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MegaBots calls it quits, puts battle robots on eBay
The era of giant battle robots appears to be over... although you might have a chance to bring it back. MegaBots has gone bankrupt after once again running out of money, and it's auctioning its 16-foot-tall Eagle Prime robot on eBay as part of the shutdown. It's a fully functional bot that even includes weapon attachments, CAD files and a shipping container full of parts, and the only real damages are its battle scars and some worn-down plastic pads. The real challenges are the support costs, as MegaBots and its co-founder Matt Oehrlein explained.
MegaBots wants to crowdfund a tournament for 2018
Once upon a time (in 2015), a crew of enthusiasts built the robot concept Eagle Prime and did what you do with a 15-foot-tall metal beast: Challenge its Japanese equivalent, Kuratas, to a duel. Years later, the creations finally duked it out in an incredible brawl that seemed -- and then turned out to be -- heavily edited. The cold reality was heartbreaking, but the team behind Eagle Prime wants to make it right...by hosting a massive robot tournament at the end of 2018. They just have to raise $950,000 on Kickstarter to put it on.
This week’s ‘live’ giant robot battle was fake
We've been following the development of the giant robot battle for years now, and it finally took place earlier this week. Engadget writer Saqib Shah said of the live stream, "the entire event may have been as choreographed as a WWE match, but it was strangely watchable regardless." Well, it turns out that Saqib was right on the nose. Motherboard revealed, in a move that broke all our hearts, that there was absolutely nothing "live" about the "live streamed" fight. The actual epic robot battle took place over days, and the constant repairs were removed from the footage.
USA and Japan's giant robot battle was a slow, brilliant mess
The oft-delayed giant robot fight has finally taken place. On Tuesday, Team USA's mechs scrapped it out with Japan's Kuratas in an abandoned steel mill for the world to watch. There could only be one victor, and it proved to be the red, white, and blue. Yes, the MegaBots team representing America came out on top, but not before three gruelling rounds of robopocalypse.
Epic giant robot battle scheduled for October 17th
Are you ready for the world's first giant robot fight? (If your answer to that was "No," who even are you?) We've been waiting for a date for the MegaBots vs. Suidobashi duel, and now it's finally here. The fight will take place on October 17th, 2017 at 10:00 PM ET. It will be streamed worldwide on Twitch. If you miss the live stream, you can catch it on YouTube and Facebook immediately after the event concludes.
China takes its turn at a giant fighting robot
MegaBots' giant robot duel might just turn into a full-scale brawl. Beijing outfit Greatmetal has unveiled a prototype of Monkey King, China's take on an enormous battle machine. It's still human-piloted, but it has a distinct trick up its sleeve: it can either fight on all fours (good for stability) or stand on its hind legs to wield a staff. While we wouldn't expect wuxia-style acrobatics out of this bot, it could throw a curveball into what was otherwise set to be a relatively straightforward fight.
Giant murderbots will fight for their countries in August
Who's ready for a robot rumble? Back in 2015, we told you about MegaBots, a team of American engineers building a piloted combat robot to battle Kuratas, a 13-foot mech built by Japanese company Suidobashi Heavy Industries. Two years later, it looks like the big fight is finally happening. The Giant Robot Duel will take place this August, MegaBots today announced.
Watch what it takes to build a 350HP combat robot right here
Our dreams of watching giant robots battle it out in front of us have almost come true. The folks behind the MegaBots Kickstarter have released the first trailer for their upcoming web series that follows the trials and tribulations of building a 10-ton, 350HP combat robot. The team hired an Emmy-nominated video team to capture all the gory details, and it sounds like the main event -- a hand-to-hand battle against Japan's Kuratas robot -- will be the season finale.
America's giant robot needs funding to fight Japanese rival
It turns out that giant robot duels are really expensive, as America's MegaBots team has just launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $500,000 in its fight against Japan's Kuratas. It was MegaBots group (aka Team USA) that demanded the battle in the first place, and Japan gladly accepted on one condition -- the fight must be "melee" hand-to-hand combat. However, that constraint has upped the costs for Team USA. To accommodate melee instead of robot paintball, they need to give their robot more speed and add heavy armor plating, more firepower, better hydraulics and a new power unit.
Giant Japanese robot will fistfight America's MegaBot
Get set for a live-action version of Transformers, as the company behind giant Japanese robot Kuratas has accepted a duel challenge from upstart US challenger MegaBot. However, it'll only fight on one condition: Combat must be hand-to-hand with no guns. Kuratas has been around for three years and even went on sale for $1.35 million at one point. Since MegaBot was only just completed, the Japanese company was taken aback by the offer to fight. Still, it couldn't resist needling its new rival. "My reaction? Come on guys, make it cooler. Just building something huge and sticking guns on it is... super American," said CEO Kogoro Kurata.
Giant American robot wants to lay the smackdown on Japanese rival
Two giant robots with blazing guns is what apocalyptic nightmares and Michael Bay films are made of. While those autonomous machines continue to live in the fictional world, a breed of towering rideable robots is becoming a reality. One such machine is the MegaBot, a 15-foot tall bot large enough to seat two pilots. Unlike Hollywood's gun-wielding destructive machines, this one is armed with a paintball gun and is now ready to use it. But, of course, the Megabot needs someone its own size to pick on. So the aviator-wearing co-creators of this behemoth, draped in American flags, have thrown down the gauntlet and challenged the 12-foot tall Japanese KURATAS robot to a duel.
Startup wants to raise $1.8 million to build giant fighting robots
The folks at MegaBots Inc. dream of making humongous machines: 15-foot-tall, 15,000-pound piloted robots to be exact. And they don't want to build them for rescue missions or military use -- nope, these robots are designed to duke it out in an arena à la Real Steel, except instead of using fists, they shoot each other with high-powered paint guns. A now-defunct convention called RoboGames used to have a real-life robot combat event, but this startup's plans are obviously a lot grander in scale. Each MegaBot is big enough to carry a pilot and a gunner within its body (just like in mecha anime), with the latter in charge of firing paint-filled projectiles going at 120 mph at their opponents.
MegaBots wants to make your giant battle mech dreams come true
Walk around New York Comic Con and you'll see plenty of celebrities of the nerd world and more cosplay than is comfortable. You might not see too many robots, however. Thankfully MegaBots makes up for what previous years have lacked. Just outside the main exhibition hall on the third floor of the Jacob Javits Center looms the MegaBot Mark I -- a 15-foot, 15,000-pound beast that looks every bit ready for war. The president won't be airdropping the Mark I into Iraq anytime soon, but creators Andrew Stroup, Matt Oehrlein and Gui Cavalcanti intend to pit it against other over-sized mechanized creations in battle.
