Gearheads: The Turbulent Rise of Robotic Sports

Gearheads: The Turbulent Rise of Robotic Sports

In the early nineties, a visionary special-effects guru named Marc Thorpe conjured a field of dreams different from any the world had seen before: It would be framed by unbreakable plastic instead of cornstalks; populated not by ghostly ballplayers but by remote-controlled robots, armed to the steely teeth, fighting in a booby-trapped ring. If you built it, they'd come all right.... In Gearheads, Newsweek technology correspondent Brad Stone examines the history of robotic sports, from their cultish early years at universities and sci-fi conventions to today's televised extravaganzas -- and the turmoil that threatened the whole enterprise almost from the beginning. By turns a lively historical narrative, a legal thriller, and an exploration of a cultural and technological phenomenon, Gearheads is a funny and fascinating look at the sport of the future today. Newsweek reporter Brad Stone set out to chronicle the brief history of robotic sports, a genre peopled by a disparate range of mechanical compulsives spanning the education-driven idealism of Segway Human Transporter inventor Dean Kamen to the willfully enigmatic Mark Pauline's anarchic Survival Research Laboratories. But Stone's straightforward reporting quickly focuses on the tormented tale of Parkinson's afflicted, former ILM animator Marc Thorpe and his struggles to transform his obsession with battling machines into bona fide sport, efforts we learn have directly spawned such cult cable TV fare as Robot Wars , Battle Bots , and Robotica and made unlikely pop-culture heroes of its motley, proud band of mechanized warrior engineers. Thorpe's effusive mix of enthusiasm and naivete are at once his salvation and downfall, especially after he finds himself yoked financially with Priority Records founder Steve Plotnicki, an executive the author portrays as never meeting a business partner he didn't like to sue, and repeatedly. Thus framed, what emerges is as much cautionary tale about the seemingly limitless bounds of human pettiness and the nettlesome business of copyrighting, branding, and marketing mass-media entertainment as it is hagiography of the gearheads and their beloved gladiators. Lawyers and lawsuits seem to dominate every third page, often overshadowing the exploits of legendary 'bots such as Biohazard and Blendo, and increasingly making the aloofness of gearhead godfathers Pauline and Kamen seem like so much common sense. --Jerry McCulley Fans of television shows featuring oddly shaped, remote-controlled robots skittering about trying to take pieces off each other will enjoy this history of the eccentric sport. A former employee of Industrial Light and Magic, the special-effects company that created robot combat in 1994, animatronics expert Marc Thorpe thought that robots designed especially for combat could be something unique, and he was right. What he didn't count on, though, was the incredibly fierce competition--both in the fighting arena and behind the scenes--that would lead, ultimately, to his expulsion from the sport he helped created. Robotic combat is so new that calling it a "sport" may be slightly generous--so new, in fact, that no one knows if there will be a future for it. This fascinating book offers a revealing look at what could be an entertainment blockbuster in its infancy. David Pitt Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Steven Levy author of Crypto and Hackers On one level, Gearheads is a book about robots -- fearsome, heavily armed, and in some cases questionably legal machines -- and the talented mechanical artists who build them. But Brad Stone has also written a moving narrative about dreams, and how they're dashed. Will Wright robot builder and creator of the bestselling video games SimCity and The Sims This fascinating story not only chronicles the birth of a new sport, but also the explosive confrontation between its creator and his business partner. The violence of this struggle exceeds anything seen in the robot arena, but somehow a vibrant community manages to crystallize from the ashes. Brad Stone joined Newsweek's writing staff in 1995 and became the magazine's Silicon Valley correspondent in 1998. Stone has covered a wide variety of stories, including the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run race, the Napster trial, the Microsoft antitrust suit, and the Timothy McVeigh trial. A graduate of Columbia University, Stone lives in San Francisco and is developing an unhealthy passion for robot combat, having recently bought a robotics invention kit. Used Book in Good Condition