Bot brawlers build to win or lose
Creating a fighting robot means, often, bringing your lethal baby home in pieces
It’s not every day someone takes a labour of love and sends it to slaughter.
But it’s a sacrifice robotic brawler Ravi Baboolal is willing to make.
“You have to be the type of person who is not afraid of building something heavy-duty that you may not get back,” the 26-year-old steelworker said.
Baboolal is the lead organizer of Bot Brawl, a grease-fuelled competition combining sports, technology and gaming. It’s scheduled to take place this weekend in Kitchener, Ont.
Based on robot-sumo, the mechanical bashfest requires homemade bots to push each other out of a circle using a variety of weapons such as lifting arms, jaws and grabbing claws.
A master of mechanical mayhem, Baboolal has spent more than a decade-making custom-built, combat-ready robots. He competes annually throughout the United States, representing Team Canada.
Baboolal’s latest creation is Roach, a 120-pound bot with an amour plate, built using 3/8-inch AR400 grade steel. Its signature weapon, an internal built- in lifting mechanism, can also be used for re-righting Roach, should it be flipped or disabled.
Commonly referred to as remote-controlled cars on steroids, deadly robots, like many insane contraptions, can take some time to build.
Their innards comprise a carefully chosen selection of cordless drill motors, chainsaw engines, nickel-cadmium batteries, microprocessors and relays.
Roughly an hour of work is required per pound of robot, according to Baboolal. A finished robot can range in price from hundreds to thousands of dollars.
“But you can build a super buggin’ robot for $100,” he said.
In total, 19 bots are registered to compete in the Saturday event at Kitchener City Hall.
Recently, more than 15 builders convened at Kwartzlab, a collectively operated hacker space in Kitchener-Waterloo, to work on their projects. The community centre provides its members with access to shared tools, such as laser cutters and 3D printers, in a tech-fuelled bazaar of sorts.
One of the squads present was Team Edwards, composed of brother-and-sister-in-arms Marcus and Deborah Edwards.
Together, the duo operate Jaeger, a tall and wide combatter constructed almost entirely out of plywood. This lightweight chassis, the pair believe, enhances the robot’s manoeuvreability. Inspired by the 2013 summer blockbuster Pacific Rim, Jaeger employs a swinging arm to deflect any high-impact blows from opponents.
“While other bots are brawny, Jaeger is clever and agile, allowing it to strike very quickly,” Marcus said. The Wilfrid Laurier University student described the thrill of bot brawling as comparable to “a video game, except in real life.”
As with any sport, prerequisites for a successful match are a builder’s navigational skills and tactical awareness of the battlefield.
“If you spend a million dollars on a bot but don’t know how to drive, you are going to lose,” Baboolal said.
Aunique obstacle builders will have to pay attention to at Bot Brawl is a two-inch steel pole located at the dead centre of its 2.5-metre-wide arena.
“Robots can grab onto the pole, cut it off and beat down the other guy if they need to,” he said. “Aggression is encouraged; you want to see these things really go at each other.”
Contrary to the popular television reboot BattleBots, the violence for this fall’s inaugural Bot Brawl has been toned down just a bit for safety purposes. Plasma torches and free grinding discs, for example, are prohibited.
Regardless of the weaponry available, a sad truth remains: not every robot is going to make it out alive.
“There will always be a bit of disappointment when you’re stuffing pieces of your bot into a box,” Baboolal said. “But you lose, learn, and repair so you can fight again.”