Las Vegas is a desert city that is known for its well-developed spinach industry and tourism.

As you head north along the Las Vegas Strip, the luxury hotels on the side of the road fade from view and are replaced by expanses of the Gobi Desert. Different from the desert Gobi in other places, the land here has been treated and the vegetation is relatively rich, but it is inevitable that it is sparse and low, and the gray face is inevitable, after all, the desert climate has little precipitation.

Driving on the desert national highway, the freshness in Zhang Xuyao's heart quickly declined, and he soon became bored with the cookie-cutter Gobi scenery outside the car window. The tens of thousands of viewers in the live broadcast room are also like this, and it's really easy to get sleepy when you watch these in the morning!

There is a 16-hour time difference between the two sides of the vast Pacific Ocean, and it is still three o'clock in the afternoon on her side, and seven o'clock in the morning the next day in China.

In response to the audience's initiative, Zhang Xuyao reached out to adjust the mobile phone holder, let the camera point at him, and coughed: "Well, while there are fewer people now, let's answer the question!"

Looking at the barrage on the screen, she whispered the question: "Why did you suddenly come to the United States?"

In the blink of an eye, Mr. Zhang put on an aggrieved face: "Dear, I don't want to come either, how cold and desolate is it here?" But the BotBoxing Robot Boxing Tournament Organizing Committee said that if I don't come, I will chase the prize, and then I have to come!"

"As for what this robot boxing match is? You must be paying attention to me, right? Okay, this question has already been answered for me, so I won't boast. ”

A year ago, Bee hosted its first BBx robot boxing tournament on its doorstep. This year, the second edition of the competition was moved to the United States, and the venue was placed in North Las Vegas, and Zhang Xuyao is now on her way to the competition venue.

"You ask me where is North Las Vegas? Of course it's north of Las Vegas! The two cities are next to each other, and the names are related to each other, which is easy for outsiders to remember, and it's actually pretty good, at least better than those Columbia and York that are everywhere. ”

Glancing at the map screen on the other tablet, Zhang Xuyao nodded and continued: "Okay, we have now entered the Beila range, and we will soon see the famous Apex Industrial Park." Wait, I'll turn my phone outside, and then you can get up close and personal with the charm of a super company. ”

Unlike the casino next door, Beila is just a small up-and-coming city with a population of 240,000. After the subprime mortgage crisis hit the U.S. real estate industry hard, the city fell into financial bankruptcy. After the new leadership team came to power, they came up with a solution to win policies and attract investment, and decided to build a large industrial park, introduce super enterprises, Faraday Future Automobile's "Gigafactory", and HyperloopOne's "super high-speed rail" test site have successively settled in the Apex Industrial Park.

The ideal is very beautiful, but the reality is somewhat unsatisfactory. Due to the financial problems encountered by the parent company, the construction progress of the FF factory has been greatly delayed, and the factory covering an area of 5,000 acres looks empty, only in the place close to the highway There are some prefabricated houses and construction machinery, which is completely not familiar to the Chinese people.

Backed by the famous billionaire Elon Musk, HO is not short of money, but their testing grounds are also empty, with no trace of the legendary vacuum pipe, no full-size capsule train, and even a few staff. Such a scene also made many netizens who had expectations frustrated.

In the face of everyone's crazy complaints, Zhang Xuyao had to pull the topic back and continue to answer the questions that the audience was concerned about.

Luckily, the car carrying her quickly drove off the highway and into the wasteland on the side of the road. After driving for a while along the rutted tire marks on the ground, the car finally stopped at the edge of the parking lot, and Zhang Xuyao, who was holding a selfie stick, pushed the door and got out of the car, curiously looking at the surroundings.

It is said that it is a parking lot, but in fact, it is an open space enclosed with a rope, and then sprinkled with gray lines to simply divide the parking space. In addition to the common Toyota, Honda, Nissan, the three major Japanese brands, Lao Mei's own Ford, Chevrolet, GM also has a lot, and then there are familiar Volkswagen, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz familiar to domestic users.

