Because the Olympics are still a year away, why not engage in some friendly international robot feud. In a video released last week by MegaBots, creator of giant piloted fighting robots (the kind you see in sci-fi movies) challenged Japanese robotics company Suidobashi Heavy Industry to a robot throw-down.
Suidobashi has its own line of fighting robots called Kuratas that went on sale in January for almost $1 million.
MegaBots robots stand at 15-foot-tall and are operated by internal pilots that can fire cannonball-sized paintballs at speeds of over 120 miles per hour. As the robots battle, armor panels crack and break off, smoke and sparks pour out of the robots, limbs eventually fall off, and robots fall to the ground until only one is left standing, according to MegaBots.
In MegaBots’ YouTube video, the company challenged Suidobashi to a robot fight.
MegaBots co-founder Matt Oehrlein reeled Suidobashi in with his words:
“You have a giant robot, we have a giant robot. You know what needs to happen. We challenge you to a duel. In one year, we fight.”
Now, Suidobashi has accepted the U.S.A.’s challenge and is demanding “that hand-to-hand combat between 5-ton robots be part of the duel,” according to MegaBots’ Facebook update.
Watch MegaBots challenge Japan.
MegaBots Inc is a US-based start-up that launched a Kickstarter campaign in November 2014 to create giant human-piloted robots that could battle on another. Unfortunately, its campaign failed by a 3D-modelling software company called Autodesk was really into the idea and agreed to back the company’s first fully-functional prototype called the MegaBots Mark 2.
