Build Your Own Combat Robot by Pete Miles Tom Carroll doc

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Build Your Own
Combat Robot
Pete Miles
Tom Carroll
McGraw-Hill/Osborne
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DOI: 10.1036/007222844X
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CONTENTS AT A GLANCE
1 Welcome to Competition Robots 1
2 Getting Started 21
3 Robot Locomotion 41
4 Motor Selection and Performance 61
5 It’s All About Power 79
6 Power Transmission: Getting Power to Your Wheels 103
7 Controlling Your Motors 127
8 Remotely Controlling Your Robot 157
9 Robot Material and Construction Techniques 183
10 Weapons Systems for Your Robot 203
11 Autonomous Robots 239
12 Robot Brains 259
13 Robot Sumo 275
14 Real-Life Robots: Lessons from Veteran Builders 305
15 Afterword 329
A Prototyping Electronics 335
B Resources and References 343

C Helpful Formulas 355
Index 358
iii
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v
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, XI
INTRODUCTION, XIII
1 Welcome to Competition Robots 1
What Is a Robot?, 5
Combat Robot Competitions, 5
BattleBots, 7
Robot Wars, 9
BotBash, 11
Robotica, 13
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science
and Technology), 14
Robot Soccer, 16
The Scope of This Book, 17
2 Getting Started 21
The Robot Design Approach, 23
The Game of Compromise, 29
Design for Maintenance, 31
Start Building Now, 33
Testing, Testing, Testing, 34
Top Ten Reasons Why a Robot Fails, 34

Sources of Robot Parts, 35
Cost Factors in Large Robot Construction, 35
Safety, 36
Safety in the Use of Shop Tools, 37
Safety with Your Robot, 37
3 Robot Locomotion 41
Robots with Legs, 42
Tank Treads: The Power of a Caterpillar Bulldozer in a Robot, 45
Building Tank Treads for a Robot, 46
Wheels: A Tried and True Method of Locomotion, 47
Types of Steering, 47
Wheel Configurations, 50
Selecting Wheels for Your Combat Robot, 51
Tires, 53
Mounting and Supporting the Wheels and Axles, 54
Wheel Drive Types, 57
Protecting Your Robot’s Wheels, 59
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vi Build Your Own Combat Robot
4 Motor Selection and Performance 61
Electric Motor Basics, 62
Determining the Motor Constants, 67
Power and Heat, 68
High-Performance Motors, 73
Motor Sources, 74
Internal Combustion Engines, 76
Conclusion, 77
5 It’s All About Power 79

Battery Power Requirements, 80
Measuring Current Draw from the Battery, 80
Battery Capacity Basics, 83
Preventing Early Battery Death, 84
Sizing for a 6-Minute Run Time, 85
Comparing SLA, NiCad, and NiMH Run-Time Capacities, 86
Electrical Wiring Requirements, 91
Battery Types, 92
Sealed Lead Acid, 93
Nickel Cadmium (NiCad), 95
Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH), 97
Alkaline, 98
Lithium Ion, 99
Installing the Batteries: Accessible vs. Nonaccessible, 100
6 Power Transmission: Getting Power to Your Wheels 103
Power Transmission Basics, 106
Torque, 109
Force, 109
Location of the Locomotion Components, 112
Mounting the Motors, 112
Thermal Considerations for the Motor, 113
Methods of Power Transmission, 114
Chain Drive Systems, 115
Buying the Chain, 115
Chain Sprockets, 117
Belt Drive Systems, 118
Flat Belts, 118
Synchronous Belts, 119
V-Belts, 121
Gearboxes, 122

