Robot Wars: Build Your Own Robot
In one corner of the debate on the future – or otherwise – of humanity sits Professor Stephen Hawking, physicist and cosmologist, one of the most learned and respected thinkers of our age, who in December 2014 warned the BBC that “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”
In the other corner sits roboticist Randall Munroe, creator of the webcomic xkcd, as quoted in the edition of New Scientist dated 23rd December 2017: “What people don’t appreciate, when they picture Terminator-style automatons striding triumphantly across a mountain of human skulls, is how hard it is to keep your footing on something as unstable as a mountain of human skulls.”
The rise of the machines the herald considered in science fiction literature from Arthur C Clarke‘s Dial F for Frankenstein, originally published in Playboy in January 1964, where a global telephone exchange which prefigures the internet gains sentience (“For Homo Sapiens, the telephone bell had tolled…”) through to Westworld and Ken MacLeod’s recent trilogy The Corporation Wars, the technological singularity has primarily been a thought experiment rather than a practical exercise, but this is not to say that certain aspects have not played out in real terms.
Published to coincide with the most recent series of the long-running television show Robot Wars, the tenth across two runs from 1998 to 2003 and 2016 to the present, Haynes’ Build Your Own Robot is a departure from their recent media tie-ins such as the Spectrum Agents’ Manual or the Ectomobile Owners’ Workshop Manual in that it is more in keeping with their traditional car maintenance manuals with an approach which is extremely technical, an encouragement to both understand the processes behind the show and to participate.
Written by James and Grant Cooper, fans since childhood who are now involved in the production through their company Robo Challenge Ltd, they are well placed to discuss the show as experienced by viewers and competitors and also equipped to comprehensively explain the machinery and discuss design and function and how they inform the personality of each weaponised mechanical creation.
Opening with a brief history containing archival material dating to before the first Stateside events, four years before the BBC 2 launch, despite the changing format of the show and the evolution of the robots as their technological specifications became more advanced, the need for strict guidelines in order that they all play on a level playing field is constantly emphasised, as is the need for safety.
“There will always be new ways of having accidents” the book cautions, pointing out that rules are in place for a reason, and while it is to be expected that the robots will be damaged, possibly severely, neither operators nor the studio audience should ever be placed in any danger, and protection from flying debris is as important in the design of the arena as failsafes and power cut-outs in the machines themselves in order to prevent them running “rogue” should their control systems be compromised.
There is, perhaps understandably considering the target audience of the manual, an expectation of familiarity, and while such details as weapon types, flippers and grippers and spinners, are covered in detail in later sections a brief explanation when the terms are introduced would not have gone amiss, nor a more thorough proof-reading and fact checking, with Daleks being referred to as androids at one point.
A large section of the book devoted to step-by-step illustrated instructions on how to build three robots of increasing size and capability, these are hugely complex machines, the Brothers Cooper sharing their deep insight into the engineering behind their construction, though in attempting to convey the kinetic action of the battleground in prose they do somewhat overcompensate with an abundance of exclamation marks.
With conflicting demands of weight, cost, reliability, stability, power, battery life, points of failure, weaponry and armour, a complex web of factors to be considered, it is apparent that a cheap bargain rarely is, and beyond these physical factors and the comprehensive appendices of rules, competitors and matches there is also a useful section on strategy entitled “How to win Robot Wars;” there is likely no better place to start than with this guide.
Robot Wars: Build Your Own Robot is available now from Haynes
