Create your own powerful battling robot from start to finish using this easy-to-follow manual. Robotics experts Pete Miles and Tom Carroll explain the science and technology behind robots, and show you what materials you need to build and program a robot for home, school, and competition.

Enter the arena of the metal gladiators Do you have what it takes to build a battle-ready robot? You do now. Here are the plans, step-by-step directions, and expert advice that will put you in competition-while you have a heck of a lot of fun getting there. Grant Imahara, the creator of the popular BattleBot Deadblow, shares everything he’s learned about robot design, tools and techniques for metal working, the parts you need and where to get them, and plenty of tips to keep you off the ropes. When you’re finished, you’ll be ready to rumble. Just a few of the topics you'll learn: Robot design 101 Chemicals and power tools Popular materials compared Cutting your armor Things to know about screws Top ten drive motors Bearings, casters, couplers, and U-joints Roller chains and sprockets Better traction through chemistry Choosing speeding controls Batteries and wiring The driving test Rammers, hammers and crushers

The author, a BattleBot promoter and an authority in the combat robot arena, covers everything you need to know about adding weapons to your combat robots, spinners, hammers, lifters, flippers, projectiles, flame throwers, wedges and more. Features numerous diagrams and pictures of the actual building process so readers can work along with the book. The CD-ROM contains all the plans needed for building robot weapons and adding them to your combat robot with maximum results.

With exclusive interviews and hundreds of full-color photos, this all-encompassing guide to fully enjoying and appreciating the BattleBots robots and competitions is great for any fan.

Three different "build reports" make constructing your own battling robot simple. CD-ROM contains plans for building your battling robot.

It's an ear-splitting, gut-crunching, armor-crashing, booby-trapped fight to the death and the fastest-growing sport on television -- the world of hard-driving robot combat. Millions watch as these metallic maulers, handmade with a vengeance by technical wizards, slash, buzz, and hammer each other into a crowd-pleasing pulp in awesome displays of motorized muscle. This is the only A to Z guide to the fascinating world of mechanical warriors -- from the best Bots in the business to the inventors who created them. Whether you want to build and fight your own robot, learn more about the sport, or get a close-up, behind-the-scenes look at every bit of the action, this comprehensive book delivers it all -- the guts, the gears, and the pulverizing glory! Book jacket.

In the early nineties, a visionary special-effects guru named Marc Thorpe conjured a field of dreams different from any the world had seen before: It would be framed by unbreakable plastic instead of cornstalks; populated not by ghostly ballplayers but by remote-controlled robots, armed to the steely teeth, fighting in a booby-trapped ring. If you built it, they'd come all right.... In Gearheads, Newsweek technology correspondent Brad Stone examines the history of robotic sports, from their cultish early years at universities and sci-fi conventions to today's televised extravaganzas -- and the turmoil that threatened the whole enterprise almost from the beginning. By turns a lively historical narrative, a legal thriller, and an exploration of a cultural and technological phenomenon, Gearheads is a funny and fascinating look at the sport of the future today.

Military robots and other, potentially autonomous robotic systems such as unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) could soon be introduced to the battlefield. Look further into the future and we may see autonomous micro- and nanorobots armed and deployed in swarms of thousands or even millions. This growing automation of warfare may come to represent a major discontinuity in the history of warfare: humans will first be removed from the battlefield and may one day even be largely excluded from the decision cycle in future high-tech and high-speed robotic warfare. Although the current technological issues will no doubt be overcome, the greatest obstacles to automated weapons on the battlefield are likely to be legal and ethical concerns. Armin Krishnan explores the technological, legal and ethical issues connected to combat robotics, examining both the opportunities and limitations of autonomous weapons. He also proposes solutions to the future regulation of military robotics through international law.

Combat robotics is a sport that is practiced world-wide. It attracts all kinds of participants, especially people interested in technology, engineering, machine design, computer science, new technologies and their trends. The competitions involve one-on-one duels between radio-controlled robotic vehicles in a bulletproof arena. RioBotz is the Robotic Competition team from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The team is formed by control, mechanical and electrical engineering undergraduate students from the University. This 374-page tutorial tries to summarize the knowledge learned and developed by the team since its creation in 2003. It includes the information on competing as well as designing and building combat robots. This tutorial also includes build reports from all combat robots from RioBotz, including detailed drawings and photos, totaling almost 900 figures.

Soldier-robot teams will be an important component of future battle spaces, creating a complex but potentially more survivable and effective combat force. The complexity of the battlefield of the future presents its own problems. The variety of robotic systems and the almost infinite number of possible military missions create a dilemma for researchers who wish to predict human-robot interactions (HRI) performance in future environments. Human-Robot Interactions in Future Military Operations provides an opportunity for scientists investigating military issues related to HRI to present their results cohesively within a single volume. The issues range from operators interacting with small ground robots and aerial vehicles to supervising large, near-autonomous vehicles capable of intelligent battlefield behaviors. The ability of the human to 'team' with intelligent unmanned systems in such environments is the focus of the volume. As such, chapters are written by recognized leaders within their disciplines and they discuss their research in the context of a broad-based approach. Therefore the book allows researchers from differing disciplines to be brought up to date on both theoretical and methodological issues surrounding human-robot interaction in military environments. The overall objective of this volume is to illuminate the challenges and potential solutions for military HRI through discussion of the many approaches that have been utilized in order to converge on a better understanding of this relatively complex concept. It should be noted that many of these issues will generalize to civilian applications as robotic technology matures. An important outcome is the focus on developing general human-robot teaming principles and guidelines to help both the human factors design and training community develop a better understanding of this nascent but revolutionary technology. Much of the research within the book is based on the Human Research and Engineering Directorate (HRED), U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) 5-year Army Technology Objective (ATO) research program. The program addressed HRI and teaming for both aerial and ground robotic assets in conjunction with the U.S. Army Tank and Automotive Research and Development Center (TARDEC) and the Aviation and Missile Development Center (AMRDEC) The purpose of the program was to understand HRI issues in order to develop and evaluate technologies to improve HRI battlefield performance for Future Combat Systems (FCS). The work within this volume goes beyond the research results to encapsulate the ATO's findings and discuss them in a broader context in order to understand both their military and civilian implications. For this reason, scientists conducting related research have contributed additional chapters to widen the scope of the original research boundaries.