A: I don't think it requires much explanation. After surviving several mega-hits, Brutality's wedge/deflector threw in the towel and exposed the sharp front corner of the chassis to tens of thousands of joules of kinetic energy from Megabyte's rotating shell. Instant pi�ata.

A: Yes, and you can too. Start at the FIRST website.

Q: Let's say that you and your new robot find out that your first enemy is a veteran, fear-inspiring, high powered spinner. You lack the skills needed for a major rebuild, and you imagine that even if you somehow win the fight, your robot would need just that.

Is it socially acceptable to simply tap out and head to the loser's bracket?

A: The acceptable thing to do is to put on your brown pants and fight. If you're worried about taking your robot home in a bucket you should consider a different hobby - like maybe stamp collecting.

A: It seems unlikely since I have no videos of Antbotica. We were too busy running the event and the competitors were too busy having a good time.

A: Mark J. here: I help to maintain the 'Robot Wars' article on Wikipedia. On a regular basis some fan will edit the results for the Sixth Wars to install 'Razer' as the winner, and I change it back to 'Tornado'.

I place blame with the production company for creating a controversy where none should exist. The fans themselves need to recognize that they have been manipulated and move on. It was a staged robot fight -- it isn't like they were playing for the Ashes.

A: Actually, it wasn't.

Dennis Millard built a lightweight robot he named 'Gator' and fought at Robot Wars '96 and '97. He returned with the same lightweight, now named 'Instigator', for the '99 BattleBots event in Long Beach.

Dennis built an entirely new middleweight robot that fought in BattleBots 2.0 and 3.0, but it kept the 'Instigator' name. I hope that Dennis had better luck with whatever he took up after combat robotics -- in the five tournaments he entered he never won a fight.

A: There are no authorized full episodes of BattleBots, Robot Wars, or Robotica available on-line or on recorded media. The Learning Channel did sell VHS tapes of Robotica, but they disappeared years ago. I don't believe that authorized DVDs or tapes of full episodes of the other shows were ever released.

There are DVDs for the pre-'Comedy Central' BattleBots tournaments, as well as DVDs of other non-televised robot combat tournaments available thru Amazon.com.

A: See question below.

A: I thought they were very different:

BattleBots was a highlight reel of only the 'better' fights from the tournament. A very small fraction of the matches were shown (14 of 91 heavyweight fights at BB 5.0) and even high-level matches were cut out (neither of the heavyweight semi-final fights were aired). I was frustrated that I couldn't follow my favorite robots and couldn't make sense of the tournament structure. I also found the 'comedy' angle of the production annoying.

Robot Wars showed all of the matches in every tournament. Some of the matches were edited, but at least you got to see them all. The theatrical aspects of the production (costumes, trash talk, etc.) were distracting and added a lot of 'fluff' to the show. Sometimes the editing of a match left out some critical part and caused confusion about the judges' decisions.

Bottom line: I watched them both and enjoyed them both - with reservations.

Q: Now from a competitors point of view which show do you think is better?

A: We chose not to compete at BattleBots, so I can only answer the question from the perspective of what others have told us and why we chose not to go.

At BattleBots you built a robot, paid an entry fee, paid your own way to the tournament, put yourself up in a hotel, and ate a box lunch in the pits. Half the field lost their first match and drove themselves home. Half the remaining field lost their second match and drove themselves home. If you survived the first three rounds, your beat-up robot went up against one of the 'seeded' robots fresh out of the box and ready to rumble; odds of clearing that round about 1 in 4. Roughly one in five robots made it onto the televised program, and most of them were seeded 'bots who had done well in previous tournaments.

As an american competitor at Robot Wars you built a robot, you and your crew were flown to England, put up in a nice hotel, got a daily stipend for food and transportation, and were fed good hot buffet food at the venue. If you lost and were bumped out of the tournament, you were offered slots in the various side events -- you could keep fighting 'til your 'bot quit. Win or lose you were paid a couple thousand bucks for your trouble. Every functional robot got on TV, and if your robot couldn't compete, the production company would loan you one of their robots to make you feel better.

So, which one would you rather compete in?

A: I know of no current source for Robotica tapes. You'll have to come over to my place and watch them.

A: The layout of The Labyrinth was difficult to decipher when watching the event on TV. I do have the design drawings for both The Gauntlet and The Labyrinth - as provided to Robotica contestants. As I recall, a couple of the obstacles swapped places in the version of The Labyrinth that was actually built and appeared in the competition.

A: Mark J. here: games similar to these have been incorporated into more creative robot combat events since the beginnings of the sport: the 'Escort' event at the 1994 Robot Wars, the wild team events at BotBash, and the 'Rent a Robot To Destroy Your Bad Christmas Gift' service at Robot Club and Grill are examples.

Team Run Amok has supported and encouraged these alternative events, but you should know that there is a dominant faction of robot destruction 'purists' who will walk up to you and scream obscenities in your face for trying to 'ruin the sport'. Be prepared for pushback.

Q: Who couldn't love seeing RC cars get killed by Last Rites?

A: You were hard on your toys as a kid, weren't you?

I can only say that there are people with very narrow views of how robot combat should be conducted. Their war cry: "If they didn't do it at BattleBots it's crap!"

Q: What's the name of that robot in the 1995 [US Robot Wars] heavyweight melee 1 that has sphere-like wheels and that weird flat wedge?

A: Take a look at the archived photo gallery of contestants at the 1995 US Robot Wars (slow loading). Click on a photo for robot name and builder info.

A: Yep.

Q: In earlier posts you said that you don't like the judging criteria on damage. So then how would you want it to be judged? A: Take a look at our Try Your Hand as a Combat Robot Judge quiz to find out why we dislike the current judging criteria and read our suggestions for improvement. The Team Run Amok Questioning Robot Combat Paradigms page has some additional thoughts on robot combat.

A: The polycarbonate inner walls were 6" high. Full arena specs and rules are available at the SOZBOTS website (archived).

A: That's a hard call. If I could go back in time to one of the US Robot Wars events, I think I'd pick 1995. There were a good number of interesting robots, 'Blendo' [pictured] tore the place up, and the heavyweight championship fight between 'Thor' and 'The Master' may have been the best robot fight of all time.

Q: And, theoretically, what do you think the competitions would have been like had they not left for the UK in '98? Like BattleBots or different in someway?

A: BattleBots was founded by the builders who would have been at US Robot Wars 1998 if it had come off. The early BattleBots rule set was very similar to the late US Robot Wars rule set, and the spirit of the early BattleBots competitions was much the same. I consider the UK version (first event in 1997, by the way) to be the group that changed - it was BattleBots that continued the competitions as they would have gone if Robot Wars had not left.

A: Search this archive for 'how many spare parts' for the list of spares we took to one competition. You need to exercise some judgement about which parts are most likely to need replacing, which can be fixed, and which simply will not be likely to receive damage.

A: Remember that there were four weight classes in BattleBots. A couple of the arena hazards were very effective against the lightweight class robots, but understandably less effective in the heavier classes.

• The pop-up 'Killsaws' were entirely capable of launching light robots thru the air for a considerable distance and ripping tires on heavy classes.

• The pneumatic hammer 'Pulverizers' evolved from simple sledge hammers into massive 150 pound mallets that could severely test the durability of even the superheavyweight robots.

Q: Were the hazards in BattleBots as strong as or stronger than the Robot Wars ones?

A: We no longer answer UK Robot Wars questions - see #37. I will comment that many of the Robot Wars hazards were flame based and - although showy - were completely ineffective unless the robot was already disabled.

A: Scout the event you plan to enter and find out what weight classes are popular at that event. It doesn't do any good to build a robot for a class that doesn't have anyone else in it! Start in the lightest weight class that has a good number of competitors. The lighter your weight class, the less your beginner's mistakes will cost you.

A: See Wikipedia article on Robot Combat.

A: By my count there were eleven twelve teams that competed at all three events:

Many of these teams had very different robots at the different events - but a few had (essentially) the same robot, although the name may have changed:

Many of the robots were modified between events, but just how much modification was involved varied.

Q: Wasn't Team Think Tank also in Robotica, BattleBots, and Robot Wars Extreme Warriors?

A: Mark J. here: Team Think Tank did compete at Robotica ('Intriverter' and 'Re-Intriverter') and BattleBots (many robots). Team leader Ted Shimoda was at RWEW2 with 'Mad Cow Bot' (not to be confused with Jason Barger from Team Boltz who was at RWEW1 with 'Mad Cow'). However, I have no confirmation that Ted was representing Team Think Tank as I can find no mention of the team name in the event record. Participation in the RWEW events was 'political' and it's possible that Ted was there on his own without team sanction. I'm going to add them to the list until I hear other evidence.

A: The BattleBots ranking system was much like the seeds in RW -- it was a system by which robots with historic success in prior events were awarded status in the rankings for the current tournament. In a typical sporting event, the seeds are spread out over the tournament tree to assure that favored competitors do not meet in the early rounds. BattleBots took this much further. Ranked robots actually skipped over the first two or three tournament rounds to enter at the 'round of 32'. At BattleBots 5.0 fully 24 of the spots the round of 32 were reserved for ranked 'bots. Many teams viewed this as an unfair effort to 'stuff' the late-round televised matches with well-known robots to enhance ratings.

Thanks!

A: BattleBots has a 15 pound weight class in high school, college, and open categories. Rules and tournament procedures for this class and others may be downloaded at the BattleBots website.

A: It's actually simpler than that. Robot combat judging changed about 2003. You used to got points for things like control and effective strategy, but the prevailing judging guidelines now score only on 'damage' and 'aggression' with the majority of points going to damage. Constantly attacking and inflicting one more scratch on your opponent than they lay on you will get you a win. How damage is scored and exactly what counts as aggression is more than a little odd -- see Try Your Hand as a Combat Robot Judge.

A well known robot combat judge pointed out that the best strategy for winning a match is to avoid giving the decision to the judges. K.O. your opponent and you won't have to worry about a bad judge call. Hard to argue with that.

A: I've never liked the use of rules to limit effective strategies. I think it's much better to change the environment to make undesirable design elements less effective. Example: the Robot Battles events do not prohibit wedges, but the combat surface is criss-crossed with 1/4" high strips that stick up and make simple wedges ineffective. Problem solved, and no one is alienated by a rule.

That same well-known combat robot judge I mentioned in the last post believes that the way matches are scored does not impact robot design. I figure that judging and the physical environment of the arena are the only things that influence design. Make rules for the benefit of safety and fairness, and use the arena and judging parameters to control design.

P.S. - I don't know of anyone who adds a coat of flame retardant chemicals inside their robot to fight a flamethrower. It isn't necessary. There were huge flames everywhere at Robot Wars and our wooden armor never got so much as a scorch. Flamethrowers are for show only.

A: The 30 pound low wedge robot with the orange rear bumper in the 30-pound rumble was 'Pinball' from MH Robotics.

Q: Sorry but I mean the orange/brown robot with a lifting weapon and wedge that participate in the rumble

A: What photos and videos I have show nine robots in the 30-pound Battle Royale, and only 'Pinball' shows any color close to orange. The next closest thing would be a light brown lifter/wedge robot named 'Beaver of Terror'. The 12-pound Battle Royale featured a great looking red-orange wedge/lifter named 'Lobster Roll'.

Robot Battles is not keen on documentation. The 'organizers' pride themselves on a high level of chaos and disorder -- which makes a certain amount of sense given the culture of the event. However, this does make it difficult for me to report on their tournaments. Registration is on-site and unpublished, and I have no direct source of tournament trees or results.

Q: Beaver of terror is the one I am looking for. Thanks. Does it have a website?

A: Not that I can find.

A: Mark J. here: I've long given up on trying to figure out why BattleBots does what they do and why anyone bothers to care. BattleBots is, IMHO, an ego driven anachronism that has done little but drag the sport backward for most of the last decade.

Neither the 15 pound class (exclusive to the BotsIQ series) nor the 120 pound middleweight class are well supported outside the imagination of the event organizers. I assume that heavyweights will not be allowed because the arena selected for the event (the BotsIQ arena) is not suitable for such destructive robots.

A: Sorry, I have no insight on how either Roaming Robots or Robots Live decide on event locations. I suggest that you ask them.

Q: Hello N.Ireland person here I want to ask you has there ever been a 4 part clusterbot and just want to thank you for trying to answer my question

A: You're welcome.

I don't know of any true four-part combat clusterbot; one that would enter the arena as a single entity and then split into four parts.

Under Robot Fighting League rules there is no requirement for a multibot entry to be 'connected' at the start of the match and it is not uncommon for several robots from lower weight classes to band together and enter a higher weight class under a new name, such as 'The Swarm'. Such entries may be entirely impromptu and consist of whatever participants that can be 'rounded up' at the tournament.

I recall one hobbyweight multibot entry made up from six or eight unrelated insect class robots. Do any readers remember where that happened? Such entries are unlikely to be well documented, but I'll see if I can find a reference.

Update: I can't find A reference to that multi-insect hobbyweight multibot. Still interested if anyone knows more about it.

A: Mark J here: robot combat needs more diversity, not less. By my count, there is only one 'destructive variation' extant and we certainly wouldn't try to 'push it away' even if we could. Our concern is that combat robotics will continue to wither without a broader audience.

A: Hey, wait a second. We don't allow shameless pitches here at Ask Aaron. It's unsavory! It's pandering! It's... it's... oh never mind, go ahead. I'll just edit it down so it doesn't take up a full screen.

Q: ...a shameless pitch for a style of event I call 'Con fighting' -- see RobotBattles.com. These are low [production] cost, high portability, sumo fights with minimal rule sets and nothing between the crowd and the robot but distance. The rules are short and simple, and the robots are not destroyed by the efforts of their opponents.

Con fights happen where a likely chunk of our demographic already are: sci-fi conventions where young, technically savvy sci-fiers are out to have a good time. These folk show up and cheer and yell and ooh and ahh. And some of them turn up the next year with their own first robot.

Robot sophistication is all over the map: plywood encased R/C cars to elegantly machined total control bots. Driving ability with potential wreckage will frequently win against vastly more technically advanced machines.

The builder/driver that does win gets a $5 plaque. Some of the builders fight all over the country. The rules don't allow giga-joule instant death, but this is a different engineering problem. Folk ask questions, show their friends, take pictures, high five you on the way to the bathroom.

Con fighting is dynamic. It turns the Robot Fight about to face the public, putting eyeballs on bots at a low cost the the organizer. As a model for a gateway to growth, I believe this may have merit. This might not be a question, but I am interested in your thoughts.

A: I've always been a big fan of the Critter Crunch and Robot Battles. A lot of the appeal of fighting robots comes from spectators thinking, "Hey, I could do that!" A lot of that has been lost as the robots got bigger, more sophisticated, and more destructive. More power to you! I'd be there in a shot if I just weren't so deathly afraid of filking.

How long has this been going on for?

A: First I've heard of it. Suggest you notify webmaster Marc DeVidts - he has an email link on the BDb splash page.

Q: A while ago, I asked about not being able to post an image of my bot on the Builder's database. You said that it was the first you heard of it, and that I should contact the webmaster. I did.... and no response. The problem is still going on. Could it be an issue with the particular computer I am using? I am starting to get concerned.

A: The problem is not with your computer - I just tried a photo upload with the same result. The page is broken and requires attention from the webmaster. I'll drop him a line, but I'm guessing that Marc is just busy with something else right now and it may take him a while to correct this non-critical problem.

Q: The builder's database is still not accepting new robot images. What is going on?!

A: Perhaps someone on the RFL Forum has some information. I do know that Marc is busy with other projects.

A: Long drive, small fun.

Longer answer: we really don't much like the current judging emphasis on aggression and destruction. Robot combat was (IMHO) a lot more fun 'back in the day'. If we did show up at Robogames we'd be there to put on an Antbotica tournament.

Q: I hope I'm not prying, but can I hear a little more about 'back in the day?' Hasn't damage (ie destruction) and aggression always been the emphasis?

Much longer answer: the early robot combat events had a broader range of both events and judging criteria. Some examples:

• The first Robot Wars competition (San Francisco, 1994 - rules) was judged entirely on mobility. Pinning your opponent for 30 seconds was a 'win'. If your robot was still moving at the end of the match you moved on. There was also an unusual 'Escort' event where a competitor had to defend a small 'drone' robot from attacks from a 'house robot'.

• For the 1995 Robot Wars (rules) a crowd applause vote was added to break ties if both robots were still mobile. The audience was encouraged to vote based on "damage, aggressiveness and control", but it came down to whichever robot the crowd wanted to see fight again.

• The early BattleBots tournaments had a panel of three judges that each awarded a single point in each of three categories: aggression, damage, and strategy. Judges could also ask for an extra 60 seconds of combat time to settle a close match (rules).

• The early UK Robot Wars events had a variety of events that competitors had to complete to move on to the combat arena (see rules). Once in 'The Arena', judging was based on style, control, damage and aggression - with weighting favoring damage and aggression.

• The 'Robotica' tournaments had no qualitative score judging at all. Competitors had very specific tasks to complete and points were awarded entirely for completion of those tasks. You could concentrate on the task, or concentrate on beating up the other robot as you saw fit. The final raised platform 'Fight to the Finish' had no time limit - competitors fought until one was thrown off the platform (rules).

A: The BattleBots 2009 videos finally showed up on YouTube.

Watch carefully and you can see the rear power light on 'Breaker Box' flicker and go dark. I'm guessing an impact popped a connector loose. It's unusual - Jim's 'bots don't quit without good reason - but anybody can overlook a loose connector.

A: Arrested? You'd be lucky to get out of the venue alive. Some of those AI builders are big and mean!

A: 'Who self-righted first' isn't a simple question. The answer depends on the conditions under which the self-righting took place. We have an article on the first self-righting combat robot on the Team Run Amok homepage that examines the candidates, and Vlad is a contender.

There is no record of a robot self-righting at the early Critter Crunch events held by the Denver Mad Scientists, but information from those events is sparse.

So, I really don't think you can blame "excessive focus on destruction" and "subcultural ties" on the decline in matches.

A: Mark J here: I think it's fair to say that most of the combat robot community disagrees with our stance on destruction and acceptable publicity, so you certainly are not alone in your opinions. I suspect, however, that only those sharing the 'destruction and techno music in an abandoned warehouse' mindset have held on this long. The group has self-selected along these lines as its size has diminished.

First, I would caution against equating longevity on television with health of the sport. The television audience did quite clearly enjoy the destruction aspect of the sport -- until they tired of it. That orange was squeezed dry by television and you're not going to get another drop of juice out of it. Builders were willing to tolerate the destruction in exchange for the potential fame provided by the television, but there is no media focus on combat robotics to provide that fame anymore. Right now we need builders, not audience.

On your other point, I have no issue with 'reaching out' to other communities as long as they are communities that will improve the image and posture of combat robotics. Your example of a baseball player represents wholesome, mainline American culture which I would consider to be a good thing. Associating the sport with wrestling, destruction derby, circus side-show acts, tacky ex-sitcom stars, and mud bog racers is not (IMHO) a path to renewed popularity.

As an example, consider the F.I.R.S.T. robotics competition. It is going strong, gathers a huge participatory audience, gains national press, and is supported by giant international corporations. Destruction is almost non-existent and there isn't a professional wrestler, sports commentator, or reality TV personality to be seen anywhere.

I'm curious - if you don't think excessive focus on destruction and tacky subcultural ties are responsible for the decline in combat robotics, what do you think the cause is?

Q: To be quite frank, I personally think that the reason for the decline is in your response: No media attention. Currently, combat robotics is mainly advertised to the mainstream robotics community. These builders are not to keen on watching their prescious little self aware robots get destroyed by Ziggy. So, what we are doing is like putting a horror movie add on Cartoon Network: Therefore, I think that putting combat robotics back on TV is of upmost priority. (And as I said, the common complaint was that Battlebots didn't have enough destruction)

That said, why ARE you so opposed to reaching out to the destruction derby people? That is the best hope for returning to TV Also, the ultimate goal, in my opinion, would be to make combat robotics ascend from our world of nerdom and enter the traditional section of masculinity. (I.E. Nascar, Boxing) Audience would no longer be a trouble, and quite possibly builders as well: If Nascar has an endless supply of drivers to smash to death, then we should be okay finding builders.

