TUNE IN: Mt. SAC’s Battlebots team fights on Discovery Channel Thursdays at 8pm

December 03, 2020 - 09:56 AM

Engineering professor Martin Mason  has coached many of the  Mt. SAC robotics teams that have gone all the way to World Champs (They even won  that title once). But Mason has also built a name for himself in the robot fighting world, where he will once again step into the ring with his team’s robot” MaDcatTer”  today on the Discovery channel at 8pm for the season premiere of Battlebots. The elimination-style tournament that will be held over the course of the TV season (episodes run every Thursday at 8pm). Mason and his team, who go by the moniker Team Bad Kitty, will be looking to take the title. Mt. SAC is a sponsor of Team Bad Kitty and the MaDcatTer robot.  

Here is a promo of the upcoming season.

 

According to Mason, his entire team is made up of Mt. SAC students, former students or staff. Ryan Lau and Kenny Hu are current students.  Allen Phuong is a past student who transferred to Cal Poly and now works at Boeing, Calvin Iba is a past student, who now works at Northrop; and  Thomas Thomas is a past student who now works at Honeybee robotics.

Mason’s team has competed in previous seasons of Battlebots, as well the show King of Bots.

In contrast to most robotic competitions, where teams score points for accomplishing tasks with their robot, the sole purpose of a Battlebot is for destruction:  with the goal being to immobilize your opponent’s robot. On this season of Battlebots, Mason and team have reportedly been using “experimental rocket propellant” to give MaDcatTer “a little something extra”.   

For more information and a schedule of upcoming episodes,  visit the discovery channel Battlebots page or Battlebots own website. You can also follow Team Bad Kitty on Facebook or Instagram and learn about the engineering that goes into building a fighting robot.

Even the weapons on fighting robots get colorful names. This is the“Cheeky Kitty” -  a 3lb vertical spinner with 2x 75W brushless drive motors and a 350W brushless weapon motor”, used to flip an opponent’s robot..

For more information on the Mt. SAC robotics teams of 2019, watch this short  documentary about the two teams that earned themselves spots at world champs (only for it to be cancelled due to COVID).