It’s Robot Fightin’ Time

I am a hard-core BattleBots enthusiast. I started following robot fighting in the early 90s while living in San Jose,CA. I had been to numerous Survival Research Laboratory's shows , the brainchild of Mark Pauline, in San Francisco. These shows tied in perfectly with the punk & industrial music scenes burgeoning in the Bay Area.

The first show I attended was The Misfortunes of Desire (Acted Out at an Imaginary Location Symbolizing Everything Worth Having) in 1988 in the parking lot of Shea Stadium.  The show included a shock wave cannon, a 4-legged walking machine, a high power flame thrower, a radio-controlled tank, & a 1,200-pound catapult.

True Robot fighting got its start in October 1989 at the MileHiCon, a science fiction convention in Denver,CO. The MileHiCon featured the first actual tournament promoting robotic battles called the Critter Crunch. A small group of mechanical engineers known as the Denver Mad Scientist Club envisioned the event after viewing videos of the Survival Research Laboratory shows & learning of a competition at MIT that required homemade robots to compete in mechanical tasks. By coupling these influences the group created a robot combat event like no other. It was part eccentric spectacle, part brutal fight to the death, & all fun.

Eventually, word of the Critter Crunch began to spread. Other conventions around the country began hosting robot combat events as well, most notably at DragonCon in Atlanta.

 

The 25 pound robots of the first Critter Crunch were quite different from the 250 pound behemoths of BattleBots today. 

While these non-commercial events thrived in the convention world, another man was independently developing a bigger picture view of robot combat.

Marc Thorpe, a San Francisco based animatronic designer, had created special effects for Parts 2 & 3 of the Star Wars trilogy for LucasFilm. While independently working on a remote control vacuum cleaner in 1992, Thorpe looked at the device & realized its sinister potential which he dreamed could be transformed into a metal-crunching death machine. Building on this thought, Thorpe realized the potential behind a remote-controlled robot combat tournament. 

 

A feature in a 1994 issue of Wired Magazine about Thorpe's concept of ROBOT WARS finally enabled Thorpe to put on the competition. 

Robots & Robot Wars have come a long way since their humble beginnings at the end of the 20thCentury. Now the spectacle of the Battle Box arena & BattleBots.

I decided to create a music compilation to honor some of my favorite Bots. I narrowed the competition to the field of 32 & let them fight it out. The field of 16 is represented here. Starting with my favorite Bot, driven by Daniel Freitas...Minotaur. 

 

Various - BattleBots Rock, NØ Comp., 2023.

Minotaur - St. Paul & the Broken Bones
Overhaul - Ray TJ
Quantum - Martin Garrix & Brooks
Riptide - Vance Joy
Tantrum - Whitey
Blip (Club mix) - Wongo
Jackpot - Joceln Alice
Whiplash - MercyMe
Bloodsport - Sneaker Pimps
Cobalt - Enzalla
Black Dragon - The Vines
Glitch - Martin Garrix & Julian Jordan
Hydra - Toto
Banshee - Kendra Morris
Rotator - VAN DUO
Witch Doctor - De Staat

Let the Robot battle begin,
NØ