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The ROBOlympic Games 139

Posted by michael from the no-steroid-testing dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "The first International Robot Games, or ROBOlympics, organized by the Robotics Society of America, will take place on March 20th and 21st, 2004 in San Francisco, California. There will be competition for combat and non-combat robots, a World Cup Soccer game, and even a robo-triathlon. More than 400 robots are registered for this robotics competition. And the winners will receive hard cash. Nature tells us the story in 'Robolympics contestants shoot for gold.' More details and references are available in this overview which also includes a very nice photo of two robots, the larger one either fixing or rocking the smaller one. And for your information, ROBOlympics is not sold out. So if you are near San Francisco, it's still time to buy tickets. They cost $15 to $25. Entrance is free for children under 7."
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The ROBOlympic Games More

The ROBOlympic Games

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  • Combat robots (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AssProphet ( 757870 ) * on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:25AM (#8599462) Homepage Journal
    There will be competition for combat and non-combat robots

    Does it disturb anyone how much effort is put into building robots designed for distruction? I mean I understand building robots that solve puzzles, and robots that overcome obstacles, but the idea of designing robots primarily for violence kind of bothers me.

    Maybe this is a little off topic, but it's an interesting thing to think about.

    • Re:Combat robots (Score:5, Interesting)

      by scumbucket ( 680352 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:29AM (#8599517)
      I was looking at the sponsors list and was surprised NOT to see DARPA there. You would think they would be interested in combat robots.........

      • I was looking at the sponsors list and was surprised NOT to see DARPA there. You would think they would be interested in combat robots.........

        You'd think Junkyard Wars would be enough for them.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:Combat robots (Score:4, Interesting)

          by strateego ( 598207 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:54AM (#8599854)
          While at home, you could have such a robot feed the dog, clean the house, watch the kids....etc.

          Does anyone else just find this frightening. I'm mean the TV does enough to baysit kids, but to just drop off kids with the robot. What is wrong with you man?

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
            Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • Or better yet, not just physical activity but some learning too.

              I didn't RTFA yet, but it seems that in the near future it might be easier to have robots to communicate (albiet, possibly simple communications) with than to have robots that can run around, play ball, that kind of thing.
      • The things that DARPA doesn't know how to do are the smarts and the comm with the robots. They understand how to use weapons. I don't see funding for battlebots ever taking place.
    • Why should it? I would be happy if the designs eventually replaced human soldiers with robotic ones. I would much rather see robots fighting than humans.
      • That's a scary thought. I'd rather see no fighting at all then robots or humans. And for some reason if I volunteered my time to protect the sovereignty of my nation, I'd rather have a human soldier by my side then a robot. Countries mass producing armies legions of robot soldiers... Do you WANT the human race to blow up Earth?!
    • I don't know how many of you watched that Spike TV show hosted by that WWE guy but all the winners were basically of the same design. A scoop that was as close to the ground as possible and they would try and flip their opponents. All the cool designs with saws or spikes rarely won.

      I'd rather seem them liven it up by competing in an uneven surface so it would force the designs to be more flexible.

      • Maybe you can think to it as a kind of darwinism. As you can see it in other competitions (for example E=M6 and which does not aim at combat), basicly you build a robot which applies one (or many) solution to a given problem. He has to adapt himself to the problem, and in fact, YOU have to do the adaptation, at least in his physical design. Then when you ar building the AI, you can have him adapt to different strategies. But you can really think that for the problem you are concerned, there is one or two "b
      • The way I remember it was the robot "Chief Knock-A-Homer" was the favorate all season, until we found out there was a bald, fat man inside a robot costume.

        -
      • i never understood why someone didn't just build a roughly tube shaped robot with two independently controlled treads at its center, spaced about 2 or 3 inches apart.

        it would be ludicrously simple to build, could not be flipped, would have next to nothing on it that could be broken, and could wreak havoc by quickly spinning and smashing things with weapons attached to the ends of the tube.

        i get so sick of those gimpy saucerbots and flippers. how about a little creativity, m?

