Yorkshire

Just to say, I agree with Stu. The FRA needs to maintain a level of detactment from the actual running of events, so that the actual business of administerring this sport can be looked at objectivly by the association.

That said, it does strike me as a crying shame that all the work that went into the NARC arena, at this time, appears to be a waste. What we do need to be doing is supporting Darran and Bernard in their work promoting engineering through robotic combat, particularly as this is also promoting robotic combat through education. The best form of promotion for a live event has to be putting a robot in front of the public and telling them when and where they can see it fighting.

Jeremy, its a tricky one. I share your enthusiasm for making progress at these meetings, but at the same time, we do need to keep things fun.

Rather than introduce a little league in heavyweights, maybe we could use one of the currently less-popular weight classes (light or middle) as a springboard catagory?

Steve not to stand on your idea or anything, but this is what was said about Featherweights not too long ago, now look at them, Its almost as hard to build a good featherweight as it is a heavyweight. I am all for getting more people into the sport, but I would prefer to have a Cheep heavyweight division rather than using a smaller weight class.

Also, People want to build heavys, I know I do but I realise there very diffivult to get into so atm I cant. If this cheep class came about, then I might be able to.

Regards
Ian

I can see where your coming from Ian, and in part agree. My thinking is that I agree with you, in that building a good robot, in terms of skills, is pretty much as hard for any weight class.

However, in terms of construction cost, theres no way a lightweight/middleweight would cost anywhere near heavyweight money, as to get a decent amount of shove in a heavy, youre still looking at needing a pair of 1hp motors at the very least. VoA in the middles used 4 big cordless drills back in the day, this is perfectly practical for a lightweight, and a couple of old half hoursepower wheelchairs/granny carts could do the job in a middle.

Another thing that springs to mind is the practicality of moving it around, particularly for a younger team. A heavy takes 2 or 3 blokes to shift around, a middle could be moved without too much bother by a younger team.

However, the killer point for me is arenas, what we need is lots of local heat type events for this new class. So if things can be kept within a pretty basic arena, this can only help.

You can build a heavyweight for £350.oo including controller/reciever and all safety up to speck,using gas pneumatics(low pressure)sim motors,and still take on the best-I have-loads of times,hello to exterminator/terrorhurtz/kanopener/ripper/splinter/tan/ming-the list goes on,even achieved a win on the odd occassion......

It seems to me that the reason lightweights & middleweights are cheap to build is because these classes havent had much attention. One can build a heavyweight with cordless drill motors, however you need to spend a bit more to get a competitive heavyweight. The reason a heavyweight costs more is more due to the popularity of this class than anything inherent to the different weight limit. To put it another way, if there are no other competitors, Psychosprout would be the undisputed winner.

Id rather see new leagues of the popular weight classes than fragment all our efforts into different classes which cannot easily compete against each other.

No disrespect is intended to those who build lightweight and middleweight machines - Im sure quite a few middleweights could take on heavyweights and win.

Colin, any chance of a parts list? It would be useful if we put together a how to build a robot page.

No problem jim,I will make a invetory of all parts used and how they were put together.Really I would love to do an exploded view(haynes manual style)-parts and costings I can e-mail to you when ready,by the way psycosprout-one of yours?,if so your a true veteren RW series 1.

No, series 5 was on TV before I even picked up the drawing board :) Psychosprout was just an example - it was an innovative approach to robot building but would be underpowered by todays standards.

Hi Roboteers,

We had a warm and friendly welcome in November and January from the George and Dragon, and so we are back there again for our 6th FRA Social in Yorkshire.We had an excellent turnout in January, so I have great hopes for our March meeting.As it is only 3 miles from Junction 38 on the M1, it is easy for a lot of people to get to.Please pass this invitation to any other roboteers who would like to attend, and who are not on my list of contacts.

The meeting will be held at 7.30pm on Saturday 5th March, and we will be taking over the dining area of the pub for our meeting as before.

The address of the pub is:-

The George and Dragon
257 Barnsley Road
Flockton
Wakefield
West Yorkshire
WF4 4AL
Tel: 01924 840975

The provisional agenda is:-
1. Welcome and Introductions
2. FRA Open Days
3. 8ack Clan Combat - Terry Carlins Concept
4. Exchange of information/equipment between roboteers

Do let me know if you think that you will be able to attend.I can send a map to anyone who needs directions.

Best wishes,

Jeremy Cuss
Email: jeremy.cuss@btopenworld.com
Tel (Home): 01484 658440
Tel (Mobile): 0797 36338819

Stick us down please

We will be there