Monday 3 November 2014

The Kicker: fund real-life fighting mechs


Welcome to The Kicker, where we discuss the good, the bad and the insane of crowdsourced fundraising. 

If I had a mech I'd probably use it to travel to Tesco in the morning to pick up bacon and rolls. I know, I dream big, right? For those of you with a more violent disposition, MegaBots Inc, has launched a Kickstarter to create real-life, full-sized mechs for the sole purpose of fighting in an arena.

I'm not even kidding.

MegaBots: Live-Action Giant Robot Combat is looking for a cool $1,800,000 to fund this incredibly weird venture. These would be honest-to-god 15ft tall, 15,000 pound walking death machines piloted by actual people and thrown into a gladiatorial arena.

"MegaBots are covered in customizable, breakaway armor plating and fire large, paint-filled projectiles at each other at speeds topping 120 miles per hour. As projectiles hit their targets, armor plates shatter and explode, and computers tally critical hits to the robot’s limbs and torso. As more and more hits are taken, robots start to limp, joints start to seize, weapons start to jam, and after enough damage, limbs are completely blown off. The last MegaBot standing wins!"

According to the creators, the total amount they're looking for will cover the production of two mechs for a 1 on 1 deathmatch, but they want to get it higher so they can have team free-for-alls and other squad-based games. I will note right now that the projectiles used are non-lethal - no gatling guns or rocket launchers for MegaBots.

Oh, and if you pay $999,999.99 you can get your very own mech.


The Kickstarter currently sits at $38,007 - a  far cry from the almost $2,000,000 total and with only 25 days left.

If you want to take a look and fund MegaBots, you can visit their Kickstarter page.


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