Cod Black Ops Bots

[Katina Piccirilli]

Unfortunatelynot. If I set up an unrated, custom game, I can choose my color, but I can't make one of the bots my opponent. I guess this "feature" is to encourage me to play rated games against a human. I'm just having so much fun with the bots right now.

The study was led in part by Vanessa Perry, professor of marketing and strategic management & public policy, and Nils Olsen, assistant professor of organizational sciences, at the George Washington University. Participants were asked to engage in a simulated booking of a four-day, three-night trip to New York City. The goal was to negotiate the best price possible for their hotel stay with a digital avatar: either a White AI bot, an Asian AI bot or a Black AI bot. Despite existing research that finds Black people are more likely to be stereotyped as having less competence compared to White or Asian people, the researchers find that the Black AI bot was characterized with higher competence than Asian or White bots. Participants also described the Black bot as more human. Combined, these traits led to higher ratings of satisfaction.

黑兔 (translated as Black Rabbit) is a Chinese robot which competed in King of Bots II. It was selected by Zhu Zheng Ting during the opening rounds, safeguarding its place on his team by defeating Hold Me Up on a Judges' decision. On this team, it defeated Big Carioca in a head-to-head battle to earn a point for Zhu Zheng Ting, but lost to Iron Scrap of Tu Ziya's team in its next battle. Despite this, Black Rabbit later knocked Tu Ziya out of the tournament entirely after earning a dominant win over Yesaji. In a reverse of fortunate, Black Rabbit's loss to Rhino in its next battle caused it and the rest of Zhu Zheng Ting's team to be eliminated from the competition, despite Black Rabbit being on the verge of victory before it was pinned in place by an arena hazard.

It was the heavyweight counterpart of the same name, with the featherweight Black Rabbit competing in various featherweight events organized by King of Bots, leading up to its appearance in the King of Bots 2019 Opening Battle.

Black Rabbit appeared in Season 2, having first competed on King of Bots with its featherweight counterpart in the 2019 Opening Battle. Its design impressed Zhu Zheng Ting, and he nominated Black Rabbit to fight against Emma Dumont's Hold Me Up for a place on Zheng Ting's team.

Both robots moved towards each other, but Hold Me Up immediately wedged its forks into the arena saw slots. Although this would generally be disadvantageous, Hold Me Up freed itself just in time to swing Black Rabbit into the corner of the arena, and afterwards, deliver a weapon-to-weapon blow where Hold Me Up threw Black Rabbit into the air. Black Rabbit responded well, and drove around the back of Hold Me Up to charge it straight into the arena wall, where the spikes were lined.

Both spinning weapons had ground to a halt during this sequence of attacks, and the robots circled around each other to spin up their blades, until Black Rabbit broke the silence and struck Hold Me Up into the air. These previous attacks had also damaged Hold Me Up's forked wedges, as Hold Me Up no longer had the ground clearance advantage, charging at the front of Black Rabbit only to be thrown into the air again. This also allowed Black Rabbit to charge into the side of Hold Me Up twice in succession, although its drum was powered down at the time, limiting its damage output. Black Rabbit attempted to power up its drum, but a burst of smoke emerged from the robot, signalling weapon motor issues. Nevertheless, Black Rabbit took advantage of this by feigning immobility until Hold Me Up exposed its backside, and Black Rabbit charged in to deliver a powerful slam.

Black Rabbit missed its next two charges, and still posed little threat when it did ram into the wheels of Hold Me Up due to its broken weaponry, but at this stage, Hold Me Up had not launched an attack in a long time. Black Rabbit quickly drifted around the arena while Hold Me Up remained somewhat stationary, and Black Rabbit bumped it again, managing to scoop up the back end of Hold Me Up in order to box-rush it into the Grinder mount. Another slam into the Grinders also completely overturned Hold Me Up. Quick to respond, Hold Me Up struck the grinder with its eggbeater spinner in order to self-right, but Black Rabbit continued to pressure it, until Black Rabbit suddenly drove over the floor flipper with only 35 seconds left on the clocks.

Hold Me Up was not spinning its eggbeater, and it was struggling to drive with half of its drive system no longer working. However, Black Rabbit could not capitalize on its opponent's issues as it was still attempting to self-right, at first driving into a Grinder to almost flip itself back over. Black Rabbit was also unsuccessful in its next attempt, moving into the mount between the two Grinders, potentially taking damage to itself in the process. Next, it reversed and then drove into the Grinder again, finally righting itself on its third attempt. The passive Hold Me Up had stuck one of its forks into the arena floor, which allowed Black Rabbit to hit it from behind and carry it to the arena saws, although another plume of smoke suddenly started to pour out of Black Rabbit. Indeed, Black Rabbit's drum was once again spinning, likely causing the fire, but Black Rabbit still chipped the back of Hold Me Up, which was also spinning its eggbeater once again. Black Rabbit then drove Hold Me Up into the arena spikes, and released its foe when time expired on the battle at the end of three minutes.

