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25 Years in Combat Robotics
For the twenty-fifth anniversary I've put together the fifty-eight emails from the TV production team during this period and added my comments where appropriate. I've also tucked in emails from one competitor attempting a mutiny, and from another who thought the competion might be rigged. I think you might enjoy seeing the chaotic process builders endured leading up to the first Robotica competition.
Twenty-Three Years of Ask Aaron
- Robert Cowan
- 2013: Aaron was appending haiku onto the ends of his answers on his namesake webpage. That lead us to celebrate the 10th anniversary of 'Ask Aaron' with a Robot Haiku Contest.
- 2018: I was answering inquiries about little-known combat robots with Aaron's beloved 'Obscure Robot Mad Lib'. Our celebration of Ask Aaron's 15th anniversary included a Combat Robot Mad Lib Contest.
- 2023: The hot topic is Artificial Intelligence out on the web. We finished up our Ask Aaron 20th anniversary celebration with our Secret Identity Puzzle Contest with photos of famous combat robots altered by an A.I. graphics program. Go see how well you can do!
The data for the chart comes from combat event registrations at Builders Database. The site is primarily used by North American event organizers. A 2020 format change at BuildersDB removed access to comprehensive data on registered robots -- those numbers are no longer updated on the chart.
Note: 2025 events are those reported by RobotCombatEvents.com. The number of events registered at BuildersDB has fallen off too much to be representative.
EdgeTX Transmitter Combat Guide
My new guide to programming EdgeTX transmitters provides examples of mixing, tuning, and troubleshooting for common combat robot layouts.
Combat Robot Hall of Fame
Literally thousands of combat robots have fought since the first Robot Wars in 1994. Which do you think were the absolute best? Team Run Amok founded the Combat Robot Hall of Fame in 2003 when we polled members of the robot community to select the initial 25 inductees. Robots from both sides of the Atlantic gained membership based on:
- Dominating success in combat;
- Pioneering or perfecting influential designs;
- Having great fan or entertainment appeal; or
- Otherwise making a lasting impact on the sport.
Robot Wars Music: 1994-1997
The early Robot Wars in San Francisco had live music played by German techno and electronic bands, courtesy of their partnership with Profile Records. I ran across a short video that takes a "deep dive" into that music:
An October Tribute to Aaron
October is a somber time here at Team Run Amok. For several years after Aaron's passing I would shut down all of runamok.tech for part of the month. This year my spirits have been lifted by a tribute to Aaron posted on Facebook by "Robot Enthusiast and All-Around Man of Supreme Awesome" Alex Valentine as a part of his
As has become something I like to do as part of my drawing events, I've dedicated the midpoint of this year's run to another late, great roboteer. After Rex Garrod (2020) and Grant Imahara (2021), Day 15 of Bot-tober 2024 is dedicated to Aaron Joerger, and features his most iconic bot. Large, in charge, and through all comers he'll barge, it's the first-ever "Robotica" Champion and undisputed King of the Assault Course... RUN AMOK!
With its relatively simple box-wedge design, Run Amok was a nice change of pace from the complex death machines that I've been drawing for you all so far. The chequer-plate wedge was pretty fun to work out properly, and I'm overall very happy with the look; and hopefully, bot-fans, you'll agree. This one's for you, Aaron!
Team Run Amok's top fan 'Iceywave' sent us a video to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of our March 4th, 2001 victory at Robotica. Iceywave recreated the "Fight to the Finish" in Robot Arena 2, with beautiful virtual versions of finalists 'Run Amok', 'JuggerBot', and 'Ram Force'. People tell me that the final battle was a fluke and that it couldn't come out the same way again in a thousand tries. Let's see what happens in the virtual version...
First Pakistani Combat Robot: 2004
I was going thru an archive of very old robot emails when I ran across a message I had completely forgotten. The sender was a Pakistani engineer who had formed a group called "Operation Badar: an Educational Movement" for the purpose of building a "world class" combat robot to inspire universities in Pakistan to teach a curriculum in robotics.
The Oregon Clandestine Street Fight
It was a hot July afternoon in 2002 and the finest heavyweight and super-heavyweight combat robots
in the Northwest gathered at an undisclosed location to test their mettle.
- Slam Job vs. The Gap - a ranked heavyweight overhead pneumatic spike from Battlebots against the highest lift-bot in Robot Wars. Will the spike find a target before the lifter gets under the skirts?
Which 'bot can recover and/or survive?
- The Gap vs. JuggerBot 3.0 - high lifter against rambot, maneuverability against speed, spatula against flapjack? You'll need pencil and paper to keep track of the weapon hits, hazard damage, inversion recoveries, and strategy changes in this marathon battle!
- Rosie the Riveter vs. Tillah - Oh the humanity! Tillah is the latest 'bot out of the JuggerBot camp. Ask them how much power the drum weapon has and they just smile. Listen for the team members yelling for the drivers to stop the match!