The American version of Japanese cars is cheap and of good quality, and is loved by the American masses, and has always been a powerful ruler of the sedan market, both first-hand and second-hand. The main reason why Japanese cars are popular with rental companies is that they are heavily sold second-hand and that they retain their value and are therefore popular with rental car companies. If you switch to the vast countryside, the common model will become a high-power pickup truck produced by local manufacturers such as Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge.

For Zhang Xuyao, the presence of so many cars here illustrates three facts: there are indeed many cars in the United States, BBx is popular, and most importantly - she is late.

Carefully avoiding a Toyota Camry that was bumping up and down, Zhang Xuyao secretly complained that Lao Mei really knew how to play, and hurriedly ran towards the tent in the preparation area not far away.

Las Vegas is hosting the annual CES, which attracts exhibitors, visitors, and media from around the world. The reason why the bees put the second BotBoxing boxing match next door to Beila is to fight these people's ideas, and the large number of cars gathered outside, as well as the SLRs and cameras everywhere in the stadium, also prove that this hard work was not in vain.

If it was in Las Vegas, there should be more spectators and reporters, but unfortunately the venue there is not easy to find, and the warm invitation from Beila is very positive, so the organizing committee finally chose the latter.

Walking to the door of the tent where the fat baby team was located, Zhang Xuyao showed her badge to the black security guard, but the other party did not mean to let go, and stretched out her big finger to point to her mobile phone, "Hey, ma'am, it is a confidential area, and you can't carry a private mobile phone." ”

Nodding slightly, Zhang Xuyao raised his mobile phone and apologized to the screen: "I'm sorry everyone, the content in the tent needs to be kept secret, my live broadcast is here for the time being, you can pay attention to the live broadcast room of the official and others, let's see you later!"

After ending the live broadcast and locking the phone, putting it in the box handed over by the security guard, Zhang Xuyao opened the curtain and got into the tent.

There is no doubt that the most conspicuous object in the tent is the fat baby X2 in the middle.

After a year of refinement and adjustment, a lot of changes have taken place in this robot, the most obvious is that it is larger and looks more powerful and domineering, which complements the conspicuous bright red paint on its body. The internal power, control, and aiming systems have also been greatly enhanced, making everyone confident in defending the title.

Changing into his combat uniform, Zhang Xuyao climbed into the cab for the final test test, confirmed that it was correct, and gave a thumbs up to the pilot outside, then closed the hatch and drove the car outward. The walking gear of the walking + wheeled type can be both flexible and versatile, and it is still used on the X2, of course, the tires have to be replaced with off-road models, and the power should also be appropriately strengthened, so as not to become a soft-footed shrimp.

The last BBx was only an invitational tournament, and the participating robots only had the fat baby PP-X with digital equipment, the Cangtian number of the waterway bridge, and 2 or three, which inevitably seemed to be small. This year, the situation has improved greatly, the number of participants has increased to 24, and the number of participating countries has also reached 11, so the scene is naturally much bigger.

Before the start of the official competition, there will be a performance similar to the athlete's entrance ceremony, where all the robots will line up through the audience area and receive everyone's onlookers and photos at close range, and then the competition will begin.

It is said that there are 24 teams from 11 countries, but there are only four "new faces" in the participating robots, and the remaining 17 are PP, Cangtian, Mark series derivative export models, it is obvious that the last competition helped everyone to make a name for themselves, and a lot of machines were sold.

After a round around the field, the contestants drove the robots to stand in a row, facing the audience, waiting for the final group results.

The competition items are the same as last time, and they are still paintball and stick fighting, as well as unlimited brawls in the nature of performances. Due to the multiplicity of contestants, the first two events had to be held in groups, but there was no convenient lottery system. The organizer played on-site voting in this link, allowing the audience to use their mobile phones to select the two sides they want to see the most, and then the system will count and match them to complete the final grouping table.

Facts have proved that the people of the United States also have the inferior nature of "watching the excitement is not a big deal", and the three old drivers PP-X2, Super Aotian, Mark3, and the original French robot Joan of Arc were grouped together, and the A where they are located form a veritable group of death.

