BattleBots returns to TV thanks to ESPN

Pretty cool. And no more wedge bots. They were boring. [Link]

For the new show, Roski has made it clear: "I'm not going to allow wedgers," he says. He hasn't worked out exactly how, but one option is to modify the arena. Half-in.-thick plates, for example, could be added to stop low-clearance models in their tracks. And newer, more powerful arena hazards could influence robot designs. "The ramps in the past were pretty slow," Roski says, referring to the compressed-air-powered panels that could spring open, tossing an unlucky contender. "Now, these ramps could throw Toro five feet in the air." Toro, the winner of the super heavyweight class (up to 340 pounds) in 2001, was one of the most popular robots on the show, with its own ability to launch targets with a pneumatic arm.

Limiting wedgers could inject some carnage back into robot combat, but the new show will also have a radically different pace, closer to the BattleBots pay-per-view events than the Comedy Central series. Although Roski is grateful for the exposure the network provided, he believes that by largely avoiding the pits, where teams had to perform repairs on their bots before sending them into the next match, the original show missed out on some the best drama. Although episodes were aired weekly, the competitions were a grueling, nonstop brawl, running as long as 10 days straight, and forcing some teams to make repairs in as little as 30 minutes. Now, the cameras can follow the engineering side of the competition, as teams representing their colleges (Roski is estimating as many as 150 participating schools) race the clock to fix their battered gladiators. And when a robot suddenly becomes unresponsive in the middle of a match, viewers might understand why, instead of listening to the commentators level zingers at its comatose frame.