Mech Warfare; Better Than BattleBots!

RTEAM Robotics Club Shows Off Their Stuff
At a recent Maker Faire one of Hackaday’s members spotted something well worth taking a look at. RTEAM Robotics Club is a group of hobbyists who design their own wee ‘mechs and pit them against each other. They are in their fifth year, and have over 30 registered teams from across the United States, Turkey, Canada, Mexico, and Japan. They have a very different style when you compare it to some of the battling robot TV shows we have seen over the years, which focus on speed and destruction.
Instead, the bots tend to be a little slower and sport more than a few legs, each armed with an AirSoft rifle which is used to shoot at four designated locations on your opponent. This style makes it more like a miniature BattleTech arena, especially as they set up a small model city to do battle in and the bots are controlled by someone in a VR headset to give a view similar to that in drone racing. Check out their site for videos of past competitions.
The sound a set of machined robot legs tapping on concrete make is remarkable. If for nothing more, the video after the break is worth watching just for this. It’s what caught my attention when I first wandered by the Mech Warfare area at Maker Faire, as one of the competitors had their bot out wandering around as a demo during the setup day.
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