Gargoyle KID wins Kondo Battle 14

The 14th “Kondo Battle” event took place at Galaxcity museum in Tokyo on March 29th, 2014.  In the open (custom bot design) class, it came down to Gargoyle KID (silver and black) vs. Chromkid (green highlights):

The winner was Gargoyle KID.Both of these are quite advanced robots, complete with working grippers to grapple their opponents.  In the “KHR” (stock) class, the final was between Azusburo (green) and Rapural (blue):

Azusburo took home the prize in this one.

It’s interesting to note that even the more advanced robots still have obvious difficulty maintaining their balance.  From the amazing bots of Dr. Guero, one might get the impression that Japanese robots have mastered dynamic balance.  But from these recent competition videos, it’s clear that this is still not generally true, which is good news for those of us just getting into the hobby and hoping to compete.

The other thing to note in the videos is all the excited children shouting in the background.  That’s a big part of the reason we do this — if we can get even a handful of kids excited enough to put down their video games, and pick up a soldering iron or compiler, then all the effort is worthwhile!