CAMBRIDGE, MA—Confirming their long-held theories on the dangers of the sport, a startling new study released Thursday by researchers at MIT shows that as many as 98 percent of BattleBots suffer from debilitating CPU injuries. “Our data show that nearly all robot competitors who are slammed, thrown, and flipped during arena combat go on to experience irreparable trauma to their central processing units, risking a negative impact on all their motorized functions,” said study co-author Vaughn Anderson, adding that, over time, repeated exposure to bludgeoning devices and catapults designed to fling them into steel walls at high speeds often led to permanent disabilities. “We’ve found that, despite the heavy protective armor worn by BattleBots in the arena, their CPUs remain simply unable to withstand multiple blows from 150-pound pulverizers. Many of the robots we studied were entirely immobilized after months or years of facing off against the killsaw, requiring the installation of a self-righting mechanism to keep from tipping over.” The study comes on the heels of an investigative report claiming that the BattleBot industry has been covering up the damage to participants almost since the organization’s inception.

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