Legos put to good use in Sumo Robotic Championship

We've seen a whole lot of good things come from the creative minds of Lego builders and those Mindstorm kits that fuel them, but we can't say anything has been quite as visceral as this 2007 DivX Lego Sumo Robotic Championship. Bots compete head to head, ramming each other out of the ring -- or more often than not, blindly searching for an opponent to ram. Seven bots competed in the second round of the fights, and "No Screwdriver Needed" was on the scene with play-by-play video and snarky commentary. Our personal fave? "The Bird," which attempts to fool its opponents into climbing over its deployed wings. Who knew Legos and subterfuge mixed so well?

[Ben @ Feb 2nd 2007 3:56AM]

I, for one, would welcome no comments about our new legobot overlords.

[Olly @ Feb 2nd 2007 4:27AM]

dammit people, the plural of lego is lego! it's not just the Antfarm(TM!) people who'll come after you :p

[BrotherEstapol @ Feb 2nd 2007 4:52AM]

My god, is it THAT hard to learn...plural of Lego = Lego. :P

For christ's sake, you people are butchering the english language! >_<


Anyway, it's always good to see people putting Lego to good use. :)

[HUKI365 @ Feb 2nd 2007 5:03AM]

Again: not Legos. Plural of Lego is Lego. Just like lots of sheep aren't "sheeps".

[nh @ Feb 2nd 2007 5:23AM]

s/Legos/Lego/gs

[Legodude522 @ Feb 2nd 2007 5:48AM]

Muhahahah!

teh 13g05 pwnz0rz!!!

[Markp.com @ Feb 2nd 2007 6:06AM]

Thank god the comment writers are not as stupid as Engadget's article writers and know how to use the simple word LEGO! Every time Engadget, every 'effing time. What is wrong with you people?

[tom @ Feb 2nd 2007 7:26AM]

At our University we've been organizing a robot sumo championship for our students. Two years ago we used Lego robots, but now switched to our own robots.

Check the championship's page (in Spanish) at http://www.fing.edu.uy/inco/eventos/sumo.uy

[Nathan M @ Feb 2nd 2007 8:06AM]

Can I be the first to say this is rather old news? People've been using lego for sumobots for the longest time, I even saw lego sumos at a competition three years ago. :P

[mcheddadi @ Feb 2nd 2007 10:19AM]

Since when has streaming Divx been such high quality?! :O

[lament @ Feb 2nd 2007 5:22PM]

It's always been high quality. You're used to crappy YouTube Flash video. :)

[Nick @ Feb 2nd 2007 6:46PM]

Wow, how about something not totally lame. FIRST Lego League for instance... Something they does an excellent job of getting young kids interested in robotics and technology and does a mighty fine job keeping kids involved with other stuff before they even get to the age where drugs are an issue...

http://www.usfirst.org/community/fll/default.aspx?id=970

[Tom @ Feb 4th 2007 12:44AM]

Haah i did this very thing in Grade 10 programming. It was great fun, we had a riot. Really good introduction to programming if you ask me, way better than directing a turtle around a screen.

[Kal @ Feb 4th 2007 5:17AM]

Wow, coulda fooled me. FLL seemed kinda lame in comparison to fighting robutts

[Ratz @ Feb 5th 2007 7:58AM]

Whilst I wholeheartedly agree it's lego not legos, on a similar note, please please learn that the plural of euro is euro not euros. If you want confirmation, look at an n-euro bank note, it says "n euro" not "n euros".

[domo @ Feb 6th 2007 1:25PM]

Lego are no longer blind, see this link :
http://www.pob-technology.com/blog/

[robo @ Apr 10th 2007 5:10PM]

Actually, the plural of Lego is Legot... (If you really want to get snippy): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego#Trivia.

Also, how can you call it butchering the English language, when the word is a combination of two Danish words?