CYBERSPORTS FOLLOW ALONG WITH THE BATTLE OF THE NETWORK BOTS.Byline: - Tom Hoffarth --The book: ``BattleBots BattleBots is an American company that hosts robot competitions. BattleBots is also the name of the television show created from the competition footage, and a nickname for the combat robots which compete. BattleBots Inc. : The Official Guide'' --The author: Mark Clarkson --The essential info: McGraw Hill/Osborne, $24.95, 229 pages --The objective: ``Though BattleBots is an inherently technical subject, (this) is a fun book ... highly visual, with hundreds of sexy full-color photographs of your favorite BattleBots and their builders,'' writes the author. Not sure if ``sexy'' is the right word there, but whatever shifts your gears. --The Valley connection: The competition seen weekly on Comedy Central (Tuesdays, 10 p.m.) has local roots in co-founder Trey Roski, who grew up in North Hollywood (and is the son of Kings co-owner Ed Roski). He got together with cousins Greg Munson and Garner Moss and became interested in something called Robot Wars Robot Wars was a US based robot competition from 1994-1997, and is a British game show broadcast on BBC Two from 1997 until 2002, with a final series broadcast on Five in 2003. The show ran for nine series, including two 'Extreme' series. in the mid-'90s. The first full-on BattleBots competition was Aug. 14-15, 1999, at the Pyramid pyramid, structure pyramid. The true pyramid exists only in Egypt, though the term has also been applied to similar structures in other countries. Egyptian pyramids are square in plan and their triangular sides, which directly face the points of the at Long Beach State (Roski's alma mater ma·ter n. Chiefly British Mother. [Latin m  ter; see m ), and 60 robots
(with their creators) showed up for it. A TV production company from New
York New York, state, United StatesNew York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of picked it up and tried a pay-per-view event in November 1999. That led to a deal with Comedy Central and a highly successful series that starts its fifth season next month. ``Comedy Central may put a funny spin on the show,'' says Munson in the book, ``but the bottom line is that BattleBots is a straight-up sport.'' Echoes Roski: ``BattleBots is true. There's nothing set up. There's nothing fake.'' --The rest of the book: Meet the builders. Meet the machines (more than 500 of them, and learn each of their turn-ons and turn-offs). Learn how to build your own bot (1) (roBOT) A program used on the Internet that performs a repetitive function such as posting a message to multiple newsgroups or searching for information or news. Bots are used to provide comparison shopping. Bots also keep a channel open on the Internet Relay Chat (IRC). . Just be careful: Don't over-volt the motor. --More information: The official Web site (www.battlebots.com) also has tips, official rules, regulations and an online store to buy the book. |
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