Welcome back to our BattleBots Season 2 Application Reveal! With the premiere of BattleBots Season 2 on the horizon (Thursday, June 23rd at 8PM EST on ABC), we would like to unveil a few aesthetic improvements to our denkbot!
IMPROVEMENTS
The first step is admitting you have a problem, then you follow the design process and define the problem, as we mentioned in our previous article. The downfall of our design was its utter lack of character, outside of the raw efficiency and eloquence of minimalist design – which does not translate whatsoever to television, highlighted by its square shape.
With the problem defined, we went to the next step in the design process, which is to gather information. We didn’t have the first idea on where to find an authority on “cool” so we did an internet search and got pictures of cats and cars. We surveyed our cats and found that “knocking shit on the ground” was cool, so we felt our robot had that covered.
We went in search for cars and after a short drive, we found several 18 to 24 year old males gathered outside of a Buffalo Wild Wings with their cars: Success! We surveyed this key demographic and determined that the consensus on what was cool was the aerodynamic device on the back of their automobiles designed to diffuse air by increasing the amount of turbulent air flow over the rear of the car and disrupting the laminar flow of air while providing a cushion for the laminar boundary layer. They called this device a “spoiler” and ensured us that putting one on our robot would make it cool.
After returning to home-base to begin work, we were quickly thrown off-course by the movie Billy Madison, which was playing on television. After finishing the movie, we decided that we should consult the final authority on cool: Third Graders. After polling a few nieces and nephews that we assumed where in third grade (or within the margin of error for guessing a relative’s age) our data suggested that robots with faces were cool and robots that did homework were super cool. Given the complexity of deciphering the hand-writing of elementary school students, we decide to stick with giving our robot a face.
After brainstorming several ideas, that ranged from Adventure Time-esque characterizations to Game of Thrones levels of realism, we developed a solution. Behold, denkbot_v2:
Using the concept of design eloquence, that we mentioned in Episode Zero of DenkTalk, we used one feature to accomplish two goals: The spoiler is cool, the spoiler is also the faces mouth, the spoiler is eloquent; coolcoolcool.
We also curved the front of the chassis, removing the square shape, and allowing us to keep all of the internal components in place after the upgrade.
SUMMARY
Now that we have developed a solution, the next phase in the design process is to gather feedback, so we would like to ask you! Share your thoughts on Facebook; on Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, and Google+; or YouTube; and even Tumblr!
Also, if you have Learned from any of the content we have Created, please share with your friends so we can Inspire more people together! Feel free to leave a comment below and let us know what content you would like to see in the coming months!