        • There is something similar to that which is a frequent competitor in the Robot Wars [robotwars.com] series from the UK. The difference is that it's a tube with large wheels on either end, and the batteries and componentry is inside the wheels. It has a large "tail" extending from the middle, which it can flip back and forth to bash the opposition. It isn't terribly destructive, but its long-life means there is a cumulative effect from the constant battering, and it is both very fast and very manuverable. Unfortunately, it'
      • the problem with that show was that do to safety all the cool stuff couldnt be put on the actual robots. i mean where were the cannnons, nail guns, the taser guns to disrupt enemey robot circuit, battery powered super magnets, frequecy jammers. gimme a robot battle competition with almost zero boundries(i admit soemthings might no go so great like your nuke attachment) and then well see some great battles on the good ol TV.
      • From what I can tell the best fighting robots are on the UK version of Robot Wars (judging by the fact that the UK always win the internationals anyway). Off the top of my head, the elite include Razor (a crushing claw weapon), Hypnodisc (a spinning disc), Chaos 2 (a flipper) and another one who's name I forget which has an axe. So while flippers often do well, _good_designs_ with other weapons are also prominent.
        • In fact, a couple of years ago the UK Robot Wars banned flippers. Dunno whether the ban's still in place.
        • Terrorhurtz has an incredible axe. I've seen it rip huge chunks out of the arena floor, and they can whipsaw it back and forth so fast the entire bot (they're huge and heavy) jumps around in the air. It's pretty insane.

          And to the person who replied regarding flippers -- they are currently and have always been in the UK Robot Wars. One of the most amazing is Wheely Big Cheese, which is capable of flipping any competitor robot completely out of the arena from any point in the arena. It's pretty amazing to wa
    • I remember going to 'The First Robot Olympics' in Glasgow, Scotland in 1988/89, still have the Tshirt somewhere.
      A couple of years later I was asked to promote another robot event, run by the same people, but definitely not anything to do with the olympics, as the IOC is very protective about the word Olympics, not surprising given some of the other discussions on /. at the moment.
      So my suspicion is that the name will have some problems.
      In conclusion, my feelings are it's not the first, and it's not the Olym
    • Everyone likes to see a little blood... er i mean hydraulic fluid.

    • Re:Combat robots (Score:4, Funny)

      by bandy ( 99800 ) <andrew.beals+slashdot@gmail.com> on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:48AM (#8599776) Homepage Journal
      And it's probably all radio-controlled, e.g. no real robots among them.
      • I've had the same complaint. It's fun to watch the UK Robot Wars (I found Battlebots rather dull by comparison), but they're really just big, dangerous RC cars, as far as I'm concerned.

        My wife thinks they should allow fully autonomous bots in the ring with the RC bots, but give them a 4X weight allowance, or 6X if they're autonomous walkers. (In the current rules, RC walkers have a 100kg allowance over other heavyweight bots.)

    • A lot of people here grew up watching Voltron, so we like watching robots fight. :)

      -
    • Does it disturb anyone how much effort is put into building robots designed for distruction?

      Completely offtopic and UScentric, but isn't most of our existance designed for distruction? Take out destruction and there wouldn't be much "news" on the news channels or local news. Its one of the top issues regarding the election. A movie/TV show isn't really entertaining unless something blows up or at least someone gets killed. Take out violence in video games and see whats left.

      To answer you question. N

    • Re:Combat robots (Score:1, Insightful)

      by JW Troll ( 607432 )
      yeh it really disturbs me that all this effort is going into the destructive capabilities of these machines. the article should read "free admission for kids under 31"

    • I think the combat side is just to get the public interested, -think wrestling. Watching them do hurdles might not have the same attraction. Also, destroying another robot while defending itself is a problem-solving exercise in a sense.

    • Re:Combat robots (Score:3, Insightful)

      by $ASANY ( 705279 )
      Disturbing? C'mon!

      Humans thrown into a boxing ring for the sole purpose of delivering injury on each other might warrant that label. Save the angst for something worthwhile.

      Robotic combat gets people like teenager Lisa Winters (BattleBots seasons 1 & 2) to craft machines that try to solve a really difficult and dynamic engineering problem with pretty limited resources. Designing a rope-climber is a static and relatively simple problem, and it doesn't inspire in the way that only gourmet robotic des
      • Does it disturb anyone how much effort is put into building robots designed for distruction? I mean I understand building robots that solve puzzles, and robots that overcome obstacles, but the idea of designing robots primarily for violence kind of bothers me.

