(light techno music)
- Welcome back everyone.
I'm Alison Berman.
Right now I'm sitting here with Matt Oehrlein.
Matt is the COO and co-founder of MegaBots
where they recently built a 12 ton, 16 foot robot
that's about to go into warfare or battle
with a company in Japan.
Welcome, Matt.
- Thank you.
- Okay, so the idea for MegaBots, dueling giant robots,
where did this come from?
- Right, so yeah,
so MegaBots is an entertainment company,
and really this whole fighting robots paradigm
has sort of come out of all of the video games
and comic books and movies we watched as kids.
So really it's
all of the giant robot battles from pop culture,
science fiction pop culture
brought to life for the very first time.
- What does it feel like to see these things come to life,
a childhood dream?
- Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
I think
one of the craziest moments is like the first time
you get into one of these things.
- [Alison] By these things he means robots.
- These robots.
So the robots are all human piloted.
They're these 12 ton, 16 foot tall
giant mechs we call them.
It's basically a giant robot that people pilot.
So when you get inside these things
it's like a video game come to life.
There's joysticks and buttons,
and there's a windshield,
and the engine roars up,
and the whole hydraulic system pressurizes,
and the thing comes to life.
It truly is like science fiction come to life.
- And do you have a favorite science fiction character
or action figure, superhero, as a child?
Or right now?
- Yeah, I think
I think a lot of engineers,
myself included, really
like Tony Stark, Iron Man,
because he's got,
he's like the best engineer, right?
He's got all the cool toys,
and he builds them himself, so
that's really amazing.
- And he has a super sweet house, and cars, and everything.
- Successful businessman and all that kind of stuff.
So, you know, I think
a lot of engineers like him.
- Okay, so tell me about the Eagle Prime robot.
- Sure, so the Eagle Prime
is a 12 ton, 16 foot tall robot.
It's powered by a 430 horsepower Corvette engine.
This is the first combat capable robot
that MegaBots has built.
So this is the robot that's going to do battle
with the Japanese team.
This is the battle that has been highly, highly anticipated
over the last two years.
It's finally happening.
So Eagle Prime, it's a very patriotic robot.
There's a giant eagle on it.
And so it's kind of over the top tongue and cheek
in good humor patriotic robot.
- And tell me about the robot that it's going up against.
- Yeah, so it's going up the KURATAS robot.
This is a robot
that a company called Suidobashi Heavy Industries
built in Japan.
Their robot looks to be
a little bit shorter, a little bit lighter,
but maybe a little bit faster.
So we'll see how the battle dynamics play out.
- And in battle dynamics,
are we talking throwing punches?
I see once a giant knife being dropped on a car.
- Yeah, so we have all different kinds of weapons
on the robot.
The Eagle Prime features a giant pneumatic cannon.
It shoots paint cannon balls,
three pound paint cannon balls.
They're huge.
They can shatter all the windows on a car,
very powerful.
And then on the other hand Eagle Prime right now
has a big logging grapple.
It's like a giant claw
that can actually exert
about 3,000 pounds of crushing force with the claw.
So it's kind of this combination,
you know, when you talk about battle dynamics,
it's kind of this combination of range combat,
using the paint balls to maybe blind cameras
on the other robot
or take out sensitive electronics,
and then closing in with the claw
and trying to disable their systems at close range.
- [Alison] Sounds like a whole comic book story, basically.
- [Matt] Yeah, yeah exactly.
And we actually have created a comic book.
You can read it on our website
some of the story behind how MegaBots came to be.
- And when is the battle?
- The battle is in September, early September.
- Early September.
- So yeah, I can't say exactly when,
but it's in September.
- And you have a Kickstarter running right now, do you?
- Not right now. - Not right now.
- Not right now. - There will be.
- So we actually funded the creation of this robot
with a Kickstarter that we ran a couple years ago.
So that was kind of how we burst onto this scene
and got a larger movement behind these robots.
So it was sort of the support team USA
in the USA versus Japan giant robot fight.
So that's how a lot of people know us.
- MegaBots has a very loyal following it seems.
What do you think makes so many Americans so excited
to have this giant dueling robot
with a Japanese robotics company?
- Yeah, I think,
you know, I think it's an interesting
classic American underdog story, right?
Like Japan is kind of known to be
the robotics powerhouse,
and I think
there's something interesting about
maybe the slightly over confident Americans
trying to get a foothold in the robotics space,
and doing it by building
basically just a bigger, louder, heavier robot
in true American fashion.
And
those
aesthetics kind of transfer over
to the different robot designs
that you'll see in this fight.
- And what was it like building the Eagle Prime?
What did it take to do that?
- Yeah, so the way we build our robots
is pretty interesting.
We actually hire a concept artist first,
so someone that's worked in video games
and stuff like that for awhile.
They draw a robot that looks really cool.
We say, "Okay, well this one has got to be patriotic.
"It's representing the US in this giant robot fight."
And so a concept artist will draw a robot
and then we'll say,
"Okay, but we can't actually build that robot.
