Jamie From Mythbusters Interview

[Conor Ryan]

Originally Posted by Kevin Watson

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.

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.

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

Hmm the more i comapare these two competitions the more i see them on two ends of the spectrum in style of play. What BBIQ doesn't have FIRST has and Vice versa, but they also have their similarities, such as both competitions demand for Durable, High Quality, Innoation and High Craftsmanship in the robots. Neither competition isn't bad, in fact if there wasn't a team in your school you'd really need to weigh the possibiltities of what competition to join. But i've come out with this sort of verdict, BBIQ demands Durablility and strength over almost everything else whereas FIRST demands innovation over almost everything else. But you never know, stuff changes all the time and people have certain strengths they aim for in their robot.

As for some other stuff, thats really cool that they have hydralics, i think First is a little scared of having hydralic fluid all over the field, its a bit of a safety risk, i admire them for having it available in competition.

Two questions though,
1. how different were all the robots from each other? I'm pretty sure just from what i've seen that you can't get more variety in First than you can in BBIQ but i'd like you input on that.

2. how even is the play field between high budget teams verses newer teams with less money since you get to pick and choose your motors, or did they just put a spending limit on it?


just think for a minute, a hybrid competition for FRC and BBIQ....Fighting with Tetras?