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FIGHTING ROBOTS INVADE AUSTIN!
Maker Faire 2008 and RoboGames Bring Battling Bots to Austin for the First Ever Texas Cup!
September 17, 2008 Austin, TX — Maker Faire announces the RoboGames Texas Cup event to be held on October 18th and 19th at the second annual Austin Maker Faire at the Travis County Expo Center in Austin, TX. The monstrous homemade robots, which range in weight from 30 to 340lbs, will be coming from all over the nation and beyond to compete for the title of champion in the first ever Texas competition. Over 27 bots will battle for a Texas Cup in the Featherweight, Lightweight, Middleweight, Heavyweight and Super Heavyweight divisions. With over 25 fights per day, audiences will witness a bevy of pneumatic flippers, flame throwers, spinning blades of death and high-powered body slammers.
Take the best parts of a monster truck rally, the thrill of NASCAR, and the evil genius of the maddest scientist you can find, infuse that with lashings of machine oil and garage-mechanic knowhow and you have the Maker Faire RoboGames. The best fighting robot competitors from USA and Canada will be on hand at MakerFaire Austin to smash, bash, crash and trash their way to victory inside a 1600-square foot bulletproof battle arena!
"It's really awesome to be doing a show in Austin," says RoboGames President David Calkins. "This will be the largest venue we've ever played to, so we're really looking forward to a good crowd. I imagine the Texans are really going to enjoy our San Francisco robot destruction. For everyone who loves watching car wrecks at NASCAR, they're in for a treat. These robots TRY to destroy each other. Fire and crashes each and every match."
Battling robot competitors to keep an eye out for include crowd favorite and RoboGames dominator, the 340lb Canadian robot "Ziggy", who will have to beat out Austin-based "The Judge" in order to fight his way to the Texas Cup in the Super Heavyweight category. Texas Heat is the fire-breathing, award-winning bar-b-quer of bots who is coming all the way from Canada to flame his way to ComBot glory in the Lightweight category.
These battling bots will round out Maker Faire's robotics focus, which will also include robotic warships, Capital BEST Robotics, The Robot Group and more. Maker Faire, the two-day family-friendly event that celebrates arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset, will also include alternative energy vehicles, the life-sized Mousetrap, Eepy Bird Diet Coke & Mentos Fountains, fire acts, rockets, Tesla coils, a blacksmith village, art and crafts, Edible Austin's Food Pavilion and much more. Maker Faire is for resourceful folks who like to tinker and love to make things. We call them Makers.
YOUR COMPETITORS FOR THE 2008 MAKER FAIRE ROBOGAMES TEXAS CUP
| 340lb Super Heavyweight: Ziggy Vladiator Gerald Steel Reign The Judge |
120lb Middleweight: Warsaw Pipe Wench Tetracide Emily Ice Cube |
60lb Lightweight: Texas Heat Dark Disk Big B Rotato Spinnerbait Jr. Cornholio Guillotine The Rutt Factor |
| 220lb Heavyweight: Original Sin Sewer Snake The Defyer Gerald Vlad II Van Helsing |
30lb Featherweight: Pint Sized Chaos Relic Retic Bot Totally Offensive |
All your favorite competitors will be on hand to sign autographs and answer questions about their robots. Get a birds-eye view into the pits as the robots are serviced and repaired. Find out how the builders are going to do it better next time, and learn how to make your own bot from the ground up.
For the RoboGames Texas Cup schedule and more information on Maker Faire, please visit www.makerfaire.com.
About Maker Faire
Maker Faire is the premier event for grassroots American innovation. The event started in San Mateo, California in 2006 and expanded to Austin, Texas in 2007. Held annually in each of these locations, the event may expand elsewhere in the future. Maker Faire is supported by Make Magazine and Craft Magazine and O'Reilly Media the premier information source for leading-edge computer technologies. The company's books, conferences, and web sites bring to light the knowledge of technology innovators.
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