"The shoulder needs to be a little bit bigger.
"We have to be able to fit hydraulic hoses
"and stuff like that in the different robot parts."
So then they'll modify the design.
And we kind of iterate a number of times with that artist
eventually arriving to something that
still looks pretty science fiction,
but the basic geometries of it
are something that we can design in CAD.
So we bring it into a CAD program,
and then we just start laying down steel pieces,
and then export the drawings and weld it up.
- And is this welding process a little wild?
Has anything ever gone haywire?
And if so, tell me about it.
- So yeah, I mean
all of the parts of the robot,
like the big assemblies,
the arms, the legs, all that kind of stuff,
they all weigh as much or more than a car.
So whenever we're,
so whenever we're lifting something,
you know, you can't lift
any part of this robot with your hands.
You always have to use a forklift or a crane
or something like that.
We've dropped a few pieces and stuff like that,
and it always makes like a really loud crash in the shop.
We take safety pretty seriously, too.
So we always keep a safe distance,
and wear hard hats and safety glasses
and all that kind of stuff.
But usually these pieces of robot when they fall
they'll shake the building.
- And do you have a big warehouse that you're working in?
- Yeah, so MegaBots headquarters,
which we call Fortress 1,
is in Hayward, California.
- Cool, we have a quick question from Tammy in the audience.
Thank you.
She just wants to know will the battle be livestreamed?
- The battle will not be livestreamed.
- Ooh, okay.
- Yeah, no, but you'll be able to,
you'll be able to see it-- - It will be released?
- On our YouTube channel and our Facebook.
- Cool, there you go, Tammy.
So talking about safety,
there's someone inside the robot when it's in battle.
- Yes, there's two people.
- There's two people.
How, it's very Transformer-esque.
How do they stay safe?
- Yeah, so we have a number of safety systems.
Seatbelt harness, five point safety harness,
helmets, neck restraints,
flame retardant suits.
Inside the cockpit is a whole roll cage
that's designed to keep the pilot safe
if the robot falls over.
We took a look at different standards
from monster trucks and Formula One
and some military standards.
How big do the escape hatches have to be
for someone to be able to get out
in case there's a fire, stuff like that.
So it's ...
We've kind of taken a look at a lot of different industries
to design the safety systems for our robot.
- And you have a background as a maker.
How has this influenced your current work?
- Yeah.
I used to ...
I was very involved in maker spaces
in my previous life,
and ran
probably the largest
maker space in metro Detroit.
And so I think there's a certain mentality
in people who are really involved in maker spaces.
There's kind of this like
it's a process of discovery.
And so
if you go to these spaces
you see people working on a lot of different projects,
using different techniques,
and it's hard to not become very curious when you're there.
So you sort of pick up ...
I'm an electrical engineer by education,
and so
kind of my time spent in Detroit
I picked up woodworking, and machining,
and welding, and all that kind of stuff.
So that natural curiosity to just say like,
"Oh hey, what are you working?
"Like how does that work?
"Can I try?"
And the knowledge sharing really transfers over
into MegaBots where I
have this mentality of like,
"Okay, we're kind of an entertainment and media company now,
"so like how do media contracts work,
"and like how do you negotiate those things?"
And like ad buys and stuff like that.
So just having that natural curiosity
and willingness to be open to learning new things
helps a lot in the entrepreneurial world, as well.
- Definitely.
And so how did you find out about the Japanese robot?
- Oh man.
So the Japanese robot,
these guys
I think at one point they put the robot on Amazon
and they were selling these things
for a million dollars a pop.
- Like Amazon Prime.
- I don't think it was Amazon Prime.
It probably takes more than two days to deliver it.
But yeah, I think this was maybe like five years ago.
It was such a great headline
for journalists to write about, right?
"What a crazy world we live in.
"You can actually buy your very own mech suit online
"for a million dollars."
And so that kind of
went around the various news outlets.
And that's how I had heard of it for the first time.
- And so you have a background
you said as a mechanical engineer.
- Electrical engineer.
- Oh, electrical engineer, my bad.
How when you told your friends and your family,
"I'm going into a company.
"We are building giant robots to fight."
Did people support you?
Did they think you were insane?
What was the experience like?
Because a lot of I think being an entrepreneur
is that initial idea that you just believe in.
- Yeah.
I think,
you know,
my friends and family were cautiously supportive.
They were like, "Well, that sounds like a crazy adventure.
"I'm sure you're gonna learn a ton whatever happens.
"I have no idea why you think this is going to like
"become a huge thing, but hey,
"you've had success in the past doing crazy stuff,
"so more power to you and can't wait to watch what happens."
- It's funny, because I think
a question a lot of people get is,
"When you were a kid,
"what did you want to be when you grew up?"
And I could see like exactly this, building giant robots.
- [Matt] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's definitely a childhood dream come true for sure.
And actually not just for me,
or the co-founding team,
or just the employees at MegaBots,
but we're finding for an entire generation of people.
