Gearheads: The Turbulent Rise of Robotic Sports

by Brad Stone

In the early nineties, a visionary special-effects guru named Marc Thorpe conjured a field of dreams different from any the world had seen It would be framed by unbreakable plastic instead of cornstalks; populated not by ghostly ballplayers but by remote-controlled robots, armed to the steely teeth, fighting in a booby-trapped ring. If you built it, they'd come all right....
In Gearheads, Newsweek technology correspondent Brad Stone examines the history of robotic sports, from their cultish early years at universities and sci-fi conventions to today's televised extravaganzas -- and the turmoil that threatened the whole enterprise almost from the beginning.
By turns a lively historical narrative, a legal thriller, and an exploration of a cultural and technological phenomenon, Gearheads is a funny and fascinating look at the sport of the future today.

Genres: Nonfiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

I am the senior executive editor for global technology coverage at Bloomberg and the author of "Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire," published in May 2021 by Simon and Schuster.

The book is a sequel to my earlier work, "The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon," which won the Book of the Year Award in 2013 from The Financial Times and Goldman Sachs. I'm also the author of The Upstarts: Uber, Airbnb, and the Battle for the New Silicon Valley.

Over the last few years, I have authored a few dozen cover or feature stories for Bloomberg Businessweek on companies such as Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, Costco and the Chinese tech companies Didi, Baidu and Xiaomi. I joined the magazine from the New York Times, where I covered Silicon Valley from the newspaper's San Francisco bureau. Before that, I was a reporter for the once proud magazine known as Newsweek. I am also the author of a previous work of non-fiction, Gearheads, which the San Francisco Chronicle selected as one of the best books of 2003.

I graduated from Columbia University in 1993 and am originally from Cleveland, Ohio. I've lived in San Francisco for over 20 years but I'm still a Clevelander at heart- or should I say, at heartbreak, since the sports teams always manage to lose big (except the Cavs!) I have twin daughters and am teaching them to root for Cleveland teams as well because I believe adversity builds character. I hope you enjoy my books. Feel free to write me at brad.stone at gmail to let me know what you think.

Reviews

[Inamist · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Gearheads, Brad Stone shines light on the rise of robot combat, beginning from small, amateurish clashes in barely held together arenas to a veritable americo-anglo cultural phenomenon. How much value this book holds for non-obsessives I don't know, but as one of the "Gearheads"myself, I found this a fascinating read, showing the chaotic birth of the sport, the bitter legal and political disputes that lead to the fracturing behind the US-based Battlebots and the UK-based Robot Wars, and providing welcome historical and even personal background on builders like Carlo Bertocchini and Trey Roski, figures who would become central to the sport. Without this text, so much of this history would go unknown, or forgotten, and as such I thoroughly recommend it to any robot combat fan.

[Sophie Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brad Stone has collected all the history of the birth of the sport known as Robot Wars.
This book charts all the characters, events & dishes the dirt.
A must read for anyone who is interested in Robot Wars or Battlebots!

[JordanBreese · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gearheads by Brad Stone is a great non-fiction book. It is set in the U.S. and includes Marc Thorpe, Trey Roski, and Steve Plotnicki. It talks about how robotic sports happened. It also talks about it's downfall and rise back up. I rated it 4 out of 5 because it had a few spelling errors.