When the results came out, the other 20 teams breathed a sigh of relief, but Mark3 and Joan of Arc's team were as depressed as if they had eaten half a fly, but they could only accept the will of the masses. If there is still a black-box operation in the lottery, the audience voting record is not easy to fake, after all, the person is here, and if you are not satisfied, you can cross-examine it on the spot.

Under the command of the staff, the first batch of 12 robots drove into the six competition venues, stood back to each other, and prepared for a shooting competition. In order to make it easier for everyone to watch, the game was not played at the same time, but started from Group A in turn, which also gave Zhang Xuyao a chance to fire the first shot.

Behind her is the old rival Watanabe Sakurako, whose car has also been improved and upgraded, and the appearance has become more aggressive, with sharp horns on her head, white paint, and the Gundam, Space Knight, Brilliant Emperor, and many white armors that appear in Japanese anime.

Shaking these age-revealing things out of her head, Zhang Xuyao held the joystick with both hands, and waited for the imminent start signal.

She didn't have to wait long, and the eye-catching "Ready!" and "Start!" appeared on the lenses in front of her eyes one after another. Zhang Xuyao stepped on her feet and drove the seated robot to run towards the reserved location.

To make the game even more dramatic, the organizers drew inspiration from American Westerns, where the two sides stood with their backs to each other like duel cowboys, received the start command to act, and only turned around to attack when they reached the action line.

Looking at the distance of 100 meters, Zhang Xuyao quickly arrived at the predetermined position, and then she turned around decisively, pulled the trigger and shot a series of barrages. Sakurako Watanabe was not idle over there, she also drove the Super Aoda for nearly 100 meters, and then turned around and fired back when she couldn't start.

The effective range of most pistols is only 50 meters, the paintball is easy to roll without rifling, the range is even lower, the attacks on both sides look gorgeous and powerful, but there are not many bullets that really hit, and there is a kind of embarrassment of thunder and rain.

Seeing this scene, the two women invariably stopped shooting and drove the robot towards each other, apparently thinking of shooting at close range.

On the brown wasteland, two large robots, one red and one white, approached each other along a serpentine route, and the dirt rolled up by the tires was blown into dust and smoke by the wind, but it also had a bit of the smell of battlefield fighting.

Approaching the predetermined position, Zhang Xuyao fired decisively, but this time it was not a paintball, but a plastic cannonball filled with paint, with a well-designed tail at the back of the thin cannonball, which rotated and flew towards the head of Super Cangtian.

She didn't hit the torso and hit the head because she found that it had an observation device installed in its head, and even if it couldn't destroy the observation system, it could reduce the observation accuracy of the other party, and at worst, it could frighten the other pilot. As long as you can hit the target, the next step is to fight.

Sakurako Watanabe was also aware of the problem and quickly began to dodge, while raising her arms to try to resist. She succeeded, but failed again, and although she blocked the plastic cannonballs, some of the exploded paint was still splashed on the sighting device, and her aiming ability was greatly reduced.

Zhang Xuyao didn't know this, and when she saw that the other party blocked the shell, she subconsciously thought that the attack had failed, and immediately launched Plan B, firing all the way to the other party. Although Sakurako Watanabe tried her best to fight back, the aiming system was not effective, and she was finally judged to lose by the system when she was shot more.

Their side had just finished the tournament and the first round of Group B did not start immediately as several players applied for an explanation of the rules.

Lidar is too expensive, the accuracy of ultrasonic and millimeter-wave radar is not enough, and the most used observation and sighting system is still camera. In order to make it easier for the driver to understand the picture, the camera is usually mounted on the front of the body, especially the head, but this also brings the defect of being easily confused.

Seeing Zhang Xuyao solve the opponent with a paste-faced tactic, everyone realized that something was not good, and hurriedly reported the situation to the organizer, hoping to add "no head" to the rules.

Their application was quickly rejected, and then Zhang Xuyao saw a scene that made her laugh, and the ten pilots got out of the cockpit, took the transparent bags handed by their fellow technicians, and put them on the heads of their own robots, turning them into "baggers". Although this could not stop the "blinding attack", it could reduce the trouble of post-war purge.

Making a helpless expression in the audience area, the fat baby X2 returned to his big tent amid the laughter of the audience.

(End of chapter)