Zach Copley

Robots and kids: two things that just naturally go together. There’s nothing cuter than a boy and his dog, except maybe a boy and his robot. There’s The Iron Giant, Luke and R2D2 in Star Wars, Artificial Intelligence: A.I., The Terminator… the list stretches on.

That’s why I was surprised I had no luck in recruiting any of my dad friends to come with Wyatt and me to see the 2008 RoboGames at Fort Mason Center last weekend. RoboGames is a massive robot competition with the star attraction being robot fights. These are the kind of robot battles you may have seen on TV, in which the robots attack each other with pneumatic hammers, saw blades, flame throwers, and other weapons inside a bullet-proof glass arena. There were many other competitions, including bipod races and Robot Sumo, lots of vendors showing their robot wares and robot enthusiasts exhibiting various robot projects.

One dad said to me, “[I don't want to take my kid because] then I’d have to explain to him why the robots are fighting.” I find this baffling. What’s to explain? It’s like Wyatt says, “All robots do is walk, walk, walk, walk and fight.” Different parenting styles I guess.

I managed to get some good photos and videos. We were too busy watching the fights to take many pictures of that aspect of the show, but there’s good links to videos of the fights and stuff on BotJunkie.

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