MegaBots puts giant fighting robot on eBay as company reveals it's bankrupt

[midian182]

What just happened? MegaBots, the Boston-based company that built a 16-foot-tall fighting robot, has gone bankrupt. As such, the firm is selling the 15-ton Eagle Prime on eBay, and its current highest bid is $50,500.

We’ve been reporting on MegaBots since 2015 when it was revealed that Japan had accepted a challenge to battle its MegaBot Mark 2. A couple of years later, the company said it wanted to crowdfund a giant robot fighting tournament, but it only managed to reach $54,370 of its $950,000 goal.

MegaBots co-founder Matt Oehrlein says the reason for its bankruptcy is because it can’t afford the interest payments on a loan it took out about three years ago, “so we’re selling the assets of the company to pay back the bank as much as possible before we file the final bankruptcy paperwork.”

Eagle Prime’s eBay listing states that about $2.5 million went into the robot’s construction. It’s powered by a 430-horsepower LS3 V8 Engine commonly found in the Chevrolet Corvette and comes with a small shipping container of spare parts and some swappable weapon attachments, which will require a forklift to attach to the robot. Buyers also get a perpetual license to Eagle Prime’s CAD files and source code.

Interested buyers should note that Eagle Prime will usually spring a hydraulic leak every 4 hours of driving and needs the plastic pads it runs on replacing, which will probably cost an extra $7,000.

Shipping a giant fighting robot isn’t going to be cheap, of course. Sending it to the West coast of the US could cost up to $4,000 while sending it to the East is $17,000. It’s even more expensive to send it abroad: $50,000.

Oehrlein said that despite the bankruptcy, he was very happy the project happened.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/82053-megabots-puts-giant-fighting-robot-ebay-company-reveals.html

 

[Uncle Al]

Despite all those maintenance issues, this would be a great addition to my F-150, especially when needing to make a parking spot down town!
In all fairness it was one hell of a great first effort. Despite the negatives it was a very positive influence on those robot builders and potential science oriented kids that want to get into something like this. While impractical I would love to see someone like Purdue or maybe MIT buy it and use it to promote mechanical, industrial, robotic's, and AI and to challenge students to develop solutions to current maintenance issues as well as further develop this into a product that might have a very positive and profitable application in any industry. Far too important to be forgotten, it just needs a good home that will nurture and develop it more!

 

[Vulcanproject]

Should be an interesting attraction for a monster truck rally somewhere I imagine

 

[mbrowne5061]

Boston-based... and its more expensive to ship east?

 

[gusticles41]

Boston-based... and its more expensive to ship east?

Per the Ebay listing, it's currently sitting in Oakland, CA.

 

[ckm88]

Should be an interesting attraction for a monster truck rally somewhere I imagine

Yeah they'll just have it outside the arena 'for the gram'

 

[amghwk]

What if someone put advanced AI into it's network and then it accumulates scraps and spare parts from across the globe, build more of it's kind on it's own and then take over the world.....