Mounting Gear Assemblies, 122
Securing Gears to Shafts, 122
7 Controlling Your Motors 127
Relay Control, 128
Poles and Throws, 128
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Contents vii
Current Ratings, 129
How It All Works Together, 132
Variable Speed Control Basics, 139
Controlling Speed = Controlling Voltage, 140
Commercial Electronic Speed Controllers, 143
8 Remotely Controlling Your Robot 157
Traditional R/C Controls, 158
The R/C Controller’s Interface, 159
The R/C Servo, 160
Control Channels, 160
Radio Control Frequencies, 162
AM, FM, PCM, and Radio Interference, 167
Amplitude Modulation, 167
Frequency Modulation, 167
Radio Interference and Reliable Control, 170
Radio to Radio Interference, 172
Antennas and Shielding, 173
Antenna Placement, 174
Innovation First Isaac Robot Controller and Other Radio Modems, 175
Radio Modems, 178
Failsafe Compliance, 179
9 Robot Material and Construction Techniques 183
Metals and Materials, 184

High-Strength Plastics, 184
Metals, 185
General Machining Operations, 193
Tools You Might Need to Construct Robots, 193
Welding, Joining, and Fastening, 195
Structural Design for Fastener Placement, 195
When in Doubt, Build It Stout, 201
10 Weapons Systems for Your Robot 203
Weapon Strategy and Effectiveness, 204
Ram Bots, 205
Wedge Bots, 208
Lifter Bots, 210
Launchers, 212
Clamp Bots, 215
Thwack Bots, 217
Overhead Thwack Bots, 219
Spinner Bots, 220
Saw Bots, 222
Vertical Spinner, 224
Drum Bots, 226
Hammer Bots, 228
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viii Build Your Own Combat Robot
Crusher Bots, 231
Spear Bots, 233
Closing Remarks on Weapons, 236
11 Autonomous Robots 239
Using Sensors to Allow Your Robot to See, Hear, and Feel, 241
Passive Sensors, 242
Active Sensors, 243

Thermal Sensors, 246
Tilt Sensors, 247
Bump Sensors, 248
Implementing Sensors in Combat Robots, 248
Sensing: It’s a Noisy World Out There, 249
Techniques for Improving Sensor Input, 249
Semiautonomous Target and Weapon Tracking, 250
Semiautonomous Weapons, 251
Implementing Semiautonomous Target Tracking, 251
Semiautonomous Target Tracking with
Constant Standoff Distances, 252
Autonomous Target Tracking, 253
Fully Autonomous Robot Class, 253
More Information, 257
12 Robot Brains 259
Microcontroller Basics, 260
Basic Stamp, 264
BrainStem, 266
Handy Board, 267
BotBoard, 267
Other Microcontrollers, 267
Microcontroller Applications, 268
The Robo-Goose, 268
The BrainStem Bug, 270
1BDI, an Autonomous Robot, 271
The Rover, Teleoperated with Feedback, 272
Summary, 273
13 Robot Sumo 275
How a Sumo Match Proceeds, 278
The Sumo Ring Specification, 280

Mini Sumo, 281
Modifying an R/C Servo for Continuous Rotation, 281
Building a Mini Sumo, 284
Mini Sumo Body Assembly, 284
Remote-Control Mini Sumo, 285
Autonomous Mini Sumo, 286
Edge Detector, 286
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Contents ix
Object Detector, 290
Sensor Integration, 293
Performance Improvements, 297
Various Mini Sumo Robots, 297
International Robot Sumo Class, 299
Motors, 299
Motor Controllers, 299
Ultrasonic Range Detectors, 300
Infrared Range Detectors, 301
Laser Range Finding and Vision Systems, 301
Advanced Software Algorithms, 301
Traction Improvements, 302
Robot Part Suppliers, 302
Annual Robot Sumo Events, 303
14 Real-Life Robots: Lessons from Veteran Builders 305
Ronni Katz—Building Chew Toy, 306
Step 1: Research, 306
Step 2: Conception, 308
Step 3: Building the Bot, 310
Step 4: Creating Weapons and Armor, 311
Final Words, 315

Pete Miles—Building Live Wires, 316
Step 1: Making the Sketch, 316
Step 2: Securing the Motors, 316
Step 3: Adding Wheels, 317
Step 4: Adding Motor Housings and Controllers, 317
Step 5: Layout and Modeling, 319
Step 6: Scrambling, 321
Step 7: Building the Frame, 322
Step 8: Adding a Weapon, 324
Finally: The Show, 325
15 Afterword 329
The Future of Robot Combat, 330
A Prototyping Electronics 335
Breadboarding and Using Prototyping Boards for Electronic Circuits, 336
Wire-Wrapping Prototyping, 337
Soldering for Robots, 337
Soldering Printed Circuit Boards, 338
Soldering Wires, 339
Soldering Connectors, 339
Crimp-Style Connectors, 339
Static Sensitivity, 340
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B Resources and References 343
Robot Competition Web Sites, 344
Electric Motor Sources, 344
Battery Suppliers, 346
Electronic Speed Controller Vendors, 346
Remote Control System Vendors, 347
Mechanical Systems Suppliers, 347
Electronics Suppliers, 348

Microcontroller Suppliers, 350
Reference Books, 350
Robotics Organizations, 351
Other Robotics Resources, 352
C Helpful Formulas 355
Chain Drive Centerline Distances, 356
Timing Belt Centerline Distances, 357
V-Belts, 357
Index 358
x Build Your Own Combat Robot
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Mike Greene of Robot Science and Technology magazine
for putting the team together to write this book. Bob Gross, Andrew Lindsey,
Ronni Katz, Carlo Bertocchini, and Steve Richards provided a lot of top-quality
support and information, as well. Without their help, the quality of this book
would not be where it is now. We would also like to thank Carlo Bertocchini and
Grant Imahara for taking time out oftheir busy schedules to serve as technical edi
-
tors. They provided valuable comments and insights that vastly improved our
work. Mark Setrakian, Peter Abrahamson, Christian Carlberg, Peter Menzel,
Larry Barello, Dave Owens, Jamie Hyneman, Vincent Blood, Clare Miles, and
Ken Gracey were of great help in providing excellent photos. A special thanks goes
to Dave Johnson for his help in interviewing Christian Carlberg, Grant Imahara,
Jim Smentowski, Stephen Felk, Donald Hudson, and Jamie Hyneman for the
“First Person” stories you’ll find throughout the book. Additional thanks go out
to the people at Vantec, Hawker, IFI Robotics, Parallax, Panasonic, National
Power Chair, Acroname, Futaba, and Grainger for their technical support and use
of some of their photos. Finally, we would like to thank Margie McAneny, Lisa
Wolters-Broder, Michael Mueller, and the whole team “behind the scenes” at

McGraw-Hill/Osborne for their patience and help in putting this book together.
Pete adds: I would like to thank my wife, Kristina Lobb Miles, for all of her tireless
help. With her brilliant skills in graphics manipulation, she was able to put together
most of the artwork and photos. Without her help, this project would not have
happened. She is a wonderful person and deserves a lot of credit. Tom Carroll,
too, deserves a lot of credit for putting this together. His infinite knowledge of ro
-
botics and ability to write lots of information in a very short time period is greatly
appreciated.
Tom adds: I would like to thank my wife, Sue, for her tireless support and
encouragement of my many robotics activities for the past 35 years. She has en
-
dured my many trips to all over that took me away from home and my family,
watched as various robots grew to completion in my shop, patiently waited as I
spent many hours in my office typing away at this book, and listened politely as
I talked for hours on end about robots. I would also like to thank Pete Miles for his
patience, organization, great knowledge, and tremendous effort at spearheading
this project. His wife Kris proved to be a most valuable asset at making the graphics
and manuscript flow to perfection. These two are a most incredible team, and with
-
out them, this book would have been only a pile of papers scattered on the floor.
xi
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Introduction
Some kids spend their free time playing sports. I spend mine building robots. You
may think that this is not a typical hobby for a teenaged girl, and you’re right. I am
part of a rapidly-growing community of combat robot builders from all across the

