Engineering - Robot Battles

[Admin]

Do you remember the show where teams gather on an arena to compete head to head using their hand-built robots? The battle takes place inside an enclosed arena, small to medium sized robots that college students built compete against one another. The object of the game is to destroy the opponent. Something like that.

Well, I heard Cal Poly Pomona engineering department had a similar competitions where different engineering teams from different campuses compete.
But the reason why the popular competiion no longer exist is because of a fatal accident during the battle. One of robots had a chainsaw-like tool as its primary weapon and during a battle, the chainsaw got detached and flew off, hitting a female audience and cutting one of her legs. Don't know all the details.


If anyone know the full story, please tell us.

[PandaMoOo]

Wow, thats intersting I had no idea. There are a TON TON TON TON of engineering projects that I never heard about until i stepped into advanced vehicle design lab.

I know of:
Baja Car
-Some other car
-Autonomous Remote Control Airplane
-Solar Boat

-I am sure to name only a few.

I made a "battlebot" once when i 15- it was tons of fun, but it lost due to bad electrical engineering.
http://www.battlebots.com/meet_the_robots3/meet_robot_specs.asp ?id=619

[david90]

ouch. That is why it should be in a cage.

Originally Posted by iKwak

Do you remember the show where teams gather on an arena to compete head to head using their hand-built robots? The battle takes place inside an enclosed arena, small to medium sized robots that college students built compete against one another. The object of the game is to destroy the opponent. Something like that.

Well, I heard Cal Poly Pomona engineering department had a similar competitions where different engineering teams from different campuses compete.
But the reason why the popular competiion no longer exist is because of a fatal accident during the battle. One of robots had a chainsaw-like tool as its primary weapon and during a battle, the chainsaw got detached and flew off, hitting a female audience and cutting one of her legs. Don't know all the details.


If anyone know the full story, please tell us.

[PandaMoOo]

Cage? It'd probably help in most circumstances, but not in all.

I remember during the battlebot prelims, there was a giant spinning disc that was spinning so fast that it hit something and broke one of its arms off. It flew off and got embedded into (and was sticking out on the audiences side) 1" plexi-glass.

That cage must have cost a fortune to make/store/maintain. Unfortunately it's really difficult to have a high level of safety and still make things academically affordable for many engineering activities.