MegaBots wants to crowdfund a tournament for 2018
$950,000 for a four-bot brawl.
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.
It's not too crazy, given that the team crowdfunded over $550,000 years ago for the Eagle Prime vs. Kuratas duel. Should the new funding goal be met, Eagle Prime will join three other bots (seven, if stretch goals are met) to fight for glory in an unannounced 20,000-seat San Francisco location. Two Chinese teams (and their bots) are in talks to enter, with additional interest from groups in the US, Canada, Japan and South Korea, according to MegaBots' press release.
MegaBots is portraying the tournament as a redemption tour of sorts that goes beyond a mea culpa for the match's deception. "We want to say that it has always been our intention to create a live, unscripted sport, and this is the culmination of that drive," MegaBots cofounder and CEO Gui Cavalcanti told Engadget.
The matches are a crucial step in making their robot combat sport a reality, MegaBots says in its press material. To that end, if the crowdfunding campaign makes stretch goals, the company will open source one of their older robot designs to facilitate other teams' research efforts.
MegaBots stated that it will most likely fold if this crowdfunding goal isn't met. If you want a tournament of robots fighting each other -- and who doesn't -- then the Kickstarter can be found here.