And the best way to do that would be to make connections with the destruction derby guys, or, if all else fails, send in our bigger bots to challenge and then beat the crap out of a wrestler in a televised match.

Yes, it would be selling our soul to the devil in exchange for fame, but who cares?

A: We simply disagree on this - which is fine. My take:

• I'm unclear about how associating robot combat with destruction derby is going to improve television exposure. Which network is the weekly destruction derby show on?

• You only get to sell your soul once and combat robotics already did that. It had its fame in exchange for being associated with wrestlers on TNN, having builders laughed at as geeks on Comedy Central, and being cast as an unsavory collection of violent social misfits by the broader media.

• BattleBots survived five televised 'seasons' thru diversity of both design and builders that kept the audience involved. Can the robot built from a beer keg by frat boys defeat the robot made from tractor parts by farm boys? Can the engineering college overpower the bodgers from England? That diversity no longer exists.

• You don't become interesting by getting media exposure; you get media exposure by being interesting.

• For every 'fan' who complains about too little destruction I believe there are a dozen potential fans/builders who are repelled by the current focus on mechanical carnage. Wanton destruction appeals to a very small subset of the greater audience the sport needs.

• The most recent NASCAR Sprint Cup driver fatality was in February, 2001. That's not much 'smashing to death' and I don't see how it would connect to our ability to find new robot builders if it were.

If you are concerned about safety, remember: The wrestler CHOOSE to put himself in with the robot, and the audience could have some sort of protection.

A: Lemme guess: you just watched the 'Robots vs. Wrestlers' episode of 'How I Met Your Mother'.

We would not be in favor of such a spectacle. Robot combat needs to move away from the sub-cultural ties it made in the TV era and shake that tacky image rather than cultivate it. Let robots fight robots.

A: I don't believe I ever said that robot combat is 'dying', just growing progressively less popular. There will always be some true believers out there fighting robots.

The downhill slide in combat robot participation started in 2003. The economy has been both up and down since then with no slowing of the decline in popularity of robot combat -- see the chart on the Team Run Amok homepage. You can't blame this on the economy.

A: Combat rules often allow for tethered projectiles with specific tether lengths but their actual use is quite rare. There was a superheavyweight at BattleBots 3.0 named 'Neptune' that fired six pneumatic spears on tethers. They lost in the first round to 'Juggerbot'. Team Juggerbot's account of the battle and a link to a photo of 'Neptune' can be found in the Juggerbot news archive.

A: Mark J here: we'll stir up an argument about this. I view your first three divisions as a single arc comprising the 'golden age': 1994 into 2002. Your 'dark era' from late 1997 to 1999 was only a hiccup.

The period dominated by the Robot Fighting League ran from late 2002 into 2006. As that period progressed the small local events were no longer able to attract public interest or media attention and the economics of organizing stand-alone robot competitions became quite unfavorable. The RFL watched their list of affiliate events shrivel.

Leadership in the current period has shifted to a few large events. ALL large robot fights (lightweights and up) in 2009 took place at two allied events in the San Francisco Bay area: RoboGames and ComBots⁽¹⁾. The sub-light robot sector is being lead by the Northeast Robot Conflict with their bold moves toward combat reform.

Second idea: In every fight, have a robot from the next weight class up act as an "obstacle." For example, if Sewer Snake and Megabyte were duking it out, Ziggy would sit in a corner and toss any robot that is given to it. The idea comes from a rumble-like event they held at the end of the 2010 robogames. In it, original sin would occasionally "feed" Ziggy a hapless robot.

A: Mark J here: most people who build robots wouldn't think it's 'spicy' to have their expensive, carefully designed and built competition machines pointlessly destroyed by bigger robots to entertain the drooling Beavis and Butthead wannabes who blow up stuff with firecrackers and giggle. What does it prove?

You asked for my opinion. Emphasis on destruction is what sent the sport into the downhill slide it has been on for the last decade. Your first idea reminds me of public 'entertainment' during the fall of Rome and the second idea is taken from the part of UK Robot Wars that caused many of the top teams to leave. I don't think either would improve the outlook for the sport.

Note: an 'all weight-class melee' was held at the first Robot Wars in 1994. It was not repeated.

A: Builders Database is a service to event organizers that makes on-line registration for combat robot tournaments simple and convenient. For this service they charge a small fee. RoboGames set up their own on-line registration and no longer use Builders Database, so Builders Database no longer has any registration info to list.

A: Mark J here: I won't say that combat robotics is 'doomed', but it is a shadow of what it was a few years ago. You don't mention when the 'last time you were at RoboGames' was, but the 2009 RoboGames had 62 combat robots fight 111 matches in 5 weight classes. Two years earlier the same event had 156 combat robots fight 283 matches in 9 weight classes. That's quite a drop!

It isn't just RoboGames. In 2003 BotRank.com recorded 2504 robot fights at 39 combat events. Those numbers have decreased with each passing year. See the chart on the Team Run Amok homepage. By 2009 there were only 472 robot fights at 10 combat events -- an 81% decrease in fights and a 74% decrese in events in six years.

Team Run Amok has been pointing out this trend for several years with hopes of inspiring innovation and change in robot competition. We have also:

• Sponsored three Antbotica competitions to showcase an alternative to the standard combat tournament structure;
• Seeded discussion with our 'Robot Paradigms' page; and
• Examined combat judging guidelines with our 'You Be the Judge' quiz.

Q: Good news! I looked into the 2010 robogames statistics (that was the event I attended) as well as the 2009 ones, and the total decrease of combat robots above 30 pounds was only 1! (74 total registered bots vs 75 total registered bots) When Ants and Beetles are taken into account, both numbers go into the 100s range. It should also be mentioned that you said there were 62 robots in 2009.

A: Very droll. Also misleading.

As I accurately reported, 62 robots fought at the 2009 RoboGames. No credit for registering, you've got to show up and fight. According to BotRank.com:

• 57 combat robots fought at RoboGames 2010: 14 feathers, 17 lights, 16 middles, 8 heavys , and 2 supers.
• 62 combat robots fought at RoboGames 2009: 19 feathers, 15 lights, 16 middles, 9 heavys , and 3 supers.

If you believe that continuing losses are good news, you should invest in the stock market. You'll be ecstatic.

Q: What moron would register a bot and then not come? People drive me bonkers.

Well, excuse me while I enter my "run around in circles and shout 'We're all gonna die!!!'" phase.

A: I know that's a rhetorical question, but I thought I'd answer it anyway. A fair number of builders register a 'vaporbot' before the deadline and then can't finish construction in time for the tournament. Not morons, just poor planners with busy lives.

When you're done running and shouting, how about something constructive? Maybe create and host an alternative robot competition? Combat robotics needs to diversify.

A: BattleBots Inc. is still in operation. The arena, hazards, and all the 'goodies' are safely in storage. Once in a while they put on a 'corporate event' or find some other excuse to set up the arena and fight a few robots.

Mark J here: your point is well taken. When I started tracking these numbers in 2006 I believed the RFL data to be more stable and representative of the overall condition of combat robotics even though it did not capture all of the matches. That may no longer be the case.

For now I've modified the chart to show both RFL and BotRank data. Both data sets tell much the same story of decline - which is more the point of the chart than are absolute numbers.

A: Mark J here: my tournament tree pages have links to competitor photos from 1995 and 1996 at the archived Robot Wars webite from that period. I'm sure plenty of photos of the 1997 competitors were taken, but they never made it to the Robot Wars website. The partnership responsible for the US Robot Wars fell apart in 1997 and there was no update of the website with competitor photos.

Read 'Gearheads: the turbulent rise of robotic sport' by Brad Stone for the complete story.

A: See #37.

A: If you will look carefully at the box into which you typed your question, you will notice the following advisory:

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If you have an interest in 'Tentomushi', I encourage you to follow the instructions available in our FAQ to research the archived web pages for Lisa Winter and the 'Robot Action League'.

A: I have full sets of photos of the 1995 and 1996 Robot Wars competitors accessible thru the Run Amok Tournament Results page under 'full results' for those events, but I have very few competitor photos from the 1994 or 1997 Robot Wars. Specifically, no photo of 'Thwonkis Mobilis'.

Note: Botrank.com has the early Robot Wars weight classes incorrectly categorized to match current weight classes. 'Thwonkis Mobilis' was a 25 pound 'featherweight' at the 1997 US Robot Wars.

Q: okay, are there any sites where I CAN see pics of the 94 and 97 bots? what happened to Thwonkis? what was his weapon? what happened to spirit of frank? can I have info on cooker? Oh! what hapened to crreping death and robot redforn junior? why did I eat so much sugar? that is all.

A: I don't hoard. If I knew of a good sites for photos of the '97 US Robot Wars robots I would have pointed you to them. Photos of the '94 bots are likewise rare. A very few photos of the '94 event can be seen on the 'photos' page at the archived Robot Wars site.

I think something similar happened to 'Spirit of Frank', 'Creaping Death', and 'Robot Redford Junior'. I've never heard of 'Cooker' -- if you mean 'Cooks', I believe it was crushed by a cable car immediately after its loss to 'Ominous Brick of Havoc' in 1997.

Q: Ok, thanks, I don't know how much they faught though lol.

A: You can follow every robot thru the entire tournament at any of the early Robot Wars events at the Run Amok 'Who Won' page. Just click on the button for the weight class you'd like to see. You can also follow the entire career of any robot you like at the BotRank.com Unique Name DataBase. Search for their name, then click on 'history'.

Q: ...and was Cooks really crushed?

A: I have no idea what happened to 'Cooks' after it lost to 'Ominous Brick of Havoc' at the '97 Robot Wars and I have no details of that fight.

Q: ...and what happened to Jim Smentowski?

A: Jim Smentowski got depressed and jumped off the Golden... no, wait! Jim went on to build a whole bunch of very successful combat robots and open the Robot Marketplace.

A: You know that box you wrote your question in? The white box that says 'We are not currently accepting questions about UK Robot Wars tournaments or competitors'? We mean it.

A: RoboGames is scheduled to host an event in April, 2010, BUT No 'Combots Cup' event appears on their posted list of events.

A: Mark J. here: trying to confirm BattleBots rumors is a fool's errand.

A: Mark J. here: on their Twitter feed BattleBots claims to have postponed the April 2010 tournament because of "new opportunities that have come up (things we can't talk about yet)". The BattleBots organizers have repeatedly proven themselves to be very sparse with the truth, producing a torrent of hype and misinformation with total disregard for competitors and fans. My best guess on the date for a 2010 tournament would be 'never'.

A: Mark J. here: on the Team Run Amok page I announced that there would be no further mention of BattleBots due to the long history of faulty and misleading information from the company. That prohibition applies to the activities of BattleBots Inc. and not to the efforts of participants in their events. The participants have my sympathies but they really should know better than to associate themselves with BattleBots, IMHO.

If a show airs, it will be open for discussion here.

A: Mark J. here: don't hold your breath. We have very little interest in the types of Robot Wars questions we received in recent months.

Q: But will you accept questions about behind the scenes and really notable competitor bots like Razer?

A: If we answer any Robot Wars questions we'll be constantly arguing with submitters about the relevance of their questions.

Sorry to disappoint, but no Robot Wars questions.

A: Yes, but not in quite the same role. The 1994 Robot Wars in San Francisco had three events:

• a standard 'Face-Off' combat tournament with arena hazards;
• a pair of 'Mob Scene' fights with multiple robots; and
• a never repeated event called 'Escort' where contestants attempted to protect a small R/C robot from an attacking 'House Robot'.

The second and third seasons of 'Robotica' also had a type of 'House Robot'. A pair of robot 'Rats' (maybe 60 pounds each) were roaming the 'Labyrinth' section of the competition. These house-operated robots would impede the competitors, or sometimes assist if a robot became stuck.

A: Mark J. here: anyone can put a show on TV -- all it takes is money. Money to stage, money to film, money to edit, and money to buy time on some cable TV network. Then you have to sell commercial time to make your money back. BattleBots is well financed. They can afford to pile money into a risky television project that may or may not make their money back. The RFL is a loose organization of event organizers who can barely afford to build fighting arenas.

Q: But why BB organised so few matches in the recent years while RFL did? And what is the biggest robot combat association in US nowadays?

A: Robot combat events do not make money -- quite the opposite. Unless you have major sponsors they lose a whole lot of money. The RFL is a group of individuals who put on events because they love robot combat. BattleBots is a for-profit business which has been putting on a very few events in an effort to keep their corporate image alive while waiting for the time when they can return to profitable operations.

The RFL continues to put on more combat events in the US than all other sources combined.

A: Mark J. here: as previously stated, our main focus is to support builders of combat robots with information, design tools, and opinions based on our competition experience. As a secondary service we are pleased to share our knowledge about what goes on 'behind the scenes' and 'in the pits' at competitions, our views on issues important to the sport, and information we have uncovered while researching the history of robot combat.

In the past Aaron and I have done our best to answer any and all questions on the broad topic of robot combat. Recently we have found ourselves answering a large volume of Robot Wars trivia which lies well outside the focus of this website. We are not interested in investing more of our time in this area. There are plenty of fanboy sites out there that can provide this information.

A: Nope. Don't expect it anytime soon - the results haven't even been officially released yet [as of January, 2010].

A: Shrederator has been very badly damaged in an earlier match. Team Logicom punted and put the pieces that still worked together to make a bar-spinner for the final. I admire their resourcefulness.

A: I'm with the majority - 'Tekka Maki' got lucky, IMHO. Full body spinners are often their own worst enemy. 'Shrederator' was taking him apart and something just came loose inside the big spinner. It happens from time to time with a full-body spinner -- they take as much of a beating as they dish out.

A: A BattleBots tweet claims that something will be aired December 10th, 2009 on the difficult to find 'CBS College Sports Network'. Information from BattleBots has proven to be incredibly unreliable, so don't bet on it.

A: I have no way of knowing.

Q: What was Dragbot's weapon?

A: Mark J. here: we are not currently accepting any questions about Robot Wars tournaments or competitors.

A: See #13.

A: Mark J. here: you may believe that nets had some unfair advantage, but they were allowed by the rules so they clearly weren't 'cheating'. Nets and other 'entanglement devices' were allowed as recently as the 'Robotica' series.

In early robot combat nobody knew what types of weapons would provide the most entertaining battles so a lot of freedom was allowed within the rules. The 'damage is fun' crowd was disgusted by the lack of violence in a net-throwing victory and they eventually pushed thru rules against them. Robot combat used to be more fun than it is now.

Q: But Brutus Maximus was disqualified from a series 7 qualifier for use of a net, even though he was given a discretionary place, eventually, but told not to use the net. Bulldog Breed was nearly disqualified for leaving a Mesh trailing from it's flipper, however, it wasn't meant to be used as a weapon, and so, it was merely warned about use of the mesh again, and got as far as the last 8.

A: Robot Wars could choose to enforce the rules however they liked and they often did so in inconsistent ways - rather like you use commas.

A: The 'Battleboard' was added when the video from the tournament was edited into the format for the show. The editors made a few mistakes.

A: We don't speculate on fantasy matches.

A: It does look a bit like an owl...

A: Only because it is instructive: Dave forgot to charge Termite's main battery before the match. Make a pit checklist and follow it!

A: Same robot.

A: None of the above. 'TutTut' was one of several loanerbots built by the Robot Wars tech crew. Chris was loaned the robot for use at Robot Wars Extreme Warriors 1 after 'Cyclone' was damaged beyond field repair. Like all other loanerbots, 'Tut Tut' was returned to Robot Wars at the end of the show. It went on to compete - again as a loanerbot - at Nickelodeon Robot Wars with another team.

Q: Who fought with Tut Tut in Nickelodeon Robot Wars? I heard it was Chris Harriman, thats why I asked whether he bought it.

A: There is an error at TV.com that indicates Chris had 'Tut Tut' at Nickelodeon. I don't recall the name of the kid who drove (kids drove all the 'bots at the Nickeodeon Robot Wars), but 'Tut Tut' was operating under the supervision of Mike Morrow and Team JuggerBot.

A: 'Dominator 2' would certainly have been seeded highly in the Seventh Wars if the team had competed. Based on their Sixth Wars performance and the other teams that dropped out, they would have been about 3rd seed. No official 'woulda-been' ranking is available.

Q: Are you sure about Dominator 2 being seeded 3? It would have been 5, right?

A: That was off the top of my head, which is why I said 'about'. I looked at the tournament tree and this is how I see it:

• 'Tornado' was the defending champion - first seed.
• 'Razer' was runner-up, but did not compete in the Seventh Wars - no seeding.
• 'Firestorm IV' lost to the eventual champion in the semi-finals - second seed.
• 'Terrorhurtz' lost to the eventual runner-up in the semi-finals - third seed.
• 'Dominator 2' lost to the eventual champion in the quarter finals. If he had shown up - fourth seed.

A: My biggest shock was 'Terrorhurtz' being a no-show for its opening round match in Series 7. Anything can happen in combat, but I never expected a seeded team to default.

A: Sorry - I don't have a list of house robot appearances for Robot Wars Extreme Warriors or Nickelodeon Robot Wars, and I'm not going to sit thru a series again to run a tally.

A: I've never seen the German Robot Wars and have no info on the House Robots that appeared in that series.

Q: In RWEW2, heat D, in the other first round melle( the one not involving the Gap), why were the house robots allowed to attack Psycho chicken outside his CPZ?

A: There was a reason why Robot Wars Extreme Warriors was hosted by professional wrestlers. As previously discussed in this archive, Robot Wars was less a combat tournament than it was a television entertainment. Serious competitors were treated with a bit more respect than 'novelty' entrants, but even that broke down from time to time for the sake of 'entertainment'.

A good part of the dissatisfaction that resulted in many teams 'sitting out' tournaments late in the series had to do with the destructive actions of the house robots.

A: BattleBots has gone from a multi-season cultural phenomenon to a poorly attended tournament that can't even pay to get itself aired on a backwater cable network. I'd bet against merchandise.

A: Mark J. here: two clarifications. First, 'Zanzara' (latin for 'mosquito') was a Robot Wars loanerbot -- not really 'our' robot. It was loaned to us when 'Propeller-Head' destroyed a drive gearbox on 'The Gap' and it could not be repaired.

Second, 'Run Away' was not in the Tag Team playoff match and neither was 'Kat 3'. Neither robot survived the first round eliminator. We had already pieced 'Run Away' back together once from scrap pieces after the damage it sustained from 'Destructive Criticism' in the RWEW2 main tournament and a second scrap rebuild was not possible. The playoff was 'Zanzara' versus 'Bigger Brother' head-to-head. The match was no contest. 'Bigger Brother' repeatedly flipped the loanerbot 'Zanzara', who had broken its meager weapon in the first round. 'Bigger Brother' was fast, controlled, and packed considerable offense.

All of the UK robots that appeared at the Nickelodeon Robot Wars were simply experienced teams that were invited in for the day. It was just a matter of who the producers found that would be ready and willing to show up.

A: Mark J. here: As previously mentioned, the Robot Wars matches were edited for television. The editors were more interested in making the matches exciting than in getting all the details right. It's possible that a key bit was cut out. You cannot assume that you saw the entire match. I wasn't there, so cannot say for sure what actually happened.

A: Mark J. here: it's difficult to disprove a conspiracy theory. I have no information that would sway a believer.

A: BattleBots prefers to keep results from their most recent tournament 'secret' until they are broadcast. We will comply with their wishes -- assuming they ever do get broadcast.

