Any advice for a First Timer?

hello all, first of all Hi, my name is Craig, i'm new to building robots and I am interested in building my First over the winter

The Idea is to build a Featherweight Control bot - and wondered if any of you experienced Builders have any advice on how best to build one is - what is the easiest way and best place to get electronic parts, materials, etc.

I do have a few ideas on materials I want to build it out of - mainly a HDPE base - but any helpful suggestions for alternatives would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for reading this and I hope this leads to a successful build

Hey there, welcome to the forum!

HDPE is a good place to start, easy to work with, especially with hand tools. I'd read up on the build diaries here to see what works and what doesn't work to give an idea as to what is being used by the roboteers around here at the moment.

As for places to source stuff, I find HobbyKing.com, Technobots.com and RobotShop.com the places I tend to go to get my bits and pieces though of course, there are others I am sure can recommend (along, of course, with parts being sold on here from time to time). As far as the easiest way to build a robot, plan your build, make sketches, sleep on the design, review and adjust until happy and then build is the way I do mine these days.

Hope this helps!

thank you for the feedback - i'm also watching some old Robot Wars (Original era) for ideas and thinking Lexan could be useful too as a Building material for it

As for the pointers on the design I've been working on Drawings and sketches for the weaponry - Its planned to be Under mounted Steel spider with chains at the end - mainly because I love old style horror books like Stephen Kings, Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft - the arms would hopefully entangle (if that is legal in battle) and Imobilise without causing too much damage as I know how much Robots cost to build and repairing is costly (Carbide and Hypno Disc come to mind and the devastation they caused so I'm not a big fan of that type of bot) plus I respect all roboteers and their creations so I wouldn't wanna destory such creativity (I might be the first Pacifist to enter Robot Combat :lol: )

thank you yet again for the feedback and I hope to update how the build goes

Lexan and macrolon are brandnames of polycarbonate. The stuff is harder but more brittle than HPDE.
The only reason I would use polycarbonate is the see trough capability.
For stiff structural parts, aluminium, hardox or titanium.

I use polycarbonate on Kaizen on its shell panels (4mm thick box section steel for the structure) and on the front wedge (20mm at the leading edge to the floor). Held out fine in the recent Middleweight championships, even when hurling itself against a vertical spinner at one stage.

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Its planned to be Under mounted Steel spider with chains at the end

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Sounds unusual, I can't quite visualise that, got a drawing you can show?

Hello there,

Really nice to see a new face xD I'm not an expert like some people on the forum but I have been making a build log of videos about exactly what i have done step by step.

Not intentionally trying to whore myself out ha ha just trying to give you a good starting point :)

Here is the link to the playlist

and Here is the link to my own forum post

Which has some great advice from the other members of the forum who are all wonderful! xD

All the best!

Will :)