In the back of a church in an anonymous stretch of 7 Mile in Detroit dotted with industrial lots and fast food stores, performers dressed as giant robots battle it out in front of a live audience behind bullet-proof glass.

“We have these nine foot tall metal gladiators that shoot exploding projectiles at 20 rounds a second,” says Art Cartwright, the impresario who founded both the church, Global Empowerment Ministries, and the organization behind the robot show, The Interactive Combat League.

The show, running every few months, is called Robowar. Cartwright’s two enterprises have little to do with each other, he says, save for sharing space and introducing members of his community to potential employment in robotics.

“Metropolitian Detroit right now leads the nation in robotics,” Cartwright says. “We have more robots than any other place in America.”

But the gleaming, glowing-eyed stars of the Interactive Combat League are nothing like industrial robots that help assemble automobiles. They are played by humans wearing what might be considered mech suits. Robots fighting each other as entertainment is a cultural fantasy that goes back at least to 1956, when Richard Matheson’s short story “Steel” was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. It was adapted into a 1963 episode on the TV show The Twilight Zone, and helped inspire the 2011 movie, Real Steel.

“I’m a Marvel fan,” Cartwright says. “So I’m like, okay, let’s make some robots that look like superheroes.”

Robowar has been selling out shows in its 572 seat auditorium since it launched last summer, and has attracted admiring national coverage. Tickets start at around $50. Cartwright says he eventually plans to stage online interactive robot fights where remote viewers control the action by buying virtual tokens. He says he’s created AI personas for robots representing 30 different cities, from Boston to Los Angeles.

“They talk cash money trash,” he chuckles.

A Detroit-themed quadruped is part of the action at the Robowar show.

Timothy Chen Allen

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Timothy Chen Allen

Robowar also features real robots — robot dogs and child-sized humanoids that dance and pose for pictures. Cartwright bought the smaller robots from a Chinese company, Unitree, known for making accessible robots, with some models available at places like Walmart and costing fewer than $20,000. At one point during the show, there’s a robot competing in a dance-off against a human audience member, executing impressive spins and flips. But the audience, including a 10 year old Kaden Denard, mostly seems to root against the machine.

“They are clankers!” Denard exclaims, using an emerging slur against robots and AI. “I want to be mean to the robots! They are clankers!”

“You better be nice to them before they finish you,” his mother, Nawal Denard, jokes. Though the two depart into a cold Michigan night, along with hundreds of other spectators, the room they left was full of human warmth.

Edited for radio and web by Meghan Sullivan

TAMPA BAY – The Tampa Bay Lightning have acquired defenseman Ian Mitchell from the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for forwards Michael Milne and Wojciech Stachowiak, Vice President and General Manager Julien BriseBois announced today. Mitchell will report to the Syracuse Crunch of the American Hockey League. 

Mitchell, 27, has skated in 45 games with the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins this season, recording four goals and 20 points with a plus-27 rating. The 6-foot, 195-pound defenseman has appeared in 201 career AHL contests between the Griffins, Providence Bruins and Rockford IceHogs, registering 27 goals and 113 points with a plus-51 rating and 10 game-winning goals.

A native of St. Albert, Alberta, Mitchell has played in 110 career NHL games between the Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks, logging four goals and 19 points while averaging 15:10 of time on ice. He was originally drafted by Chicago in the second round, 57thoverall, of the 2017 NHL Draft.

(FOX 2) – Plan on the sun greeting residents in Southeast Michigan on Thursday as temperatures dip.

However, by Friday, snow will be back in the forecast with flakes possible in the early morning.

Big picture view:

Thursday’s temperatures will peak in the low 40s this with some gusts as high as 24 mph.

Fortunately, the sun will be out for the majority of the day, adding some warmth to the air heading into the end of the week. 

Then, around 2 a.m., snow could fall along with a mixture of rain. There will be increasing cloud cover throughout the day as temperatures sink further. The low for Friday will just eclipse freezing conditions.

There will be more wind gusts as well. Snow could accumulate as much as half an inch.

Weekend weather

Rain and snow will likely greet commuters when they’re on the road Friday around 10 a.m. before transitioning to just rain by 2 p.m.

Snow will also accumulate another half an inch, according to the National Weather Service. 

Saturday will have partly sunny conditions and a high of 40 degrees. Sunday will transition to likely rain and snow with a high of 55 degrees.

It appears the brief warm spell that early March brought was only temporary, with freezing temperatures returning the following week.