Left to right: Jin Sato, Chris Farrell, Rob Farrell
As you might expect there were lots of reporters and camera crews at the recent RoboGames 2007 event in San Francisco. In previous years they had a tendency to focus almost exclusively on the more dramatic, and noisy, combat robot battles while the humanoid events took a backseat. Of course a lot of that was due to the fact that there weren't a lot of exciting, attention grabbing humanoid entries. This year with the number of humaniod robots tripling over last year the situation changed dramatically, and we believe for the better.
Many of the humanoid robot builders were interviewed by the mass media, and had the opportunity to express their passion and dedication to the sport to a global audience. A good example is this RoboGames news story that features comments from Matt Bauer, Rob Farrell, and Chris Farrell, and has shown up on the internet in places as far away as Australia. Of course, some people may feel that Rob's "testosterone" comment was a little blunt, but we think it was right on target and not out of line at all.
As a combat "robot" builder, I totally see the difference between the two sorts of events. The mechanics and construction are the focus of R/C combat. "Fighting machine" is the term I use when challenged on the use of the word robot. While less elegant than the autonomous robots, the mechanics and engineering required for the more complex combat machines is still very impressive.
Just don't call them R/C cars. We hate that. =-)
-Adam!!!
Posted by: Adam Conus | June 21, 2007 at 07:57 AM
"Translate math and computer code into the human race. "
Not "the human race" ...I said, "human grace".
I guess it was a little loud during all that... or perhaps I wasn't utilizing enough testosterone to make myself heard :-D
Posted by: Matt | June 21, 2007 at 08:39 AM
Nice Shirts!
Posted by: Donald B. Fugitt | June 21, 2007 at 11:45 AM
As one of the contestants in the Games, I wish to support Bullit in his statements because he and Hivemind,Baurmech, Lem, ansnd even Boomer are the best kind of shareing competitors you can have in any sport, the sort of person that will help anyone who asks.thnx again for helping me enjoy the games.engineer
Posted by: John Coffman | June 25, 2007 at 04:50 AM