What is combat robotics?

Unsure what combat robotics is? You've come to the right place! Below you'll find a brief overview of the sport, and general rules that will give you an idea of what to expect.

Combat robotics goes by many names; robotic combat, robot fighting, or by the names of the popular TV series that portayed it; "BattleBots" and "Robot Wars." Many people simply say they are building a "BattleBot" to describe a combat robot, because of the popularity of the word. The shows are now long gone, with none currently airing new episodes. However, the sport is far from dead, simply look at how many events are listed on our links page.

Combat robotics combines three of man's great pleasures: destroying stuff, watching stuff getting destroyed, and not being destroyed. The Roman's had gladiators and we have boxing. We even have more extreme forms of hand to hand combat now, almost harkening back to the days of the gladiators. But what is a more civilized person to do? This is where combat robotics comes in.

The general rules are as followed. Two user controlled robots are pitted against each other in a 3 minute long fight to the death. If your robot stops moving during the 3 minutes, you loose. If both robots are still moving at the end of 3 minutes, a judges decision decides the winner. When reading the rules for an event, one could be overwhelmed at the length and amount of rules included. Most of them are simply for safety while the robots are not fighting. The general rules for combat are simple. There are several categories of weapons not allowed, and they are as followed:

Entanglement devices - such as nets or long cables
Electricity
Radio Interferance
Liquids
Projectiles
Fire - though this is allowed at some competitions

What makes robotic combat exciting is that the robots must hit each other to do damage. It's like the hand to hand combat of gladiators, or boxers. These classes of weapons are dissallowed, as they generally make the fights boring and defeat the purpose. It may seem interesting to allow radio interferance, or liquids, but once every robot has them, it would become pretty boring.

The robots themselves are custom designed one-off creations built by engineers, scientists, mechanics, and regular Joes. If you want to do it, you can. Check out our tutorials to figure out how. The robots are normally controlled by R/C systems similar to those of top quality R/C planes, though some robots control themselves and are considered "autonomous." High power electric motors and gas engines power the custom made drive trains and weapons systems. The robots are put into weightclasses similar to boxing, and the limits range anywhere from 1 lb, to 390 lbs.

The thrill of combat robotics is not only in the competition. Since the robots are all hand built and unique creations, many competitors consider the real fun is desiging and building a robot. The idea of designing a robot, without knowing what it will have to endure is very intriguing. The builder community is a very tight nit group of interesting and fun people. We'd love to see you become a part of it!