| BattleBots | |
|---|---|
Publicity still of Bill Nye, the show's technical expert, in the BattleBots arena |
|
| Genre | Reality Television |
| Created by | Greg Munson and Trey Roski |
| Narrated by | Tim Green, Sean Salisbury and Bil Dwyer |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 5 |
| No. of episodes | 94 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Mack Anderson, Bradley Anderson, Debbie Liebling |
| Running time | 30 minutes - 1 hour |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Comedy Central |
| Original airing | August, 2000 – November, 2002 |
| External links | |
| Website | |
BattleBots is an American company that hosts robot competitions. BattleBots is also the name of the television show created from the competition footage. BattleBots Inc. is headquartered in Vallejo, California and holds most of its competitions in San Francisco.
In a BattleBots event the competitors are remote-controlled armed and armored machines, designed to fight in an arena combat elimination tournament. If both combat robots are still operational at the end of the match the winner is determined by a point system based on damage, aggression, and strategy.
The television show BattleBots aired on the American cable network Comedy Central for five seasons, covering five BattleBots tournaments. The first season aired starting in August 2000, and the fifth season aired starting in August 2002. Hosts of BattleBots were Bil Dwyer and Sean Salisbury (with Tim Green replacing Salisbury after the second season) and correspondents included former Baywatch actresses Donna D'Errico, Carmen Electra, and Traci Bingham, former Playboy Playmate Heidi Mark, and identical twins Randy and Jason Sklar. Bill Nye was the show's "technical expert".
After five 'seasons', Comedy Central terminated their contract with BattleBots Inc. in late 2002.
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BattleBots is an offshoot of the original American version of Robot Wars, the brainchild of Marc Thorpe. Robot Wars had financial backing from Sm:)e communications, a New York record company. The Thorpe/Sm:)e partnership broke up in 1997, starting many years of legal wrangling between Thorpe and Profile Records (the former Sm:)e communications). Profile licensed Robot Wars to a UK production company and Robot Wars ran for seven years as a popular television program in the UK.
The robot builders left behind in San Francisco formed BattleBots, Inc. and began a series of competitions. The first was held in Long Beach, California in August 1999 and was also cybercast on ZDTV. The second, held in November 1999, in Las Vegas, Nevada was a pay per view event. These led to the five semi-annual BattleBots tournaments televised as prime time series on the American network Comedy Central starting in May 2000.[1]
Robots at BattleBots tournaments were separated into four weight classes. The weight limits increased slightly over time. At the final tournaments the classes were:
'Walking' robots ('StompBots') propelled by means other than wheels were initially given a 50% weight bonus. The rules changed following the victory of a heavyweight StompBot (Son of Whyachi) at BattleBots 3.0. For BattleBots 4.0 and beyond only a 20% weight bonus was given to walkers and the technical rules specified that walking mechanisms not use cam operated walking mechanisms as they were functionally too similar to wheel operation. Since the rules change, walking robots have entered the competition, but none have achieved any success beyond preliminary rounds.
See Robot Combat.
Matches are three minutes long. During a match, two robots do their best to destroy each other using whatever means available.
There are only two events that cause the match to be paused and people enter the BattleBox. One is the event that the robots are stuck together and cannot separate or that both have simultaneously become immobilized. The other scenario is that one or both 'bots have caught on fire. In that case, the people entering the BattleBox are equipped with a fire extinguisher.
If a robot is unable to move for thirty seconds, because it is too badly damaged or it is stuck on the arena hazards, it is declared knocked out. The driver may also call a "tap-out" to forfeit the match if his or her robot is about to be destroyed. This ends the match ten seconds later; the opposing driver is "asked" (but not instructed) not to attack during the ten-second count.
In about half the matches, both robots survive the three minutes; at that point, three judges distribute a total of 45 points (15 points a judge, 5 points per judge per category) over three categories. The robot with the higher score wins. The judging categories are Aggression, Strategy, and Damage. A robot who hangs back safely from its opponent will not get many Aggression points; one in there fighting the whole time, however, will. The Strategy category is about how well a robot exploits its opponent's weaknesses, protects its own, and handles the hazards. A robot driving over the kill saws will lose points here, unless it had good reason to do so, while a robot that is able to attack its opponent's weak areas will gain points. The Damage category is for how much damage the bot can deal to its opponent while remaining intact itself.
The winner moves on; the loser is eliminated from the tournament.
At the end of the tournament, a series of 'rumbles' or 'melee rounds' are typically held in each weight class, allowing robots that survived the main tournament to fight in a 'free for all' in a 5 minute match. Occasionally there are too many robots for one rumble, and multiple rumbles are held with the top surviving bots competing in a final event. During the Season 5 Heavyweight rumble (the first rumble of that competition), a sheared-off robot part went through the Lexan arena roof and fell (harmlessly) into the audience. Because of this, the rest of the rumbles were canceled due to safety concerns.[1]
The BattleBox is a 48' x 48' square arena designed to protect the drivers, officials, and audience from flying shrapnel and charging bots. It has a steel floor and steel-framed walls and roof paneled with thick, bulletproof polycarbonate plastic. The teams bring their robots in through doorways, which are sealed after all humans have exited. The drivers control their machines from outside the sealed arena.
Operated by "Pulverizer Pete", the arena hazards are intended to make fights more interesting and unpredictable, and to reward drivers who can avoid the hazards while pushing or carrying their opponent into them. The hazards include:
JAKKS Pacific created two series of BattleBots toys: the smaller BattleBashers and larger Grip N' Grapplers were made.
Tiger Electronics created two series of remote controlled BattleBots toys:
McDonald's released Happy Meal BattleBots toys from April 26 to May 23, 2002.[2]
Two video games based on BattleBots were released for Game Boy Advance, BattleBots: Beyond the BattleBox in 2002 and BattleBots: Design & Destroy in 2003. Another game was in development by THQ for PlayStation 2 and GameCube.,[3] but was cancelled.
Information on additional BattleBots toys can be found at Mutant Robots.
In February 2008, BattleBots announced [4] that ESPN had offered to broadcast a "Collegiate BattleBots Championship" competition limited to a single 160-pound weight class to be held during the summer of 2008, with competitors from as many as 160 colleges. Plans called for a "professional" 220-pound class tournament to be filmed at the same venue, but the broadcast deal was for the college teams only.[5]
The deal with ESPN fell through, but a delayed competition took place April 21–25, 2009 with fewer than 20 college teams participating. Three divisions competed at the event: high school (middleweight), college (middleweight), and pro (heavyweight). BattleBots announced that some video from the college tournament would air on the CBS College Sports Network in summer 2009. The airing was first pushed back to December 9, then cancelled due to an asserted inability to sell commercial time.[6] BattleBots claimed a broadcast deal with Fox Television Studios, but no air date was announced and a later announcement confirmed cancellation.[7]
Battlebots noted on its Twitter page a Battlebots competition scheduled for April 8–12, 2010 in the San Francisco Bay Area, to feature a 220 lb professional league and 120 lb college/high school league as well as TableTop Robots. On January 20, 2010 Battlebots announced that the competition was postponed until further notice.
On March 5, 2010 the BattleBots webpage announced a professional Battlebots tournament to be held in San Francisco on May 21–23, 2010. According to the Battlebots staff, that event has been rescheduled to November 2010 in San Francisco.[8]
On October 26, 2010 the BattleBots staff announced the 2011 Battlebots National Championship will be held in Miami, Florida from February 23–27, 2011. This will not be a taped event.