      It's human nature. You know, same thing that makes huge explosions etc in "big" Hollywood movies a must, the same thing that gives most people immense satisfaction when they kill their best friend in an online FPS, same thing that makes a .44 Magn

    • Does it disturb anyone how much effort is put into building robots designed for distruction? I mean I understand

      building robots that solve puzzles, and robots that overcome obstacles, but the idea of designing robots primarily for violence kind of bothers me.

      There are more peaceful and puzzle-solving robotics competitions out there, such as the one put on by USFIRST [usfirst.org]. I am, in fact, one of the mentors for high school team 1031 in San Francisco, and we just took first place in the Pacific Northwest Regio

    • You spelled distraction wrong.. *;)*

  • The Plans are obvious.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:26AM (#8599470) Homepage Journal

    Entrance is free for children under 7.

    Sure.. get the young kids used to seeing robots all over the place so they'll be taken by suprise when SkyNet launces its attack. whoops, my tinfoil hat was slipping there, sorry..

  • RoboCup 2004 (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:26AM (#8599478)
    Well...
    This year in portugal we'll host RoboCup 2004 aswell :D

    Paulo Soska
  • http://robotwars.com/

    Tho they have sucked more as of late.
    • I always wondered why they had to dumb-down the name of that show to 'robot' wars. There's nothing robot about them. Just well rigged RC machines. Robolympics should be a cool eye opener to the regular joe about how interesting an actual robot can be.

  • Ummm (Score:5, Funny)

    by savagedome ( 742194 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:27AM (#8599506)
    in San Francisco, California

    Will the governor be taking part too?
    • Probably if he can qualify for the 340lbs Combat category!
    • As much as everyone knows the technology center of the U.S. is in California, they don't seem to know the proper place for robotics is Detroit. We have some high-tech companies here, along with some good schools including U of M and OU which hosts the IGVC every year, and we've got a far lower cost of living. For electromechanical goodies, this is the place to be. When Mr. Kamen wanted to build his mechatronic stuff he didn't go to CA? No, he went to Michigan. Yes, I'm off topic. Yes, this is a blatant plug
    • They will apparently send him after you [robolympics.net] if you tried accessing unauthorized parts of the server ;-)
    • Will the governor be taking part too?

      No, but I heard they'll be marrying two gay robots during the opening ceremony!

  • Does anyone else have a problem with this? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Praxxus ( 19048 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:28AM (#8599509) Homepage
    The fact that Nature is bringing us this robot story?

    MmMmmmm . . . irony.

    --

  • Well.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hookedup ( 630460 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:29AM (#8599515)
    One event called Ribbon Climber, in which robots race up a carbon-fibre ribbon, was designed to inspire 'space elevator' technology that might one day lift satellites into orbit.

    It's nice to see they added this event in to draw a little more attention to the space elevator. I personally would rather build a robot to compete in that competition than the fighting ones. It may be a little easier, plus, you're helping towards a cause that would benifit us all, not building a robot purely to smash other things (which is still pretty cool).
    • Have them fight each other as they try to be the first to climb to the top? Like the fight scene in the Kurt Russell movie "Soldier".

      That would be COOL!

  • News Flash: 100 meter dash ends before 1st Meter (Score:4, Funny)

    by teknikl ( 539522 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:29AM (#8599525)
    ..shotput event canceled due to fears for viewer's safety
  • the Bun Hur Linux Cocktail appliance server [pyramid.de] to help everyone keep their mind on the task at hand [See all the pictures here [pyramid.de] ] [Since the website is in German, the google translator [google.com] works well]
  • Anyone else see the title and think "Rob Limo's gonna have his own olympics?"

    I think it's a sign that I'm on /. too much.

    • Anyone else see the title and think "Rob Limo's gonna have his own olympics?"

      No. Who's Rob Limo?

      • No. Who's Rob Limo?

        click here [roblimo.com]

        For the mouse-impared:

        Robin 'Roblimo' Miller is editor in chief for OSDN, one of the world's leading online tech news publishers. He has written extensively about computers and the Internet for Slashdot, Linux.com, NewsForge, Time New Media, Online Journalism Review, Web Hosting Magazine, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, and many other Web sites, newspapers, and magazines.

