KYLE VOGT COULDN’T do anything to help his dustpan-shaped battlebot Decimator as it took a saw blade to the belly. The CO2 tank powering its primary weapon ruptured, sending his droid skittering into the spikes lining the arena. Moments later, the bot’s nemesis, Tazbot, flipped it over and landed six blows with a pickaxe before judges called the fight.
Vogt, who was 13, didn’t know it, but that Battlebots match in Las Vegas would be instrumental in determining his career path and, possibly, the future of transportation.
