America is getting crushed by China. Not in trade or weapons or any of those things that don’t matter. We’re losing the war of the Roseys. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the new robot above, serving up deliciousness at a farmhouse restaurant in Sanmenxia, China.
Sure, BattleBots was cool, but let’s not forget the real father of Robot TV deathmatches broadcast for our pleasure: the classic BBC series Robot Wars. Fans of violent robotic combat rejoice then, because the BBC are bringing back the series with more robots, and some mandatory science bits to distract you from the…
You know how Battlebots is coming back to TV? I decided not to wait. This weekend, I drove to San Mateo to watch homemade robots battle to the death at the Robogames. Here are a few of the epic things I saw there.
Building a robot is... pretty tough. Even one of the most advanced robots around, Atlas, is still just "a baby trying to learn," prone to accidents and mistakes despite its brilliant and qualified creators. So what happens when you ask a bunch of unpracticed randos to build robots that can fight? You get a series of…
How would we cope with giant robots in space? Adam Elkus, an analyst specializing in foreign policy and strategic studies, looks at the anime classic Mobile Suit Gundam for some answers.
Finally, an artist who honors the wonder of Robot Jox, the 1990 robo-gladiator movie by Stuart Gordon and Joe Haldeman. Artist Robert Simons captures what made the robot battles so incredible, in their massive robotic brutality.
Give a hand to our new robot overlords. This robot hand responds to the glove-wearer's movement exactly, allowing a bomb disposal expert to defuse a bomb from yards away, says Rich Walker with the Shadow Robot Company.
As if being murdered and then brought back to (un)life by a demon from Hell as a zombie superhero out for revenge wasn't bad enough, Todd McFarlane's Spawn is about to go through his most extreme transformation yet - into a giant robot. As part of October's new Robot Wars line of toys, McFarlane is taking his…
At Maker Faire 2008, a group of carnage-loving individuals pitted the 2007 Holiday Toy Darling Pleo against the heavy duty battle bot, Vicious Verdict, in a no holds barred competition. Needless to say, the sniff-n-grunt capability of the Pleo was no match for the blade-equipped bot, which turned Pleo into fillet…
We all know that robots can be produced en masse and programmed to kill. According to robot expert Noel Sharkey, who spoke at the UK's leading defense study institution, RUSI, 4,000 robots were deployed in the Iraq War, but they were all "dumb machines with very limited sensing capability." Apparently, they can't…
NimbRo took the championship title, winning both the kid-sized two-vs.-two final game as well as the Teensize penalty kick competition. Team Osaka walked away with the prize for Best Humanoid Robot, with NimbRo bots taking second and third place.
Things are shaping up for an eventual Korea vs. Japan robot wars in the next 20 to 30 years, and Korea is getting ready with a robot that keeps your home safe. Unlike previous robots, this one from KornTech (snicker, snicker) is named Rogun and has high-end face tracking software, which means it can both recognize and…