        Hope this helps ... :-)

  • I'm still waiting for... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Stopmotioncleaverman ( 628352 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:35AM (#8599597)
    ...Human Wars. Robots of superior intelligence build highly aggressive, hugely muscular humans to beat the crap out of one another on RoboTV. Eventually they will evolve to become more intelligent than their creators, and we'll go full circle...maybe :P

  • wow... (Score:3, Funny)

    by caino59 ( 313096 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:35AM (#8599605) Homepage
    http://www.robolympics.net/photos/susan_r2.jpg

    they're lookin pretty lifelike...

    http://www.robolympics.net/photos/blender.jpg

    *snicker*
    • http://www.robolympics.net/photos/susan_r2.jpg

      they're lookin pretty lifelike...

      Yeah.. The susan project's come along since since Revision 1. [k12.or.us] Personally I'm waiting for Susan3 [puremusic.com]!!

  • The Brits already did it. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Enygma42 ( 301776 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:36AM (#8599614) Homepage Journal
    There was a Techno Games [technogames.net] held in England last year. It was really cool cause it wasn't just bots kicking the crap out of each other. They had events such as high-jump, long jump, rope climbing, two-wheeled races, soccer, swimming, rocket-powered races, relay and more.

    Some of the bots where truly amazing, especially the rope-climbing ones. I'm not sure if it'll be on this year though, hopefully some of the bots will enter in the ROBOlympics.

  • Same Old Same Old (Score:5, Insightful)

    by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:41AM (#8599678)
    These fight competition with robots are getting boring. We all know the bot with the lowest gravity, widest wheel, flatest body always win.

    We need some more creativity. Like a robot that makes coffee while in battle. Or a robot that talks trash.
    • Or a robot that is not just a remote-controlled car, but is truly autonomous.
    • Mine does. It has a scrolling LED display to insult opponents (not pics of it, unfortunately) ... unfortunately the first display got destroyed by an opponent's flywheel very quickly.
    • Robot 1: Who is this clown?

      Robot 2: Yo mama!

      Robot 1: What'd you say about my mama? Yo' mama so dumb she brought a knife to a gunfight!

      Robot 2: Yeah? Well yo' mama so poor I stood on a skateboard and she said "Get off the family car!"

      Robot 1: Well yo' mama so fat she got baptized in the ocean!

      Robot 2: That's nothing. Yo' mama went an ugly contest and they said "Sorry, no professionals."

      Robot 1: Ha. Your puny insults have no effect on me.

      Robot 2: Yo mama!

  • My combat robot is entered... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by openSoar ( 89599 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:44AM (#8599728)
    i joined a local course [csmrobotics.com] for robot building and the timing worked out perfectly for the robolympics so we entered it in the 12lb combat class - it's going to get creamed in the first round - i started a blog that documented the build progress but i'm too scared to post it here - i only have a small bandwidth quota :) - here [builderdb.com] is a picture though - that's a stool underneath - it's actually very flat for scooping under other bots and can spin rapidly - still going to be decimated in the first 30 seconds though.

  • Setting ourselves up for disappointment? (Score:5, Funny)

    by sdcharle ( 631718 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:49AM (#8599797) Journal
    Is this going to be like that DARPA road race, where Wired did a 50-page color article on it, and then on race day none of the robots are able to make it as far as a stray shopping cart in a windy parking lot?

  • let me guess (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    it will be a radio controlled wedge shape with a flipping device
    it will be low to the ground and built from 2 sheets of 8mm hardened steel with the electronics and servos from a 1993 radio control car

    yeah "robotics" but is it really ?

    • from my point of view as a first time builder and competitor, we're clearly not creating robots on the bleeding edge (well, i'm not anyways) but there is much more too it than ripping a radio controlled toy to pieces and dropping everything in a metal box - we've all spent a long time designing constructing the frame & body, designing and building the electronics and trying to make things as robost as possible to withstand combat.

  • Do you hear the Trademark lawyers running? (Score:5, Informative)

    by belgar ( 254293 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:52AM (#8599824) Homepage

    I'm thinking the event will be named something else by the time it becomes the 2nd Annual, since the US Olympic Committee has told them they can't use Olympics in their name. [wired.com]

    When I was in high school, we saw the name of the Olympics of the Mind [odysseyofthemind.com] program changed to "Odyssey of the Mind" for the same reason.

