Hebocon is a robot sumo-wrestling tournament for those who don't have the technical skills to actually make robots

Hebocon is a robot sumo-wrestling tournament for those who don't have the technical skills to actually make robots.
31 pseudo-robots that don't even move properly came together to go head to head.
The robots in this tournament are nothing like what their builders initially imagined them to be, robots are forgotten on the train, the strategies made with careful planning only result in failure, and the entrants who enter the ring brag about their robot's secret moves that don't really exist.
This is the heated battle between crappy, but lovable robots.

"HEBOCON" has been selected for the Jury Selections, Entertainment Division, Japan Media Arts Festival!

Planned and operated by Ishikawa Daiju
Organized by Daily Portal Z (NIFTY Corporation)

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Hebocon, a robot sumo contest for “the technically ungifted,” was held during Tokyo Design Week 2015 and featured lots of “crappy robots” that made the audience laugh out loud.

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If your robot-building skills aren't quite up to Battlebots or Robot Wars, then Hebocon might be for you. Described "as a robot sumo-wrestling competition for those who are not technically gifted", the emphasis is on having fun, entertaining the crowd, and "heboiness".

At Electromagnetic Field 2016, a maker festival in the UK, I hosted one of the UK's first hebocon contests. I'll be honest: we skipped over a few of the more complicated rules about penalising high-tech robots in favour of entertaining the crowd, but no-one seemed to mind. Not even the actual Robot Wars competitors.

Thanks to everyone who helped put this together: Alia Sheikh, Andrew Vine and Robert McWilliam on the film crew, Jim MacArthur who actually ran the show, and all the folks at EMF Camp -- and of course, all the people who built the robots!

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One of the matches from Hebocon World Championship 2016 — a robot battle competition which features wrestling-style contests between intentionally clumsy robots — at Tokyo Culture Culture, Aug. 7, 2016.

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MSI's first-ever Hebocon—a family-friendly "crappy" robot competition—was a blast! Learn more at msichicago.org/hebocon.

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