Dragon*Con and the Robot Battles

Dragon*Con , hits Atlanta, GA, again on September 2-5, 2005; focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film, it is America's largest, multi-media, popular arts convention.

Every year, Dragon*Con hosts over 600 hours of panels, workshops, demonstrations and discussions with authors, editors, artists, game designers and media personalities. Some individual programming tracks concentrate on specific interests like Star Trek, Star Wars, British and American television, Anne McCaffrey's Pern, NASA Space Science, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, JRR Tolkien's Middle-Earth, Electronic Frontiers, and more.

Dragon*Con also presents theatrical and radio performances, concerts and dances, gaming tournaments, costume contests, the 14th Annual Robot Battles, auctions and charity events, plus one of the nation's best Art Shows & Print Shops, one of the largest Dealers Rooms & Exhibit Halls in the world, and 24 hour Video and Film Rooms.

For well over a decade, robotics enthusiasts have been going to Atlanta's Dragon*Con convention to participate in a modern version of gladiatorial combat, simply called "Robot Battles". The ultimate kinetic sculpture, these homemade robots crash, smash, and thrash one another under the watchful gaze of the contestants and the eager eyes of an ever-growing audience.

The event was first staged at Dragon*Con in 1991 with only three contestants and a small audience, but has grown each year with the 2004 competition hosting well over fifty contestants and nearly one thousand fans excitedly following all the mechanical mayhem and action. The event encompassed two days of competition, with Robot "Microbattles" featuring one and three pound robots in an enclosed arena on Sunday and the main "sumo" style event on Monday with the big robots.