  • ..It is nice to let them cross-pollinate.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06.email@com> on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:54AM (#8599855)
    The international, multidisciplinary line-up means that competition is intense. But robotics experts from different fields will get to meet, talk and share ideas. "It is nice to let them cross-pollinate," Calkins says.

    Yeah, pollinating is about as close as any of these folks will ever get to biological procreation.

  • Looks more like strangling. Which is typically my feelings about "cute" technology as well.

  • FIRST Robotics (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rmohr02 ( 208447 ) * <mohr@42.osu@edu> on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:55AM (#8599877)
    I'm a mentor for a FIRST Robotics [usfirst.org] team in Dublin, OH. The robot must score points either through grabbing a bar that's 10 feet in the air (the max height of the robot is 5ft), or pushing kickballs into a bin from which human players can pick them up and shoot them. It may not sound as impressive as the robots in the ROBOlympics, but we had six weeks from the time we learned of this year's goal to when our robot had to be done.

    If you're interested in the ROBOlympics but for whatever reason can't travel to it, there should be a FIRST Regional Event [usfirst.org] near you (this weekend there's one in Brentwood, NY, Hartford, CT, Sacramento, CA, Duluth, GA, Annapolis, MD, and Detroit, MI). There's more for the next several weekends as well. There's also a Championship Event [usfirst.org] in Atlanta from April 15-17.
    • My team (Athenian Robotics Collective) won the silicon valley regional last year, when the game was stack attack. (push boxes over a complex course to have more on your side at the end, plus stack boxes, although each is higher than our robot, plus push others off the ramp at the end of the game.) What a trip!
  • And the winners will receive hard cash

    I remember when Olympic sport was strictly amateur.
  • My money is on the Red Rock'em sock'em robot. The blue one is a punk!
  • The quick succession of the ROBOlympics following on the heels of the unsuccessful Darpa Grand Challenge reminds me of the way Hanna Barbara tried to resurect the fervor of the fizzled Wacky Races with the even more miserable Scooby Doo All Star Laff Olympics.

    Even when I was young the predictable slapstick and farce made the Yogi Yahooies, the Scooby Doobies, and the Really Rottens all seem like very poorly programmed robots (and I'm not referring solely to Dyno-Mutt).

    Whether this is a harbinger of doom o
  • I can't wait for the Gyromite event!
  • Holy shnikies! Real Robots!

    In this age of BattleBots and WarriorBots and MyBotCanKillYourBots, it's good to see robots that are actually more than a remote-control car encased in plate steel.

    It's also a good lesson for all those budding nerds out there that there's more to robotics than attaching a carbide blade to Bigfoot.

    • No offence, but you have just demonstrated that you have no idea what goes into building a combat robot. These things take months to build and thousands of dollars, if you've got good facilities. At this stage, the challenges are more mechanical engineering rather than in artifical intelligence, but they're no less intellectual. The presentation on BattleBots (and Robot Wars in the UK) is very low-brow and doesn't give a good impression of the nature of the sport.
      • Spending a lot of money on a project does not make it an intellectual challenge. The winningest designs are simple plate steel wedges. The hardest part is cutting and forming the metal (and I don't consider metalworking to be one of your higher-thinking pursuits).

        From my experience in robotics, the frame is the easy part. Getting it to do stuff like identify a target or not fall down the stairs, that's the hard part.

        • Ok, the cost isn't such a great boast. But steel wedges are not the winningest designs, certainly not in my experience. I haven't even seen such a design on the UK robot circuit for years.
          Working steel isn't a particularly challenging job but designing the chassis certainly is. One needs to design a drive train which can support a 100kg robot and withstand other 100kg robots falling on it, sometimes from several metres in the air.
          Getting good radio reception inside a steel shell with several large electric

  • this overview which also includes a very nice photo of two robots

    One of those "robots" is actually a Storm Trooper... namely a retarded Jango Fett clone... not a robot.

    C'mon... this is slashdot. You thought you'd get away with that?

  • Don't forget Robocup... (Score:5, Informative)

    by l00sr ( 266426 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @12:12PM (#8600091)
    Robocup [robocup.org] is the real world cup of robot soccer, about 5 years in the running. The 2004 American Open [uno.edu] is happening in late April, and it will supposedly be open to the public. And for the really hardcore fans, there's Robocup 2004 [robocup2004.pt] in Portugal. See ya there ;) Failing that, you should at least watch a match (4-legged league) [upenn.edu].
  • I just can't wait for this stuff to find it's way on national television, so we can hear the heartbreaking defeat or unlikely success stories of robots. Or perhaps that would be "circuit"-breaking defeat?
    • I just can't wait for this stuff to find it's way on national television, so we can hear the heartbreaking defeat or unlikely success stories of robots.