A: The first series filmed in June/July of 2001 and aired starting in late August 2001. The second series filmed in January, 2002 and started airing in late February or March of the same year. We did attend a couple of public viewing parties with Team JuggerBot and Rosie the Riveter, but the other teams were scattered across the country.

A: There were hard feelings between many of the teams and the event producers that came to a head late in the run of Robot Wars. Many teams sat out the 6th Wars. Many others sat out the 7th Wars. Ask around at the FRA Forum to get the first-hand info.

A: As mentioned previously, the Robot Wars technical crews just pulled out whatever house robots were handy and functioning for any given match. No real plan, no conspiracies, just luck of the draw.

A: 'Paul Bunyan' had what may have been the world's slowest disk weapon. I believe the weapon was destroyed in the first round qualifier for the RWEW2 Robot Rebellion.

A: As I recall, housebot 'Matilda' had the flywheel weapon at the Nickelodeon Robot Wars. You'll have to find your own pictures.

A: Luck of the draw.

A: 'Joker' (AKA 'Humdrum') defeated Spawn Again in the first round eliminator for the War of Independence at Robot Wars Extreme Warriors 1. I believe 'Spawn Again' had a faulty kill switch -- any impact would have disabled it.

A: Have you never seen a wrestling tag team match? They always start out following the rules and then it falls apart into chaos. That makes for good entertainment, and it was made clear to the competitors that this same pattern would be used in the tag team matches.

A: Mark J. here: Robot Wars matches were edited for broadcast and it is unwise to call a match based on what you saw on television. I saw several matches that had 'controversial' outcomes when broadcast that were clearly correctly judged when viewed in person. The matches were edited to make them entertaining - not to make the outcome clear.

In the Tag Team match you mention, 'General Chompsalot' and 'Run Away' had been dominating 'Falcon' and 'Joker' (the renamed loanerbot 'Humdrum'). Joker became stuck on an arena hazard at one point and had to be 'rescued' by a house robot, just to keep the match going.

I had tagged 'General Chompsalot' and moved 'Run Away' off away from the action. Busy watching the match, I did not notice that Sir K. had violated the rules by leaving the patrol zone and venturing into the middle of the arena. He picked up 'Run Away', tried to throw her out of the arena, put her on the 'flipper' upside-down and launched her back onto her wheels! Somewhere in this abuse 'Run Away' lost the chain drive to the rear axle and was immobile.

The judges elected to score the match based entirely on action up to the time of Sir K's infraction. They correctly awarded the match to us. There was no 'tie' that had to be broken, and there was no dissention from the audience or the other teams. I have never disagreed with the decision of the Robot Wars judges in any match that I had the opportunity to see in person.

A: There have been so many! 'The worst' has to be a matter of opinion. I am personally very fond of 'Mauler' flipping itself over onto it's own back in a wild demonstration of spin instability.

A: The loanerbots were built with rugged chassis and reasonable drive trains, but their weaponry was dismal. They were designed to simply fill-in spots in events where no suitable 'real' competitor could be found.

I cannot think of a single example of a loanerbot causing any weapon damage to another able competitor. The rotary blade on 'Silver Box'/'Zanzara' was comical. The full-body spinner 'Humdrum' (AKA 'Joker') spun at about 200 RPM and would not have damaged a sturdy cardboard box. 'Rott Box' had a pnumatic mace that would not crack a walnut. 'Hoot' had rotary bars that had almost no power and would fall off on impact. Any success that a loanerbot may have had was based entirely on their basic drivetrain. None of the teams feared the loanerbots.

We have previously mentioned one exception to this rule. When Chris Harriman was given 'Tut Tut' for use in RWEW1 he examined the pneumatics used for the overhead axe, opened his parts box, and reworked the system on his own to provide more power. It was still not a 'killer' axe, but when combined with the pyramidal body design it was a reasonable competitor.

'Vert-I-Go' was loaned for use in the Nickelodeon Robot Wars, but I don't recall to which team.

A: If you're interested in specific fights, you'll have to watch the tapes yourself.

A: Roboteers were encouraged to make exaggerated claims and to come up with outrageous stories in their interviews. Why specific claims were made about secret agents, I have no idea.

A: At Robot Wars, the drivers were in an enclosed, second-story room looking out onto an arena larger than a basketball court with The Pit down near the far end. Many drivers had never tried to operate their robots under similar conditions. The TV cameras had a much better view of the area around The Pit, but the drivers had no access to the camera views.

Often landing in The Pit was a matter of miss-judging the position of your robot. You may have been trying to shove your opponent in and just missed, or you may just not be able to tell where the edge of the pit is from your driving viewpoint.

Sometimes the robot was handling poorly due to damage. In the case of 'The Gap', 'Propeller-Head' had scored a direct hit on one of the gearboxes and the robot was only capable of driving in a circle - a circle that happened to intersect The Pit.

Once in a while it was deliberate. If your robot was damaged to the extent that the House Robots were about to come out and tear it apart, The Pit can be your friend. Driving into The Pit could save your robot to fight another day.

A: 'Cassius Chrome' appeared in fewer than 20 matches in the Seventh Wars. That didn't give it much time to change dance partners. The backstage technical guys just pulled whatever house robot was handy and functional for the next match. No conspiracy involved, just luck of the draw.

A: 'Rammstein' was a superheavyweight, but more by choice than design. For BattleBots 'Rammstein' tipped the scales at 270 pounds - very light for a superheavy. Pull out one of the heavy batteries, remove an armor plate, install a smaller CO₂ tank and presto -- instant heavyweight.

A: Seriously?

A: The BotRank.com 'current rankings' keep a running list of robots by weight class that have fought in the last 18 months. That list (as of November, 2009) shows 16 heavyweight robots -- but that does not include the 25 robots that registered to fight in the heavyweight division at the 2009 BattleBots competition because results from that tournament are still 'secret'.

A: Go browse the heavyweight 'History Score' section at BotRank.com. They have win/loss records for all robots from traditional one-on-one combat tournaments. Click on the green 'Score' for a complete fight-by-fight combat record for any specific robot. Hours of fun!

A: Mark J. here: think about that question for a minute and you can probably answer it yourself.

The robot would have had to win the first tournament it ever entered and then win every subsequent tournament. Assuming that you're talking about the main Robot Wars tournament, only one robot has done that. Not difficult to figure out. [Answer: 'Typhoon']

A: According to Jim Smentowski the five robots that competed in all seven BattleBots tournaments from Long Beach '99 thru Comedy Central Season 5.0 were:

• BioHazard
• frenZy
• Nightmare
• Tazbot
• Voltronic

Q: Is this (top) a photo of 'Medusa Oblongata' or 'Ninjitsu'?

A: The photo you found is a Team-X-Bots shot of 'Medusa Oblongata' from Robot Wars Extreme Warriors 2 before it got its war paint and decorations added. I found a photo (bottom) on the Team Truly Unruly site of their robot after it got decorated. 'Ninjitsu' did have a similar square rotary blade, but it was mounted horizontally. 'Medusa Oblongata' from RWEW1 looked completely different.

Q: Is there a picture of Ninjitsu anywhere?

A: I don't have one.

A: Mike Regan showed up at Robot Wars Extreme Warriors 1 with his first heavyweight robot -- 'The Brute'. For RWEW2 'The Brute returned with a spinning drum weapon.

Mike also drove one of the Robot Wars 'loanerbots' at RWEW1. The 'bot was called 'Silver Box' and it competed in the Robot Rebellion.

A: Many teams did compete at Techno Games with renamed and thinly disguised Robot Wars entries, but I didn't keep track of who renamed what for Techno Games.

A: We've discussed that photo before. Search this archive for 'Eubank'.

A: As previously mentioned, the 'loanerbots' were loaned to teams at Robot Wars Extreme Warriors who's own robots were lost in transit, damaged beyond repair in the main tournament, or failed to pass technical inspection. Why specific teams were selected over others to receive a loanerbot I can't say.

Tracking the loanerbots isn't easy. Some of the names changed between seasons ('Joker' became 'Humdrum', 'Green House' became 'Vert-I-Go', 'Green Mouse' became 'Squirmin Vermin'), some got a makeover ('Silver Box' got a fur coating to become 'Zanzara'), and some new ones (like 'Hoot') appeared for the second season. I don't have a full list of teams who used the loaners, and it will take more time to sort out than I have right now.

Q: Were there any walkers in Robot Wars Extreme Warriors?

A: You have to be either a masochist or an evil genius to build a walker. No walkers at RWEW 1 or 2.

A: Probophobia was a wheeled robot, but it did have a pair of very long lifting arms sprouting from the sides of the machine that could rotate continuously in either direction. They could be used to drag/crawl forward in an emergency. These long lifting arms were able to get a grip on the edge of The Pit and lever Probophobia back onto the main arena surface during the Nickelodeon Robot Wars - the first and only time that a competitor escaped. Unfortunately, the rules say that once you're in The Pit you're out of the match - no reprieve possible.

A: I believe it was 'Hyperactive' in the second round of the Annihilator, but I'll have to check the tape to be sure. 'Cyclone' was the first spinner to throw an opponent out of the Robot Wars arena.

Q: I previously asked about Probophobia, thanks for the answers. Do you know which battle in Nickelodeon that it got out of the Pit?

A: I recall that it was in the 'Challenge Belt' competition against eventual champion 'TutTut'.

A: 'Panzer Mk 2' had a pneumatically adjustable front plow. It could raise or lower over about an 8" range. Although it could be used to provide a little 'boost' to an opponent, it was never intended to be an effective flipper.

A: Not sure what you mean by "same parts like the UK competitors." The loanerbots had square-tube steel chassis' and were powered by Bosch GPA 750 motors. These were common components used by the Robot Wars tech crew on the House Robots.

A: Bill Nye is great at what he does. I didn't think he was a good match for BattleBots.

A: Mark J. here: we all know that [old robot #1] rocked, but that was eight or ten years ago. It's time to move on and show a little love for the accomplishments of current robot builders that don't have a world-wide TV audience.

A: There isn't much interest in details of each individual fight from BattleBots. We maintain the most complete record of tournament trees and individual match winners: Who Won. You can try to start a discussion at the old BattleBots Forum, but there isn't much action there anymore.

A: I don't predict the outcome of fantasy matches, but if the event took place in the BattleBots arena no one would be flipped out as the arena floor extends out to the wall. US robots did compete at the Robot Wars world championships and UK flippers have competed at BattleBots.

A: The BattleBots '09 tournament took place in April at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California. It wasn't much like the old tournaments - few classes, few robots. The date of the event slipped several times, and the airing date and network have changed as well.

According to the BattleBots website (September '09) the college student middleweight competition will air sometime in December, 2009 on the hard-to-find CBS College Sports Network.

No plans have been announced to air the Pro Heavyweight tournament, so don't get your hopes up.

A: Team Bodgeit tried to qualify for a spot in series 5, but they were just not impressive enough to make the show. The robot went thru an extensive redesign and rebuild to successfully qualify for Series 6 and 7. Trivia: 'The Stag' was originally entered for the series 5 qualifier under the name 'Mr. Hyde'.

A: I agreed with the BattleBots judges (I usually did). 'Battlerat' did no consequential damage while 'Nightmare' tore Battlerat's weapon in half. Both 'bots were equally aggressive: never backing away, always advancing. Battlerat's strategy did allow it to control the match, but there was no 'control' scoring at BattleBots.

A: Team Run Amok provided BotRank with most of their information about the early tournaments. The BotRank database has information only on individual match winners - they have no judges scores or event details.

A: I went back and watched the match again. In my book, this was no contest - 'Stealth Terminator' clearly won. The judging criteria for BattleBots was damage, aggression, and strategy.

• The damage done by 'M.O.E.' was limited to tearing away a non-critical drop skirt from 'Stealth Terminator'. A 'hit', no matter how hard, only counts if it does damage.

• 'Stealth Terminator' was much more aggressive, constantly moving forward on attack. Their aggressive ramming knocked out MOE's weapon for most of the match - a bigger deficit than loss of a drop skirt.

• Who's strategy worked better? 'Stealth Terminator' was able to control the majority of the match and really took the fight to 'M.O.E.'.

A: 'Razer' is a complicated robot. Early in its career it suffered a number of mechanical failures that took it out of tournaments. Team Razer attributed their loss to 'Tazbot' at BattleBots Long Beach 1999 to a failure in their self-righting mechanism, and their second loss at Long Beach against 'Rhino' to a radio switch that flipped off on heavy impact. They made no comment on the cause of their loss to 'Voltarc' in Las Vegas.

A: Robot Wars and BattleBots were very different competitions. The arenas were different, the judging expectations were different, and the type of competitors were different. I suspect that a good part of KillerHurtz's success at BattleBots was the relative novelty of a pneumatic overhead axe at the time coupled with their aggressive driving style.

A: Mark J. here: we've had more than enough discussion of the 1999 Vlad/BioHazard match -- no more.

A: Mark J. here: We do not provide detailed commentary for random fights not involving our own team.
We make exceptions only for particularly controversial or educational matches.

A: I'm not going to discuss specifics of BattleBots '09 matches or competitors until after the tournament is broadcast. Given the delays in the broadcast already, that may be a while.

A: What's so hard about checking out the record? Go to BotRank.com, find 'Devils Plunger' in the middleweight historic listing, click on the score, and it will show every match. You can click on an opponent and follow a link to the Builder's DB to get details on their weaponry.

If you do that, you'll find that 'Devils Plunger' did lose a match to the drum spinner 'Falcon' at the 2005 Robotic Revolution in New Orleans. Now, go do your own research.

A: If you're sure you can view NTSC video, you could arrange for someone in the US to buy a copy and forward it to you.

Q: How can I buy a DVD of the 1999 Las Vegas tournament from BattleBots and send it to England? I only need some Dollars but I didn't have Dollars.

A: Dollars talk, my man.

A: With a record of 8 wins, 2 losses I think most people would consider Karcas 2 a successful robot. Don didn't take it to BB 6.0 because he had something better

A: Everybody wants to know about that fight. Vlad was a very serious competitor at the time and not at all easy to beat - the fight was the heavyweight final. See a brief description of the fight further down in this archive.

A: Unique design, continued development, good fight record (17-5). Last fought in 2003 and likely not competitive against current middleweights. I hear that an updated heavyweight version fought at the spring 2009 BattleBots event.

A: You're really desperate to see that 1999 BioHazard/Vlad fight, aren't you? As previously stated, the only source I know for detailed info on that fight is the previously mentioned DVD from the 1999 BattleBots event in Las Vegas.

A: Tornado's 'anti-crusher web' was designed solely for use against Razer. Team Tornado had deployed a similar chassis extension in the 'International Championships' at RWEW2 months earlier, so the device did not come as a surprise to either the fans or the judges. Razer was ready with a countermeasure - a hook extension for their weapon.

The controversy came when Razer was able to hook Tornado's extension and carry them to 'The Pit'. The chassis extension was so large that Razer could not orient Tornado in a way to fit it into the hole. The best Razer could do was set Tornado down on top of the opening, and there Tornado sat while the last few seconds ran out on the match.

This is the source of the controversy. The judges were in a pickle. They had already ruled that the chassis extension was legal - it was exactly the maximum length and width allowed by the rules (2 meters by 1.4 meters). After deliberating for 45 minutes, they decided that Razer had not succeeded in placing Tornado 'in the pit' and awarded the match decision and the UK Championship to Tornado. Razer fans still hate that decision!

A: Warhead certainly didn't look right and wasn't moving well. Team Razer never commented on the fight, so I can't do more than guess.

A: We weren't at the event , but results from RoboGames '09 are up at BotRank.com. 'The Mortician' lost to 'VD5' and 'TSA Inspected'.

WPI Combat Robotics have put together one of the most terrifying middleweights in the history of the sport. 'Professor Chaos' dominates the middleweight class with a record of 10 wins and no losses, defeating the number 2 and 3 ranked robots along the way. I don't know who has the capability to stop them!

A: Yes, and yes.

A: To the best of my knowledge, South Eastern Combat Robotics no longer exists. Their website has been down for a couple of years and they are no longer listed in the Robot Fighting League membership roster.

Update: As of 2010, SECR still exists! Although no longer organizing large events, they still hold a couple of insect-class events a year. Their forum can be found at forums.delphiforums.com/SECU/.

A: Photo of 'Beaverbot' here. Try a sarch for video of the Dutch Robot Wars series 2 heat B where 'Beaverbot' and 'Impact' fought each other.

A: We do not provide detailed commentary for random fights not involving our own team. We make exceptions only for particularly controversial or educational matches. We also do not confirm the accounts of others.

A: I'm sure Jonathan knows all about it. Maybe you should ask him?

A: Not that I know of.

A: You can find 'Vlad the Impaler II's current and complete record at BotRank.com.

A: Mark J. here: I'm having trouble obtaining competitor lists and results from UK events, so it's difficult for me to define or determine exactly who is 'still competing' there.

John Reid was kind enough to correspond with us while we were building our first combat robot. He gave us some very helpful information. I think that John and Team Hurtz have done a great deal to promote robot combat and that they are key to the continuing success of robot combat in the UK.

A: Lots of reasons to build a new version of a robot. I don't know why Stephen Felk chose to build new rather than rebuild.

A: I think 'Thor' was the first robot with a vertical 'hammer' attack (Robot Wars 1995). 'TerMinal frenZy' first appeared at the 1996 Robot Wars. As I'm sure you already know, Patrick has enormous experience - he competed for a long time in a variety of events.

A: I'll be sure to ask the next time I run into Carlo.

A: Mostly a matter of luck. They each had a run of good fortune against flippers, but they could have equally likely have had a good run against any other weapon type.

A: I'm not going to give an opinion on every team in combat robotics. I don't think that would be of interest to the intended users of this website.

A: I suppose you could dig around in an archived copy of the old BattleBots website but for me, a win is a win however it comes.

Q: Where can I find all of the fights in 1999 Battlebots Las Vegas instead of that DVD?

A: The DVD is the only source I know, and I don't believe that all 26 fights are recorded there.

Q: In Battlebots.com is anywhere I can find 1999 Las Vegas Pay-per-view, I been on that website but I can not find it?

A: Try archives of the site from different times at The Wayback Machine. You may have to search thru records for each competitor to get specific match scores. Do you really care that much about knockouts versus judges decisions?

A: I didn't see the match, but in my experience BioHazard never 'got lucky' with judging. BioHazard was simply good.

A: Depends on how you define 'success'. Both teams have 2 'Giant Nut' trophies:

• Team Automatum won the middleweight class at the 1999 Long Beach event (Son of Smashy) and was the middleweight 'runner-up' at BB 4.0 (Complete Control).

• Team Hurtz was the heavyweight 'runner up' (KillerHurtz) and John Reid won 'Best Driver' at the 1999 Long Beach event.

Q: Is 'Son Of Smashy' the only robot win a Battlebots championship that isn't from US?

A: 'Son of Smashy' from the Canadian 'Team Automatum Technologies' based in Vancouver, B.C. won the middleweight championship at the 1999 BattleBots Long Beach tournament and is the only tournament class winner from outside the US. However, other 'Giant Nuts' have been awarded to non-US robots:

• 'KillerHurtz: 2nd place heavyweight - Long Beach 1999
• John Reid (KillerHurtz): best driver award - Long Beach 1999
• 'Razer': heavyweight rumble winner - Long Beach 1999
• "Mortis': most aggressive award - Las Vegas 1999
• 'Suicidal Tendencies': best newcomer - BB 1.0
• 'Complete Control': 2nd place middleweight - BB 4.0

There is a more interesting trend amongst the tournament class winners a BattleBots: with a single exception, all of the tournament winners in all of the weight classes lived within 50 miles of the Pacific ocean on the west coast of North America. The exception: BB 3.0 heavyweight winner 'Son of Whyachi' was from Wisconsin, about 120 miles from Lake Michigan. The winner of both Robot Wars Extreme Warriors tournaments (Team Panzer) and 2 of the 3 Robotica tournaments (Team Run Amok and Team Panzer) are also inside the 50 mile pacific limit. Robotica 2 champions 'Robot Dojo' are landlocked in Colorado.

