Best news of weekend! BATTLEBOTS is back!

[CitizenBBN]

In the "things you miss" category, one of the things I miss (to the point of finding a download of the old shows), is Battlebots. Short lived TV coverage of a great competition. It's back in a 6 episode season on ABC, just ran across it.

SERIOUS bots in this one. They've put up a super strong cage so they can really go at it. one of the original issues with all the bot competitions was safety, the bots would fling stuff all over the place and it would even shatter the shields or just go over them. I think this is a solid box around the whole thing with what I'm sure is bullet proof plastic. So they are letting them go nuts with power.

Little known fact, the original bot competitions in California gave birth to Mythbusters. Jamie and Adam entered a bot for fun in it, basically a spinning wok, that won the competition but was asked to withdraw for safety issues b/c it tore the crap out of other bots, throwing stuff everywhere. Actually they entered again the next year and same issue. They got a special award but caused so much damage and flung debris so badly they had to be asked to not compete.

Anyway, the producer of Mythbusters saw and met them there, and then later approached Jamie about the show. That's also how they knew Grant Imihara (though I think Adam and Grant also worked at ILM at one time together as well).

I just love science shows that are fun. You can be entertained and learn stuff too, and encourage science and make being an engineer or designer a little more cool.

The beautiful people will never get it, and that's fine, but it tells kids who do like this stuff that it's OK to like this stuff and to pursue it. And it's cool to watch them whack each other at the same time.

[PedroDaGr8]

In the "things you miss" category, one of the things I miss (to the point of finding a download of the old shows), is Battlebots. Short lived TV coverage of a great competition. It's back in a 6 episode season on ABC, just ran across it.

SERIOUS bots in this one. They've put up a super strong cage so they can really go at it. one of the original issues with all the bot competitions was safety, the bots would fling stuff all over the place and it would even shatter the shields or just go over them. I think this is a solid box around the whole thing with what I'm sure is bullet proof plastic. So they are letting them go nuts with power.

Little known fact, the original bot competitions in California gave birth to Mythbusters. Jamie and Adam entered a bot for fun in it, basically a spinning wok, that won the competition but was asked to withdraw for safety issues b/c it tore the crap out of other bots, throwing stuff everywhere. Actually they entered again the next year and same issue. They got a special award but caused so much damage and flung debris so badly they had to be asked to not compete.

Anyway, the producer of Mythbusters saw and met them there, and then later approached Jamie about the show. That's also how they knew Grant Imihara (though I think Adam and Grant also worked at ILM at one time together as well).

I just love science shows that are fun. You can be entertained and learn stuff too, and encourage science and make being an engineer or designer a little more cool.

The beautiful people will never get it, and that's fine, but it tells kids who do like this stuff that it's OK to like this stuff and to pursue it. And it's cool to watch them whack each other at the same time.

Yes! I have watched every single episode so far. Tombstone looks like a monster, that high mass lawnmower blade just tears through the other bots. I'm loving it.

[Doc]

I've been watching from the beginning. Big upset last night when Icewave went down. Ghost Raptor made some serious smart modifications to get that win.

They need to have less of the human interest crap, less of the stories behind the scenes and the hokey stuff. Do more on the robot building, how they work stuff. Nobody cares that it was built by 4 bothers who were dairy farmers but they do care how they work.

[CitizenBBN]

I've been watching from the beginning. Big upset last night when Icewave went down. Ghost Raptor made some serious smart modifications to get that win.

They need to have less of the human interest crap, less of the stories behind the scenes and the hokey stuff. Do more on the robot building, how they work stuff. Nobody cares that it was built by 4 bothers who were dairy farmers but they do care how they work.

Agree on both fronts.

Brilliant mod to deal with Icewave. That's what it's all about.

As for the production, it's so very typical, b/c in the end the people who run TV aren't geeks, don't get geeks, and don't know what geeks want to watch.

I'm going to post about a great new show coming out called "Con Man", created by Allen Tudyk of Firefly fame, and Nathan Fillion is on board with it all as well as a huge cast of geek show folks who have supported it. It's about his story as a Firefly star going to all the conventions or "cons", and is clearly his story vis a vis Firefly but without using that name.

They took it to TV and production companies and they all looked at him like he was from Mars b/c they do not understand the con community or geeks in general. So they crowd sourced it, set all kinds of records and are making the first episodes. Going to be on Vimeo btw.

Anyway, it's just another example of them not getting it. Only Mythbusters has truly tapped into it without the outside crap (and they've had some but not a lot), and in mainstream I'd say Big Bang has correctly shown geeks without being insulting, laughing with us and not at us.

