RoboGames: The World's Largest Robot Competition Is Back

This massive robotics event is back, and it starts on Friday

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RoboGames: The World's Largest Robot Competition Is Back
Photo: RoboGames

Last year, RoboGames asked for Kickstarter support to resurrect itself after taking a break for 2014. The robotics community delivered, pledging nearly US $50,000 to bring the world’s largest robotics competition back to Northern California. This Friday, RoboGames 2015 opens in San Mateo, with 56 events, including 220-pound heavyweight robot combat and, uh, some other stuff.

Grant Imahara, one of the guys from MythBusters who’s not that one guy or that other guy and who actually knows a thing or two about combat robots, will be hosting the event.

As always, we have to remind you that while the heavyweight robot combat is by far the loudest, smashiest, and occasionally-on-fire-est, fans of true robots (something with an autonomous component as opposed to overgrown R/C cars) will not be disappointed at RoboGames. Expect to see autonomous humanoid events, autonomous sumo robots, autonomous firefighting, autonomous navigation, and even a 3-pound autonomous combat class.

If you can’t make it out to California because you suddenly live in some place far away like Washington, D.C. (sigh), part of the deal with the Kickstarter was that RoboGames would produce a series of professional-quality videos, put together by “a crack production crew,” that will be available on DVD, Blu-ray, and online, at some point after the end of the competition. The episodes will likely focus on heavyweight combat, but we’re hoping that they’ll find room to cover some of the other events as well.

RoboGames starts tomorrow afternoon in San Mateo, Calif., and runs through Sunday evening. A full list of events is avilable here.

[ RoboGames ]

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