A: Andy has been very successful, but I'm not sure how to separate his driving skill from other factors that contribute to his success. There is also the question of who qualifies as a 'child'. I don't think I'll comment further on this topic.

A: Team Robot Action League's 'Tentomushi' won the first UK Robot Wars middleweight title at the Third Wars in 1999, but the middleweight tournament there was just a few robots thrown together to accommodate the filming of a Robot Wars pilot episode for MTV. The focus at the UK Robot Wars has always been on the heavyweights.

The early US Robot Wars competitions had middleweight classes, but the weight limit varied. The winners there were 'X1' (1994, 70 pounds), 'La Machine' (1995, 80 pounds), 'The Agamemnon' (1996, 100 pounds), and 'Vicious-1' (1997, 100 pounds).

A: BotRank.com lists 25,966 robot fights from North America. For some odd reason I cannot remember the details of how each one of those fights went Your count of losses to Vlad is correct.

A: Team Joker's 'bot for Robot Wars Extreme Warriors 1 was lost in transit, so they fought with a loaned robot. The second time to England they had better luck with shipping and they fought with their own robot at Extreme Warriors 2.

A: Sorry, we don't distribute video. Your best bet is YouTube.

A: File for future reference:

A: The Tilford Clan showed up at the 1994 Robot Wars event with 'South Bay Mauler', the first recorded full-body spinner to compete at an organized robot combat event. 'Blendo' first competed at the 1995 Robot Wars event.

It should be noted that the early records from the Critter Crunch competition which dates back to the 1980's have been lost - if they ever even had records (the 'Mad Scientists' are a loosely organized group) - so it is possible that an earlier 'tuna-can' spinner existed.

A: I wouldn't call 'Deadblow' an overhead axe, exactly. The weapon was weak and could do no damage -- it was there to show aggression. Evolution of more powerful weaponry rendered this 'peckerbot' less impressive to the judges.

Overhead axe weapons have never had a lot of favor in North America, but there have been many middleweights. 'BattleDog', 'El Spooky', 'Fusion', and 'Major Punishment' all competed at BattleBots 5.0. None were successful enough to appear on TV.

A: Tekka Maki's record of 5 wins and 2 losses certainly does not qualify it as 'most successful'. Tekka Maki last fought in 2004. 'REDRUM' is also out of the running at 11 wins and 7 losses. Go look thru the fight records at BotRank.com to check on who the 'top dogs' are.

A: Sorry, we don't predict fantasy matches.

A: I looked this up a while back for a previous question in this archive. By my count, there were eleven twelve teams that competed at all three events:

A: I'm starting to catch on. You're just now seeing the BattleBots tournaments in China and haven't seen BB 5.0 yet, right? I'm not sure how much information to give you -- the last BattleBots show aired on TV in the US more than seven years ago. I don't want to spoil your fun.

A: A knock-out (KO)occurs when a robot is disabled and 'counted out'. A technical knock-out (TKO) is scored when a robot 'throws in the towel' and concedes the loss to end the match and prevent additional damage. The 'FF' match result indicates a forfeit -- one robot did not show up for the match.

A: The four categories are not defined in the Robot Wars Rules. Here is what the rules for the Second Wars say:

A: 'Nasty Attitude' is fast, but I think it has more to do with the aggressive driving style adopted by Thomas than the absolute speed of the 'bot. Most drivers will pause and pick their target, but Thomas just keeps the throttle down and slews the 'bot around the arena in big power slides. Team Attitude's robots are always well prepared and thoughtfully designed.

Their winning records qualify 'Nasty Attitude' (14 wins - 5 losses) and smaller sibling 'New Attitude' (17-8) as top rank wedges, although I'd have to give top honors to Team Rotordesign's middleweight 'Max Wedge' (39-8) and the unbelievable lightweight 'Wedge of Doom' (43-5).

A: The only widely televised contest, yes. Robotica allowed sponsor banners in the pit area, which received considerable air time, but not on the robots. The BBC was quite sensitive about commercial endorsements on Robot Wars and allowed no sponsor banners anywhere.

A: Amazon.com sells DVDs of the 1999 BattleBots Las Vegas Pay-Per-View tournament and the 1999 BattleBots Long Beach tournament for $24.95 each. [Still available as of November, 2018]

A: Story short: Vlad got under BioHazard's drop skirts and flipped him. BioHazard lost the ability to self-right when Carlo B. added the drop skirts in 1997.

Q: After Vlad The Impaler got under Biohazard's skirts how does he flipped him with his forklift because I thought his forklift weren't strength enough and too slip to flip Biohazard because those skirts?

A: Vlad's forklift was plenty strong enough to lift BioHazard, just not high enough for an unassisted turn-over. Vlad got lucky, drove in deep under the skirt, lifted, and rammed BioHazard into a wall to complete the flip.

Q: In 1999 Battlebots Las Vegas which side did Vlad got under BioHazard's drop skirts and flipped him, is it a front, left or right or a back skirts?

Did Biohazard got any flip before Vlad got under Biohazard's skirts and flipped him or Vlad immedially got underneath and flipped him after that fight starts?

Is Vlad in a red and BioHazard in a blue square in that fight?

After Vlad The Impaler beat BioHazard, who you think who might win before that fight begins?

A: Don't make me go looking for my old tape of the event. We generally don't provide blow-by-blow commentary for fights not involving our own team. I will say that BioHazard was the strong favorite before the fight.

'Ziggo' is my favourite bot. Did you see his fight against 'Defiant' in 1999 Long Beach where he lost in fight 4 and won in a final by a crowd vote? If you did how does Ziggo lost in a fight 4 and won in a final against Defiant by a crowd vote?

A: As previously noted, we generally don't provide blow-by-blow commentary for random fights not involving our own team. There is a short description of the Rhino-Vlad fight as written by Michael Kaplan for 'Unlimited' magazine posted at the Team Coolrobots Press Release page.

We were not at the Long Beach tournament. The tournament trees for all of the BattleBots tournaments are available at the Team Run Amok tournament winners website.

A: Mark J. here: listen very closely this time:

We will provide details of specific fights only if they were controversial, particularly important to the history of the sport, or offer an example useful in answering a design question.

The tournament trees for all of the BattleBots tournaments are available at the Team Run Amok tournament winners website. A DVD of the 1999 Las Vegas tournament is available from BattleBots.

A: You aren't paying attention.

A: Razer lose to Kat III? Not likely. Tornado fought Razer in the second round, revealing their 'anti crusher' defensive web for the first time. There is a discussion thread for that tournament (known in Europe as the 'International Championship') at the Team Tornado Robot Wars Forum.

A: The lightweight quarter-final fight between Ziggo and Sallad was not televised, so this is something of a mystery. I'm trying to contact people who were at the event and I'll update this post when I have more information. Until then I can only comment that when a fight goes wrong for a full-body spinner it can go very, very wrong.

Ziggo won 3 BattleBots lightweight championships: 1999 Long Beach, 2000 Season 2.0, and 2001 Season 4.0. Ziggo also won the lightweight rumble at the 2002 BattleBots 3.0 event and is a member of the Combat Robot Hall of Fame.

UPDATE - my dad wrote to Jonathan Ridder of Team Ziggy and asked him what happened. Here is Jonathan's reply:

"Before the fight I forgot to tape down my radio receiver battery. Clearances in Ziggo were pretty tight so after my first hit, the battery bounced a little and got ripped off by the inside of the spinning shell. Ziggo was dead and the fight was over pretty quick."

Thank you, Jonathan!

A: I have no current source for clips, tapes, or DVDs from any of the three seasons of 'Robotica'.

A: Mark J. here: Team Hurtz is famous for their overhead axe robots (KillerHurtz, TerrorHurtz) with which they competed in Robot Wars and BattleBots. Attempting to rapidly accelerate an overhead exe weapon causes an equal and opposite reaction which can actually flip the robot itself over.

Team Hurtz experimented with several methods of generating downforce to hold the body of the robot steady. 'Beta' attempted to use large electromagnets to hold the robot down to the steel BattleBots arena floor when the weapon was fired. Unfortunately the steel arena plates are held down only by their own weight; when 'Beta' energized the electromagnets it pulled the arena flooring up and disrupted its own movement.

BattleBots reasonably forbade the use of the electromagnets, and without them Beta was not able to use the overhead weapon. Team Hurtz withdrew from the tournament without fighting a single match at BattleBots 5.0.

A: The Robot Rampage event had middeweight, lightweight, featherweight, and antweight divisions. The two featherweight qualifying rounds were not shown and I haven't been able to track down the competitors. The televised featherweight final featured 'Aargh', 'Bernard', 'Cutlet', 'Gladiator', 'Katnip', and 'Micromute'.

A: You can find full combat records for North and South American robots at BotRank.com. Look up the robot and click on its score. Complete tournament match results are at the BotRank events listing.

• Heavyweight 'Hexadecimator' made it to the semifinals in the losers bracket at RoboGames 2006 where it lost to 'SJ'. Hexy D has not fought since.

• 'Wedge of Doom' last fought at RoboGames 2005 as 'Smashbox', where it won the lightweight class.

• Middleweight 'Nasty Attitude' last fought at the 2005 RFL Nationals.

A: Mark J. here: this is the hottest, most divisive topic in robot combat. Partisan groups each have their own arguments:

• The Spinner Faction believes that massive destruction adds excitement that will attract large audiences to watch robot combat events. Larger audiences, they say, will create greater interest for robot combat with the public and will result in the growth of the sport. The current RFL judging guidelines reward only damage and aggression, encouraging destructive spinners.

• The Sportsman Faction argues that hyper-destructive robots scare away builders and make arena costs so high that the sport cannot support itself. There was a much greater variety of robot design in the popular 'golden age' of combat robots and they believe that the lack of this variety has caused the audiences to lose interest. Although the RFL recognizes a 30 pound sportsman class, the judging guidelines have not been adjusted to reflect the needs of this class.

• The Wedge Hater Alliance blames the loss of interest in combat robotics on 'boring wedges' and will actively confront wedge builders at tournaments to tell them that wedges are destroying the sport.

• The Wedge Builders Cartel likes to think that their robots are entirely 'active weapons' and stubbornly go right on winning a higher percentage of their matches than do spinners.

• The Major Televised Event Producers all eventually required active weapons in an effort to add excitement. The rules for the most recent BattleBots tournament required an 'effective' active weapon, which set off a new storm of controversy with the spinner fetishists decrying the way the rule was enforced, questioning what qualifies as 'effective', and arguing about whether a weapon must be used during a match.

The time for putting two robots in a flat-floored plastic box and having them fight for three minutes has passed. Take a look at some alternative ideas I put together: Questioning Robot Combat Paradigms.

A: I'm not sure I understand the question. All of the loanerbots were used by teams whose own robots were destroyed in early combat, were lost in transit, or were unable to pass technical inspection. The loaner robots were returned to the Robot Wars technical staff at the end of the tournament.

Search this archive for more information on the loanerbots.

A: A BattleBots tournament took place April 20-26, 2009 at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California. It wasn't much like the old tournaments. There were three classes: a 120-pound class for college teams, another 120-pound class for high school teams, and a 220-pound class open to everyone. There weren't a lot of robots.

BattleBots says the college tournament will be shown on the hard-to-find CBS College Sports Network sometime in autumn, 2009. [Update - the show never aired.]

A: Loaners were used to 'fill' the side events at RWEW. The Championship was restricted to real competitors.

A: There is a complete list and explanation of the loaner robots from RWEW 1 in this archive: search for 'loanerbots'.

None of the robots in the main tournament were loaners. 'Shuriken' was a real competitor robot built by Evan White. After 'Shuriken' was destroyed in the main tournament, Evan was loaned 'The Green Mouse' to compete in the 'Robot Rebellion' event.

A: There was no 'special event' in the Seventh Wars Heat I broadcast, but something interesting did happen. In the first round, 'Storm II' teamed up with a disabled 'Supernova' to rip the right-side track completely off 'Sir Killalot'. Details are at the Team Storm webpage.

Q: Would you think that the intervention by Mentorn in the Robot Wars Seventh Wars as described by Team Storm would happen at events? I'm not sure if producers just want money or if Storm is embellishing a little.

A: Mark J. here: the job of the television producer is to make entertaining television. The job of the tournament director is to assure a fair tournament. The Robot Wars tournaments had a panel of independent judges, but Mentorn both produced the television show and ran the tournaments. This created a conflict of interest.

I wasn't at the Seventh Wars, but I have seen Robot Wars fights that were edited for television in a way that masked the actual events of the match, much as described by Team Storm. I tend to believe their story.

Production interference is not confined to Robot Wars. The producers of BattleBots tampered with events by having well-known robots from previous competitions 'skip over' the first several rounds of the tournament. This gave these 'seeded' robots a great advantage and assured the producers of fan favorites in the final rounds. Only 4 of the 63 televised fights in Season 5.0 were between two non-seeded robots.

I have also personally seen strong favoritism and tampering at non-televised robot combat events. At one melee event where the audience was acting as the judge, the event organizer refused to put forward one of the robots for consideration even though it may well have won the decision. The builder had flown 2000 miles to participate in the event and support the tournament, but the organizer apparently wanted a local robot to win.

A: Sir K was the only house bot that avoided being flipped. His 'official' weight was listed at 616 pounds, but his true weight was nearly twice that. Even so, many of the high-powered flippers had the capacity to toss Sir K but they were never in the right place at the right time.

'Mr. Psycho', considerably heavier than Sir K, was toppled by 'Firestorm 4' in Robot Wars Extreme Series 2.

A: Yes, Bill Nye was the on-screen 'technical expert' for the show. He had a short segment in the show where he would explain some aspect of robot combat. Best I can tell, Bill Nye never built a combat robot.

A: I don't know, and I don't know why you would want to know.

A: You exaggerate. I checked the episode guide forRobot Wars Season 5 at TV.com and got the following number of appearances for the House Robots:

• Sir Killalot: 16
• Dead Metal: 15
• Matilda: 15
• Shunt: 14
• Sgt. Bash: 10

• 5 were with Sir Killalot
• 5 were with Shunt
• 4 were with Matilda
• 1 was with Sgt. Bash

A: As mentioned previously, I do not live in England. I have only seen internet clips of the Dutch Robot Wars, yet my knowledge of the Dutch robots appears to exceed your knowledge of courtesy and good manners.

A: None of the robot competitions were scripted.

A: I stopped answering generic 'who built' and 'where from' questions about a year ago, and I'm not going to start in on 'describe the damage' questions. If you're interested in builders of lesser-known robots, buy a copy of Fighting Robots by Michael Benson.

Mark J. here: I'll take part of that question. 'Thor's Hammer' was built by Team Truly Unruly who also campaigned 'Medusa Oblongata' at both Robot Wars Extreme Warriors events, and who ran middleweight 'Timmy' and lightweight 'Ack-Ack' at BattleBots.

'Spectre's Revenge' was built by the Hollywood special effects pro Valek Sykes who also campaigned 'Darkness' in the main tournament at Robot Wars Extreme Warriors 2 and who deployed heavyweight 'License to Kill' at BattleBots.

A: I'm not so sure I should tell you to whom those chassis belonged. I'll give you a couple of hints: they aren't clusterbots and that isn't a replica of Eubank. I'll check with Chris Hannold at Litewav before I say any more...

UPDATE: I checked with Chris. He can't verify my identification of those chassis, so I'll just tell you what I know for sure. The photo was taken in the Robot Wars technical area, used by the backstage crew. That's the real 'Eubank' ('Skeletron' was nearby) and there were plenty of spares for the house robots lying around.

A: The house robots were still afraid of the US 'bots after 'Tricerabot' shoved 'Sir Killalot' into The Pit in RWEW Season 1. They would only take on two robots at Season 2, and certainly not the most powerful amongst those who were willing to fight. It was no fight at all. 'Snake Bite' ended up disabled in the 'Drop Zone' and had (I think) a piano dropped on him.

Q: How did 'Snake Bite' and 'Snookums' lose so terribly in the house robot rebellion? Please tell me the story.

A: There is very little story to tell. Neither 'Snake Bite' nor 'Snookums' had any particularly strong offense. They were simply overpowered by the larger robots and disabled. Quite dull, except for the 'Drop Zone'.

A: Mark J. here: unfortunately there are no simple requirements or guidelines for assuring that an arena is safe for a particular weightclass. The Robot Fighting League arena 'standards' are simply a consistent nomenclature to describe arena capability. They leave the determination of this capability to the event organizer's "knowledge and experience".

From an engineering perspective, there are a lot of variables involved in determining arena strength: thickness of polycarbonate, attachment method, framing material, spacing of supports, height of internal curbing, distance of internal curbing to arena wall, ect.

Building a 30 pound arena from scratch is going to eat thru several thousand dollars. Your best bet for design guidance is to talk with event organizers who work with a 30 pound rated arena. Try asking at the Western Allied Robotics forum. The Robot Fighting League forum is another possible source.

A: No, I can't confirm. At the events we attended the weigh-in happened in an area adjacent to the pits and could be witnessed by any interested competitor. I saw one U.S. competitor who was considerably overweight and who was not allowed to compete until the excess weight was shed. I suppose additional weight could have been added following the technical inspection, but I would not question the sportsmanship of any of the teams -- US or UK.

A: The Roaming Robots housebots 'Major Damage' and 'Gripper' certainly do resemble the Robot Wars housebots 'Mr. Psycho' and 'Growler', but the relationship ends with the resemblance.

A: 'Zanzara' was one of several 'loaner' robots supplied by the Robot Wars production company and loaned out to teams having trouble with their own robot. They were all built by the Robot Wars technical crew.

Date marker: April 2009

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Q: Do you have any Dutch Robot Wars photos?

A: Dozens: try a web search for videos and images.

Q: What did 'The Lethal Swan', 'Reflex', 'Namuzu', 'Project Two:Hex Em', 'The Black Beast', 'Trazmaniac' and 'Shapeshifter' look like?

A: I'm not interested in describing robots you can find with a Google search. Here's a start: Lethal Swan photos.

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Q: Did the winners of a BattleBots event get to keep the giant nut trophys? Did the runners-up get any trophys?

A: Yes, BattleBots winners in each weight class were awarded their own personal 'giant nut' trophies to keep. Other 'giant nuts' were awarded to runners-up, winners of the rumbles, and for several other categories that sometimes changed from event to event: 'Best Driver', 'Most Aggressive', 'Coolest Robot', 'Funniest Robot', and 'Best Newcomer'. I show a total of 94 giant nuts awarded.

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Q: With BattleBots possibly returning, do you think some of the old Battlebot teams will also return?

A: I would be surprised if the old crews are not well represented.

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Q: Do you think BattleBots will go down as scheduled this April [2009]? I hope the event becomes a success.

A: Mark J. here: beats me. I've stopped believing any information that comes out of BattleBots because so much of it proves false. Their actions over the last several years have not, in my opinion, been good for the sport. I wish them well, but will not become involved.

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Q: I read that Razer, Panic Attack, and Mortis competed at BattleBots. How did they do?

A: Six UK Robot Wars teams entered a total of eight heavyweight robots in BattleBots competitions:

• Long Beach 1999: Killerhurtz and Razer
• 1999 Pay-per-view: Killerhurtz, Razer, and Mortis
• BattleBots 1.0: Suicidal Tendancies and Killerhurtz
• BattleBots 2.0: Bigger Brother, Suicidal Tendancies, Panic Attack, and Killerhurtz
• BattleBots 3.0: Little Sister and Killerhurtz
• BattleBots 4.0: Little Sister and Killerhurtz
• BattleBots 5.0: Little Sister and Warhead

They had an overall record of 28 wins and 19 losses. You can trace the progress of individual robots thru the tournaments in our collection of complete tournament trees for BattleBots and other major tournaments.