- Tillah vs. Chevy Van Door - bonus footage of Tillah working out against a late entry. Turn up the sound!
- Strike Terror vs. Chevy Van Door - you've never seen a weapon like the one mounted on super-heavyweight 'Strike Terror'. Wild weapon gyrations and an unearthly whine when the weapon winds up left us fearing for our lives! Spot the teams in the background hiding behind trees.
Maybe I Should Retire
Team Run Amok's question and answer site Ask Aaron has answered over 7300 combat robot questions over the last 20 years, but artificial intelligence systems are starting to take over question answering duties in all areas of the internet. Is it time for us to stop answering robotics questions?
I asked Chat GPT a simple combat robotics question I had recently answered at 'Ask Aaron' to see if it could supply a workable answer. You can read the question, my answer, and three different answers from ChatGPT here:
Back in the days of the TLC Robotica competition, a few of the teams had some trading cards printed up to hand out to fans. I pulled out a set of those cards and scanned the fronts and backs into a handy and compact PDF document. It isn't exactly a Robotica video game, but a fan recently pointed me to the video below that shows a Windows PC game called MetalMania. Yes, that is Run Amok running a combined version of the Robotica season 1 Maze and Gauntlet!
The video was released in 2018 and since that time the game has undergone further development and changed its name to Robot Rumble 2.0 -- a much more complex robot combat simulator. It looks great, but Run Amok does not come with the new version and there is currently no add-in file for her. If you want to jump into driving a virtual Run Amok thru the Robotica Gauntlet, download download MetalMania for Windows.
I've been playing with websites that use an artificial intelligence driven graphics engine to create an image based on text inputs and an optional starting image. On a whim I fed Hotkoin's sketch of our champion robot 'Run Amok' into the Stable Diffusion engine at Night Cafe Studio, gave a text prompt "Battlebot photorealistic", and asked for 16 images. Thirty seconds later it spit out these variations:
I don't listen to many combat robot podcasts, but I stumbled across 'Rise of the Robots' and I'm a fan. Alan and The Griz rewatch (mostly) old episodes of televised robot combat shows and talk about whatever comes to mind.
Robotica on the Internet Archive
It has been difficult to find a complete set of the TLC Roboticia episodes out on the 'net, but a sharp-eyed fan spotted nice crisp copies of all three seasons of the Robotica TV series on the Internet Archive! Available now to view, cast, and download:
Season 1 Complete
Seasons 2 and 3 Complete
Mechanical Inspiration
This short video is more than ninety years old, but I turn to it frequently when my mind is stuck on a mechanical problem and I need inspiration. I've queued it up to my favorite section about half-way thru, but you'll likely want to rewind and watch it again from the beginning.
If you have an interest in exotic mechanisms, I can also recommend the Mechanisms and Mechanical Devices Sourcebook by Neil Sclater. I found and purchased a used copy of an earlier edition at a good price online. A great book just to browse for ideas.
Combat robotics lost one of its most prominent faces in 2020. 
Who Invented Robot Combat?
Most robot historians cite Marc Thorp's 1994 'Robot Wars' event in San Francisco as the origin of robot combat as we know it today. Modern combat robots can all trace their roots back to the sixteen robots that competed in the 'Face Off' tournament at that event. However there are records of earlier fighting robot events that failed to ignite public interest -- and a couple of those tournaments survive to this day like lost islands of prehistoric reptiles.
- The earliest documented public combat tournament took place in 1989 (some undocumented claims say 1987) at the 21st Annual MileHiCon Sci-Fi/Fantasy convention in Denver, Colorado. The inaugural 'Critter Crunch' tournament was organized by the quirky and elusive Denver Mad Scientists Club and remains a part of the MileHiCon to this day (current ruleset). Wired magazine has a nice article about the first Critter Crunch.
- In 1991, the Atlanta 'DragonCon' Pop Culture convention began hosting 'Robot Battles' using a ruleset derived from the Critter Crunch. Robot Battles is a continuing event at the convention, and has spread to other venues as well.
Anyone interested in the early history of robot combat should obtain a copy of 'Gearheads' by Brad Stone. It's a fascinating read.
BattleBots: An Honest Build Log
Do you want to know what it's really like to build a heavyweight combat robot for a big time televised tournament? Sarah Malyan has written an honest and gritty log covering her team's build of an elephant-themed hammerbot to compete at Discovery BattleBots. She covers it all: doubting design choices, dwindling resources, all-night sessions, time-eating details, compromises, anger, frustration, last-minute on-site fabrication, jet-lag, googly eyes, and the terror of tech inspection.
This is the real stuff. If you've ever thought about applying to compete at a big event you owe it to yourself to read and believe every word in this log. Sarah has promised more posts covering the team's experiences in the tournament as the episodes are broadcast, so be sure to check back for the updates.
