SYN Shop, the Las Vegas Hackerspace located in Henderson, is a creative space designed for project collaboration, research and development, mentoring, and of course, learning.
On Saturday, April 2, 2016 at 2:00pm SYN Shop invites the community to come recreate the glorious fail that is HEBOCON.
“Remember Battle Bots? Or any of the robot-battling competitions that were in vogue about a decade ago? Well, Hebocon’s kinda like that, except for people who have no idea how to build robots,” explains blogger Andrew Bridgman in this piece. “And the robots they do build are just absolutely terrible in every way. Basically, it’s the best thing ever.”
SYN Shop invites community members to come by and build a robot with as little technology, skill, or forethought as possible, and battle it against other similarly crappy robots.
“SYN Shop has done this one time before and had a blast,” said Brian Dirk, Member and Education Committee Rep for SYN Shop. “We got the Idea from another Hackerspace in Southern California known as 23b. A few SYN Shop members went down to an event that 23b ran, and at that event, a “HEBOCON” was organized. HEBOCON actually started in Japan in 2014, and has become a sort of grass-roots world-wide phenomenon of people basically running their own versions and loosely coordinating with the man who started it.”
Registration for robots opens at 1:15pm and runs until 2:15pm. The event will be a double elimination tournament. There will be 3 awards by points, 1 special mention awarded by judges, and an award for audience favorite. The robot with the most points at the end of the competition wins. More official rules here.
“I hope people of all ages learn that you can start right now, with stuff you have on hand, and make wonderful things infused with the joy and meaning you bring to the table when you make, fix, or modify your own stuff,” said Dirk. “Also attendees can expect laughter: Because crappy robots fighting other crappy robots is hilarious.”