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Q: Why did Son of Whyachi do so poorly in the SHW division?

A: Beating up a 220 pound robot is a lot easier than beating up a 340 pound robot. Most people don't remember that at the same tournament where 'Son of Whyachi' won the heavyweight championship, stablemate 'Whyachi' competed in the superheavyweight division and had only a 1 win 1 loss record in spite of it's 'shufflebot' weight advantage. Spinners never did all that well in the SHW BattleBots class.

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Mark J. here: the following set of questions was sent to me in a personal email. I think the answers might be of general interest so I've reprinted my responses here, with permission from the author of the questions:

Q: First off, I got to say you have nice website. Do you know of any pictures of Scott LaValley's 'Dolittle'? I know it competed in US Robot Wars 1994.

A: Thanks for the appreciation. I did a lot of research on the early robot wars, and photos of the robots from the 1994 event are hard to come by. I don't have a photo of 'Dolittle', but I do have a photo of Scott's 1995 entry 'Domore'.

Q: On YouTube there are several videos from the early Robot Wars events. Do you wish the UK version stayed truer to the original US version?

A: The very early UK Robot Wars really were pretty close to the spirit of the US Robot Wars. The show producers had to adapt to what their television audience wanted, and they seem to have wanted direct combat. Some of the Techno Games events went back toward the original Robot Wars idea, but that show just wasn't as popular as the all-combat format. Personally, I really enjoy some of the non-combat events. I tried to emphasize that in the Antbotica events that Team Run Amok put on.

Q: Did any teams that competed in Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors compete in the early US Robot Wars? The only one I think did was Mike Regan.

A: There were three US Robot Wars competitors at RWEW:

• As you note, Mike Regan (1997 'Vicious-1') was at RWEW1 with 'The Brute';

• Patrick Campbell (1994 'TMZ', 1995 'Cyberknight', 1996 'Terminal Frenzy', 1997 'Frenzy') was at RWEW2 with 'The Bat';

• Dan Danknick (1996 'The Agamemnon') was at both of the RWEW series, not competing but working technical support for the event;

There were some other interesting tie-ins between US Robot Wars and later UK Robot Wars events:

• The Tilford Clan (1996 'South Bay Mauler', 1997 'Mauler') entered a Robot Wars tournament filmed in 2000 in England as a pilot for a show for MTV. The deal didn't fly and the footage was never shown. Andrew Lindsey (1996 'Spike', 1997 'Spike II'), Patrick Campbell, and Dan Danknick were also there.

• Eric Dickerson (1996 'WYSIWYG') became involved with the UK Robot Wars productions. 'WYSIWYG' appeared in the 1997 UK Robot Wars driven by Michelle Wheeley.

That's all I can think of, but I may have missed someone.

Q: Why did the Bigger Brother team change the bot's name for BattleBots? 'Killerhurtz' was still competing with it's original name until season 5.0 when he entered his new robot 'Beta'.

A: There was considerable confusion about legal rights to robot names between events. The contracts signed by competitors at BattleBots and Robot Wars events appeared to transfer certain rights to use of the names to the producers of the shows. Some competitors chose to avoid any possible conflicts by changing robot names and appearances when competing in different events, and some chose to ignore the whole issue.

Q: What UK Robot Wars team would have done good in Battlebots?

A: Robot Wars and BattleBots were very different events. Many Robot Wars competitors built flippers designed to throw their competitors out of the arena -- something not possible at BattleBots. Other Robot Wars competitors would suffer badly if they went up against destructive spinner weapons -- odd how 'Razer' never had to fight such a robot, isn't it? I don't like to play 'fantasy match prediction' with robots, but I suppose 'Tornado' would be a good pick to have done well at BattleBots.

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Q: BattleBots registration is open on Builders DB What do you think? Are you gonna enter 'Run Amok'?

A: Mark J. here: I'm always pleased to see another robot combat competition added to the calendar. However, there have been many false starts and a great deal of misinformation circulated about the return of BattleBots, and many builders have been alienated by the actions of the organizers. I wish the event well, but we will not be entering a robot.

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Q: If Robotica came back, what would be the best Robot Wars full-body spinner to enter?

A: Terrible idea! 'Robotica' and 'Full-body Spinner' go together like 'Ice Cream' and 'Anchovies'. In three seasons of 'Robotica' nobody entered a full-body spinner and no sane competitor would. Even die-hard spinner builders like Brian Nave and Terry Ewert built non-spinners for 'Robotica'.

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Q: What were the most controversial robot battles?

A: Two pop to mind:

• Tornado vs. Razer in the Sixth Wars final: Tornado won by use of a special 'anti-crusher' framework added to their robot to keep Razer's piercing crusher away from vital parts. The device was pre-cleared with the technical crew, but many fans were outraged.

• Biohazard vs. Son of Whyachi in the BattleBots 3.0 heavyweight final: SoW used a rule-shaving 'shufflebot' propusion system to gain the additional 'walker' weight allowance for their monster spinner. The fight was tremendously destructive with both robots taking major damage. The judges' decision went to SoW, but a lot of fans saw it differently.

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Q: I remember watching the USA Robot Wars series and seeing 'Matilda' with her chainsaw tail that she stopped using after UK 4. I understand that it is interchangable, but how come she kept using it in parts of the US series and never in the later British series?

A: Once Matilda switched to the very effective flywheel weapon in the late summer of 2001, the weapon was never changed out for the old chainsaw.

The first series of 'Robot Wars Extreme Warriors' for US competitors was filmed in June/July, 2001 and Matilda was still using the chainsaw tail. This was after the UK 'Fourth Wars' and before the 'Fifth Wars' filming in August 2001 where Matilda appeared with the flywheel weapon.

The second series of 'Robot Wars Extreme Warriors' for US competitors was filmed in January, 2002. Matilda was still using the chainsaw weapon here, so the chainsaw was used in RWES series 1 and the flywheel was used in RWEW series 2.

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Q: Is there any pictures of the 'Robotica Rats' I could look up?

A: I can't find any and don't have any.

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Q: How long (hours, days, weeks, months) did Robot Wars, Battlebots and Robotica last?

A: The first US Robot Wars was held in August, 1994. The last UK Robot Wars was filmed in August, 2003. In between came all the BattleBots and Robotica events, so the 'golden age' of robot combat lasted just about an even nine years.

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Q: Is Robot Wars house robot 'Sir Killalot' famous for his Sir Killalot vs Robo Babe CD?

A: No, he's famous for kicking butt in the Robot Wars arena. The CD is just a novelty.

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Quick tip: if you haven't seen the video on the Northeast Robotics Club (NERC) homepage, turn up the volume and go have a look!

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Q: Why did't anyone show Stefan Frank, announcer for Robot Wars Extreme Warriors?

A: Announcers don't generally get their face on the show. Usually they aren't even at the filming. They do their work in a studio, 'post-production'.

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Q: Aaron, I've been watching the Robot Wars Extreme Warriors 'House Robot Rebellion' and I'm confused here. Why does 'Green House' look like 'Vert-I-Go'? Is he his Twin?

A: As I recall, 'Green House' was a loaner robot built by the Robot Wars tech staff for use by teams having trouble with their own robots. The full list of 'loaner' robots from RWEW1 is in this archive: search for 'loanerbots'. It was a simple design with a pneumatic lifter.

'Vert-I-Go' fought in the Nickelodeon Robot Wars 'Mayhem' event. I don't recall the robot, but I do know that several loanerbots were used there. It may have simply been a re-named version of 'Green House'.

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Q: I've got a crazy Robot Wars question. Were there two different UFO robots and teams in Robot Wars series 6 and 7, or was it just the same team?

A: Officially, they were the same team. They had the same name, the same logo, and they were from Wales -- but the robot and the team members who appeared on camera were different for the Seventh Wars.

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Q: What was the Robot Wars University Challenge?

A: The 'University Challenge' was a tournament within the second series of Robot Wars Extreme (2003). Six robots loosely associated with specific universities fought in a special tournament -- any excuse for a tournament in the Extreme shows. The robots were Behemoth, Infernal Contraption, CV, Tiberius III, Fluffy, and Infinity. Tiberius III was the winner.

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Q: I'm really interested in combat robots but the last time I checked the nearest competion was a several hour drive that my parents didn't want to do. Help?

A: It only takes two robots for combat -- so build two robots, get some friends over, and have at it! Team JuggerBot got their start as a few guys who modified R/C cars and fought in a back yard. Your friends will get hooked, they'll start building their own robots, and you're on your way.

Stay away from crazy rotary weapons and dangerously sharp edges and you can have real fun and learn about combat robots without leaving your house. We've had some great antweight fights on the round coffee table in our own living room. Search this archive for 'informal tournament' to get some tips on organizing your own small event.

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Q: Was the 'British Bulldogs' trial event at the first UK Robot Wars like a 'House Robot Challenge' from the later Wars?

A: Only a little. British Bulldogs is a schoolyard game where a line of players try to run past two 'bulldog' players without being caught. It's a bit like 'Red Rover'. The Robot Wars version had the competitors line up at one end of the arena and try to dash past the four House Robots and reach the other end. Last robot thru was eliminated.

You can see video of the British Bulldogs trial on YouTube.

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Q: What was the biggest bot ever built for a competition?

A: Combat robots compete in weight classes that range from the 150 gram 'fairyweight' class to the special 390 pound 'superheavyweight' class at the MechWars events. More than thirty robots have competed at this highest weight level.

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Q: On the new BattleBots website there is no section that shows you the bots. Is there anyway I can find that section?

A: Try the Wayback Machine for BattleBots.com for older versions of their website.

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Q: What would be the best UK Robot Wars robot 'Psycho Chicken' could easily damage up?

A: Sorry, we don't predict 'fantasy matches' here.

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Q: Are you a fan of the Critter Crunch tournament? What makes a good remote controlled sumo bot?

A: I admire the Critter Crunch for their long history and pioneering efforts on behalf of robot combat. I also think it's great that they have been able to keep the tournament so informal and not wring all the fun out of it with complicated rules.

See previous Q&A in the archive for R/C sumo tips.

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Q: Is there a picture of 'The Sentinel' anywhere?

A: There's a picture of this short-lived Robot Wars house robot at Robots Rule, but it's not very good.

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Q: Are you mad about how the dates for the televised BattleBots event was changed from November 2008 to spring 2009?

A: Mark J. here: Aaron doesn't like to say negative things about people, so I'll take this one.

The BattleBots organizers are a continuing disappointment to the combat robot community. There is a long history of false starts, withheld information, and fumbled opportunities on their part. Their interests appear to me to be entirely focused on their own promotion with no sign of respect or concern for the builders. I am long past being angered by the actions of the BattleBots organization -- I am now simply disgusted.

Q: Thank you for the heads up about the BattleBots organizers. If the tournament does work out, what do you think about the 'no rules' class?

A: The 'no rules' class is a sham. There may be no official rules, but each individual 'bot must be approved by the organizers. I doubt that the class will happen, but if it does there will be very few competitors.

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Q: Dear Aaron, I am British and over here, only Season 1 of Robotica has ever been aired. Although most of Season 3 is now on YouTube, I cannot find any clips and/or episodes of Season 2, despite searching everywhere on the internet. Do you know of any sites where I can find Season 2 clips and/or episodes?

A: Season 2 has largely been ignored. It aired only once in the US, which is a pity because it had some interesting robots. Sorry to say that I don't have an on-line source for Season 2 video.

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Q: Do combat robot weight classes have maximum dimensions in the U.S.?

A: Not in the U.S. -- if you can fit it thru the arena door it's legal. Sumo robots are the exception.

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Q: Can you get the Robot Wars 'House Robot' theme songs on CD?

A: No -- but a web search will get you sound files for most of the Robot Wars music.

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Q: Were there really obstacle courses and little mazes in Robot Wars Extreme Warriors?

A: Not in RWEW -- "The Gauntlet" and "The Trial" were elimination rounds leading up to "The Arena" in the first two UK Robot Wars. See our 'Second Wars' results page for more information on these events.

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Q: Was 'The Sentinel' a House Robot in Robot Wars or was it just a hazard in 'The Gauntlet'?

A: 'The Sentinel' was a converted backhoe that appeared in a few episodes in the Second Wars. It was not mobile -- it sat near 'The Pit' in 'The Gauntlet' and blocked or shoved robots that came near. It is considered to be one of the House Robots even though it had a very limited role.

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Q: Sorry to interrupt but I have another Robot Wars question. Who was that black robot that had two saws and two wheels in Robot Wars Extreme Warriors? And who was that weird crazy robot that mad look was that Spike? Was that Sobek in the pits of Robot Wars? What was that tall robot that almost looked like a building in Robot Wars Extreme Warriors? What is that weird robot in Robot Wars? Was that Drillzilla in Robot Wars? Was that wierd green bot Medusa Oblongotta? In case if your wondering I'm looking at the team litewav robotics robot pictures.

A: Questions like this make me wish I was old enough to drink hard liquor. I did my best to match up your descriptions to the Team Litewav RWEW pictures and identify the robots:

• I think the black robot with twin saws was 'Bot-Ugly', but I'll have to check that the next time I watch the tapes.
• Spike
• Sobek
• The tall robot was the bare-bones chassis for The Wife. Very complex -- they never got it working and campaigned one of the 'loaner' robots.
• Lots of weird robots. I'm guessing you're looking at Rippa Raptor.
• Drillzilla
• Medusa Oblongata

You've used up your RWEW questions for the rest of the year.

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Q: In Robot Wars did the pit trigger and the disc trigger got places on each wall?

A: There was one wall trigger for The Pit of Oblivion (series 5 onward) and one wall trigger for the spinning Disc of Doom (series 6 only).

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Q: Is their a way to get Robot Wars Extreme Warriors back on TV or isn't there?

A: Sure - buy your own TV network and you can put on anything you like.

Q: What was that robot with the claws near Mechadroid's pit?

A: You've got to give me more info than that -- I haven't seen the show lately.

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Q: What did 'King Of Diamonds' look like?

A: 'King of Diamonds' fought at the second Robot Wars Extreme Warriors event in England and went on to compete at the 2003 Robocide and Battle Beach 1 events. It was a diamond-shaped robot with a spinning blade weapon at the leading point. Photo at buildersdb.com.

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Q: What do you think 'Corkscrew' looked like? I thought he looked like a hammerhead shark.

A: I hate to say it, but I think the Scottish Robot Wars spinner looked like a corkscrew sticking out of a cork.

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Q: Was there a German Robot Wars filmed in Germany?

A: Germany didn't have it's own televised Robot Wars production like Holland did, but they did stage non-televised tournaments with the winners going to the world championships in England. Many European countries saw Robot Wars dubbed in their own language.

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Q: Hey, why did Chris Harriman fight against 'Probophobia', and 'Spin Doctor' with 'Cyclone' instead of 'Tut Tut'?

A: At the first Robot Wars Extreme Warriors event in London (2001), Chris showed up with his fearsome vertical spinner 'Cyclone'. The robot was damaged beyond on-site repair in the first round of the main knock-out tournament. The production company had several 'loaner' robots on hand that were available to teams with robot problems. Chris drove one those loaners ('Tut Tut') in the Tag Team tournament.

At the second Robot Wars Extreme Warriors event (2002), Chris brought an improved version of 'Cyclone'. Although defeated by 'Probophobia' and 'Spin Doctor' in the opening round of the main knock-out tournament, Chris was able to win 'The Annihilator' tournament later in the event with 'Cyclone'. No need for a loaner that year!

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Q: What was that terrible noise coming out of the SHW 'Black Knight'?

A: That wasn't a terrible noise. 'The Black Knight' was powered by an internal combustion engine -- that was the exhaust note! See the video.

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Q: Did the house robot Shunt realy use a cold-fusion engine? Or was it an ICE?

A: You shouldn't believe any of the info broadcast about the Robot Wars house robots. Shunt weighed a good bit more than 105 kg, the axe was not 'diamond edged', and there is no such thing as a cold-fusion engine. The axe was pneumatic and motive power came from a pair of Bosch GPA 750 electric motors.

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Q: Three questions:

1. How did the seeds work in Robot Wars?

2. What Robot Combat video games do you recommend, beside Robot Arena 2?

3. What happened to the arena after each battle of Robot Wars? Did they exchange the House Robots? Did someone clean up the pieces of the bots?

A: Three answers:

1. The seeds were the top-ranked robots based on their performance at the previous Wars. The seeds were each assigned to their own heat so that they would not face another top-ranked robot in the first or second rounds of the tournament.

2. The only robot combat video game I play beside RA2 is 'Robot Wars Advanced Destruction' for the Game Boy Advance.

3. People didn't normally enter the Robot Wars arena between matches. The house robots and competitors left via the main entrance. Broken robots were pushed out by Refbot, who also rounded up stray pieces.

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Q: Which was the coolest robot you saw at Robot Wars?

A: I really liked 'Pussycat'. It didn't even look like a combat robot, but it could sure fight!

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Q: Has any robot taken on the Robotica Rats in the Ladyrinth? Also, what were the weapons 'Fat Boy Tin' had? [Nate Franklin]

A: There wasn't much time to waste on the Rats, Nate. I believe that 'Ultra Violence' did spin up its rotary weapon and turn to face a Rat, but the Rat ran for it.

What's with all the interest in obscure Robot Wars entrants lately? 'Fat Boy Tin' lost its only fight in the first round of the Fourth Wars against 'Vercingetorix' and 'Plunderbird'. It had a pair of pneumatic spikes for weaponry.

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Q: Alright what do you think of this idea for a robot combat battle type, I thought of this from playing this Robot Wars game on the GBA (Gameboy advance). So one robot (the target bot) starts fighting a number of bots, one comes in after another is immobilized (like 10 or more) if the targets bot is immobilized, the bot that immobilized that bot is now the target bot. this goes on until all the bots are immobilized. the bot who immobilized the most bots wins or the last one standing. What do you think?

A: I've got that same GBA game: Robot Wars Advanced Destruction. They actually had that event at Robot Wars Extreme Warriors and Robot Wars Extreme. They called it the 'Challenge Belt'. The winner was the last 'bot standing. Never seemed quite fair to me; if you're the first 'bot up, you have to beat everybody, but if you're last up you only have to beat one 'bot that's probably already kinda beat up.

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Q: Where is 'Direct Action' from again?

A: What is this -- test the robot geek? That's the only reason I can see for a question about the utterly obscure 'Direct Action'. Best I can tell, 'Direct Action' fought only once: in the Robot Wars Extreme Series 2 New Blood tournament. It was badly beaten up, then opened The Pit and drove itself in. I'll assume that it was from the UK, like most other New Blood robots.

No more "where is [insert robot name here] from" questions. If you're that interested, buy a copy of "Fighting Robots" by Michael Benson.

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Q: What home country was 'Tiger Cat' from?

A: 'Tiger Cat' fought in the Robot Wars Extreme Warriors series for a team based in New York, USA.

Q: Where in New York was 'Tiger Cat' from? If you say Syracuse I swear I'm gonna explode.

A: You're safe. The 'Tiger Cat' team was from Shirley, New York -- on Long Island.

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Q: What was the difference between Robot Wars Extreme and Nickelodeon Robot Wars? [Nate Franklin]

P.S. You, your Dad and your robots are awesome!!

A: Thanks, Nate. The different Robot Wars competitions can be tough to keep straight:

• Robot Wars Extreme: two seasons of shows filmed in England featuring special challenges and tournaments outside the scope of the regular Robot Wars tournament. Most of the robots were from Europe. Craig Charles hosted. Events included the the All-Stars Tournament, Tag Team Terror, Annihilator, and Challenge Belt.

• Robot Wars Extreme Warriors: two seasons of shows filmed in England in mid 2001 and early 2002 for American television. The robots and teams were Americans who were flown to England for the tournament. Retired professional wrestler Mick Foley hosted. Events included the U.S. Championship, Tag Team Terror, Annihilator, and House Robot Rebellion.