U.S., of all ages, and I’m not exactly new to the sport, either. I was at Fort Mason
San Francisco in 1994 watching the first robotic combat competition, Robot
Wars. I saw my dad win match after match with his flimsy, garage-built aluminum
contraption, and beyond all reason of my then seven-year-old brain, I was in
-
spired. The next year, when I was eight, I had a flimsy, garage-built aluminum
contraption of my own, and I was ready to roll. Since then I’ve been hooked.
Through my few years of experience in the field of robotic combat, I’ve come to
realize that the actual battles—the end result of all my hard work—are not the
only things that I have to look forward to. Just as important to me are the people
and friends involved, the familiar sounds and smells of machine maintenance, the
ebb and flow of people excitedly preparing for competition, the long but reward-
ing hours of taking robots apart and putting them back together again, and the
feeling you get when you realize you’ve become a small but integral part of our
quirky little robo-community.
I hope this book will help you get started in the unique and exiting sport of robot
combat. Robot experts clearly explain everything you need to know to build a bot of
your own. For anyone thinking of building a robot, I strongly encourage you to give
it a try. You may not wind up with the super-heavyweight champ after your first
fight, but I guarantee it will be an experience you’ll never forget!
Cassidy Wright,
builder of Triple Redundancy, Fuzzy Yum Yum, and Chiabot
Orinda, California
January 2002
xiii
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About the Authors xv

A
bout the Authors
Pete Miles has been experimenting with robots since the mid 1970s. He used to
scavenge every part he could from dumpsters at radio and TV repair shops, and he
still uses parts that he collected back then in his current robot projects. After serv
-
ing in the U.S. Marine Corps as a tank killer, he obtained bachelor’s and master’s
degrees in mechanical engineering. He currently works as a senior research engineer,
developing advanced machining technologies using 55,000 psi abrasive waterjets
for Ormond LLC, in Kent, Washington. As he puts it, “There is not a material in
the world a waterjet can not cut, including diamonds.” Miles is currently an active
member of the Seattle Robotics Society, the world’s largest robotics club, and was
recently appointed to the SRS Board of Directors. He is an avid competitor in au
-
tonomous robot sumo, and enjoys building legged robots for various contests to
demonstrate that walking robots can be formidable competitors.
Tom Carroll has been involved with robotics for more than 40 years. He built his
first robot at age 14, and later worked as a robotics engineer on NASA projects with
Rockwell International for nearly 30 years. Carroll co-founded the Robotics Soci-
ety of Southern California in 1978 and is now active in the Seattle Robotics Society.
He designed robots for the International Space Station, to explore the surface of
other planets and to assist astronauts in space. He founded Universal Robot Sys-
tems to design and build robots for such feature films as Revenge of the Nerds and
Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century. He is presently a novel and technical writer,
and spends much of his time developing a truly functional personal robot to assist
the “forgotten generation,” the elderly, and give them pride in independent living.
Carroll moved from Long Beach, California, several years ago and now lives in the
Pacific Northwest, on Orcas Island off Washington’s coast. Tom enjoys kayaking,
hiking, and traveling with his wife.
A

bout the Contributors
Bob Gross became involved with robotics in 1978 by building a working facsimile
of R2D2. For fun, he has built winning autonomous robots for sumo, maze, navi
-
gation, wandering, and combat. Later, he produced three autonomous museum
robots that would fetch balls, go to various colored columns, or allow
teleoperated control. By day, Gross works as a rocket scientist and has a small
company that focuses on various aspects of robotics, including machine vision.
Dave Johnson is a technology writer and scuba divemaster. The author of
18 books, Johnson covers popular technology like mobile gadgets, photography,
digital music, and robotics. He’s also an award-winning wildlife photogra
-
pher and the author of The Wild Cookie, an interactive kids’ story on CD-ROM.
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Ronni Katz is an adjunct professor of computer science at DeVry College of Tech
-
nology in North Brunswick, New Jersey. She was an original member of “Team
Spike” at the first Robot Wars competition and has helped design and build combat
robots that have won and placed highly at numerous competitions. Katz is a
proud member of the Society Of Robotic Combat and produced the 1998 non
-
profit instructional video Introduction to Robotic Combat, which helped many
beginners get their start in the world of sport robotics. Katz writes fiction under
the pen name of Ron Karren and has been published in numerous fanzines. Her
first military technothriller novel, Wing Commander, can be found at bookstores
nationwide. You can visit Katz online at QuestPress.com for news of her future
publications.
Andrew Lindsey has been competing in robotic combat since 1996. In addition
to competing in all three major televised robotics competitions, he was one of four
combat judges at the November 2000 BattleBots event. Lindsey lives in New Jer