Everybody sees the robots and they go,
"Oh yeah, it's from that comic book that I use to read
"or the video game I used to play."
When they see these robots,
we're finding that there's this whole generation of people
who have some kind of nostalgic tie to
Power Rangers, or Transformers, or Pacific Rim,
or whatever they watched.
And so I think that
it's very empowering for our brand
that we can kind of tap into that.
- Yeah, it kind of has a time capsule feeling to it.
- Exactly.
- And so we have another question
from the audience from Matthew.
Thank you.
Besides the fighting factor,
is there a way that the technology you're developing
will be used for some type of benefit?
- Yeah, we get this question a lot,
because a lot of people ...
And I don't know what's prompted this one,
but a lot of people go,
"Oh, you're building these giant robots.
"What are they for?"
And I see, "Oh, well they're for entertainment."
And they go, "Yeah, but what are they,
"but what are they really for?"
It's like, "No, no, no.
"Why would you build a Formula One car
"or a monster truck?"
It's made for entertainment.
That said,
I'm sure there's technology that comes out of Formula One
that can then be applied to the automotive industry,
and I think likewise
there's just like human machine interfaces,
safety systems,
robust
reconfigurable hydraulic actuators.
There's a number of technologies
that have the potential to come out of this.
We don't even know what they all are yet,
but I'm sure it will be something cool.
- And for any young makers, entrepreneurs
who have a wild idea
and are not quite sure where to start,
do you have any advice?
- Oh man,
I think it is
my advice is to just
start doing something even if it seems so small and stupid
that it's like it might not be the right way to do it,
or maybe
like you're not talking to the right people or something.
If you start doing something
people will naturally go, "Oh, what are you doing?"
And they see that you're already doing it
and they'll want to join and support you.
If you're not doing it and you just say,
"Well, I want to do this at some point,"
everyone is just gonna go like,
"Well, good luck with that."
But if they see you working and struggling,
especially if they see you struggling,
people want to help and push it forward.
So, my advice is
just start doing something,
maybe it's just a piece of that project,
but just start doing something
and that will get people to support you.
- Yeah.
Peter Diamandis was just on here talking about
his passion for his purpose
and how that's the thing that has fueled him
through 19 startups.
So definitely think so.
And so what do you hope is next for MegaBots?
- Yeah, so the grand vision of MegaBots
is definitely a full blown international sports league
on the scale of Formula One and
UFC,
mixed with the Transformers and Star Wars
storytelling potential, as well.
So I think it's really incredible
this opportunity we have to not only
be able to sell tickets to these events,
and elevate brands through sponsorship and stuff like that,
but also be able to develop
like really cool video games that people can play.
And if they're like good enough at the video game
they can become like a real life mech pilot, as well.
So there's this really interesting cross between traditional
just like video games
and science fiction franchises,
and then it crosses over into live entertainment
and sports, as well.
So a really interesting intersection of industries.
- Yeah, and it's a cool dynamic
between the virtual experience of it
and then the live battle.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- We have another question from the audience from Andrew.
Will you put a 360 degree camera inside
so that people can feel like they're driving it
in virtual reality?
- That's definitely something we get asked a lot.
So there's a lot of demand for it.
I'm sure at some point we will.
We're still putting together
all the production plans and stuff like that
for the big fight,
so I can't make any promises
if it will be in there for the duel,
but definitely something we're looking at
doing in the future, for sure.
- And in the battles are you driving the robot?
- It's two people, it'll be myself and Gui, my co-founder.
- Very cool.
Have you been training for this?
- We have.
You can see some of the videos we put on YouTube
where we pilot Eagle Prime
and go through kind of like an obstacle course
and battle field and stuff like that.
So yeah, we've been spending a lot of time
in the robots preparing.
- Are you scared?
- You know, I'm ...
You can't go into something like this
too over confident, because you'll get hurt.
So, you know, cautiously proceeding forward.
We're doing everything we can to make this safe
but still very entertaining.
So yeah,
yeah, I'm a little bit scared.
I think anyone who goes in one of these things should be.
- Should be a little scared?
- We'll do our best.
- Yeah.
And do you ever think that virtual reality
will play a role in MegaBots
in battles or beforehand?
- Yeah, I think,
I think virtual reality
is a great way to experience what it would be like
to be inside one of these robots.
So, I can for sure see
virtual reality,
maybe the MegaBots video game
is like you are inside this robot
and you are piloting this thing,
and you're looking around,
and it's the full experience.
But on the other hand, the point of MegaBots
is that these robots are not video games.
Like we took the robots from video games
and then we made them real.
They are very purposely not virtual.
So there's this intersection where it's like
it's important that we create not virtual robots,
but I think there also is that opportunity
for the video games
to be able to give everyone an experience.
- Yeah, cool.
Well thank you so much.
This has been very interesting,
and I can't wait personally to tune into the battle.
- Yep,
it's gonna be great.
And for everybody watching,
you can subscribe to us on YouTube
and like us on our Facebook page, MegaBots Inc.
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