Photo: Toyland
Our recorded history shows that mankind has shown a sick proclivity towards enjoying watching different creatures fight. From the man versus beast to animals facing each other, the crowds went wild at the sight of violence and gore.
Our continuous progress hasn't done anything to change our bloody nature, but at least it made it possible to leave the poor creatures alone and focus on something else. Something less alive. We’re still some time away from spectacular giant robots fighting like in the Real Steel movie, but we do have something that’s close in principle: it’s called BattleBots.
The show originally aired back in 2000, with the final fifth season being shown in 2002, but ABC decided to bring it back last year, and thanks to an overwhelmingly positive reaction, there is now a second season in the books. So if robotic carnage is what gets your blood going - or you’re just a tech-freak like the rest of us - you’ve got one more reason to look forward to this summer.
BattleBots' recipe was simple but efficient: each team was asked to build a remote-controlled robot that would then be assigned to one of the four weight classes - lightweight, middleweight, heavyweight and superheavyweight. Matches within each class were held until two robots would have to duel it out in the final. The battles took three minutes and, in case both robots were left standing, the judges would pick a winner.
Building on the show success is Hexbug, the well-known brand of toy automatons, which has released a playing set replicating the TV show’s arena and some of the most famous robots to have fought in it. Everything is done to scale, but the robots are perfectly functional, so recreating the battles seen on TV is perfectly possible. In fact, that’s precisely the point.
The 20x20-inch arena costs $70 and comes with protective plastic barriers, appropriate graphics and two remotely-controlled mini-BattleBots. Toyland reveals that the starting play set includes the Bronco and the Tombstone models (the former sporting a flipping arm and the latter a spinning front blade). There is only one more BattleBot available at the moment - the Witch Doctor, costing $30 - but Hexbug will hopefully continue to add more models in the future.
The show originally aired back in 2000, with the final fifth season being shown in 2002, but ABC decided to bring it back last year, and thanks to an overwhelmingly positive reaction, there is now a second season in the books. So if robotic carnage is what gets your blood going - or you’re just a tech-freak like the rest of us - you’ve got one more reason to look forward to this summer.
BattleBots' recipe was simple but efficient: each team was asked to build a remote-controlled robot that would then be assigned to one of the four weight classes - lightweight, middleweight, heavyweight and superheavyweight. Matches within each class were held until two robots would have to duel it out in the final. The battles took three minutes and, in case both robots were left standing, the judges would pick a winner.
Building on the show success is Hexbug, the well-known brand of toy automatons, which has released a playing set replicating the TV show’s arena and some of the most famous robots to have fought in it. Everything is done to scale, but the robots are perfectly functional, so recreating the battles seen on TV is perfectly possible. In fact, that’s precisely the point.
The 20x20-inch arena costs $70 and comes with protective plastic barriers, appropriate graphics and two remotely-controlled mini-BattleBots. Toyland reveals that the starting play set includes the Bronco and the Tombstone models (the former sporting a flipping arm and the latter a spinning front blade). There is only one more BattleBot available at the moment - the Witch Doctor, costing $30 - but Hexbug will hopefully continue to add more models in the future.
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