-
sey and designs fiberoptic interface electronics for a living. He competes regularly
in the North East Robo-Conflict events in the New Jersey/Pennsylvania area.
Steve Richards has been fascinated by the prospect of fully-autonomous robotics
since his childhood. He founded and runs the robotics company Acroname, Inc. in
an effort to advance robotics through information, parts, and a robotics community.
When he isn’t milling, coding, wiring, or ranting about robotics, he also enjoys
running. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, with his wife, Karen. Richards admits
that the only truly successful autonomous creation he has been involved with is his
daughter, Annie.
Cassidy Wright has been involved with robotic combat since 1994. She built her
first bot when she was just eight years old. She is a teenager now, and the builder of
Triple Redundancy, Fuzzy Yum Yum, and Chiabot.
A
bout the Technical Editors
Carlo Bertocchini has been building competitive robots since 1993, and he worked
as a mechanical engineer until 2001. Now he divides his time between competing
in BattleBots matches and running his company, RobotBooks.com. He is the de
-
signer and builder of Biohazard, the world’s most successful combat robot. You can
learn more about his robots at www.robotbooks.com/biohazard.htm. Bertocchini
lives in Belmont, California, with his wife, Carol.
Grant Imahara is an animatronics engineer and modelmaker for George
Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic in Marin County, California. He specializes in
electronics and radio control at the ILM Model Shop and has installed electronics
in R2D2 units for Star Wars: Episodes 1 and 2, and the famous Energizer Bunny.
For fun, Grant competes in BattleBots with his robot Deadblow, which set a re
-
cord for the most number of hits in the first season of the show. Grant lives in a
loft in Oakland, California, where he also works on his robot in his spare time.

xvi Build Your Own Combat Robot
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chapter
1
Welcome to
Competition Robots
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ELCOME to the world of combat robotics. You’ve watched
them on TV. You’ve seen models of them on toy store shelves. You’ve seen them
featured on the covers of magazines. You might also be among the lucky ones who
have actually sat arena-side and watched in person as seemingly sane men and
women guided their creations of destruction toward another machine with the ex
-
press goal of mangling, dismembering, and smashing the opponent.
Television has brought this controlled mayhem into the living rooms of Amer-
ica. You cheer wildly as your favorite robot with its spinning hammers rips the
steel skin off its foe. Your robot chases its limping target into a corner, only to
have a series of saw blades arise from the floor and send your hero sailing across
the arena. The TV cameras pan over to the operators of the losing robot; they are
smiling. Even in a moment of havoc, both sides are having fun. Parts and sparks
are flying, and smoke wafts upward from the hapless opponent as hazards and
weapons reach their targets. The crowd cheers and banners are waving. A winner
is announced, and then two new bots start at it.
You can not stop grinning. “This is cool!”
After the program is over, you turn to your friend excitedly and say, “I’m gonna
build one of those robots.”

“Yeah, right,” she says. “You can’t even program the VCR. Good luck build
-
ing a robot.”
“Hey, I’ve got a book on how to build ’em. I’ll start small, maybe build one of
those little sumo robots. It’s a kick to watch those little guys try to shove each other
out of a ring. I have some friends who can help me get started. I’m going to do it!”
Robot combat has come a long way from its origins. The founding father of the
sport is Marc Thorpe. He came up with the idea for robotic combat while experi
-
menting with attaching a remote-control tank to his vacuum cleaner to make
house cleaning more fun. After a few years spent developing the rules for a game
where two robots would duel in front of a live audience, a new sport was created:
Robot Wars. The first official combat robot event was held at Fort Mason Center
in San Francisco. It was a huge success. Since Robot Wars first came on the scene,
thousands of people have participated in building combat robots, and millions
have watched and cheered on their favorite bots. Many new combat robot con
-
tests—such as BattleBots, Robotica, and BotBash, to name a few—have been
spawned from the original Robot Wars competition.
2
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Chapter 1: Welcome to Competition Robots 3
This sport has become so popular, in fact, that many robots have become better
known than their human creators. For example, devout followers of robotic com
-
bat are familiar with such famous builders as Carlo Bertocchini, Gage Cauchois,
and Jamie Hyneman, but these mens’ robots—Biohazard (pictured in Figure 1-1),
Vlad the Impaler, and Blendo, respectively—are now bona fide household names
among the millions of people who watch BattleBots on TV.
The various robotic combat events have seen many different types of machines,

