If you aren’t as involved in the nerd sphere as I am, then you probably missed the Season 2 premiere of "BattleBots." What’s "BattleBots," you say? Well, it’s simple — think of it as a gladiatorial fight but instead of human fighters there are robots (remember the show is named "BattleBots"). The robots are outfitted with weapons and armor, that are built by small teams of people (some have engineers but a lot of the time they are just simple nerds). These aren’t simple robots either, they are huge robots outfitted with weapons such as war hammers, flamethrowers, huge flippers, and more. It’s cool because these are huge war machines made by simple people, however, the appeal of this show does not stop there.
The attractive feature besides the fact that you have huge machines going at each other lies in the personality of the individual teams. Think of each robot like a wrestler, and the team of drivers behind it as the personality that makes the robot feel alive. Even though a lot of the robots use similar weapons or designs the color schemes and interactions of the drivers make the competition really fan interactive. Often you’ll get teams who dress up in a theme for their robot, such as the team of drivers behind the robot named Witch Doctor. The team has fun with their unique look and will often dress up in clothes that resemble well a witch doctor. There is another team led by a former marine who comes out saluting the American Flag every time (their bot is deadly and well a great representation for American ingenuity). The crowd really gets behind the teams, and that’s the fun of the competition. You get to find a bot with a style that you love wholeheartedly. I mean teams and people come from over the world and bring their own foreign flare to the competition. Like I said earlier, it’s like watching wrestling, if the wrestlers breathed fire and flipped opponents with over 300lbs of force.
"BattleBots" is something like the marriage between gearheads and fight fans. We already know about the personalities of some of the fighters, but at the end of the day the tech is what wins the fights (sadly the judges don’t judge based on personality otherwise my personal favorites would win). A lot of the bots use amazingly deadly weapons. In the show, you get blades that spin faster than most cars, drones, spikes, and not to mention flamethrowers. I’ll say it louder for those in the back, they use freaking flamethrowers. How cool is that? You literally get t watch war machines duke it out with actual weapons (don’t worry the actual crowd is protected by a layer of bulletproof glass). This season of the show allows for drone warfare which just adds flight to an already crazy equation.
"BattleBots" is the new sports show for nerds. It combines personality and nerdom into one excitable package. You get to see modern day marvels of engineering that can be built by kids (there are several young challengers in the lineup of the show). For a kid who grew up watching the original show, this revamp gives me a reason to be excited. I often find myself cheering at the tv and flinching as the sparks fly literally. The show takes the excitement of STEM and makes it accessible to everyone. In my humble opinion, you need to watch this show. Feel free to check it out on Thursdays at 9 p.m. this summer.
