For those who have been waiting for a battle of mech warriors between Japan and the USA, you may have to wait more as the Megabots Team are scrapping the MK2 and will proceed to building a MK3 Obviously, the reason is that the pilot in the Megabots MK3 will suffer injuries (or may not survive) the beating that be taken by the iron giant such as projectiles or metal punches from the Japanese Kuratas robot (whose original design has it firing an airsoft mini-gun as a weapon).

In a story in Digital Trends (there is a similar story on Engadget, but we’re getting an Error 404 accessing it), the tests conducted by the team on the MK2 the human pilot will suffer injuries that may just be life threatening. We do not know which tests were done, but I suspect the video in Megabots Season 1 video is the tests that the story is pertaining to:

As shown in the video, the dummy pilot inside of the MK2 took punishment that a human body cannot.  The plan now is to build a better Megabots MK3 that will be able to handle the punishments of a robot hand-to-hand combat that is required by the Japanese makers of the Kuratas in order for them to accept the challenge that was issued out by the Americans last year.

The MK3 will be designed to have a "safer cockpit, improved controls, and modular arms" (the last thing may mean easy to discard the arms for faster replacement when damaged or an arm attached weapon is needed).

Too bad that the fight planned will be an old school hand-to-hand combat with perhaps some melee weapons allowed but not high-tech weaponry included (I still stand on using the Hellfire missiles). But then high-tech weaponry may not make this a spectator sport with fans on the stands watching these robots battle it out live or else there will be some carnage out there. So for now, just metal knuckles and metal clubs will be used in the battle.

But as to when the fight will be, we do not know now. The Megabots team will need new funding to build the MK3 as it is going to be more expensive as pilot protection is not cheap. I would recommend such fighting done via remote control like those in Robot Wars, and if technology allows, like that in the movie “Real Steel”, that way, the pilots are not inside the robots and they can safely fight from a distance using perhaps FPV to issue commands and execute their tactics.

For now, all those who are interested in the fight can follow the progress by watching Season 1 of Megabots, if they will be able to design and build a MK3.