The Next Billion Dollar Sports League Could Be Giant Robots That Fight To The Death
Oct 16, 2014, 00:48 IST
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Perched on a balcony of the Javits Center, where New York Comic Con was held over the weekend, a 15-foot-tall, seven-ton steel behemoth greeted costumed attendees as they rode up the escalator.
Two engineers scaled the support structure and disappeared into the copper-colored body. The pilot closed a front-facing gate and took hold of the joysticks. The Megazord-like structure rumbled to life and its right arm, its only arm, swung to take aim at the crowd. It seemed angry; the crowd was loving it.This is MegaBot, the first of its kind. Its creators are three engineers on a mission to usher in the next generation of major sports leagues: Robot SmackDowns. Co-founders Andrew Stroup, Gui Cavalcanti and Matt Oehrlein envision a serialized, possibly televised competition in which these colossal bots fight to the death.
"Is this the evolution of WWE, UFC, and NASCAR? Giant, fighting robots?" Stroup asks, seriously. "We think so."
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MegaBotsThe MegaBots concept art was created by a 17-year veteran of video game design, whose work includes MechWarrior.
"Pacific Rim" Come To Life
Stroup, an aerospace and mechanical engineer by way of the Department of Defense, and Cavalcanti, a mechanical engineer and founder of Artisan's Asylum, met in 2012 as competitors on Discovery Channel's elimination-style engineering competition show "The Big Brain Theory: Pure Genius." Their mutual love of robotics led them to continue designing and prototyping parts long after the show aired. "We've been primed for this our entire lives," Cavalcanti says. The idea for the league grew out of their lifelong obsession with robotics and video games; they grew up with one foot in reality and the other in the futuristic war zones of MechWarrior and StarCraft. After completing a year's worth of research and development, they recruited Oehrlein, a control theory engineer with a legendary reputation in the hacker-makerspace community, and quit their jobs to make MegaBots a reality.
How The League Works
The team hopes one day fans will root for bots the way they do for racing's Jeff Gordon, ultimate fighting's Ronda Rousey, and boxing's Floyd Mayweather, Jr. "With NASCAR, the UFC, and WWE, there's a platform on which they operate," Stroup says. Race car drivers compete on tracks across the country, while boxers sell out arenas. These events are streamed on television or Pay-Per-View. Networks strike deals with the leagues for the rights to play their content exclusively. They're money-making machines. Competitors create brands within those leagues, moving from city to city and carrying that brand recognition. "The masses attach to them," Stroup explains. The more exposure competitors have, the more the audience becomes engaged and interested in the overall league.
"These Aren't Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots"
In existing robot battles, the player controls his or her droid using a glorified remote control from the other side of the room. The sense of imminent danger is lost. In a MegaBots battle, a two-member team sits inside the bot's upper torso, where the controls systems are housed. Although the co-founders assure me that the pilot and gunner are well protected inside, the situation presents a heightened suspense. Each 15,000-pound robot is equipped with six-inch cannons inside its arms that fire paint-filled missiles and cannon balls at 120 miles per hour. Good aim can cause enough damage to jam its opponent's weapons system or shoot of a limb. "These aren't Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots," Stroup laughs.