from two-wheel-drive lightweight robots to six-wheel-drive, gasoline-powered
superheavyweights. Even walking robots, more commonly known as StompBots,
have entered into the mayhem. Probably the most well-known StompBot is the
six-legged superheavyweight Mechadon built by Mark Setrakian. Setrakian has
even built a super heavyweight snake robot. Though his unusual robots have not
won any events, they’ve all been outstanding engineering achievements and great
crowd pleasers.
The weapons on these robots range from simple wedges and spikes to jabbing
spears, hammers, and axes, to spinning maces and claws, hydraulic crushing pin
-
cers, and grinding saw blades of every type, size, and color. The destructive power
of these weapons has been used for everything from scratching paint off a rival bot
to denting aluminum plates, punching holes through titanium and Kevlar, ripping
off another robot’s entire armor plating, and completely disintegrating an oppo-
nent in a single blow.
One of the most destructive robots the sport has seen to date is Blendo. This spin-
ning robot, more commonly known as a SpinBot-class robot, totally destroyed
FIGURE 1-1
Biohazard, a
superstar of
robotic combat.
(courtesy of
Carlo Bertocchini)
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many of its opponents in a matter of seconds. It had such destructive force that it
was once banned from continuing to compete in a contest and was automatically
declared co-champion for that event.
Today, most combat robots are remote-controlled; but in the early years of Ro
-
bot Wars, there were several fully autonomous combat robots. These robots ran

completely on their own, using internal microcontrollers and computers for
brains, and sensors to find and attack their opponents. Many people think auton
-
omous combat robots would be too slow to compete because they would require
too much time to locate and attack an opponent. This isn’t always the case, how
-
ever. The 1997 Robot Wars Autonomous Class champion, Thumper (built by
Bob Gross), won a match in 10 seconds flat. That’s Thumper in Figure 1-2.
Today, most autonomous combat robots are found in robot sumo events,
where two bots try to find and push each other out of a sumo ring. In this event,
bots are not allowed to destroy each other. Sumo builders face a unique challenge,
as they design their bots to “see” their opponent and push them out of the ring be
-
fore getting pushed out themselves. This contest has become increasingly popular
in recent years, and new sumo events are popping up all over the world.
In the past, competition divisions consisted of man versus man, or team of men
versus team of men (let’s face it—it began as a male-dominated sport). Strength,
speed, agility, endurance, and strategy were the only factors that determined the
winner or loser. Thanks to robot combat, this isn’t the case anymore. At robot
competitions, ingenuity, creativity, and intelligence now rule the game. No lon-
ger are 6-foot 5-inch, 240-pound male “athletes” dominating the game. A
10-year-old girl with excellent engineering skills can now defeat a 250-pound former
4 Build Your Own Combat Robot
FIGURE 1-2
Thumper, an
autonomous robot
built by
Bob Gross, won
big-time at
Robot Wars

