Robot Battles
In this step, University of Reading graduate, Rory Mangles, writes about another robot application – Robot battles! You can read all about the events below and also follow the links to watch the robots in action.
In the early 2000s, the BBC hosted a cult children’s television series Robot Wars. The premise of the show was to have robots – designed by amateur and professional roboteers – fight to the death! As you can imagine, it was an instant hit.
Robot Battles Continue
After the original series went off the air, you might have thought that would be the end of it. However the roboteers still had their robots and weren’t going to give up that easily! So various live shows and events have been held every year since, with new robots being built and technologies improving. These days, highly engineered and incredibly powerful machines fight it out across the country. It is thus not surprising that the show is back on again!
Robot Battles Premise
Robot Battle Classes
- Heavyweight: 100kg
- Featherweight: 13.6Kg
- Beetleweight: 1.5kg
- Antweight: 150g
- Fleaweight: 75g
- Nanoweight: 25g
Figure 1: One of the Antweight robots owned by members of the University’s Robot Wars group (click to expand) © University of Reading
Figure 2: Another of the Antweight robots owned by members of the University’s Robot Wars group (click to expand) © University of Reading
Building a Battle Robot
So how much time and effort goes into building a fighting robot? It can be surprisingly little once you know what you’re doing. The main components needed are motors, wheels, motor controllers, radio receiver, weapon, and chassis. For antweights, almost all these parts can be bought as pre-made kits from the Robot Wars Group, or from other sources on the Internet.
There are also great online communities who are happy to help source parts and provide advice. It’s a great way to get into engineering, and many of the roboteers have gone on to get jobs in the area.
Robots or Machines?
It is worth noting that while these are robots in some ways, they are remotely controlled machines, and are somewhat different from the robots you will meet in the simulations on this course.
Useful links:
- The FRA UK Featherweight Championships 2014 – This video shows what the championship is all about!
- Alternatively, for more information on events, please see Fighting Robots Association.
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