When Lu Tsung-yung (盧聰勇) held the first Robot Boxing Competition five years ago, more than 40 of the 62 constructions couldn’t even walk successfully.

“Basically, if you could even make your robot take a step, you won your round,” Lu laughs.

Nine competitions later, Lu says the mechanical gladiators have become so advanced that he has had to enlarge the ring and is thinking of another expansion. He’s also thrown in new challenges during last weekend’s event it was slope descending, which not a single robot passed.

“We’ve had the robots ascend and descend stairs for the past two years and the contestants seem to have that figured out already,” Lu says. “So I added the slope. When someone figures that out, we’ll mix it up again. It’s brutal. What you see here is five years of evolution.”

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