in 1997.
(courtesy of
Bob Gross)
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Chapter 1: Welcome to Competition Robots 5
NFL linebacker, and a wheelchair-bound person can run circles around an Olympic
gold medalist. Robot combat has leveled the playing field so that anyone can
compete against anyone on equal ground.
W
hat Is a Robot?
Now that you’ve made up your mind to build a robot, you’re probably sitting
back wondering just what you’ve gotten yourself into.
“What is a robot?” you ask yourself.
Surprisingly, there are many definitions, depending on whom you ask. The Ro
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bot Institute of America, an industrial robotics group, gives the following defini
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tion: “A robot is a reprogrammable, multifunctional manipulator designed to
move material, parts, tools, or specialized devices through variable programmed
motions for the performance of a variety of tasks.” These people, of course, are
thinking only of robots that perform manufacturing tasks.
Now that you’re thoroughly confused, Webster’s New World Dictionary de-
fines robot as “any anthropomorphic mechanical being built to do routine man-
ual work for human beings, or any mechanical device operated automatically,
especially by remote control, to perform in a seemingly human way.”
Hmmm. Now we seem to be talking about human-formed robots, like in the
movies, or it could be the description of a washing machine, or maybe the Space
Shuttle’s “robot arm.”
Where did the term “robot” come from? Back in the 1920s, a Czech playwright
by the name of Karel Capek wrote a short play entitled R.U.R., which stands for

Rossum’s Universal Robots. The word robot came from the Czech word robota,
which means indentured servant or slave. In Capek’s play, the robots turned on
their masters, which became a theme in many movies and stories in later
years—robots doing bad things to people. Only in more recent movies have robots
become friends of humans and started doing bad things to other robots.
To this day, those in the field of robotics still argue about what exactly consti
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tutes a robot. Many people think that if a machine doesn’t have some sort of intel
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ligence (that is, a microcontroller inside), it isn’t a robot. Some might look down
their noses and claim that only a multiarmed machine driven by a Pentium 4 pro
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cessor with 512 megs of RAM and fed by 100 sensors is really a robot. Those at
NASA might feel the same way about the Space Station’s Canada Arm. All this ar
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guing really doesn’t matter, because everyone has their own definition of what a
robot is—and everybody is right.
Whatever you choose to call a robot is a robot.
C
ombat Robot Competitions
Before we start talking about types of robot competitions, let’s cover a brief history
of the events that gave rise to this sport. Organized robot competitions have been
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around since the late 1980s, and have been rapidly growing ever since. The follow
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ing is a short history of some of the most popular robot contests around today.
There are many other competitions aside from those listed here, and new ones are
turning up each year.
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Late 1980s The remote control and autonomous robot sumo contest

is invented by Hiroshi Nozawa of Fujisoft ABC, Inc., in Japan.
■
1989 Inventor and entrepreneur Dean Kamen founds FIRST. This
nonprofit organization, “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science
and Technology,” pairs up school-age children with local engineers
to build robotic projects.
■
1992 Marc Thorpe discovers that his experiments with building a
radio-controlled vacuum cleaner to help with the housework can be
turned into a new sport called Robot Wars.
■
1992 FIRST Robotics hosts its first competition with 28 high-school teams.
■ 1994 Marc Thorpe creates Robot Wars. This is the first major competition
where robots face off against each other in an arena in front of a live
audience. The first event is held at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco.
■ 1997 Mentorn Broadcasting produces a six-episode series of Robot Wars
for BBC television in the U.K.
■ 1997 BotBash, a similar event to the original Robot Wars, holds its first
event in Phoenix, Arizona.
■
March 10, 1999 BattleBots is founded by Trey Roski and Greg Munson
in San Francisco.
■
August 14, 1999 BattleBots hosts its first event in Long Beach, California,
with 70 robots competing.
■
January 29, 2000 BattleBots appears on pay-per-view television, and
airs the second BattleBots event from November 1999.
■
August 23, 2000 BattleBots begins airing as a television series on

Comedy Central. The show quickly shoots up in ratings and finishes
its first season as one of the most popular shows on cable TV.
■
April 2, 2001 BattleBots registers over 650 robots at its Spring 2001
competition.
■
April 4, 2001 Robotica begins airing as a television series on
the Learning Channel. Early indications show the program is
a hit among viewers.
■
August 20, 2001 The new Robot Wars Extreme Warriors, a spin-off
from Robot Wars, premieres as a new television series on TNN.
6 Build Your Own Combat Robot
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