Spring Powered Flipper Weapons
Pneumatic flipper weapons are awesome but their complexity can be troublesome, particularly in smaller combat robots. Flippers powered by mechanical energy stored in springs or elastic bands could offer attractive alternatives to pneumatics if designs that use electric gearmotors to trigger and reset spring flippers were better known to builders. I've put together animations and discussion of four poorly known spring flipper designs and wrapped them up in a new webpage. Take a look; it might light a fire in your imagination.
Robert Cowan YouTube Channel
There once were a great many combat robot build logs out on the 'net. A new builder could learn from the experiences of other builders and find answers to questions they didn't even know they had. Now there are very few builders that even maintain websites, and fewer still who are willing to share their build secrets.
Fortunately, builder Rober Cowan has taken on the task of providing well produced videos of the intimate details of building a combat robot, as well as other tech projects he undertakes. His YouTube channel page is here. You might want to start with his video series on his antweight robot 'Sgt. Cuddles'.
Six years before the first Robot Wars, a group of toymakers got together to melt each others' creations in a battlefield filled with road flares and flaming lighter fluid. It looks a lot like robot combat to me!
The contests continued irregularly for many years. Here's video from the 2009 event:
This was first confirmed at ABC BattleBots 2016 where several teams had duplicate robots, complete and ready to fight, waiting in the pits if needed. See the actual pit photo of the twin 'Broncos' at right. At least one team swapped in a spare 'bot for a fight because it was 'convenient'. Traditionally you have one robot and a limited amount of time to repair the machine between rounds; bringing in a whole new robot has never been allowed in robot combat -- until now.
I suppose it helps if you don't think of 'BattleBots' as an actual robot tournament. Think of it instead as a major network TV reality show with huge production costs. The producers don't want to wait around with the clock running while a team struggles to repair a badly damaged robot. Pretty much anything goes to keep the filming on schedule.
I'm told that the selection of teams that received a 'second chance' slot after a defeat was based largely on who was ready to fight. That makes having a complete spare 'bot an appealing - if expensive - option. This practice throws a strong advantage to better financed teams.
BattleBots has long made 'sporting compromises' to favor television. Starting in Season 3 of the original Comedy Central series popular robots were allowed to sit out the first several rounds of the tournament, giving them battle-weary opponents and a better chance at making the finals.
A Tribute Video from a Fan - Run Amok at Robotica!
Wow, I've never had a tribute video before. It took thirteen years, but I'm terribly grateful. Music by Ahmet and Dweezil Zappa.
The First Self-Righting Robot?
Early on in the history of combat robots, builders discovered that an overturned robot was toast. The number of robots designed to overturn their opponent began to increase and countermeasures were needed. Invertible robots, able to continue operating when flipped over, are immune to an overturning attack -- but designing for invertibility will either limit or complicate weapon and armor choices. A better solution might result from an active mechanical means of returning an incapacitated overturned 'bot to correct 'wheels down' orientation.
So, who was the first immobilized robot to save itself by self-righting? Several claims have been made for assorted robots under differing conditions, often relying on arena walls or intervention by another robot. Here are the best candidates, in my opinion, for first true self-righting:
- US Robot Wars 1996: Carlo Bertocchini's 'Biohazard' had just won a match against rival 'Vlad the Impaler' by pinning Vlad against the wall for 30 seconds. The match was called and Biohazard backed away. Vlad, apparently disappointed at the loss, turned and used its pneumatic lifter on Biohazard to flip and immobilize it. Biohazard was able to self-right by use of its electric lifting arm. This is generally believed to be the first display of self-righting at a tournament, but it took place after the conclusion of a match and had no bearing on the outcome.
- US Robot Wars 1997: Gage Cauchois' 'Vlad the Impaler' had a dedicated pneumatic device that could quickly and repeatedly pop Vlad back upright from an inverted orientation. The device was successfully used to self-right from an immobilized position in an early round match against Biohazard, but Vlad lost the match in a judge's decision.
- UK Robot Wars 1998: Rex Garrod's 'Cassius' was immobilized when it was turned upside-down by a House Robot during 'The Gauntlet' phase of the competition. Cassius used its pneumatic flipping arm to jump back upright and complete the Gauntlet. Cassius avoided elimination and went on place second overall in the tournament.
You Be The Judge
Working as a judge at a combat robot tournament is no picnic! Get the match right and everybody nods, but if the crowd doesn't like your call they let you know. Try scoring the five example matches given here and you can see just how tough it can be.
What counts more, a flip or a bash? How many points for smoke? Rip off a wheel - does that win the match for you? Is it better to do damage early or late in the battle? What counts as 'aggression'?
Battbotica Wars
Think that robot combat is all guts and glory? You may want to think again after you read this list of things that actually happened to Team Run Amok and our friends on journeys to robot combat tournaments in the U.S. and England.
- Did you know that laundromats are illegal some places?
- Why do my socks smell like spray lube?
- How do you feel about french beer?
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