Larry Bock: Bots High Robotics Documentary – STEM, Gender Gaps, And Future Engineers In High School.

Check out the awesome article on Bots High in the Huffington Post!

Bots High takes place over the 2009-2010 school year. Unsurprisingly, the teams had a history before and after the time the film takes place (2011 Epilogue now in the DVD!). So to expand the scope and add some cool context and backstory to the Oct 6 screening day, I’ve been tracing the history of each team in the film each week in the newsletter.

So far we’ve heard about how Will from Ransom first built a robot in 6th grade, went up against a senior team, and won. Just now we explored freshman year of My Mechanical Romance’s Liz and Danielle, when they first get introduced to robotics.

I’m using Storify to compile this narrative, and updating as I release new stories via newsletter. But the newsletter goes more in depth with longer anecdotal stories.

So catch up and check out the history of the teams on the Storify page, and signup for the newsletter to get a weekly update about a team or robot in the film, leading up to October 6.

MAKE | Bots High Documentary Goes Inside World of High School Robot Builders.

Check out the latest Directors Notes podcast where I talk about the making of Bots High and other projects. Many thanks to MarBelle for the interview! I think his voice could work as a 1950s horror movie host.

Listen to the Interview

With just about 1700 fans on the Facebook page, I’m having another giveaway! But this time it’s through the Meetup Everywhere screenings. By the end of the weekend I’ll randomly pick someone who RSVP’d to their city. If your city isn’t listed, add it! If 40 cities are listed by Monday I’ll pick two winners and send you a t-shirt and DVD!

(Be sure to include a way to be contacted, whether that’s submitting your email address when prompted or syncing with Facebook or Twitter. You’ll have 24 hours to respond and then I’ll pick another winner.)

Join Your City!

I’m getting in front of the camera now, explaining the Screening Day. Join here!

Robot Builders Doc Bots High: Mad Hot Ballroom with Nerds – Thompson on Hollywood

Bots High is a film that proudly declares its geekiness, which is a promising sign for a documentary that follows three groups of high school robotics students as they develop and (literally) battle their way to a national combat robots competition in Miami. Basically, it’s Mad Hot Ballroom with nerds.

Check out the great writeup of Bots High and the Free Screening Day over at the IndieWire blog Thompson on Hollywood (though written by Combs).

I love the headline, that was exactly what I pitched the film as two years ago when I was meeting people. Sadly they hadn’t seen Mad Hot Ballroom. But the same fate doesn’t have to happen to you with Bots High – join a free screening!

Last week Bots High played at the Geek Film Festival, which was part of Florida Supercon. Interesting to say the least, especially when Win from the film dressed like Nyan Cat. No wonder it took him three days to do the whole festival – I put the costume on for two seconds to walk down the hall to the screening room and got stopped for three different photos.

I’m excited to say that Bots High was awarded Best Documentary – woo! Time to change up the laurels. And if you get a chance (hopefully it’ll be online in the future), check out fellow FSU grad Mike Felker’s short Cliquetastrophe, which won Best Short.

What better way to celebrate America’s freedom than by watching robots smash each other up! Bots High will be at the Geek Film Festival this weekend, which is part of Florida Supercon. I’ll be there for Q&As, along with some of My Mechanical Romance and Mechanical Misfits.

Screening Times:

Saturday, July 2 – 2:00 PM

Sunday, July 3 – 2:45 PM

Since the festival is part of Supercon, you just need to get a day pass to Supercon. Once in you can watch as many movies as you want (like Minecraft, Back to Space-con, Connected, or Star Wars Begins) and check out the festival.

Also, if you’re interested in filmmaking stuff I’ll be on some panels. Independent Filmmaker Panel Saturday at noon and Florida Filmmaker Sunday at 1.

DVDs (and now t-shirts and posters!) will be on sale. Hope to see you there!

This week has been pretty interesting. Some popular geek websites in Spain posted about Bots High, which in turn led to a lot of retweets – in Spanish! Here are some of my favorites (correct me if my translation is off):

Bots High: a documentary where robots fight to the death. ROBOTS that FIGHT, enough said. Best. Film. Ever. OMG!

It’s not Real Steel but it’s really good! Bots High: Robots destroying each other

Very yankee entertainment

Official trailer for the documentary Bots High, where students build robot luchadors (fighting robots).

Bots High: Fight of the Robots!

I’d pay to see self-destructing robots…

So some cool news – because of this huge Spanish buzz some people have come forward asking if there’s Spanish subtitles for the film, and when I said there wasn’t they volunteered to translate. So there will be Spanish subtitles! If you want Bots High translated in another language, I’ll gladly provide the English transcript to work off of. Just let me know.