Robo Sumo is a thing, and it’s crazy to watch.

What is the best part of the movie Big Hero Six? If you said anything other than the implication that there is a secret, illegal, semi-autonomous underground bot fighting league, you’re clearly wrong. I have wanted to take part in robot street fighting since I first saw Cubix and first played Robobon when I was in Middle School. So, when I found out about Robo Sumo, I knew I had to take part.

Watch this video, where autonomous robots fight each other, all speedy quick.

Of course, I shared this video with many of my coworkers. I discovered that essentially ever member of my office has had the same dream. There have been a couple of RoboSumo leagues in the DC area in the recent past, but it appears that most of them are currently defunct.

But I work with some programers, electrical engineers, and general nerds. Between us, we should be able to make a couple of autonomous robots beat the crap out of each other, right?

So I’m researching kits. There’s this mostly complete robot from Adafruit for $100 (just add microcontroller and code), or this robot chassis for $20 (which needs power, microcontrollers, and a motor controler, plus some armor.)

If you were building a sumo bot, how would you go about it?

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