Real-Life Battle Mechs to Duke It Out

You've seen them in movies like Transformers and Pacific Rim, and stepped behind the controls in video games like MechWarrior. But giant fighting robots have always been fantasy — until now. A company called MegaBots, Inc. recently completed construction of a real-life "mech": a 12 ton, 15-foot-tall paintball-shooting behemoth called the MegaBot Mark II. A pilot controls the Mark II from a cage inside the robot's body, and for those who grew up playing the video game versions, seeing the real thing in action is pretty thrilling. There's only one thing missing: an opponent (junkyard cars don't count). So MegaBots issued a challenge to their rivals, the Japanese robotics company Suidobashi Heavy Industry, to a fight sometime next year. That's right, there are two companies working on giant fighting robots. They're just doing it for fun, though! Nothing to worry about.

The challenge video earned nearly 3,000,000 views in just four days. Then, on Sunday July 5, Suidobashi replied with this: 

So what's involved in getting ready for a giant robotic deathmatch? "The next steps are figuring out the ground rules that we can all agree to, deciding on a location, figuring out how to get both robots to the location, and then upgrading our robot for the fight," wrote Gui Cavalcanti of MegaBots in an email to Studio 360. Last week, MegaBots accepted Suidobashi's acceptance (so many formalities with this dueling stuff) with a new video, playing up the whole 'Merica angle. 

YouTube comments are flooded with talk of getting tickets to the fight, possible entrants from other countries, and, of course, wagers over who will win. One potential obstacle: the MegaBots founders mention a Kickstarter to help them make the next round of improvements on the Mark II, but their last attempt at crowdfunding didn't go so well. Despite getting lots of press, their November 2014 Kickstarter failed to reach its goal of $1.8 million. Maybe this time, with national pride on the line, they'll find a few more backers.