• Nickelodeon Robot Wars: a single short season of six half-hour shows with kids behind the controls of the robots. This was filmed in England in early 2002 -- at the same time as the second season of Robot Wars Extreme Warriors. Most of the kids were American. Dave Aizer hosted. No flame hazards were used in the arena and aggressive language was toned down.

More information on the various Robot Wars competitions can be found at Robots Rule.

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Q: For a beetle weight, how many spare parts should you have? I'm thinking around 30 of each part plus 5 chassis.

A: At our last national beetle event our spares box held:

• two drive motors;
• a drive gearbox;
• a weapon motor;
• a speed controller;
• a set of wheels; and
• a full set of replacement armor panels.

We fought thru seven rounds and didn't need any of the spares. We also carried plenty of emergency repair supplies (wire, epoxy, various tapes, solder, screws, bolts, nuts) plus the usual tools, chargers, and test equipment. In the insect classes you don't have a lot of time between matches, so major rebuilds are generally not an option. If you build your 'bot well you won't need a truck full of spares.

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Q: Who was that strange black robot near Hannibal in the Robot Wars Extreme Warriors pits... or was that a just a black coat? Was there another robot behind the Bunny Attack bench in the pits as well? What was that robot that was near Sir Killalot that looked like a six wheel robot... was it Snake Bite?

A: Sorry, I'll have to save these questions until the next time I watch the tapes. It would help if you could tell me which episode you were watching. Just guessing, the strange black robot could be Patrick Campbell's 'The Bat'.

Q: What weapon did 'The Bat' have? Do you have any links to more pictures of 'The Bat'?

A: I guess it's a little hard to see in the photo, but that's a huge rotary blade hanging off the front of the robot. The weapon was powered by four EV Warrior motors and spun at 2500 RPM. The photo came from an archived Team Minus Zero website and is the only one I could find.

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Q: How much did the 'Robotica Rats' weigh?

A: The Robotica Labyrinth had two 'rat' robots roaming the maze to annoy or sometimes help the competitor robots if they got stuck. I'd guess the rats were about 70 pounds.

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Q: What was that pink robot in the Robot Wars Extreme Warriors pits?

A: If it was season 1, probably 'Diotoir'. The first season of RWEW filmed at the same time as the second world championships and many British robots can be seen in the pits.

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Q: Where can we acquire video of the 1994 and 1995 Robot Wars competition in San Francisco? We're Phil and Sam -- our robot was 'ZOMO', which was luckily featured in the September 1994 Newsweek magazine.

A: Mark J. here: Nice to hear from you guys! The official video from the 1994 event disappeared in all the litigation and has not re-surfaced. There is video of the 1995 event, shot from the stands by another competitor. I've seen a several-generation removed copy of the original tape and it's great! Send me your contact info and I'll put you in touch with the owner of the tape.

Do you have a scan of the Newsweek article you'd be willing to share?

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Q: Why didn't 'Jawbreakers Revenge' have a glass breaker in the Robotica season three 'Labryinth'? He would have lost if he hadn't 'eaten' Panzer.

A: 'The Labyrinth' event required Robotica season 2 and 3 competitors to get past various obstacles and break an elevated strip of glass to score points. Most competitors fitted some type of vertical rod to strike and break the glass strip, but several invertible robots left off the 'glass breaker' to remain invertible.

Jawbreaker's Revenge was capable of lifting the nose of the 'bot in a 'wheelie'. They planned to use that technique to shatter the glass strips. Early in the first round Labyrinth, they managed to grip their much smaller opponent 'Buzz Bomb' (not 'Panzer') in their powerful jaws. They dragged 'Buzz Bomb' thru the course and used its glass breaker to score 85 points for the win.

In the second round, 'Panzer' disabled 'Jawbreaker' at the start of 'The Labyrinth', so we never got to see how successful the 'wheelie' technique would have been.

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Q: Was 'Hoot' from Nickelodeon Robot Wars the same robot that was in the Dutch Robot Wars?

A: Yes. 'Hoot' was one of the robots built by the Robot Wars technical crew to loan out to teams having trouble with their own robot. They were used to fill in empty tournament slots when there were not enough 'real' competitors. The teams at Nick Robot Wars and the Dutch Robot Wars were different.

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Q: What is your favorite fight of all time? One of my favorites was the 'Big Bee' vs 'Texas Heat' (RoboGames 2008), or the super heavyweight rumble of Battlebots 2.0 were 'Toro' flips everyone.

A: See previous post in this archive. Search for 'best robot fight'.

I'm certain that our good friend Dan Danknick will appreciate it if I point out that 'Toro' flipped everyone in that BattleBots rumble except Dan's 'War Machine'.

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Q: What was that yellow and black striped robot that Sergeant Bash was grabbing in Robot Wars Extreme Warriors?

A: Mark J. here: that was no robot, that was my wife.

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Q: Is there a Robot Wars Extreme Warriors DVD set?

A: No DVDs, no VHS.

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Q: Did 'Mad Cow Bot' look like the same design in Robot Wars Extreme Warriors season 2? If he isn't, can you show me a photo?

A: All of the Team Boltz robots ('Psycho Chicken', 'Mad Cow', 'Boltz') were of the same basic design. You can find some photos at their archived website.

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Q: Where does SozBots take place?

A: SozBots organized many antweight competitions in California and Arizona, but there has not been a Sozbots event for several years.

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Q: Would the robotica rats be house robots guard the corner patrol zones in robot wars?

A: The Robotica Rats were there more to assist or annoy competitors than to tear them into chunks like the Robot Wars House Robots.

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Q: What's up with the Robotica Rats?

A: The Rats were cool. The second event at Robotica 2 and 3 was 'The Labyrinth', a multi-path maze wherein both 'bots could roam to choose from six scoring obstacles. Also roaming the labyrinth were two small 'Rat' robots that could interfere with or help the competitors. If a competitor got stuck in one of the obstacles, one or both of the Rats could provide a little help getting them unstuck and keep the event moving. The Rats had small rotary saws for weapons, but couldn't do any real damage. I'd guess that the Rats weighed about 40 pounds each.

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Q: Where is 'Green Mouse' from again?

A: The Robot Wars production company had several 'loaner' robots available to teams who's own robots were destroyed in combat, got lost in transit, or suffered some other major breakdown. These loanerbots were built by the technical support team at Robot Wars. They were there as insurance, to make sure they had enough robots available to complete the full schedule of events. For Robot Wars Extreme Warriors Season 1 there were six loaners:

• Green House
• The Green Mouse
• Joker
• Rot Box
• Silver Box
• Tut Tut

These robots were all functional but -- with the exception of 'Tut Tut' -- not competitive. 'The Green Mouse' was driven by Evan White after his own robot 'Shuriken' was destroyed in the brutal U.S Championships.

Q: And where does 'The Bat' live?

A: Robot Wars Extreme Warriors competitor 'The Bat' was from Patrick Cambell's Team Minus Zero. Patrick built many successful and well-known robots, including BattleBots veteran 'frenZy' and Robotica competitor 'Wendingo'. Team Minus Zero is based in California.

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Q: When 'Bunny Attack' took on 'Tyranabot', were the house bots getting yellow cards for destroying 'Tyranabot'? Did any one used the drop zone in Robot Wars Extreme Warriors? Is Robot Wars Extreme Warriors gonna be on this summer? Where can I find the Robot Wars Extreme Warriors recordings? Wasn't 'Tornado' like 'Tricerabot 3.0', and 'Rosie The Riveter 2'? Would 'Storm 2' ram 'Run Away' out? Could 'Tut Tut' destroy 'Diotoir' or 'Ruf Ruf Dougal'? Do any of the US Robot Wars Robots got SRiMech's? Has 'G-Force' look like 'The Tick'? Is there gonna be any Robot Wars Extreme Warriors recordings on The Science Channel this summer? Does 'Sobek' have a saw? Did 'Tiger Cat's axe go the same as 'Terrorhurtz's axe? Would 'Xylon' flip out 'Major Tom'? In Robot Wars, did the battling songs came from a live rock and roll band? What were the songs called?

A: No; yes - several; not that I know of; none are commerically available; kinda; maybe; unlikely; yes - our own 'The Gap' could self-right; sorta; don't think so; not that I remember; not at all - Tiger Cat's was electric and ineffective; possibly; no; I have no idea.

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Q: If there was a Robot Wars American civil war, would it feature: Sir Forcealot, Joker, NightStalker, Ninjitsu, Green Mouse, Squirmin Vermin, The Bat, and Probophobia?

If there was a Robot Wars US Annihilator in England, would it feature Rosie The Riveter, Spin Doctor, Bunny Attack, Brute, Trackzilla and Snookums?

A: There was an American Civil War event at the first Robot Wars Extreme Warriors, and there were Annihilator events at both RWEW events and at the Nickelodeon Robot Wars. Competitor lists and results can be found at tv.com RWEW and tv.com Nickelodeon Robot Wars.

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Q: Was Will Tatman with the Manta guys (Team Suspect) at Robot Wars Extreme Warriors?

A: Will Tatman and Team In-Theory are from Virginia, not far from Team Suspect's HQ. Will was at RWEW and hung out with Team Suspect, but he was there to compete in the Nickelodeon Robot Wars with his own robot 'Hannibal'. Will and Bill Tatman won 'The Annihilator' competition, defeating 'Bunny Attack" in the final round.

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Q: If you could pick any two robots for a Robotica 'Fight to the Finish' who would they be? Why?

A: There are several fantasy 'Fight to the Finish' pairings I'd like to see:

• JuggerBot 3.0 vs. Whyatica -- big power versus too much power.

• Jaw Breaker's Revenge vs. Ram Force -- it was Team Force upon whom JBR sought revenge.

• Viper vs. Armorgeddon -- would Armorgeddon's suction fan hold up to the best pusher from season 1?

• Mechacidal Maniac vs. Ultra Violence -- a big tower of aluminum for UV's weapon to dig into.

But if I got only one fight, I'd like to see Flexi Flier vs. Panzer Mk. III. Pairing the season 2 and season 3 champions would settle a lot of arguements about the best 'bot on the tall table. Panzer had huge power and impressive traction, while Flexi's special low-rider configuration wasn't really tested in the matches against Scarab or Botzilla.

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Q: Two Questions about the Robotica re-runs on the Science Channel:

1. How long is the finale; one hour or two?

2. About the 'Mystery Bot' at the bottom of the Robotica series 3 photo gallery -- have you asked the Ultraviolence team? Their robot is in the background.

A: The schedule for reruns of Robotica series 3 on The Science Channel has been kinda spotty. One or two shows ran in the US in May, 2008 and more appeared in the schedule, but have now dropped off. I don't know what the deal is, but keep an eye out for more showings.

The finale for each of the three seasons was a two-hour program. The extra time was needed for the six robots in the finals, compared to the four robots in each of the preliminary one-hour shows.

Yes, that is Team Suspect with Ultraviolence in the background, but neither they nor any other team I've questioned can remember anything specific about the Mystery Bot. The qualifying rounds for Robotica went on for several days, with new teams arriving each day and attempting to qualify while production of the show was already underway. The process was chaotic, and teams were just too busy to pay much attention to robots that were still trying to qualify.

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Q: Have you saw the uk robot wars? If you were in the robot wars world championships qualifier, would you take out 'Spartacus' (which you fought against) along with 'Flippa'? Was 'Lightning Tracks' made from scrap? Did 'Psycho Chicken' cought fire from 'The Revolutionist' and 'Sgt. Bash' in robot wars extreme warriors heat D, battle 2? When 'Psycho Chicken' fought against 'Snookums' and 'Propeller Head' at Robot Wars Extreme Warriors, was there weapons on the side backs of the crazy hen? Would 'Zanzara' take revenge on you if robot wars was back? Weren't 'Rotbox'and 'Bang' alike? Wasn't 'Marauder' a body spinner? Was the fight to the finish like a Sumo Basho? Wasn't Dan Danknick with you in robot wars extreme warriors season 1? Do you miss Robot Wars?

A: In order:

• Every episode, many times.
• 'Flippa' was built by a friend here in Oregon, so we'd go after someone else.
• 'Lightning Tracks' was very noisy and kept me from taking a nap in the pits, but was not made of scrap.
• Yes. The scorched fur was torn up and thrown out to fans in the audience.
• No, not that I recall.
• 'Zanzara' was our team mate for the Tag Team Challenge at RWEW2. Why would they want revenge?
• Yes, they were the same robot. -- one of several 'loaner' robots ('Glass House', 'Green Mouse', "Zanzara', 'Tut Tut') supplied by the production company to teams having trouble with their own.
• Yes, Marauder was a full-body spinner at Robot Wars Extreme Warriors 2, but not a powerful one.
• Yes, but higher up and with flames.
• Our very good friend Dan Danknick worked for the Robot Wars technical staff at both RWEW events, but not for our team.
• No, not after these questions.

We're gonna take a break from Robot Wars questions for a while.

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Q: Did the Robot Wars teams built other robots instead of the same ones?

A: Would you like to re-word that question?

Q: I'll ask the question again and i'll ask it pacificlly. Did the robot wars extreme warriors teams built other robots instead of the same ones?

A: I didn't understand the question the first time, but now that you've asked it again I understand it perfectly.

Most of the teams ate two and saved the third one for later. Some ate one and saved two. A few didn't even know it was lunch time.

Q: if you were in g4 tech tv robot wars uk couldn't Psycho Chicken be a replacement for Terror hurtz and your robot Run Away be a replacement for Thunder pants?

A: See answer to previous question.

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Q: What were some of the Robot Wars Extreme Warriors season 1 and 2 looked like?

A: I don't know of any photo collections from RWEW on the web. I'll consider putting some of my own photos up. Quite a few of the robots were simply disguised versions of robots recycled from Robotica and BattleBots, but many were built from scratch for the event.

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Q: Did you saw what happened to 'Psycho Chicken' and 'Propeller Head' when 'The Revolutionist' was being like 'Typhoon 2' the Robot Wars grand final champion from Endinburgh, Scotland?

A: Yes, but take a deep breath first -- you're already way too excited about the whole thing.

Psycho Chicken laid an egg that hatched into a small independent robot (I'm not making this up). The Revolutionist trashed the minibot, then entirely destroyed Psycho Chicken -- wheels ripped away and feathers everywhere.

Propeller Head was more maneuverable and more powerful than The Revolutionist and was able to stay on top of the fill-body spinner to keep him from getting the weapon fully up to speed. Late in the match Propeller Head ejected it's own spinning weapon like a helicopter blade, but continued to push The Revolutionist around the arena and took the win.

Q: Did 'The Revolutionist' get disqualified in Robot Wars Extreme Warriors?

A: Nope, just got beat.

Q: Was 'Psycho Chicken' and his robotic egg kind of like a cluster-bot?

A: Technically yes, I suppose that qualifies as a cluster-bot.

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Q: Have you ever thought of being in the Robot Wars international inferno?

A: If you were invited to compete at Robot Wars, the producers picked the events in which you would compete. You could ask to be considered for an event, but the decision was theirs. We were ready and willing able to compete in any event they would throw at us.

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Q: What happened to 'Lightning Tracks', 'Trackzilla', and the other robots you faced at Robot Wars Extreme Warriors?

A: Full tournament tree results of Robot Wars Extreme Warriors, as well as all other televised tournaments and U.S. national championships are available thru our Who Won page. Click on the purple 'Full Results' button for the event.

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Q: Would you be suprise to see 'Mr.Psycho', 'Growler', and 'Cassius Chrome' in Robot Wars Extreme Warriors and Nickelodeon Robot Wars? I saw 'Mr.Psycho' and 'Growler' in Robot Wars series 6, and I saw 'Cassius Chrome' in series 7.

A: I'd be very surprised, because they were not built at the time RWEW and Nick RW were filmed.

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Q: Why are featherweights seemingly unpopular in the US combat robot scene? In other countries like the UK and Australia they seem to be the most popular weight class.

A: The 12 KG class (about 26 pounds) in the UK is very popular, and 30 pound 'bots are the elite class in Australia. In Brazil all they fight are 12 and 120 pound 'bots.

The main reason for their lack of popularity in the US is that the number of arenas rated for 30 pound and heavier robots is pretty small compared to the number of arenas available to fight 12 pound hobbyweights. You'll get more and better fights building for the hobbywight class than you will building a featherweight.

Q: This is more informational than a question, but I think the FRA UK featherweight rules now specify a 30 pound (13.6kg) weight limit in the UK, since January 2008.

A: Thanks. I still get questions from the UK about 12 kilo 'bots and assumed they were still sticking to that weightclass. Here are the current Fighting Robot Association weightclasses:

• Antweight: 0 to 150 grams
• Featherweight: 1kg to 13.6kgs [2.2lbs to 30lbs]
• Lightweight: 12kgs to 27.5kgs [26lbs to 60lbs]
• Middleweight: 27.5kgs to 55kgs [60lbs to 120lbs]
• Heavyweight: 55kgs to 100kgs [120lbs to 220lbs]
• Super heavyweight: 100kgs to 145kgs [220Ibs to 320Ibs]

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Q: What did 'Lightning Tracks' and 'Snookums' look like at Robot Wars Extreme Warriors 2?

A: The Robot Wars event in England filmed just a couple of months after Robotica seqasons 2 and 3 filmed in California. Many of the robots at RWEW2 were Robotica robots with just a few quick changes to alter their appearance.

Russ Barrow's 'Lightning Tracks' was a redressed version of his Robotica series 3 robot 'Dark Track'. The only visible change was the addition of a decorative tank turret to the top of the 'bot.

Ed Robinson's 'Snookums' was likewise a cosmetic update of his Robotica series 2 robot 'Fintastic'. The major visible change was a different paint scheme.

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Q: On battlebots.com it says that ESPN will be showing a BattleBots tournament!!!

A: Announcements like this have been on their site for years.

Q: BattleBots announced this only a few days ago (February, 2008). This is what all the talk on the RFL forum is about now.

A: Mark J. here: about once a year BattleBots announces some new television deal, usually involving Disney/ABC/ESPN. None of these have gone anywhere.

You have to read these announcements carefully. The current BattleBots announcement describes a "Collegiate BattleBots Championship" competition limited to a single 160 pound (??) weightclass that may be shown on ESPN2 and ESPNU. A heavyweight "professional" class will also potentially be staged and filmed, but the proposed broadcast deal is for the college teams only. It also doesn't say anywhere that BattleBots has accepted, only that ESPN has offered.

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Q: Which 'bot has the most wins in robot history?

A: According to Botrank.com (February, 2008), antweight 'Jimmy Crack Corn' has won 85 of 123 fights, making it the 'bot with the most wins and the greatest number of fights. In the classic weight classes, middleweight 'Devil's Plunger' has won 53 of 68 fights for most wins.

The best record of all 'bots with more than 30 fights belongs to lightweight 'Wedge of Doom' -- 43 wins, 5 losses.

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Q: Has there ever been a combat robot class bigger than 340 pound super heavyweight?

A: Not much bigger. The MechWars tournaments have fought 390 pound robots since 2001. The class is not recognized by the Robot Fighting League.

Q: Has enyone ever built a bot bigger than the 390 pound MechWars class other than Jay Leno's exhibition 'bot "ChinKilla"?

A: Some of the Robot Wars house robots were very heavy. 'Sir Killalot' weighed about 1100 pounds, although the show claimed he was lighter. 'Mr. Psycho' may have been even heavier!

Also, there was an episode of 'Junkyard Wars' where the teams converted automobiles into jumbo R/C combat machines that fought each other. Those could qualify as 'bots.

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Q: What advice do you have for starting your own tournament?

A: Running your own tournament is a lot of work, even for insect-class robots. I'd suggest that you volunteer to work at someone else's tournament to gain knowledge about what all is involved. The next thing to do is to find out if there are enough competitors willing to attend your proposed event. It isn't much of a tournament if nobody shows up.