After the battle had ended, both robots were required to drive back to the arena corners, and as Hold Me Up could only use half of its working drive system, Black Rabbit assisted by shoving Hold Me Up towards the corner of the arena. This had no bearing on the Judges' decision, which favored Black Rabbit and allowed it to join Zhu Zheng Ting's team.

Black Rabbit's place on the team was briefly put in danger in the next round, where Zhu Zheng Ting's team took on the five robots of Tao Shen, and if Zhu Zheng Ting were to lose more battles to Tao Shen than he could win, then he would be forced to remove either Black Rabbit or Switch from his team. However, Zhu Zheng Ting was confident enough to let Black Rabbit prove itself in a head-to-head battle against Big Carioca.

Despite a tentative start for both robots, Black Rabbit quickly got round the side of Big Carioca, before getting underneath and flipping the Brazilian machine upside-down. Big Carioca drove towards the red corner and re-righted itself while being rammed by Black Rabbit again; in doing so, Big Carioca tore one of the wall spikes off. The two competitors clashed again by one of the floor flippers; Big Carioca flipped itself over after striking the side of a spinning Black Rabbit, only for the flipper to throw it back upright. Black Rabbit pursued and slammed into Big Carioca once more, only for Big Carioca to land several more blows on it with its vertical spinner. Big Carioca continued to chase Black Rabbit, whose own drum spinner was struggling to get up to speed, before landing another heavy hit which sent Black Rabbit spinning away.

Black Rabbit quickly recovered, dodging then pushing Big Carioca into the wall spikes. Another head-on collision ensued between the two robots, before Black Rabbit resumed its earlier assault by pushing Big Carioca into the spikes again, then the circular saws. For the next few moments, Big Carioca bumped and chased Black Rabbit across the arena, only to be scooped up and steered towards the spikes once more by Black Rabbit. With less than fifty seconds to go, Big Carioca drove off the top of Black Rabbit, only to slam into and attack Black Rabbit's right-rear wheel with its spinner. This attack, however, did not affect Black Rabbit severely, as it proceeded to turn round and drive Big Carioca into the wall spikes yet again. A few more pursuits and rams ensued, with Big Carioca pushing Black Rabbit sideways just before time expired.

The battle went to a Judges' decision, which ruled in favor of Black Rabbit, earning a point for Zhu Zheng Ting and ultimately defending Black Rabbit's position on the team, after Snake and Tnsh later secured an overall victory for Zhu Zheng Ting over Tao Shen in the next battle.

In the next phase of battles, Black Rabbit was once again fighting for survival, as Zhu Zheng Ting was again forced to nominate it for elimination. To try and prevent this, Black Rabbit fought against Iron Scrap of Tu Ziya's team.

Initially, it moved steadily out of the blue corner before turning into the front of Iron Scrap; sparks flew as the two competitors exchanged blows with their drums. Black Rabbit quickly flipped Iron Scrap over as the latter gyrated onto one side, and withstood another blow from its opponent's weapon as it pushed and steered Iron Scrap into the blue corner. More sparks flew as Black Rabbit got underneath and briefly pushed Iron Scrap towards the grinders; it then proceeded to nudge Iron Scrap into a grinder itself, in turn causing Iron Scrap to be flipped back upright.

Black Rabbit proceeded to pressure Iron Scrap for some time, chasing the purple and green machine across the arena, only to be chased around in circles itself. Eventually, it slammed into the front of Iron Scrap again, throwing Team Knock Together's machine into somersaults, but losing one of its wedgelets in the process. Black Rabbit followed Iron Scrap as it spun and gyrated towards the wall spikes, landing another solid hit on its opponent's drum. It chased and flipped Iron Scrap once more after this, although Iron Scrap self-righted almost immediately. As it drove in for another head-on attack, Black Rabbit was thrown sideways by Iron Scrap, losing its remaining wedgelet as it hurtled across the arena perimeter.

Black Rabbit proceeded to dodge and sustain a lighter hit from Iron Scrap, before Iron Scrap responded by landing three bigger blows with its weapon. The second resulted in Black Rabbit being flipped forwards, while the third saw it being catapulted from the red corner upon clipping Iron Scrap's drum. Gyrating through the air, Black Rabbit bounced on its side, then its back, turning quickly away from the bottom corner as it tried unsuccessfully to gyrate itself back over.

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