A few weeks ago my friend BOB (aka Bob Pitzer of BotBash LLC) asked me to help develop a detailed game format and rules for a new robot competition he's been working on - BashBall!   Since I have lots of experience at this sort of thing and had some time on my hands I said "sure", and were were off!.

BashBall combines the visceral excitement of one-on-one robot combat with the strategy of team play in a fast-paced ball game requiring speed, skill, and brute force.  Two teams of remotely-operated robots vie for points by scoring goals, ejecting opponents from the arena, disabling opponents, or all three in any combination.  BashBall is played in an enclosed arena with transparent walls featuring pneumatically operated pits, flame jets, and “death blossom” pistons that pop up from the floor.  Scoring goals in this environment is not easy, and every match is sure to feature plenty of exciting action - at least, that's what we THINK will happen.  Time will tell.

Since the introduction of fighting robots in 1994 at the original “Robot Wars” in San Francisco combat among remote controlled robots has followed the same basic format:  one on one combat on a flat floor.  There have been some variations along the way, but in the end the winner is usually decided by single combat, with the results based on damage caused.   The natural evolution of fighting robots following this format has produced two dominant designs:  very destructive robots with kinetic energy weapons, and low, wedgy bricks designed to survive these weapons.  This has led to stagnation in the hobby and the loss of many people who grew bored and moved on.

The idea behind BashBall is simple:  to move away from "silver boxes mating" interspersed with periodic sprays of shrapnel and into an engaging team sport that includes the most fun aspects of "robot fighting" and adds strategy and team play.  We expect there to be some damage to the robots, but not the total destruction often seen in "tradtional" damage-based events.   Disabling an opponent might be smart strategy in BashBall, but to win the game you need to score points.

Detailed rules for BashBall and robot construction can be found at:

http://botbash.architeuthis-dux.org/botbash-ball-rules-2007.pdf
http://botbash.architeuthis-dux.org/Botbash-RFLTechRegs-2007-06.pdf

Video of an earlier version of the game is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJCAZCx_iKw  and more BotBash videos are on our YouTube channel:http://www.youtube.com/botbash.