See our comments in two previous posts in this archive -- search this page for 'enthusiasm'.

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Date marker: March 2008

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Q: Will Robotica have a fourth season?

A: The 2nd and 3rd seasons were made in late 2001 -- a 4th season seems unlikely at this point.

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Q: Can you post some videos of 'bot fights here?

A: No -- not enough server space. There are plenty of 'bot fights on 'You Tube' and other video warehouses.

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Q: Where can I find pictures of the arena Robogames uses?

A: For large 'bots, Robogames uses the Combots/Steel Conflict arena. I don't have links to good photos, but full specifications are at the archived Steel Conflict site.

Correction: Oops, I forgot -- Combots sold the Steel Conflict arena after they purchased the MMER 'MechWars' arena in 2007. You can find pictures and specs for the new arena at the MechWars website.

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Q: Do you know much about Australian robot combat competitions? What can you tell me about them?

A: Everything you need to know about robot combat in Australia can be found at www.robowars.com. There are robot photos, video, rankings, event reports, a wiki, and a chat forum. I've chatted with a number of Australian competitors and they're having a great time with their robots. They use the RFL ruleset and 30-pound featherweights seem to be the elite weightclass.

There is also some interesting robot combat going on in Brazil. They also use the RFL rules, but they fight mostly 12-pound hobbyweights and 120-pound middleweights. The central website is www.robocore.net.

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Q: I saw an older question in the Robot Events archive that said the house bots were given to charity. I also saw that someone on YouTube said they have Dead Metal in their garage. Is that true?

A: I have no idea what happened to the HouseBots following their donation to charity. I suppose they must be stored somewhere -- just like I store the Holy Grail and the Mona Lisa under my bed.

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Q: What happened to Robot Wars?

A: As eventually happens to all television shows, it was cancelled. Scroll down to the third question from the bottom of this page.

Q: Are there any battles with HouseBots going on today?

A: Mark J. here: HouseBots were for the benefit of the television audience. They were there to prolong a match that was over too quickly or to add excitement to a dull match. Few of the competitors liked the idea of HouseBots or exotic arena hazards that could interfere with combat. Since most current tournaments are run by and for the competitors, HouseBots are extinct.

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Q: Who won the 'JuggerBot 3.0' versus 'The Gap' match at the Oregon Clandestine Street Fight?

A: The Gap had a good day, defeating both 'JuggerBot 3.0' and 'SJ'.

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Q: What were the results of the 2007 RFL Nationals?

A: There was no 2007 RFL national championship event. No one with a suitable arena was willing to stage the tournament.

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Q: Are there any robot battles in CA?

A: Yes. Please read #12 for info on how to find robot combat events.

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Q: What happened to the robot 'Whyatica' at Robotica 2?

A: Mark J. here: Robotica was all about a balance between power and control. Team Whyachi built a robot with huge power (24 horsepower to the wheels) and very little control. Whyatica flipped itself onto its back in a power-mad charge thru 'The Gauntlet', and then barely showed any motion at all before stalling completely right in the starting gate of 'The Labyrinth'.

I got out my tape of the show and took a careful look. Whyatica's behavior in 'The Labyrinth' looks like a classic discharged battery array. The word from other teams in the pits was that Terry Ewert wasn't happy with the slow pace in filming Robotica: too much sitting around while the sets were changed. When you get bored you start making mistakes, like forgetting to charge your batteries. Still, the 4 big Hawker batteries should have had some juice left from 'The Gauntlet'.

'Whyatica' was later renamed 'Warrior' and had an 8 win / 7 loss career as a combat heavyweight.

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Q: When is the BattleBots Online Store open?

A: They were last open in mid 2005, so I wouldn't hold my breath.

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Q: Are the 'Marin Ant Wars' still happening?

A: The last 'Marin Ant War' I know about was held in the summer of 2006. They had been hosting events twice a year, but nothing in 2007. You could drop a line to Bill Sauro to get the full story.

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Q: Do you know who the team was for a bot named 'Green Mouse' that competed in Robot Wars Extreme Warriors season 1? I think they also entered Robot Wars Extreme Warriors season 2, but the mouse was orange.

A: Mark J. here: Robot Wars staff had several 'loaner robots' available to teams that had trouble with their own 'bots at the Extreme Warriors series. 'Green Mouse' was one of those robots. I don't recall the team that used it at RWEW1. Other loaner robots that I remember were 'Tut Tut', 'Glass House', 'Joker', and 'Zanzara'. There may have been one or two more. I don't know what happened to them after the series ended.

The orange robot you recall from RWEW2 was a different robot: 'The Six Million Dollar Mouse' from Chris Hannold's Team Litewav. They also competed at Robotica season 1 [Hands Off], season 3 [Mini Rip], and BattleBots 2.0 [RipOff 2000].

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Q: Is 'Rambot' from Robotica series 3 a 'Run Amok 2'? [Fan from Poland]

A. Team Run Amok had no connection to Tom Sweeney's Rambot, but it's obvious that he was paying attention to our design from Robotica series 1. It has a similar graphic design, the tall front wedge, and the high ground clearance that made our 'Run Amok' distinctive and successful. It paid off for him -- his was the only non-veteran robot to make the series 3 finals.

I'd heard that 'Robotica' was still showing on television in Europe. I'm glad to know the show is still being enjoyed.

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Q: Was JuggerBot the winner of Robotica season 3?

A. Panzer Mk. 3 was the winner, defeating JuggerBot in the final match. Full results here.

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Next Mystery Post »

Q: Who is the oldest active bot?

A: Combat robots 'evolve' and names get re-used, so it can be tricky to figure out a specific robot's history. Using the botrank.com criteria for 'active' [fought in the last 18 months], there are five robots from BattleBots 3.0 [May, 2001] on the active list as of October '07:

• Death by Monkeys - lightweight
• Ice Cube - middleweight
• Hexadecimator - heavyweight
• SJ (formerly Slam Job) - heavyweight
• Vladiator - superheavyweight

Team Blackroot's 'SJ' has been the most active of this group with 51 fights in twelve events, holding the #7 current heavyweight ranking and the #5 historic heavyweight ranking. All five of these 'bots took extended leave from combat and fell off the active list at some point, returning to active status later.

Who is the oldest continuously active 'bot? John Neilson's 'AGSMA' has fought in at least one tournament every year since its debut as a lightweight at BattleBots 4.0 [November, 2001] and has never fallen off the active list. The current version of AGSMA retains only the general layout of the 'bot that fought in '01 -- I don't think many pieces of the original remain.

Who is the oldest 'bot to ever fight? 'BioHazard' at the 2005 ComBots Cup: 9 years, 2 months, 27 days after its first fight at the 1996 Robot Wars.

Q: Which is the oldest active team?

A. Depends on what you call 'active'. November 2007: I can't find any teams that fought in the last 18 months that pre-date the teams from BattleBots 3.0 (May, 2001) mentioned in the question above. Of those five teams, three still fight under the same name and with the same core members:

• Team Blackroot (SJ)
• Team Toad (Ice Cube)
• Team WhoopAss (Hexadecimator)

Team Run Amok first fought in March, 2001 at Robotica -- an event not covered by the botrank.com records. We consider ourselves 'active', although it has been more than 18 months since our last Robot Fighting League sanctioned event.

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Q: Who is the fastest true walker?

A: Using the current definition, you could count all the 'true walker' combat robots on the fingers of one hand -- and none of them are active. They were all agonizingly slow.

Q: OK, who was the fastest true walker?

A: Mark J. here: rules keep changing about what makes a 'true walker'. If you want to use a strict definition (independent control of vertical and horizontal motion for each leg, no rolling or dragging parts in contact with the floor, no continuous rotary motion in the drive train) then I suppose the only 'true walker' ever to compete as a combat robot was 'Mechadon'. With nothing to compare him to, you can't really call him 'fastest', just 'only'.

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Q: What happened to the robot 'Noll' in Series 1 of Robotica?

A: Noll was the Robotica entry from students at California State Polytechnic University at San Louis Obispo (Cal Poly SLO). They showed up with a big pile of parts and an unfinished robot. Their design was very complex with an overhead spike and adjustable pneumatic suspension, all crammed very tightly under enclosing armor.

The team got the robot together and qualified for the competition, but in their first match against 'JuggerBot' a bolt backed out and jammed the drive train on one side, frying the motor. While hurrying to install their spare motor, two of their team were injured by slipping tools and sharp metal and were sent for medical attention. Remaining team members did get the new motor installed but failed to notice that the bolt holding the wheel onto the drive shaft was too long to allow free rotation. That fried their only spare motor while testing in the pits. The robot was never seen again in competition.

Lessons: keep your 'bot simple, finish and test early, work safely.

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Q: Can you point me to an antweight competition in Charlotte, N.C.?

A: As mentioned in #12, the best places to look for U.S. combat robot event notices are the Robot Fighting League event calendar and the Builders Database. There are no combat robot events currently scheduled for the Carolinas -- feel free to start one.

Q: I love the idea of starting a competition in Charlotte, but I could use some help (lots) in designing an antweight arena. I would like to style it after Robot Wars with house 'bots and a pit and flames, but it sounds kinda complicated to build. Any suggestions?

A: You have ambitious plans! I do have a few suggestions:

• The best arena is useless without people willing to build robots and compete. Find those people first. Get their input and their help to build the arena. Think about starting with a simple arena and adding new 'features' that your builders can agree upon. Many robot builders prefer a simple enclosure without 'hazards'.

• Arena flames are a no-go. Many places you might like to hold your event (shopping malls, conference halls, technology fairs) are going to balk at anything involving flames because of fire codes and insurance restrictions. You'd also have extra expenses for fireproof arena materials and commercial fire extinguishers.

• The standard enclosure material for an antweight arena is 1/8" thick polycarbonate (Lexan) plastic. You can find polycarbonate at many glass and window shops, or on the internet. Do not substitute acrylic plastic that is commonly available at hardware and home centers -- it is brittle and nowhere near as strong as polycarbonate.

• A typical antweight arena is 4' by 4' by 3' tall. Budget $300 for the polycarbonate needed to enclose the sides and top of an arena this size.

• Browse the Delphi Antweight Forum. You'll be able to ask for specific advice from people who have built and maintained small arenas, and you can publicize your event.

• Most of the member organizations of the Robot Fighting League have antweight arenas. Get in touch with them for tips on arena construction and running events. Consider joining the RFL.

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Q: Is there any relationship between the 'bots 'Polly Pushy Pants' and 'New Cruelty'? They seem very similar.

A: Both 'bots were built and fought by team Killerbotics and have many common features.

• The 8-wheeled superheavyweight 'New Cruelty' last fought in May of 2002 at BattleBots 5.0.

• The 4-wheeled heavyweight 'Polly Prissy Pants' (also known as 'Polly Pushy Pants' and 'Corporal Punishment') first fought in August of 2003 at Robot Assault.

I suspect that PPP was built from parts donated from the retired 'New Cruelty', but cannot confirm.

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Q: Were there any teams that competed at all three of the big televised events: BattleBots, Robotica, and Robot Wars?

A: By my count, there were eleven twelve teams that competed at all three events:

Team Dark Forces - Russ Barrow Team Jawbreaker - Tim Berghoefer Team Minus Zero - Patrick Campbell Team Suspect - Jeff Cesnik Litewav Robotics - Chris Hannold Robot Dojo - Mike Konshak Team Trigon - Eric Koss Dream Droid - Walter Martinez Team Panzer - Todd Mendenhall Team JuggerBot - Mike Morrow Team Logicom - Brian Nave Team Think Tank - Ted Shimoda

There was quite a bit of bad blood between the core U.S. BattleBots competitors and U.K. Robot Wars owners that kept down the cross-atlantic mixing.

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Q: What's the difference between a 'featherweight' and a 'sportsman'?

A: In 2006 the Northeast Robotics Club (NERC) came up with a 30-pound combat robot class with a set of restrictions on weapons to limit the amount of damage done to the competitors and to encourage creative designs. This 'sportsman' class prohibits wedges and high-power spinners but does require some active weapon like a lifter, clamper, or flipper.

Section 2.2 of the 2007 Robot Fighting League Rules include specifications for this 30-pound sportsman class. There is still some vague wording to the class rules, but the idea seems to be catching on.

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Q: Who do you think would win a BattleBots fight between 'Slam Job' and 'Son of Whyachi'?

A: If it were five years ago I'd care.

Under current rules, Son of Whyachi would be a superheavyweight since shufflebots no longer get a weight bonus. SOW won all of it's fights as a heavyweight and won the BB 3.0 heavyweight tournament, but had only a 1 win/2 loss record as a superheavy.

Team Blackroot has kept active in the sport and has continued to upgrade 'Slam Job', now renamed 'SJ'. They won the 2004 RFL National Championships, and hold the current #7 and historic #5 heavyweight rankings at botrank.com.

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Q: Did 'Ziggo' ever loose a battle?

A: BattleBots uber-spinner and Combat Robot Hall of Fame member Ziggo has a great record. I count 17 head-to-head wins (16 by knockout), one rumble win, three lightweight championships, and four losses. The losses were to:

• 'Defiant' - Long Beach '99 (Ziggo came back to defeat Defiant in double-elimination)
• 'Das Bot' - BB 1.0
• 'Sallad' - BB 3.0
• 'Code Black' - BB 5.0

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Q: Do you think Antbotica could be any more lame? (Doofus Wannabe in rural Michigan)

A: Gosh, Doofus -- we've put on three successful Antbotica competitions, but I'm sure the robot competition you put on in Michigan is ever so much better. Oh, wait - there aren't any robot competitions in Michigan, are there? Write back after you've done something constructive.

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Q: I built a 'bot but there aren't any tournaments nearby. What should I do?

A: Double points for enthusiasm, but no points for planning ahead.

Think about running your own informal tournament. Team Juggerbot started out as a group of friends building small robots and fighting them at each other's homes. Show your 'bot to your friends and get them interested in building their own. You might talk to a 'local interest' reporter at your newspaper to get some more interest thru publicity.

Most important: keep your tournament safe! You must provide suitable protection for your drivers and spectators. The level of protection depends on the size of your robots and the types of weapons you will allow. Get creative -- you probably don't need a bulletproof plastic box. You might fight insect-class 'bots in your back yard with the drivers inside the house looking out thru a sliding glass door or window. Consult the Robot Fighting League standards for guidance.

Q: Do you need insurance for a tournament?

A: Mark J. here: If you put on a real tournament with entry fees and prizes and all -- yes, you will need insurance. If you have an informal tournament that's just a group of friends having some fun with their small robots under safe conditions, standard homeowner insurance will likely cover your liability. If you're worried, check with your insurance agent.

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Q: What advice do you have for someone who wants to have their own 'bot tournament?

A: Mark J. here: I've learned a few things about small-scale events from organizing three Antbotica events:

The most important thing is safety. Make sure your arena and rules provide a safe environment for spectators and participants. The event organizer is going to be very busy, so assign a safety monitor in the pit area to enforce regulations and keep spectators out.

The second most important thing is fun. If everybody, including you, is having fun then it's a successful event. Don't get so hung-up on event details and regulations that you squash the fun.

Finally, make sure that full information on rules, schedule, and event details are available to participants well in advance of the event. Event turn-out will likely be less than you expect -- don't be disappointed.

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Q: What happened in the fight between Ginsu and Mechadon at the 1999 BattleBots event in Las Vegas?

A: I've misplaced my tape of the 1999 pay-per-view event, but I remember that at the end of the match, the true-walker Mechadon had a couple of it's six legs inoperative and it was tangled up against the rail. The saw-wheeled Ginsu was tipped over on it's side and couldn't move. Ginsu had done a lot of damage, but the judges apparently decided that it was incapacitated at the end of the match while Mechadon could still kinda move a little.

The match decision went to Mechadon, but Team Sinister couldn't repair the damage in time for the next match and they had to forfeit.

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Q: Does the Central Illinois Robot Club (CIRC) let you use AM R/C radios?

A: CIRC is a member of the Robot Fighting League, and there is a table of RFL minimum radio requirements in the FAQ (#18). However, the event organizer has the final call on variations to the RFL rules. Try asking CIRC president Bruce Stott: brucestott@yahoo.com.

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Q: In your opinion, what was the most destructive robot fight of all time?

A: I'm not a big fan of destruction for its own sake. I think destruction is an over-rated factor in robot combat. I'd rather see a fight won by crafty driving and strategy any day. Wouldn't you rather ask about the 'best' fight of all time?

That said, there are plenty of 'bot fights where one machine tears the other a new oil hole (like 'Ultra Violence' vs. 'Tiger Wood' at Robotica III), but not many where both 'bots get really well shredded.

For being both mega destructive and a great overall battle, I'd nominate the heavyweight final of BattleBots 3.0 at Treasure Island. 'Son of Whyachi' and 'Biohazard' beat the bolts out of each other! Armor is ripped away, weaponry is mangled and snapped, systems fail and recover, and still the fight goes the distance.

As an aside, I don't agree with the judges' decision in this fight -- I score it in favor of Biohazard.

Q: OK, so what do you think was the best robot fight of all time?

A: San Francisco, Robot Wars 1995, heavyweight final: 'Thor' vs. 'The Master'. There is a video of the '95 event shot from the stands that circulates in the combat robot underground. Find a copy if you can!

1995 Robot Wars Competitor Photos

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Q: Are reruns of Robot Wars still on?

A: Nickelodeon GAS sometimes reruns the Nickelodeon Robot Wars series with kids driving the robots. That's the only current showing of Robot Wars I know about. Check their website for times.

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Q: I saw the daVinci Days tournament video, but I didn't see your 'Mini Maxbot'. Why not?

A: There were more than 20 matches at that tournament and they didn't all get recorded. I think you can spot 'Mini Maxbot' in the 'rumble' footage if you look carefully. Most of the 'Rat Amok' fights are included.

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Q: My bot is a modified R/C car that has a manual switch that turns off the car. I'm thinking of putting on a saw on the front. Will they let me turn off the saw with my switch or do I have to get another switch?

A: Active weapons must be turned on and off remotely -- no 'turn it on and set it in the arena' allowed. Further, an active weapon must turn itself off automatically if the radio transmitter is turned off. Finally, active weapons are not allowed with toy/AM radios. Sounds like you'd better stick to a passive weapon with your 'bot, or upgrade to a failsafe FM R/C system.

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Q: Did you see the Second Robot Wars World Championship final match? I thought it was rigged so that 'Razer' would win. Sir Killalot only went after the American 'Drillzilla'.

A: We were at that match in London. By the time Sir K got involved, Drillzilla had already lost the match. The housebot operators are carefully instructed to not influence the results of any 'final' match. None of the teams we talked with thought the match was less than fair.

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Q: Who is 'General Chompsalot' fighting in the pictures on the Team Toad Stickers in London page [expired link removed]?

A: Those pics are from the first round of the Tag Team Terror match: 'Run Away' and 'General Chompsalot' vs. 'Falcon' and 'Joker'. General C. is shown fighting Falcon, and you can see Run Away in the background of picture #3. Joker was a full-body 'tuna can' spinner.

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Q: What happend when there was a tie on the Robotica Speedway?

A: 'The Speedway' challenge used in the first season of Robotica was a figure-8 race with two robots traveling in opposite directions. Robots scored 10 points for each lap (up to 8) completed within the time limit with a 20 point bonus to the winner of the race.

There never was a tie in 'The Speedway'. If two 'bots had completed the same number of laps, the winner would have been the 'bot that completed their final lap first. The closest finish was between Run Amok and Kritical Mass. Run Amok crossed the line to finish her 6th lap just feet ahead of Kritical Mass and defended the line long enough for the clock to run out, holding Kritical Mass to 5 laps.

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Q: Will there be an Oregon Clandestine Street Fight this year?

A: If I told you, it wouldn't be 'clandestine'.

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Q: Will you be adding BattleBots IQ tournament trees to your on-line library? How about Robot Fighting League Nationals trees?

