If you've ever wanted to see robots pummel each other with paintballs, here's your chance: the company Suidobashi Heavy Industry, which has designed a giant fighter robot, has responded to U.S.-based firm MegaBots, Inc. and their request to duke it out in the robo ring.
Suidobashi's response? Let the battle of the giant killer robots commence.
MegaBots first proposed the bot battle via YouTube video on June 30, starring founders Gui Calvacanti and Matt Oehrlein. Their video, while serious in its offer, totters (smartly) on parody, with a lot of 'Murican patriotism thrown in for good measure.
Suidobashi's response also goes the cheeky route: in the video, creator, founder and CEO Kogoro Kurata dons a Japanese flag as a cape.
In what sounds like a strange sense of foreshadowing regarding the American-led Japanese defeat at the Women's FIFA World Cup, Kurata says, "We can't let another country win this. Giant robots are Japanese culture."
Then again, Suidobashi's robots are nothing to laugh at. Named "the Kurata" after their CEO, Suidobashi's 13-foot-tall bots weigh about 4.5 tons and are equipped with a pair of BB gatling guns with an extensively advanced target display. It's a more agile model compared with Megabot Inc.'s the Mark II, which outweighs the Kurata by 1.5 tons.
Kurata agrees. "Just building something huge and sticking guns on it — it's ... Super American," Kurata chides in the video.
Ouch, them be some fightin' words. However, Kurata has the stuff to back it up, raising the bar with a counter-offer: the duel should also feature a melee combat component. This is seems to be in line with his general thoughts about the Mark II in his message to MegaBots: "Come on guys, just make it cooler."
See Suidobashi's response to MegaBots in the video below.
