MegaBots Promises Its Robot Is More Kick Ass Than It Seems

Watching MegaBots' Mk. III mechanical suit wind up for a punch at the Bay Area Maker Faire is the most suspenseful seven minutes you'll spend today.

At least it looks pretty sick. A bald eagle head sits atop its right shoulder, and a red-and-white star is emblazoned across the left. It's American. It's noisy. It's really, really slow.

"The robot is moving slowly because we have artificially limited it to 1/4 speed," MegaBots co-founder Matt Oehrlein assured me via email. "We just got the fully-assembled robot moving a week or so ago, so we want to make sure we aren't pushing its limits for the first time in front of a large live audience. A time when it needs to be safe and reliable."

An abundance of caution with your 12-ton, 430 horsepower mech suit in the middle of a crowd is probably a good idea, but it makes for an agonizingly tense show. When it's finally in position, the mech twists its hulking metal body, winds up its claw arm, and slowly delivers a love-tap at the hanging sedan. It breaks a few windows and the car shifts, but it's far from a Pacific Rim Jaeger fight.

Will this thing be ready to defeat Japan's Suidobashi mech in August, as promised? Oehrlein also told me Mk. III is outfitted with a logging grapple, and a pneumatic cannon that fires three pound projectiles at 130 mph. If they can crank it to full power come battle time, we might have a shot.