The 2022 Texas Aimbots Spring Showdown competition, a battle robot event, will be hosted at Texas A&M University by the robotics organization, Texas Aimbots. The event will take place on Saturday, May 21, at noon in the Memorial Student Center, Room 2400. The competition is open to the public, and all ages are encouraged to attend.
The Spring Showdown is a combat robotics competition focused on the creation of robots and is much like the battlebots competition. These robots will go head to head in a small arena to try to destroy the opponent's robot with different weapons and geometries that the students have designed. Some robots even use internal combustion engines and flamethrowers.
There are three weight classes for this event: 150 grams for fairy, 1 pound for ant and 3 pounds for beetle. Based on different criteria in the match that are judged using the Standardized Procedures for the Advancement of Robotic Combat (SPARC) set of rules, the robots will gain points for stopping, stalling, destroying or knocking down the other robot.
Many of the competitors participating this year are individual builders around Texas traveling to College Station to compete for top awards. Each match will be two minutes long, and the 1-pound and 3-pound arena will be large enough to sustain sufficient ventilation for the use of potentially hazardous weapons, while the 150-gram arena will be smaller, protected by low walls.
The competition will be streamed on YouTube for those unable to attend, and all are welcomed to see the head-to-head showdown between these combat robots in person.
For more information about Texas A&M’s premier robotics team, Texas Aimbots, visit their website.