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U.S. startup challenges Japanese firm to giant robot battle

Xinhua, November 19, 2015 Adjust font size:

A startup in the United States has challenged a Japanese robot manufacturer to the world's first-ever giant robot duel in hopes to turn what is now a hobby into a sport.

MegaBots Inc., based in Oakland, North California, built a year ago a robot called Mark II, which is about 4.6 meters tall, and needed a fit opponent to prove that giant robot fighting could be just as popular as Monster Truck shows.

It reached out to Suidobashi Heavy Industries, trying to convince the Japanese company to take its giant machine, the 4.0-meter Kuratas, in an old fashioned duel.

MegaBots launched a campaign on Kickstarter, an online crowdfunding platform, where it openly challenged the Tokyo-based company. The Japanese firm took up the challenge this week, though the location and date of such a battle is not yet disclosed.

It filmed a video and released it on July 4, the U.S. Independence Day, to tease Suidobashi Heavy Industries. One of MegaBots' co-founders, Matt Oehrlein, said "we filmed the Kickstarter video full of U.S. flags and patriotic paraphernalia, so it was a fun way to defy the Japanese."

The challenge, Oehrlein said, is a publicity stunt aimed at generating expectation about giant robot battles, in hopes to create a professional sports league. And the Kickstarter campaign raised over half a million U.S. dollars to tweak the Mark II and make it ready for the upcoming fight.

"The Mark II is massive, but it was slow and didn't have as many features as the Kuratas, so we worked on it and we are now ready for the challenge."

MegaBots was launched last year, after Guy Cavalcanti and Brinkley Warren, robotics engineer and mechanic engineer respectively, joined software and electronic engineer Oehrlein to create a sport that involves giant robots fighting like gladiators on the arena.

"We had the skills and the means," Oehrlein said, "so we joined hands to fulfill a long-time dream, something that was promised over and over on the television and video games, but was not getting any closer."

The Mark II is operated much like its counterpart, the Kuratas. An operator pilots the robot inside a cockpit, controlling its limbs and paint-ball missiles.

MegaBots said it spent a little over 200,000 dollars on material for the humanoid bot. Its builders foresee a future where each country will build its own robot team and make them fight for the world's champion title in some kind of robot Olympics.

"It is not much more expensive than Monster Truck fights. It would just be really cool to see giant robots fight to the death, while the crowd cheers," Oehrlein said. Endi