For robots, Robogames is the ultimate fighting competition. It's where brain turns into brawn, electronics trump athletic prowess and the arena is heavy not with sweat, but with the smell of solder and burnt metal.
At this year's games, held in the sleepy Silicon Valley town of San Mateo, California, some 500 robots from 17 countries competed, while at least 5,000 spectators witnessed the mechanized mayhem.
"It’s just like the Olympics, but for robots," says David Calkins, founder and one of the organizers of Robogames.
At Robogames, robots compete for medals across categories such as combat, soccer, hockey, sumo and kung fu. Scores are tallied and medals awarded. But fun and games aside, Robogames also helps advance technology breakthroughs, says Calkins.
"There’s nothing that motivates a person more than losing," he says. "If you are an athlete you train harder but if you are an engineer you spend more time in the garage and rewrite the code. Without that level of competition, it is difficult to stay motivated."
There’s more at stake than just medals: Reputations can be made within the metal-Plexiglas robot combat arena. And it's not just for geek cred: Last year, winning teams from Indonesia and Mexico found themselves invited to meet with the presidents of their respective countries.
Want to see what it takes to make a competitive robot? Watch our video, below, or click here: What's Inside a Winning Battle Bot.
Then, read on for some highlights from this year's games.
Photo courtesy Willow Garage
Mech Warfare
One of the popular, relatively new categories at Robogames is Mech Warfare. Instead of the heavy, armored combat bots for which Robogames is best known, Mech Warfare pits bipedal, quadrupedal and hexapod robots shooting plastic ammunition against each other. Wheeled robots aren’t allowed to participate.
"The concept is to recreate the mech-warrior and battle-tech type of war games that were popular on PCs and tabletops," says Andrew Alter, who organized the event. "Our emphasis is not on destroying the opponent but more about scoring and strategy."
All the robots involved have an on-board wireless camera. Each robot's operator has to view the fight through the robot's POV camera to score a hit. The entire arena is mocked up like a city complete with miniature buildings, alleys and parked cars, increasing the challenge, since robots can sneak up on one another or use the environment for tactical advantages.
The 12-minute match starts off with 20 hit points for each player. The robots lose a point each time they take a hit. The hits are monitored and relayed wirelessly to a scoreboard.
Alter’s robot Giger won the second place in that category.
Photo: Andrew Alter
Robotinno
Picture tiny robots manipulated into kicking a ball to win. That’s soccer for you in the world of robots.
Robo-soccer has two teams of three robots playing against each other. If any of the robots fail during the competition, the team goes on without it.
Robotinno, a 12-inch tall robot that weighs about 3.5 pounds, won the event and brought home the only prize for Taiwan.
Despite its rookie status – it was Robotinno’s first year at the event – the robot beat players from the United States and Hong Kong.
"The robot uses [a] servo motor in each part so it moves like a human," says Choi Hung, director at Kowatec, an Oakland, California, company that serves as a distributor for the Taiwanese robot-kit maker. "And you can program it so its features are as much the human as the hardware."
Robotinno is easy enough to put together. The robot kit costs about $850 and thermometer and barometer modules are available. The programming is done using a modified Visual Basic language.
Photo: Snarkolepsy
Texai vs. Phun Bot
Robogames has a lot of scheduled events, but every so often there’s an impromptu match that turns out to be a lot of fun. Texai vs. Phun Bot is one of them.
Texai is a remote-control robotics platform from the open source robotics company Willow Garage, while Phun Bot is a robot that mixes and serves drinks.
The two bumped into each other at the event, setting the stage for a quick match, says Ken Conley, a software engineer at Willow Garage.
"If there’s ever a category for most useless combat robot, these two would be in it," says Conley.
The two robots don’t have any armor or weapons but that didn’t stop them from a face-off. Their version of a fight meant bumping into each other.
"It was more of a comedy than a battle," says Conley. But for those who insist on keeping score, Texai was asked to leave the ring at the end.
Photo courtesy Willow Garage
Ziggy
A 340-pound titanium robot, Ziggy is a Robogames champion: It has won three gold medals in the heavyweight combat category.
This year, Ziggy didn’t get off to a good start. During a lead-up to Robogames, Ziggy was pitted against San Francisco Forty Niners' placekicker Joe Nedney in a kick-off contest. Nedney kicked a football 45 yards while Ziggy, the robot, failed to clear the goalposts in two attempts at that distance.
Luckily for Ziggy, it wasn’t part of the competition. At the Robogames event where Ziggy was up against his own kind, he readily trounced the competition.
Just ask his opponents. Tom Hartley, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Akron, has a robot called CombatBot pitted against Ziggy.
"Ziggy threw us all over the ring," he says. "Our weapons system failed quickly and the internals of the CombatBot were thrown everywhere."
Overnight, Hartley and his students fixed up the CombatBot for a second round, only to have Ziggy pound them again.
Photo: Evan Ackerman/Botjunkie.com
Firefighting robot
CombatBot lost the fight against Ziggy but that didn’t deter University of Akron professor Tom Hartley and his students. They competed in another category called 'Fire Fighting Robots'.
The goal of the fire-fighting robot is to be able to navigate a house and locate the source of a fire. Fire-fighting bots can be either bipedals, cubes, box-shaped or even round. Cubes and box-shaped robots are desirable because they have wheels. Wheeled robots are easier to manipulate than robots with legs, says Hartley. The University of Akron’s robot was a 15-inch cube that weighed about 10 pounds.
The unidentified robot in the picture is not Akron's but shares many of the basic features found in most robots in the category. It has sensors that can detect heat, light and changes in temperature. It wasn’t the winner in the category though. The robot that bagged the gold medal was the Indonesian team’s walking fire-fighting robot.
Hartley's students had some consolation to offset their two losses: The university won the gold for the BalanceBot, a Segway-like robot whose goal is to balance itself on two wheels.
Photo courtesy Willow Garage
Brain vs. Brawn
Robogames isn’t just about engineers and DIY hobbyists. Behind-the-scenes technicians like Fon Davis make some of the more interesting props used in the competition.
Davis, a prop maker for Hollywood, created the city that was the setting for the Mech Warfare event. The replica, built on a 1:24 scale, had some amazingly lifelike designs, including a miniature yellow taxi. The walls were made of plaster so that they'd sustain damage when hit by the Mech Warfare bots' pellets – an effect the organizers hoped would look especially good when filmed with their high-speed HD cameras.
Today’s robots lack visual appeal, says Davis.
"Lots of people design robots to be practical, not artistic," he says. "I want to try to bring in robots with an aesthetic slant so it takes the whole sport to a greater level of entertainment. It's not just about winning."
A design and props maker, Davis has worked on films such as Star Wars, the Matrix series and Planet of the Apes to create models.
"Most people are doing this in their free time. They are focused on technical goals so they don’t want to get into the aesthetics of it," he says.
But it's not that hard to pretty up a combat bot. Sometimes it’s as simple as pouring hot plastic over a piece of rigid foam to create a curved outer shell, says Davis.
"The electronics are cool and interesting but they are all over the event," says Davis. "The robots need personality and they need clothing."
Photo: Fon Davis
