8/5/2002: Army battlebot

[Undertoad]

Being a geeky, nerdy sort, I watch the Comedy Central show "Battlebots", which features fighting robots. The robots on the show are impressive beasts, even if the poor production doesn't show them off very well.

Over the few years the show has been on, the robot builders have developed tricks to take advantage of the rules of the game. Originally the robots that would win were "wedges" - short in stature, built with ramps for edges, heavily armored on top. These bots were defensive in nature although some were developed with lifting arms or cutting blades. They were built to roll under their opponents and regularly succeeded.

The bot builders learned that spinning weapons could be developed that would slowly build up speed, developing and storing tremendous momentum force that could whap an enemy bot and send it flying. The latest such bot, which easily beat every challenger, put all of its efforts into spinning the largest possible weight in the largest possible circle.

But what you see above isn't a Battlebots robot. This is an army robot, built at a price into the tens of thousands of dollars. Its name is "Hermes", and its only task is to wander into that cave, looking for mines, traps, and maybe even the occasional live terrorist. The idea is to save casualties. You don't care if Hermes steps on a mine or something. This war is the first time such robots are being used.

The Battlebots builders spend about the same amount on their robots. While they don't have to broadcast video back to a waiting soldier, the Battlebots robots seem better-developed for their purposes than the Army robots do for theirs.

Of course, we don't know the background of the development of this robot. But it feels like robot building is done better by a bunch of happy amateurs, building robots for entertainment purposes, than it is by the military-industrial complex. The Army version is wheezy and whiny and has no torque, and would probably get stuck on the first rock. I'm certain the Battlebots version would have titanium armor, little whack-a-mole hammers to beat the ground for mines, and would be able to jump over small obstacles.