People love watching things get smashed, put this bot up for sacrifice to be hammered, lit on fire, sawed in half, etc... possible secret weapon--daisies, or whatever flower is in season at the time.-- ArtVandelay, Sep 25 2001 Sadly, this idea has me hooked. The idea of people writing into the show and then frittering away their 15 minutes in an attempt to batter the living daylights out of an inanimate object sounds to me like a) a great laugh and b) a winner in the ratings.-- DrBob, Sep 25 2001 Reminds me of the "flesh fair" in the Spielberg/Kubrick movie AI (2001), where unwanted robots are sadistically demolished in front of cheering hicks. Didn't really take to the concept then, either.-- jutta, Sep 25 2001 oooh, I like PeterSealy's twist... deck the thing out with hemp and have it make 12 grain toast to munch on.-- ArtVandelay, Sep 25 2001 err, is 'battle' not inherently violent? Sure, you could make a (loosely, philosophically defined) robot that wasn't violent, but would it still be a 'Battle Bot'? Hmm, mayhap it could wage war in other ways, say a 'Debate Club Bot' or a 'Flaming Troll Bot'.-- absterge, Sep 26 2001 This is even more baked than even PeterSealy realizes. Has anyone seen a poorly designed robot on the show? YES. Wow - exactly the same effect...-- Deity, Sep 26 2001 //Has anyone seen a poorly designed robot on the show?// ('Battle Bots', I take it?)
Deity, I haven't seen such risible efforts since the walker-bots on the first series of Robot Wars. Is it true that Battle Bots has nothing to do with the American (untelevised?) Robot Wars tournament? I mean, from what I've seen, these bots wouldn't last a second in the Robot Wars arena.-- Guy Fox, Sep 26 2001 You need to rename it 'Passive Resistance Bot' - I'm sure Mephista has several designs in the works already. My favorite cartoon panel is fairly vintage -one of a Turbaned Man in a oh-let's-say Moroccan bar - he exclaimed to the ne'er do wells around him "I can passively resist any man in the house."-- thumbwax, Sep 26 2001 Suddenly, I can't help thinking of John Goodman's character in The Big Lebowski...
I saw my buddies dying face down in the mud... and springing back up, and dying face down in the mud, and springing back up... down... up... down... Etc.
I suspect the Mosh-Buddy-Pogo-Weeble would be anything but passive, though. The Flocking Road Cones might be more effective in terms of Passive Resistance.-- Guy Fox, Sep 26 2001 [Guy Fox] "shut the f*ck up Donny!"-- ArtVandelay, Sep 26 2001 If you put a GhandiBot and a MLKBot in the ring, which would win? And how?-- Guncrazy, Sep 26 2001 This is actually baked in the real Battlebots. Mechadon's <Big silver spiderlike walker> creator made some sort of a snake or wormlike robot that got itself roundly trounced, and when they interviewed him, he said he's an artist and does the robots to show them off, rather than to win the battles.
Mechadon was cool, though.-- StarChaser, Sep 29 2001 I love it. Teach it karate, but have it programmed to use for defense only. Give it a face shaped like Pat Morita. Add a speech-synthesis setup and let it spew out random philosophical one-liners.-- RayfordSteele, Mar 14 2002 There's a whole subculture of Quake players who complete levels Gandhi-style. I say put a white robe on the bot and get it to hop over its opponents. If it can wear them down, it wins.-- yppiz, Nov 19 2002 random, halfbakery