      Hmmmm, I think they had that... Something called BattleBots. It was great (minus the dumbass commentary), until Comedy Central canned it..

      Looks like some of the robots we saw in BB are competing in this competition too. I recognize SOW and Nightmare right off, and there were a few other ones that looked familiar too. (Although I can't believe that lady
  • I hope they contacted the Olympics about this - they're pretty anal when it comes to others using the word "Olympics" and vigorously seek and destroy on it. I remember something about them going after a pizza joint in canada.

  • Autonomy is the key (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SiliconEntity ( 448450 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @12:36PM (#8600428)
    It's not a robot if it's remote controlled. It's an RC toy. A robot should be autonomous and use AI to control itself. That's a totally different technological problem.
    • I'll accept that you may not want to use the term 'Robot' for ROVs, but please don't call them toys. A hell of a lot of effort goes into designing combat machines. AI is a different problem to mechanical engineering but it's no more intellectual.

  • Actually... (Score:2, Funny)

    by sharkey ( 16670 )
    a very nice photo of two robots, the larger one either fixing or rocking the smaller one.

    It looks like the Stormtroopers learned their lesson about cuteness after dealing with the Ewoks. That AIBO had better talk or it is gonna be one fucked up little puppy.

  • This time do no accept anyone from the land of Robonia, 'cuz that's the name that someone just made up on the spot..

    Even though Bender is great and all... him having another sex operation would ruin all of his circuits completely
  • ...the ROBOlympics are being sued by the Olympics for use of the suffix lympics.
  • ...What are you going to do now?"

    "I'm going to Epcot Center!"

  • Olympiad (Score:4, Interesting)

    by themusicgod1 ( 241799 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {ffilc.yerffej}> on Thursday March 18, 2004 @01:28PM (#8601178) Homepage Journal
    Why don't we just start letting robots* compete in the Olympics? It would make the Olympics back into the frothing Nationalist and Racist entertainment they were to begin with, before the media corporations got their hands on it. Although to do so with a different bent - instead of nazi aryans vs. the world(1936 Berlin) or whatever, it would be Humanity vs it's creations: the machines.

    I think when you can have a robot that not only can run the triathalon, but can navigate a random trail without someone on remote control, and do so in timed trials against humans, then and only then will this be significant.

    *Obviously there must be some restriction on what a "robot" should be. how about, independant, and intelligent in some way? how about the robot has to be designed by machines(evolution processes, etc)?

    this should make very clear which sports are trivial and which are not, (ie, Pole Vault will be difficult, whereas Javelin throw will not be.) when I see a humanoid robot run and throw himself 3000 feet into the air so they can just happen to fall over a bar, and then not destroy themselves upon landing...I'll start watching the olympics, at least until the commercialism involved drives me away again.

    How about wrestling? A machine that can within the rules of wrestling pin a human being(perhaps with restriction that it must be humanoid,2 arms 2 legs and a head)? Or perhaps there will be entirely new sports gained from this! When robots begin to play soccer, then some sort of magnet-supported free-fall soccer might be more interesting, etc.

    And hell, we could use that to get the companies out in the forefront as far as sponsorship goes. It's about time we had the Timex Ironman Triathalon team and the GM Wrestling team. We could have the following as a potential outcome:
    GOLD: USA
    SILVER: WALMART ROBOTICS
    BRONZE: CANADA
    etc
  • Bite my shiny metal medal!
  • I attended the world's first Robot Olympics in Edinburgh, 1992. The following year it was held in France ISTR.

    This is not new. As usual, the Murricans think they got there first ...
  • And why does he have his own Olympics? Are we that short of media-blitz sporting events? Does this have something to do with our esteemed site admin CmdrTaco?

    Seriously, when I read the headline, I thought it was Rob Olympics. Geek -- :(
  • Is this just more of that BattleBot-style radio-controlled crap? There should be a law against calling anything under human (or even animal!) control being called a robot.

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