A: Our library of tournament trees contains major televised tournaments (Robot Wars, BattleBots, Robotica) that developed big followings, and the earlier versions of those same tournaments that weren't televised. Those tournament trees are the most popular feature of our website!

We have recently added the RFL National Championship trees to the site, but there just isn't enough interest in the BBIQ tournaments to justify digging up the data needed for the trees.

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Q: How long did it take to do a 'Fight to the Finish' at Robotica?

A: About ten o'clock on each of the first three mornings of the competition, all of the robots on hand would gather and go thru the qualifying tests. The top eight qualifying teams would divide into two groups of four 'bots and film two shows that day.

All eight teams would compete in 'The Speedway', then the big 'Maze' set had to be moved into place. After 'The Maze', that set had to be moved out and and 'The Gauntlet' moved into position. Finally, 'The Gauntlet' could be cleaned up and moved out and the platform for the 'Fight to the Finish' could be rolled in. Every set change took a couple of hours -- longer if there was a mechanical problem. Each day wrapped up about three in the morning.

For the 'Fight to the Finish', each 'bot had to be lifted up onto the entry gantry to drive onto the platform. After the match, the winner had to be lowered back down, if they were still on the platform! Each 'Fight to the Finish' took about 40 minutes, once the platform was ready to go.

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Q: Are the BattleBots summaries at the 'Robotic Combat Fan Site' (archived) accurate?

A: Opinion: the summaries I sampled were not good reading. I'd rather not check them all against the tapes for accuracy.

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Q: Could you post your video library on the internet?

A: Last time - NO! We don't hold copyright to the material and cannot legally do anything with it but watch it in our own home.

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Q: Some of the 'bots at Robotica were very light. Why didn't all the teams build to the 210 pound weight limit?

A: Robotica presented a number of different challenges. For some of those challenges, weight and bulk were a disadvantage. It was much easier to slip thru the barrier walls in 'The Gauntlet' with a small 'bot than by banging a big 'bot against all those bricks and blocks, and you didn't need to be big to be fast in 'The Speedway'. Run Amok herself was almost 40 pounds under the weight limit to get an edge in maneuverability.

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Q: Was there a 'Fight to the Finish' for the 4th, 5th, and 6th place robots at Robotica?

A: No. It was 3:00 AM when we finished the 'Fight to the Finish". Nobody wanted to load up the other 'bots for another fight.

Q: Who do you think would have won the consolation 'Fight to the Finish' at Robotica if it had happened?

A: The 'bots involved would have been 'Kritical Mass', 'Jawbreaker', and 'Viper'. Of the three, Viper had by far the best traction and pushing power. They took 'Panzer Mk I' off the platform in the preliminaries in an incredible pushing match. My vote would go to Viper.

The consolation match in Robotica II would have had 'Deb Bot' against 'Ill Tempered Mutt'. Deb Bot was quick and powerful, but much lighter than ITM. My vote goes to the Mutt.

The third-place fight at Robotica III would have been 'Ultra Violence' (an evolved version of Kritical Mass) versus 'Jawbreaker's Revenge'. Two experienced teams, crushing jaws versus a powerful spinning weapon, too close to call!

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Q: What event offered a prize bigger than the $12,000 Robotica grand prize?

A: The Robot Wars Second World Championship in England paid $25,000 to the winner. We were there, but 'Panzer' took us out in the qualifying round.

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Q: Ticket prices for the 2006 RFL national championships in Minneapolis this August haven't been released yet. How much have they been in the past?

A: The 2005 event had 3-day adult tickets for $50, kids 7-17 for $40, 6 and under free. Single day tickets were $20/$15/free.

Update: spectator admission to the 2006 national championships in Minneapolis was free!

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Q: Do you have any pictures of the Steel Conflict / Combots arena?

A: Try the archived Steel Conflict site.

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Q: Wasn't Robotica scripted? [Alex Udanis]

A: Mark J. here: Very funny, Alex.

Technically, Robotica may have been the fairest and least-scripted of all the televised competitions. Competitors went thru a qualifying trial to test their maneuverability, precision, and power. The preliminary round match-ups were based entirely on the scores from the qualifying trial, and matches in the championship were based on tournament scores from the preliminary round. Nobody got a 'bye' for the early rounds, and the show producers had no hand in the tournament matches.

The outcome of the first Robotica competition certainly played like a Hollywood script, but none of the interviews or matches were coached or scripted. I once joked that we had to film the final 'Fight to the Finish" three times before it came out right, but I was kidding!

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Q: Are there any Robot Fighting League tournaments that happen twice a year?

A: Yes, some more than twice. Check the RFL Events Calendar.

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Q: Do you have the tournament trees for the 'War of Independence' and 'American Civil War' competitons at Robot Wars Extreme Warriors?

A: Sorry - our collection of tournament trees doesn't include the 'extra' events at RWEW. The Robots Rule site lists the robots that fought in the extra events and notes the winners. Both of the events you mention were simple single elimination tournaments with eight 'bots.

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Q: Have you ever posted videos on youtube or Google video?

A: Yep. Search Google Video for "Robot Combat" and you'll find the first half of the match between 'The Gap' and 'JuggerBot 3.0' at the Oregon Clandestine Street Fight.

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Q: Is it true that you get a free kit from BattleKits.com if you win a Robot Fighting League tournament?

A: Not exactly. If you win an RFL sanctioned tournament using a full BattleKit within one year of purchase from an authorized dealer, you are eligible for a refund of the cost of the basic BattleKit you purchased. Details are at the BattleKits website.

[Note: the BattleKit refund offer is no longer available]

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Q: Where can I download 'BattleBots' videos?

A: The official BattleBots webpage has battle clips, but I don't know of any source for full episodes.

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Q: Can projectile weapons like paintball guns be used in robot battles?

A: Some events allow projectile weapons if they have a restraining device to stop the projectile in 8 feet or less. Untethered projectiles are prohibited, so paintball guns are right out. Projectile weapons have never been popular.

Check the current Robot Fighting League rules for details on allowable weapons.

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Q: Do any tournaments give out Robot Marketplace gift cards for prizes?

A: Gift certificates from various robotics suppliers are common prizes at tournaments. Robot Marketplace has been a prize sponsor at the BattleBots IQ competitions.

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Q: Have you considered having your own tournament?

A: We have our own tournament: see Antbotica.

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Q: What was the prize at Robotica? How about daVinci Days?

A: Robotica paid the largest top prize in American robot combat: $12,000 cash. Second thru sixth paid $2000 each. DaVinci Days paid out quite a bit less -- about $100.

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Q: Did you tape any of the BattleBots episodes?

A: The Run Amok video library has tapes of all five seasons of Comedy Central 'BattleBots', all three seasons of TLC 'Robotica', both seasons of TNN 'Robot Wars Extreme Warriors', and the BBC 'Robot Wars' episodes from the 4th Wars onward. Wish I had the earlier Robot Wars!

Q: Is there any way I can buy stuff from the video library?

A: Sorry - we don't have rights to sell any of those commercial videos.

Q: Where did you get the robot combat videos for your library?

A: They were recorded off-air, for personal use only.

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Q: Where did the heavyweight spinner 'Tillah' come from?

A: Tillah was built by Oregon's 'Team Tillah', headed by Team JuggerBot weapon designer Ron Ender. The design is essentially the back half of the basic JuggerBot chassis with a large and nasty square drum spinner weapon hanging off the front. The robot was 'entropically retired' at the 'Steel Conflict 4' tournament by the combat robot hall of fame spinner 'Megabyte'.

You can see Tillah in action in the Oregon Clandestine Street Fight.

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Q: Why do builders make robots flammable if they know there will be fire traps?

A: Part of competing at Robot Wars was the challenge of putting on exciting matches. If you had an entertaining 'bot you would be invited to participate in some of the 'extra' events like the House Robot Challenge, the Annihilator, and Tag Team Terror.

As mentioned in a previous post, the American competitor 'Tricerabot' was 'JuggerBot 3.0' in a cardboard disguise. The team had several replacement costumes. The burning costume did no harm to the titanium armor underneath, but added excitement to their matches.

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Q: The Wikipedia page on Housebots says that Growler's tail could shoot fire. The 'Robots Rule' page says nothing about that! Is it true?

A: The Wikipedia is correct; Growler did have a rear-mounted flamethrower. The flame didn't come from the end of the tail, but from underneath -- more like a flame farter.

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Q: How much is the shipping on the Robotica video? Does it have combat matches? Do you have all of the episodes?

A: Mark J. here: I have no connection to the sale of the Robotica videos.

I'm told that the video offered by inetvideo.com has episodes five and six, plus the double-length final episode. Please contact InetVideo with any further questions. For info on the Robotica competition format, see the Robotica Wikipedia page.

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Q: Do you have any photos of the robot wars house bots?

A: Sorry, no. Try Robots Rule - Housebot page for photos and stats.

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Q: Are there any American multi-bots?

A: I don't know of any purpose-built American multi-bots, but it is not uncommon for a couple of 'bots from one weight class to 'team up' and enter a higher weight class just to get more arena time. In general, multi-bots don't do very well.

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Q: Is there any relationship between 'Logoseye' from Robotica and 'Rosie the Riveter 2' from Robot Wars? How about 'Juggerbot 3.0' and 'Tricerabot' from those same series?

A: Very observant! The TV robot shows didn't want 'bots with the same name or appearance as other shows, so builders often disguised and re-named their 'bots to compete in different televised events. There is actually a relationship between all four of the 'bots you mentioned:

• Tricerabot actually was JuggerBot 3.0 in a cardboard costume.
• Rosie the Riveter 2 was a disguised Logoseye.
• Team Logoseye was a group of builders that split-off from Team JuggerBot after the first Robotica season -- the underlying designs of 'bots from both teams were very similar.

There were several other Robotica 'bots disguised to compete at Robot Wars. I'll let you try to find them.

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Q: In your opinon, which was the best 'bot ever at BattleBots?

A: Biohazard, hands down. Ziggo and Hazard are tied for second, in my opinion.

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Q: Where can you buy BattleBot videos?

A: BattleBots.com has DVDs from the pre-Comedy Central tournaments.

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Q: How did 'Voltarc' defeat 'Biohazard' in BattleBots season 1.0?

A: Best I remember, the match went to the judges. Voltarc got under the skirts of Biohazard and managed to look more aggressive all thru the match.

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Q: Can Carlo Bertocchini's heavyweight champion 'Biohazard' self-right?

A: The very early versions of Biohazard could self-right, but that ability was lost in 1997 when Carlo added the large titanium side skirts. 'Vlad the Impaler' managed to get under those skirts and flip Biohazard at the 1999 BattleBots 'Pay-Per-View' event in Las Vegas and Biohazard couldn't recover. Vlad went on to win the championship at that event.

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Q: Did 'Toro' and 'Diesector' ever fight each other?

A: They may have bounced off each other in one or more of the superheavyweight 'rumbles', but they never met 'head-to-head'. Toro and Diesector somehow always ended up on opposite ends of the BattleBots superheavyweight tournament tree and never met in the final:

• Season 2.0 - Toro lost to 'Atomic Wedgie' in a quarter-final match. Diesector beat Atomic Wedgie in the final.
• Season 3.0 - Both 'bots lost in the quarter-finals: Toro to 'Minion', and Diesector to eventual champion 'Vladiator'.
• Season 4.0 - 'New Cruelty' defeated Diesector in the semi-finals, then lost to Toro in the final.
• Season 5.0 - 'Phrizbee Ultimate' took out Toro in the third round. Diesector won the championship.

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Q: What happened to robots that weigh more than 30 pounds?

A: Arenas built to contain heavier robots are very expensive to build, costly to transport and assemble, and big bucks to maintain. Without major sponsorship, big arenas just aren't cost effective. Without big arenas, there isn't anyplace to fight big 'bots.

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Q: I'm new to the building combat robots thing. What weightclass do you recommend? [Chris Marnati]

A: Find out what weight classes are popular at the tournaments you plan to enter. It won't do much good to build a 'bot for a class that isn't supported. Beyond that, it's largely a matter of your budget and level of mechanical experience. Start simple.

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Q: Do you know of any robot tournaments that allow AM radio systems?

A: The standard Robot Fighting League rules allow AM radios in weight classes up to the 12-pound 'hobbyweight' class, with some restrictions on weaponry. Most RFL member tournaments follow these guidelines.

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Q: I am thinking about entering the MechWars tournament. I'd like to enter the antweight class with a 'Fly Wheels' toy with armor and a wedge. Can I use the R/C gear that comes with the toy?

A: MechWars is a member of the Robot Fighting League, but they have modified the RFL rule set for their events. Section 4.4.6 of the MechWars ruleset has been altered to require FM radio systems for all weight classes and weapon types. The AM radio in your 'Fly Wheels' wouldn't comply.

I'd suggest emailing Jon Vandervelde (jon@tcmechwars.com) to make sure this applies to antweights. At big events it's common for another organization to handle the insect class competition -- they might have different rules.

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Q: Did 'Rat Amok' fight 'Robo Rat' at the da Vinci Days tournament? That would be a cool match!

A: I think 'Robo Rat' (picture here was built just to fight 'Rat Amok', but the match never happened. Rat versus Rat Trap -- who do you think would'a won?

Q: Where is 'da Vinci Days' held?

A: The da Vinci Days technology festival happens each July on the campus of Oregon State University in in Corvallis, Oregon. No robot tournament there this year (2006).

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Q: What was the biggest 'bot tournament you've been to?

A: We've been to a few 'big' competitions like Robotica and Robot Wars. Robotica had the biggest prize of any robot combat event ever held in the US. Robot Wars Extreme Warriors 2 had more than 50 heavyweights from the U.S. plus quite a few from Europe.

Q: How much was the grand prize at Robotica?

A: $12,000 -- we won!

Q: Where did 'Robotica' take place?

A: All three seasons of Robotica were filmed on a large sound stage at the old ABC studios in Hollywood, California.

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Q: Are the Robot Wars 'House Bots' self controlled?

A: The show gave the impression that the housebots were autonomous, but each of them had a R/C operator down at arena level that you never got to see.

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Q: Do you know of any robot tournament games that people play online?

A: Yep, see www.roboforge.altervista.org/.

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Date marker: February 2006

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Q: What is the most popular weight class?

A: For builders, antweights. For spectators, heavyweights.

Q: What is the least popular weight class?

A: The 6-pound 'mantisweight' class is not popular with builders, and the 50-gram 'fleaweight' class isn't getting much action, either.

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Q: Where can I find inexpensive robot combat videos?

A: Try the Robot Marketplace Video Store [expired link removed] -- I don't think any of the videos there are over $20, and some are under $15.

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Q: Were there robot matches at the "Robotica" competition, or was it just races?

A: There were races, obstacle courses, barrier destructions, head-to-head push-offs -- all sorts of matches. Take a look at the Robotica page at Wikipedia for a full listing of events in all three seasons of Robotica.

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Q: Aaron, how old do you have to be to do combat robots?

A: I drove my dad's 'bot at Robot Wars when I was ten. Most events don't have an age limit, but they may require adult supervision in the pits. Check with the event organizer.

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Q: Aaron, What TV channels are still showing robot combat?

A: I think the Nickelodeon version of Robot Wars with kids driving the 'bots is still on the Nick Games & Sports network -- watch for me driving 'Run Away' in that series!

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Q: Dear Aaron, my friend told me about a robot from Robot Wars, doesn't remember the season. He said it was a multibot that was held together by magnets and could connect and disconnect at will. The name was something along the line of twin something. Do you know what he is talking about? [Ted J.]

A: Yes, Ted. The robot's name was 'Gemini'. It competed in the Fourth and Fifth Wars. It won the 'Best Design' and 'Most Original Entry' awards at the Forth Wars. I think I remember that both halves of the multibot were identical CO2 flippers. It did OK, winning the first round fight both times, but didn't get any farther.

Robot Wars rules said a multibot had to enter the arena as a single unit. Gemini used magnets, but broke apart prior to fighting.

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Q: Dear Aaron -- I've heard about autonomous ant-weight combat tournaments. What do you think about fully autonomous robot combat? [Ted J.]

A: Building a robot that can fight and win without an operator is quite a challenge. This is real 'cutting edge' stuff, and you're pretty much on your own trying to build an autonomous navigation and attack system.

Some tournaments give a weight advantage to autonomous 'bots and let them fight the R/C 'bots. I like to drive my 'bots. Letting them fight with me just standing there sounds like less fun. Besides, the autonomous 'bots I've seen fight weren't very good at it. My dad has offered a $100 prize to the first autonomous 'bot to take him out of a tournament. I think his money is safe.

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Q: Did I see you at Combots last weekend? (November, 2005)

A: Nope - I was at the RFL nationals last year, but not this time. Must be an impersonator.

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Q: Do you know of any in-depth books on the history of the robots that fought in the early U.S. Robot Wars -- besides "Gearheads"?

A: Literary question - Mark J. here: Brad Stone's Gearheads is a great book on the history and politics of the early days of robot combat. Unfortunately, it is also the only book published on the subject. If you have an interest in the topic, you might enjoy reading thru the archive of the original U.S. Robot Wars forum on the Delphi site.

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Q: Which of the house robots on robot wars is your favorite?

A: I've always liked Dead Metal. His design is cool and the weapon is very effective.

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Q: Do girls build robots?

A: Heck yea! I don't know of a competition that hasn't had at least one female competitor. Robotica, Robot Wars, and BattleBots all had female teams, and the local competitions I go to have plenty. Don't let anyone tell you that girls don't build 'bots.

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Mark J. here: Team Run Amok is back from the 2004 Robot Fighting League national championships in San Francisco. Aaron drove his beetleweight to third place overall! His loss in the semi-final was due to an electronics failure in the 'bot -- Aaron's driving was great! Nice job, Aaron.

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Q: Aaron, when is Robot Wars going to be this year?

A: I'm sorry to be the one to give you the bad news, but the final season of Robot Wars -- the Seventh Wars -- was filmed in late 2003. The house robots were given to charity, and the arena was sold to the Fighting Robot Association in England. No more Robot Wars.

The good news is that there are plenty of robot combat tournaments both in the U.S. and England. For information on U.S. events, try The Robot Fighting League. For British events, try The Fighting Robot Association.

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I wrote a free-verse poem for my English class today:

ROBOT WARS not like TV, being there seeing all of it, even behind the scenes the pits, machines laid out on tables, waiting to be fixed again for battle crowds in stands, shouting screaming, chanting, stomping wanting mayhem smoke and ozone oil and graphite metal dust, robots fighting

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Mark J. here: I wanted to take a second and congratulate Aaron for his great robot driving at the daVinci Days robot competition (July 17th & 18th, 2004). Aaron won the first ever Antbotica competition with his veteran robot 'Mini Max Bot' and came back the next day to win the beetleweight combat competition with his new robot 'Zpatula'! He has qualified for the Robot Fighting League national championships in San Francisco in October. Great work, Aaron!

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Q: What is a robot war competition? How do you win?

A: Never seen Robot Wars? It's pretty simple -- two big (220 pound) remote controlled robots enter a sealed box about the size of a basketball court. Destroy the other robot and you win. You can crush, smash, pierce, saw, or flip the other 'bot. You can throw them over the arena rail. You can push them into the pit, or roast them over the flames. Just do NOT turn your back on the 'house robots' that patrol the edges of the arena.

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Q: What were the best parts about being in the pit area at Robot Wars? (Lance D. - Azusa, CA)

A: I liked being able to see all the other robots close-up. I especially liked the British robots "Tornado" and "Razer". The American robot "Tricerabot" was very impressive at the first Robot Wars Extreme Warriors -- he almost pushed Sir Killalot into the pit! My friend Jerome had an impressive robot named "Unibite" that was pretty strong. It was the first robot to go into the "drop zone". Being in the pits was awesome!

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Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 by Mark Joerger -- all rights reserved.