Vancouver’s underground robot combat league explodes onto the scene

A chorus of gasps arose as Dumbo’s undercutting blade sliced its opponent’s plastic arm, sending it flying across the arena and colliding with the battle enclosure’s wall with a bullet-like “bang.”

This was the first time that Vancouver’s youngest (and only) registered robot combat league had seen an international competitor —  and it stretched the local bots to their limits. 

“I'm really nervous for the one-pound bracket now because … all our baby bots are going to get completely destroyed,” Vancouver Combat Robots founder Tara Lee Guild had presciently said ahead of the competition. 

Guild is the founder and ring announcer for the league, which she began hosting six months ago at the Vancouver Hack Space, a non-profit workshop near Commercial Drive and Venables.   

Even though Dumbo’s presence posed a potentially fatal risk to several of the eight, one-pound robots that Guild had built for the league, she said she takes it as an excellent indication of the group’s growing popularity. 

Plus, the audience of roughly 50 enthusiasts of all ages absolutely loved it. 

Gasps were replaced by cheers as Dumbo’s victory over his opponent, Collateral Damage, was made official. 

Guild’s voice filled the room, an echo reverberating at the end of each word as she thundered into the microphone. “Robot murder happened today… Collateral Damage has been damaged... Collaterally-y-y-y.” 

A visual artist by trade, Guild stumbled into the unusual sport after she brought home copies of Make Magazine from the Vancouver Hack Space for her then nine-year-old son, Oscar. “One of the [magazines] just happened to focus on robotics and had this big flaming photo of a robot inside,” she said. 

Oscar immediately took to the hobby, and the pair began ordering robot-making kits to build their own, eventually culminating in a trip to Las Vegas, where they got to see large, professional robots fight live during the filming of the TV series BattleBots.

“We were just enthralled…it was almost like a wrestling vibe. There's trash talking and a big walk-in with music, and a lot of showmanship,” said Guild. 

When the two returned, Oscar requested a robot-combat-themed birthday party, quickly igniting a robot-battle craze among his classmates at Britannia Elementary School. “[The robot battle birthday party] started a lot of buzz with the kids,” Guild said. “So we just went full bore into this little hobby of ours.”

After building a bulletproof plexiglass arena from materials a volunteer let her dig out of his yard, Guild got approval from the Hack Space to use its workshop as a venue. By mid-January, the Vancouver Combat Robots were officially ready for battle. 

Six months later, Guild said local interest in the sport has “really taken off.” 

On the 13th of every month, spectators and drivers alike cram into the lower level of the Hack Space, cheering on their favourite robots during roughly 90 minutes worth of three-minute-long battle rounds. 

Twenty-seven-year-old Bellingham, Washington, resident Liam Farrington, the builder and driver of June 13’s victorious robot, Dumbo, was delighted to make his way to Vancouver to compete. 

“I moved to the Bellingham area about a year ago, and I just assumed there was a Vancouver scene, and [at the time] there wasn't,” said Farrington. “When I heard about this, I was like, ‘Oh, that's perfect. I can go and compete and have some fun.’”

Farrington has been a long-time enthusiast of the BattleBots TV show, which first aired in 2000. He credits a recent resurgence in robot combat fandom to the show’s re-airing in 2015. But he said the hobby has been around since at least the early 1990s, when BattleBots’ successor, Robot Wars, ran in America and the U.K.

Despite his long-term interest in the sport, Farrington only started building his own bots two years ago. In that time, the hobby has led him to travel to five U.S. states and now internationally.

He added that he planned to go to the National Havoc Robot League competition in Connecticut the following week, even though he “didn’t expect to do very well” against the other 152 robots registered. 

For Farrington, the down-to-earth atmosphere at Guild’s Vancouver Combat Robots was a major draw when deciding to make the trip across the border. 

Dumbo, Farrington’s robot that took the grand prize for the one-pound bracket on June 13 (a $75 gift card to Down Low Chicken Shack), is a roughly foot-long rectangular robot with giant squishy wheels. He has a fierce undercutting blade designed to pop wheels and decimate his opponents, and he added, “the most important weapon” of all — googly eyes.

“I love the underground vibe here.  Because the level of competition is maybe a bit lower than, like, Seattle or something, it's safer to try… something that’s wacky and crazy and might not work… and I love that,” said Farrington. 

For robot combat hobbyists like Farrington, Guild, and her son, Oscar, a typical one-pound robot can cost about $200 to build, with heavier, more advanced robots costing anywhere from several hundred to tens of thousands of dollars. 

But at the Vancouver Robot Combat league’s one-to-three-pound Fairy and AntWeight classes, respectively, most of the materials involved are relatively inexpensive, depending in part on the calibre of the robot’s weapon. 

While it's not unusual for professional robot leagues to feature robots with spinning axes, flamethrowers, or massive “flippers” capable of lifting and flipping opponents weighing upwards of 200 pounds, Guild, as a parent and self-proclaimed “safety queen,” tries to keep the contestants' creative imaginings somewhat contained. 

“We want you to be as creative as you can… but we have rules like no fire, for example. I had to say no to someone who wanted to make a dry ice robot,” she laughed. “I just was like, I feel like that's gonna have cascading problems.”

But even with limits on the more extreme weapon options, these one-pound robots can really pack a punch. The enclosure for the arena that Guild constructed is made of bulletproof plexiglass and has a lid to keep everyone, particularly the youngest first-row onlookers, safe. 

Oscar is frequently among them. “My favourite part is when the exciting fights happen, where bots end up maybe even hitting the roof from large hits,” Oscar told Vancity Lookout. 

Even though Oscar’s robot, Game Over, was victorious in the three-pound bracket at the June 13 event, Guild said the kids can build a lot of resilience by weathering the highs and lows of the hobby. 

When robots get destroyed or don’t work as planned, it can be “heartbreaking,” she said. “It sucks so much, but that's why, in a month, we could just try again… we’re trying to produce creative ideas and want people to try new things and not be afraid to fail.” 

Along with lessons in resilience and a whole lot of fun, Guild said the hobby has a lot to offer kids and adults alike. “You're having fun, and you're also learning about motors and materials … like different types of metals that are stronger, and ways to fabricate them… It’s an entry into [engineering and] robotics for sure.” 

For Farrington, “robot combat combines design, engineering, driving, and destruction in a way that nothing else does, and I love all four of those things.”

When asked about some of his younger competitors, Farrington added, “Don’t underestimate the kids. Seriously. Some of the best drivers are kids.” 

For those looking to get involved, Guild welcomed anyone to come by to watch or compete for free with their own homemade bot at the Vancouver Hack Space on the 13th of every month. 

She is also hoping to secure sponsors for the events and notes that the arena is currently seeking an official name. 

Guild encouraged those who are interested to find out more or to watch live streams of the battles on Vancouver Combat Robots’ Instagram and YouTube channel.