Back to Battlebots now, it's so cool some of the old guys and gals are back in it. The one girl who had the ladybug thing years ago was back with a new bot. I'd pay good money for Adam and Jamie or Grant to come back.

BTW had ABC understood it they woudln't have had the NFL pretty faces doing it, but would have had Grant and Adam and Jamie (they may have contract issues) do it. Go get the now gone Build Team to do it, that would be awesome.

I'm all for easy on the eyes, get Allison Scagliotti or any of a dozen cool girls who are also geeks and convention goers who would really be into this stuff and not just acting.

[PedroDaGr8]

Agree on both fronts.

Brilliant mod to deal with Icewave. That's what it's all about.

As for the production, it's so very typical, b/c in the end the people who run TV aren't geeks, don't get geeks, and don't know what geeks want to watch.

I'm going to post about a great new show coming out called "Con Man", created by Allen Tudyk of Firefly fame, and Nathan Fillion is on board with it all as well as a huge cast of geek show folks who have supported it. It's about his story as a Firefly star going to all the conventions or "cons", and is clearly his story vis a vis Firefly but without using that name.

They took it to TV and production companies and they all looked at him like he was from Mars b/c they do not understand the con community or geeks in general. So they crowd sourced it, set all kinds of records and are making the first episodes. Going to be on Vimeo btw.

Anyway, it's just another example of them not getting it. Only Mythbusters has truly tapped into it without the outside crap (and they've had some but not a lot), and in mainstream I'd say Big Bang has correctly shown geeks without being insulting, laughing with us and not at us.

Back to Battlebots now, it's so cool some of the old guys and gals are back in it. The one girl who had the ladybug thing years ago was back with a new bot. I'd pay good money for Adam and Jamie or Grant to come back.

BTW had ABC understood it they woudln't have had the NFL pretty faces doing it, but would have had Grant and Adam and Jamie (they may have contract issues) do it. Go get the now gone Build Team to do it, that would be awesome.

I'm all for easy on the eyes, get Allison Scagliotti or any of a dozen cool girls who are also geeks and convention goers who would really be into this stuff and not just acting.

Yep they are completely getting the wrong story for the audience. They should be showing the trials and tribulations of building the bots. Show more about the strategy of the game. Show more about the challenges these guys face just when building the bots. The failed designs and things like that. This is equivalent to the human interest stuff but MUCH more enjoyable with their target audience. Additionally, being completely different it might draw in additional audiences that they don't realize are interested. Their fear is to be TOO geeky, but they haven't seen the success of shows like TBBT show many people relish geek culture. It is something very different from the sports culture that has been relished for so long. The TV producers don't understand this audience at all, the crazier thing is it isn't a small audience either. Grant would be quite good in this role. They should have gone full force and embraced the geekyness.

As a geeky aside:

Epic Rap Battles in History (a web show which I brought up before):
with Weird Al as Sir Isaac Newton and Chali 2Na from Jurassic 5 as Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Weird Al freaking kills it.

[CGWildcat]

I kept missing this show and caught the finale last night. Was fun to watch, and I agree...I don't care about ABC human interest viewpoint, show me how they build the dang things and how they failed to get there!

The second guy that lost in the semi's last night was an arse! Ghost something...

[Doc]

I would have loved to see a battlebots royal among the losers. A no time limit, winner take all fight to the death demolition derby type thing among those who didn't make the finals as a consolation. Total mayhem. Put all 12 who didn't make the semi-finals in and let them all go at once, last bot moving gets $5,000.

Bite Force won on strategy. The ability to adjust did it for him. Its interesting because Ghost Raptor knocked out Icewave on strategy and then Bite Force took out GR who then took out the prohibitive favorite, also on strategy. Of course Tombstone didn't do himself any favors by giving the last hit in the semi's when he didn't need to which tore up his bot. Likely cost him the tournament because he clearly wasn't the same in the finals.

[CitizenBBN]

"Tombstone, pretty much the University of Kentucky of Battlebots"

Did you guys catch that at the start of the summary of the semi-finals? now tell me how Cal isn't earning his salary in the media exposure for the school.

[Darrell KSR]

OK, not really related...but couldn't help it when I saw this story this morning.

Robot built by Auburn students would terrify mall workers

[CitizenBBN]

OK, not really related...but couldn't help it when I saw this story this morning.

Robot built by Auburn students would terrify mall workers

Not as scary to them as this one: