SAN MATEO — A runaway robot can do “really bad things to human flesh.”
Such was the disclaimer made Friday by the announcer at the RoboGames — formerly the ROBOlympics — at the San Mateo County Event Center. The seventh annual international meeting of robot builders continues through Sunday.
No humans are allowed in “the box” during robotic combat, which takes place in a locked bulletproof arena lined by 500-pound steel bumpers with nicks and scratches from flying shrapnel.
Before the competition began Friday afternoon, preparatory clanking and drilling echoed through the Expo Hall until the first round began hours behind schedule after RoboGames founder David Calkins hammered out the order of competition.
The workroom filled with builders from 17 countries resembled a post-apocalyptic junkyard — with futuristic tools, scraps of metal and rogue wheels in abundance.
The first fight was between reigning middleweight champion Professor Chaos and Besta, Portuguese for “beast,” engineered by a team from a Brazilian university. Each featured spinning circular blades, a common device in metal-to-metal combat that is used to flip the opponent.
In an upset, Besta destroyed Professor Chaos’ 10-0 record and turned the 120-pound bot over in less than 20 seconds.
Sparks flew when the blades made contact, but Professor Chaos’ operator, Brian Benson, couldn’t maneuver the controls quickly enough, and his bot was thrown through the air.
“It’s nice to win, but I’m here to have fun,” he said before the loss.
The event is double-elimination, so he will have another chance to fight for a gold medal later in the weekend. Robots will duke it out in a variety of categories, including “Kung-Fu,” “Weight Lifting” and “Lego Bowling.”
Benson is working toward a master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts and hopes to get a job at iRobot, a company that makes robots that complete practical tasks such as vacuuming and cleaning gutters. Most of the more than 1,000 RoboGames participants are college students.
The team from UCLA brought one combat robot and three hockey robots. Sophomore Kaustubh Banerjee was tinkering with the robot UBruined — pronounced “you be ruined,” a play on the name of the school mascot. A first-timer, Banerjee said the experience is more about the learning process than the competition.
The event runs from noon to 7 p.m. today and Sunday. Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for kids 7 to 17; admission is free for children younger than 6 and active-duty members of the military.
For more information, visit www.robogames.net.
