(FORTUNE Magazine) – FROM THE MOMENT I SAW SIGOURNEY WEAVER put on her yellow forklift exoskeleton in Aliens, I thought they were pretty cool. My dad, Scott (above right), and I are both engineers, and four or five years ago, after seeing an article about people building remote-control robots to fight each other, we started competing in the field ourselves. For Servo Magazine's Tetsujin 2004 competition in October, we had the unique problem of creating--for less than $10,000 of our own money--a strong suit that fit outside the body but had the same freedom of motion that humans do and could lift 1,500 pounds. I spent every waking hour working on the exoskeleton. Over the years we've spent over $30,000 on various robots, so it's probably one of the most expensive hobbies you can have. The prize money is small, and you spend a bunch of money to go and get your toy smashed, only to spend a bunch to fix it. So I can see how people think it's silly. But as far as I'm concerned, the thrill is more than worth the investment. -- Interview by Nadira A. Hira