Three years ago, we the Japanese-built giant mech robot, Kuratas, was unveiled. Two years ago, an American robotics company, MegaBots, challenged the Kuratas maker, Suidobashi, to a giant robot battle. Now, we have finally arrived at the battle date.
Back when this all first started, the MegaBots co-founders told us their hopes for this battle and now it's time to see if their dreams come to fruition:
"We hope that this event is wildly successful, and paves the way for a full-blown giant robot combat sports league in the future."
What is each team bringing to the battle? Well, for starters a giant robot – you can't have a giant robot battle without giant robots.
Megabots will be bringing a brand new robot, Eagle Prime, to the battle. Back in 2015, MegaBots was working with the Mk. II bot, which was 6 tonnes and 15 feet tall, a year later, the Mk. III was revealed, which was a foot taller and weighing 22,000 pounds. Eagle Prime is more or less the final form of the Mk. III. It's the same height as the Mk.III and 2,000 pounds heavier. The thing that sets the Eagle Prime apart is that it's powered by a 430 horsepower V8 LS3 Corvette engine.
Suidobashi has kept their battle bot under wraps (for the most part) over the last few years. The Japanese company is bringing their Kuratas robot that stands three feet smaller than the Eagle Prime (13ft) and weighs around 14,300 pounds.
The battle will kick off tonight at around7 PM PT. It can be watched via MegaBots' Twitch channel.
Giant robots are pretty much part of Japanese culture – they even have a giant Gundam robot in Tokyo! Who will win this fight?
