Android-Controlled Battle Robots Go To War (Video)

Video no longer available.

Let's pretend for a moment that your name is Google. You want to have lots of developers working with your stuff. So you hold a Google Input|Output 2012 event. You have Sergey Brin showing off Google Glass, but most of your show consists of talks with titles like Integrate Web Intents into Your Web Application Today and What's New in Android?... which is all great fun, but also a tad boring. Luckily, somebody at Google piped up and said, "I know! We need Android-controlled fighting robots!" And they contacted the Stupid Fun Club, and Lo! There were Android-controlled robots fighting on the show floor, and all was right with the world.

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Re:

[Intropy]

Am I supposed to be impressed or something?

No, you are supposed to be amused. Not your cup of tea? Fine. But you should see a doctor about the stick.

Re:So?

[ozmanjusri]

Am I supposed to be impressed or something?

Interested, perhaps.

Android has some serious tools to help with robotics and autonomous vehicles, and being open source, it's nice to learn on, and free.

Android Open Accessory Development Kit (ADK)

http://developer.android.com/tools/adk/index.html [android.com]

Arduino SDK board

http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardADK [arduino.cc]

There's been a huge surge in robotics projects as a result.

Re:

[Abreu]

OH NO! That crazy lady and her weirdo kid were right! Google is Skynet! We are all doomed!!

Good for the robot!

[Anonymous Coward]

With closed sourced robots, the adversary could capture the robot and torture it into revealing the 'source'. Using open source Android eliminates that danger.

MINDDROID

[uhuru_meditation]

I really like when something like that gets reported as an invention and makes a career for some nerd. LEGO made Android App Open Sourced and GPL'ed 3 already 2 years ago...that does just that and more.

Ah....

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I knew that there was an explanation for the increasingly unnerving convergence in style between Verizon's "Droid" advertisements and the USAF's "The Reaper is Watching" recruitment materials...

Re:

[GrumpySteen]

None of them. The video is embedded in the page. The links are all to stuff that's related to the story.

Transcript

[QuasiSteve]

Until Slashdot decides to embed video through HTML5 video tags, I guess you'd just have to enable Flash in your mobile browser.

Here's the transcript anyway.
-----
Title: Android-Controlled Lego Battle Robots Go To war
Description: Google Input|Output 2012 has Android-controlled fighting Lego robots bringing havoc to the show floor! Slashdot takes you there!

00:00 TITLE
Timothy is shown standing in a hallway with the SlashdotTV logo bar reading "Timothy Lord meets Stupid Fun Club (and Lab)'s Michael Winter &

wow - so boring!!!!

[ushere]

if i want talking heads i'll go to ted. some guy rabbiting on - on screen - about robot battles is about as exciting as watching paint peel.

Link anyone?

[TrueSpeed]

So where do I download this Android iOS?

Finally Google beats Apple at something

[dohzer]

I've been waiting for Google to give the average person something useful that Apple doesn't.

Re:

[Nerdfest]

Swype keyboard. I can't imagine using a touch keyboard without that functionality. There's the usual replacable battery, expandable storage, USB hosting, standard connectors, etc as well.

Re:

[issicus]

exactly my thought. I think we all know how remote controls work.

time to join the Resistance?

[PopeRatzo]

Android-Controlled Battle Robots Go To War

I'm too lazy to go read the article, but will somebody please tell me that this story is about a play battle with a bunch of nerds with raspberry pi-on-wheels RC cars and is NOT about the Rise of the Machines?

I'm not going to touch my smartphone until I get the All Clear. I've got tongs and gloves and I will put this thing in the microwave if there's any danger . But for all I know, the microwave is in on it, too. You know, I could swear that the phone's been vibrating in a much more violent way lately. Thing goes off on the table next to my bed and it sounds like somebody's using a chain saw to cut through the floor. "Haptic feedback", my ass. This thing is trying to get up and walk!

I've been wondering how long before the Cloud becomes sentient. But then, I've also been wondering if I could juice a frozen pizza, so that doesn't really mean very much. I do more than my fair share of wondering.

Oh hell, it's going in the Microwave. Nobody's responded to this post yet, so maybe they've shot off an EMP blast or something and it's like Fallout 3 outside. If not, I'm going to go ahead and give this bitch 2 minutes on "defrost" just as a warning. To show it who's boss.

Re:

[amiga3D]

Man, I don't know what's wrong with you but just reading that made my head hurt.

Re:

[PopeRatzo]

just reading that made my head hurt.

With practice, you may find that reading becomes less painful if you don't move your lips.

I've heard Hooked on Phonics is good for that.

Re:

[amiga3D]

Heh, I don't really mind reading so much. It's when there are many words that connect to make no sense. My mind keeps trying to produce order from chaos causing pain after many readings culminate in failure.

Re:

[youme]

I also wonder, and I also wander

Distastefull

[ironman_one]

Am I the only one here to get a bad taste from this. Take a loved childtoy and a open operaring system and develp a weapon? This is somthing I expected from the bully in ToyStory. Why not develop a electric chair from lego controlled by android when you already have started?

Re:

[jsh1972]

Hmmmmm... electric Lego chair! Great idea, you can make a hole in the seat so hole in the bottom of the chair for easy clean up, any bricks melted in the process are Easily replaced. You, sir, are a genius! Well, off to the patent office... first to file, and all that... thanks! I'll even give you credit (just no royalties). I'll call it the iron electric iron dead man one extreme!

Nope.

[jon3k]

Saw commercial, closed tab.

Oblig

[Jimbob The Mighty]

Yo Dawg, I heard you like androids, so I put an Android in your android...