Scot-Bots

[Anttazz]

Don't think we have a thread for this, so may as well start one to keep it all in the one place.

At the moment, we just have the Facebook page (www.facebook.com/ScotBots) and will be doing a demo on 8th September with an Olympic theme doing combat and races. The kit bots we'll be using will be on sale at some point, but at the moment we'll just be using them at the events to make sure they're up to it. More details on them later as there's a lot to tell, we'll probably leak bits and pieces on Facebook closer to the time and then have photos of them taken at the event. I can promise you that they're worth the wait

We won't be in competition with any of the current EO's for large scale events, nor the locales that we operate in, more getting involved in smaller events and parties, education and promotion of the sport. Over the next week or so we should have something in place on the education front that I have been in discussions with since before ScotBots existed.

We are always looking for volunteers to help with our work, excluding Jamie and I, we already have 4 interested parties who will be assisting us at our first event including Mr Bryant. I'll post where each of our future events are being held and anyone interested in helping out can give us a shout.

Should be a good turn out at this event for people, robots and volunteers, apparently last year it topped 500+ people through the doors and we should have 2 kits, 5-8 FWs and 3-5 non competition robots in attendance too as well as loads of other stuff going on both from us and other groups in attendance.

Will add more information when it comes up

[tweedermeister]

Depending on where it is I might be able to lend a hand.

[Anttazz]

Westerton, East Dunbartonshire

[tweedermeister]

I can't make it there, sorry

[RogueTwoRobots]

So today was Westerton Gala Day and the first official Scot-Bots event. Overall it went pretty well but as with any new setup we did encounter some issues along the way, namely the arena being broken by the kit-bots within ten minutes
We also experienced burnt out motors and numerous blown fuses but considering the robots were running under heavy use for long periods of time, such issues were to be anticipated, if not desired.

Our location in the bowling club house meant that the traffic was ever-changing, with young kids coming and going and briefly having shots of the robots, to some older people who were just there for the bar, having shots of a different kind! This meant that it was somewhat difficult to actually do any sort of detailed talking and our focus switched from trying to talk to kids about engineering to just keeping robots running.

But with exception of such hiccups, I'd consider the day a success. Our volunteer team, including Mr. Bryant, were extremely useful and made our job a lot easier. Got some revisions to make to both the kits and the arena but we'll be pushing on with developments and improving on all fronts

[RogueTwoRobots]

And here is a picture of the kits ready to go last night. The gala had an olympic theme running so we themed up the kits, with them being christened MoBot and Usain Bot, with appropriate victory poses included

[attachment=0:m6eg22f4]DSCN6936.jpg[/attachment:m6eg22f4]
I've got some video as well but still need to go through it. That's a job for during the week though. There should be some pictures appearing too on our Scot-Bots Facebook page in due course

http://www.facebook.com/ScotBots

[Ellis]

Glad it went well for you guys! Very inspiring, the way you appear to have just... done it. We're looking into the possibility of doing a similar thing here to generate some interest. We priced up a basic 2 drill powered box (assuming all brand new parts) at a minimum ‚150, or some £120. Unless it's confidential, what kind of money has gone into your kitbots (that incidentally look of a much higher standard than our envisaged wooden £120 bot!), and what tech does said money allow for?

Best of luck for the future, I look forward to pics/videos!

[Vaultatron]

I would join the scot bots at their next event if there is one planned I could try and finish my AW robot to that time

[Anttazz]

We've been talking about it for ages Ellis, but we just kind of thought, why not! Someone at my old workplace mentioned that they were looking for people for a gala day, just after a local BB company won the Rampaging Chariots event and we were asked to attend it, so seemed like it was meant to be.

We've not worked out the cost of the kits 100% yet because we used some parts we already had between us, but I think Jamie is in the process of working out a retail price for them, but its more complicated than that.... Firstly, because those exact kits probably won't be sold, they're build for longevity of the battery (14-24Ah depending on the setup) letting us use them all day and secondly, .....well....you'll see :wink:

As for the tech we used, not sure how many of our secrets we want to give away before they go into production, but nothing in there (bar the huge batteries which I explained already) is anything we wouldn't use in one of our own FWs

@Ross: There isn't one planned yet, but we're always looking for volunteers. As Gary mentioned in your other post though, neither of us have or build Antweights. We have a variety of HW's FWs and a MW, but you're welcome to bring it along

[RogueTwoRobots]

Our aim with the kits was simple; make something that can hold its own in the arena. We figured that the easiest way to achieve that was to bring them as close to the weight limit as possible. Robots that are several kilos underweight going into a fight are going to struggle to make any impact on the battle, or even another robot, especially if they only have drill-powered drives and no weapon. So by making our kits as close to 13.6kg as is reasonably possible, they'll stand a better chance of being able to fight on an even keel.

It's an aim that has so far been met. One of the kits managed to push Cicatrix backwards during testing, and it was out-pushing Carcinus in a mini-battle at the weekend - so far so good. There is still about 2kg of weight spare as well, so take one of the beefy batteries out and you've got plenty of weight for a weapon and armour.

The issues that arose at the weekend are easily fixable with the benefit of hindsight, but I'm going to grab a couple of bits that should help minimise any repeats. I'm currently totting up how much it cost to make the kits to try and determine a rough retail price. We're hoping to keep the cost down as much as possible so that it's not too expensive a jump for someone starting out. The kit will most likely start out as just a rambot, but the plan is to develop two or three different weapons packages to make available for anyone wanting to upgrade.

Tech-wise there's not a huge amount of special stuff in there. It's your standard drill-box pusher, with Botbitz controllers being our current ESC of choice. Just as simple as it can be, with easy-to-obtain parts should your kit have an unfortunate encounter with NST :wink: