresome listening to people bad-mouth BattleBotsIQ because it's deemed "violent". I was one of the judges at this years BattleBotsIQ event and I didn't witness anything violent. I did, however, witness hundreds of kids, parents, teachers and mentors having a lot of fun competing their robots against one another.

Originally Posted by cdr1122334455

However i will say both games are missing one somewhat large part of the whole engineering experince, Hydraulics.

Nope, Team P.S.I., a high school team from Colorado, showed up with a beautiful 'bot that had a 2500 PSI hydraulic claw. I had the great pleasure of helping them solve some electrical problems and later watch them compete.

-Kevin

Edit: Here are two zipped-up .avi movies of two different BBIQ bouts. The first, falcon-greenwave.avi [44.1 MB], is between "Falcon" and "Greenwave". Falcon is an incredibly sturdy 'bot that has a spinning drum. Greenwave has a spinning blade. We (the judges) awarded Greenwave the best engineered 'bot from a high school team (even though it burst into flames late in this match <grin>). The second movie, icewave-alakran.avi [40.5 MB], is between "Alakran" and "Icewave". Icewave has a 40 pound tool steel blade driven by a 15HP gas engine. Knowing that Icewave would self destruct if tipped over (as it did last year), the Alakran crew modified their 'bot to flip Icewave from a (hopefully) safe distance. These are just a couple of the incredible 'bots I saw this past weekend.