Hebocon: A Robot Contest for Crappy Robots


The Japanese word “heboi” translates roughly to “poor in quality” or “crappy.” Hebocon draws from this meaning, bringing together lots of people and their terrible robots… so that the robots can battle one another, to see which one is the most terrible of all.

All the entrants are people who neither have the technical expertise, determination, nor the focus it takes to build an actual robot. That is why the robots in this contest can barely even move forward, and why they put on stunningly crappy sumo matches.

You can read more about event and organizer in this article. The best part is the video of the robots themselves:

I like that Hebocon is less about the outcome, and more about the event. I like how it celebrates failure, and how it encourages people to try out ideas or approaches they might not normally consider (if your goal is to make the worst robot ever, your choices tend to get a little weird).

I really enjoyed learning about this event. I love that everyone involved is basically saying “Make your thing. And when it’s terrible (and it’s going to be terrible), we’re all going to tell you how great your terrible thing is.”

[via Four Short Links]

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