Where to Build?

Hi, new to the forums. Just put in my membership today.

I'm looking to try and enter featherweight class at Stevenage on the 1st and 2nd October. I've got engineering experience and funds to do so, but I've ran into a critical problem.

I currently live in a shared accommodation that doesn't include a garage. I've tried looking for garages but the majority I can find are all unpowered storage. Most of these are near residential which I believe would rule out generators (landlords I've asked so far get very quiet on hearing about the power needs), and I'm not too sure about the safety of running very high power inverters for welding.

I work and live around the Stevenage / Ware area need to find some kind of solution where I can put it together, but I'm running into a wall here. Has anyone had the same problem and what solutions did you have?

Have you looked at Hackspaces? I think your local one would be Hitchin Hackspace. Failing that I'm up at Cambridge Makespace. There's members at both who compete with fighting robots.

Vilvoorde in Belgium, nearby Brussels, is a "hub" for builders. Now there are 2 places to do so.

House of Chaos( Babs and my place) and Atelier Vilvoorde, a Maker Space alike setup, run bij another roboteer , Jan Huygh from Hard.

First Welcome! Always good to have new Roboteers :)

If you don't have a space to do welding then perhaps you could build a machine out of plastic first? I made my first robot using a Drill and a Jigsaw... and a lot of mess. Even now our live event bots are done with those tools as its just cheaper. We do the occasional but of welding but nothing drastic so you might be able to get away with setting it up outside on an evening or morning when no on is around.

We have cut everything from HDPE to Titanium with our jigsaw so provided you take your time you can cut almost anything!

Failing that, the Hackspace is a good idea, or find another local roboteer and ask to pop over. Most Roboteers accept Beer/Cider/Pepsi as payment :)

I had this problem when I first joined, and I made a thread about it. The first page may help you.
http://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/thre...build-my-robot

Barber-ous I was built in the dining room of my old house. All the bits were laser cut & bolted together with no welding. It all went fine until during testing, it fell off it's stand, shredded the carpet and tore several deep gouges in the concrete below. My wife was remarkably understanding - at least after I promised to replace all the carpet downstairs with wood flooring, and find somewhere else to work!

We ended up building a workshop in my friends garage which was previously just full of junk - and that was fantastic! A couple of years later I found a much bigger workshop (800 sq ft) that happened to have a nice house in the Garden - so we bought the workshop (and got the house for free!).

It's worth asking around, friends & family or on social media. Someone will have a garage or shed you can use.

I'm currently dealing with the same issue and it's highly frustrating after building Overdozer under a gazebo it's basically been top priority to get something sorted.

An idea I explored initially was seeing what the local council provided - mine does garage sites (where you erect a structure on the plot) and lockups - more like a garage but often under waiting lists. Though naturally they'd require a generator and security would be somewhat of a concern, as for the noise of a generator you could build a baffle box that will dampen the sound considerably.

Also looked into Gumtree for workshop spaces but these often run very expensive and that's not idea.

I'd go with what people have suggested though - looking into hackerspaces, they're small and usually well kitted out plus full of very knowledgeable people. Another option I've also looked into is looking for a local model engineering society/club.

In the end I've managed to strike a deal with my Grandpa to clear a plot of land and erect a shed.

Update on progress thus far:

I did find a garage willing to let me do the work there with a generator, and a private storage facility who were willing to let me do the work there with built in power.

unfortunately I've figured both aren't suitable - access to the garage is terrible and it's quite clearly been broken into before, had strong advice some a friend of mine that neighborhood it'd be robbed in no time. The storage facility is far worse, looked great on the surface, very accepting of my ideas, was about to sign contracts then found out by a coincidence that the company was dissolved and doesn't exist, but is being posed as one. Very concerning and I don't think the best idea.

Cambridge Hackspace is about an hour from me, so might be an option. They don't have the risk assessments in place for welding though so can't weld there.

As suggested, I may have to drop the metals from the plan. Realistically given the options I have had so far weren't suitable I think I may have to skip out on this event and join the next one near enough as things currently stand, but I'll keep an eye out for anything that looks suitable, and might start going to the hackspace anyway for a bit more machining practice.

Yeh, we're working on welding. TBH welding isn't required for robots these days, nutstrip is rather popular and very versatile. Check out Pulsar, Flatpack, Tormenta 3 to see some great examples.

Definitely come along to Stevenage anyway, you'll get lots of tips and you'll be able to see the sizes and inner workings of the robots first hand.