FRA "Roboteer's Handbook" Youtube channel?

Hi all,

Just thought I'd share an idea I've been mulling over for a while now - as a newcomer to the sport, I've asked a fair few questions regarding the build and design of robots, how pneumatics setups would work, motors, voltages etc. and I know that I've seen a few others asking questions.

Now, I know various roboteers have made their own guides independently on their own sites or what have you, but how about this - a communal FRA "Roboteer's Handbook" youtube channel that any roboteer could send their video tutorials through to help answer some of those basic and advanced questions. Different teams could go through different topics each video - for instance, I could talk about the ESCs you'd need to get your first featherweight off the ground, and then another team could have a separate video that explains the benefits and drawbacks to different kinds of batteries, the next one then talking about drive motors. This could then go on to more complex things such as pneumatics, and then onto different weight classes and so on. After most of the main topics are covered, another team could talk about how they designed their machine or weaponry, and why they did so (e.g. having a compact body to save weight, a sloped back to help self right etc.) to help others get inspired from it too.

Regarding the actual tutorial videos, if this sort of thing were to go ahead, I'd be more than happy to edit them all together into a uniform format, and upload them (put my media university course to good use, since I've got no other video projects on the go anymore!) onto the channel itself, with contributors filming their respective videos themselves and then emailing it or something. Details aren't set on that side of things, still open to change if there's an easier way to do things!

I just think it'd be a nice idea for everyone who wants to get involved to help create a catalogue of tutorials for both beginners and veterans alike, and it'd be a cool little archive to have there...


If anyone's interested, let me know by posting here or something, it's just an idea for starters, but I just thought I'd see if anyone else A-thought it was a good idea and B-would be interested in contributing to it!

That would be easily done I think. Just make a tutorial on how to use the search button.

But you're right having a visual aid will help most builders more that just a bunch of words on their screen.

There are already numerous clips on YouTube detailing on how to build components/parts for our robots.
You could consider opening a thread in the botbuilding subpages where you place the links and video discriptions in an order you'd feel happy with.

Kudos to Matt for stepping up to the task. Doing some tutorial videos is a good concept, but a YouTube channel is not the place for them IMHO. To be useful the videos need a good index with several levels so you can browse and find what you need - YouTube just isn't set up for that. In Australia, we had a section of our forum dedicated to educational articles and it was really easy to drill into it to find exactly what you wanted. It fell out of use as it needed a curator to organise and promote it.

To make the resource useful, I suggest making a front-end catalogue on the FRA site so its easy to find what's needed and having a set of rules or style guides so the videos have a bit of a common look to them. If the idea builds up, I can think of 10+ topics I could contribute.

Your issue with it is the differences in opinion of how things should be done. For instance, I think sabretooth speedos are crap, electronize are great and the T85a ones are awesome but others wouldn't necessarily agree.

It could be a bit hairy showing randomers stuff like how to easily set up full pressure pneumatics.

Just add a disclaimer at the front of every video. If people don't try new stuff how are they ever going to learn?

A disclaimer won't stop a 14 yr old. Some of the heavies have literally tons of force in the ram.

I'm all for showing the general public how to lock up drill clutches, how to melt UNF nuts into Colson wheels, how to cable up esc's and batteries etc. It's just my opinion that certain things shouldn't be attempted unless your a reasonably accomplished engineer that understands the dangers of what your dealing with. If someone were to hurt themselves as a result of testing a FP ram, I think it would be irresponsible to say "...well there was a disclaimer on the vid...".

I also agree with the poster above in that a lot of the basics are already available if you search for them. A library of links would be good. For instance...a lot of Ellis' how-to's are the best in the business and already in common circulation.

Thanks for the feedback to this, everyone! I get the point regarding it might be better to shy away from Youtube as a hub for this sort of thing, it can get a bit of a mess if not done right. I think what a few of you have mentioned about having an index on here (to incorporate already existing tutorials) might not be a bad idea at all - I do like the idea of having a video archive (as well as picture/text tutorials) that would allow people to have that visual help for them to base their own designs on.

Gary, I see where you're coming from with that and I'd imagine that'd play into things but that's probably a benefit to having it so that anyone can upload a tutorial describing their way of doing things, though really the only thing you'd have to consider is mentioning other options for batteries or ESCs and the risks that run with them, or why you'd recommend ESC X over ESC Y. At the end of the day, these aren't absolute instructions for each and every robot, so people can always adapt and make it their own, but it just would help provide that spark for new builders to get clued up and get involved!

Perhaps we could have a chat with Kane (or whoever runs the FRA site) and have it as a sub-category of the site as opposed to a forum topic/board? I think both that and the forum post idea that a few have suggested already would work well though.

I see where you're coming from regarding the health and safety aspects of it all too, Dave, but the thing is that if someone DID want to do it, they'd find out anyway - it's better them learn how to build it properly and reduce the risk of anything going wrong than reading up a little bit on it and making up the rest. Granted, you will always get that one person who doesn't listen and does it anyway, but that's the same with everything I guess. Better them knowing the proper way and the risks that go with it than just thinking they can figure out the rest as they go! All you can do is warn them of the risks both before and after, like Robot Wars used to do... it's a dangerous hobby by nature, so there's not much you can do other than that!

I think while the basics should be covered (they pretty much already are) We really should be encouraging people to do their own research and learn what works for themselves, even if it means reading the forum a bit or asking a question. I really don't think any of this is particularly necessary.

The point of creating new tutorials or cataloguing existing stuff is so that we don't have to answer the same questions over & over. Doing your own research can be expensive; how many people can afford to buy 3 or 4 different ESCs to find the one that works best for them?

I think what Matt is getting at is that if experienced builders contributed a bit about the ESCs they used (as an example) and he compiled that into a comprehensive guide, then noobs could read that and ask more educated questions on the forum.

As for 'the basics', I see a lot of builders that don't know what they don't know :). I could write a surprising amount on just drilling holes that many builders don't know about.

Perhaps including material on really dangerous stuff like flame-throwers and HP pneumatics is a bad idea; a general overview of these topics would still be good, so new builders at least know WHY they are dangerous.

I think what Nick's said hits the nail on the head - I have noticed a lot of similar questions popping up, and it'd be nice to see a database that people could be pointed to to help them out!

Similar to what Nick said too, perhaps people who regularly use different components could write up their experiences with them all to outline which ones to buy and which to avoid? By no means would it cover anything and everything, but it'd certainly help the less experienced builders among us!

Might be helpful too to have some articles on the more dangerous things, be it a full tutorial on how they're done or just the theory behind it - personally from a safety point of view, I think it'd be better for people to hear the ins and outs from an expert so that they know what they're doing before attempting setups such as pneumatics instead of seeing another tutorial that may not be suitable for this application, but the bottom line is they're not to be messed with unless you're really prepared anyway!

As Harry Hills said though, the tutorials are already out there so I suppose really (if it's alright with the creators of these guides) we just need an index set up and fill in the blanks - anyone who can contribute anything new would be welcome to do so! I'd imagine that might be easily done on a sub-forum level (just adding a 'tutorials' section under bot building, as I think has been mentioned already) and then have an announcement or sticky topic at the top of the page for the Index, and anyone who wanted to add a tutorial would then just post it into the sub forum, link would be added to the index by an admin or moderator and then you get the bonus of being able to ask/respond to questions on the individual tutorials too?

Though to debate with myself on that (I do that sometimes, bit weird but it gets results) I do worry as to whether it'd make the individual weight category boards a slight bit obsolete, since they're generally the hub for questions relating to their weight class, I'd be worried that the majority of questions would find their way into the tutorial board and make the others relatively barren. Of course, you could always have individual indexes for tutorials within each individual weight category (with the ones that can apply to multiple being posted in each one they're suited for) but I don't know whether that's getting a bit too convoluted for its own good...


My basic line of thought for this idea (which I should have mentioned earlier, admittedly) was the 'How to make an antweight' topic in the antweight board by Laser which is a very solid tutorial for first-time builders and gives them a nudge in the right direction towards building a full machine. I don't think it suppresses the creativity, just gives someone the basics they need to get started since it can seem like quite a huge task initially, especially if you've never worked with any RC gear before. Again, just a thought on the matter! Can definitely see both sides to it though...

(Sorry, just felt like posting an entire novel there, apparently...)

"I'd be worried that the majority of questions would find their way into the tutorial board and make the others relatively barren."

It would be better and much easier to just publish HTML pages on a separate web site and have discussions on the FRA board. If the tutorials are in a board format, the original material will soon be lost in all the chatter. With a separate site, the admin has more creative control organise and edit the material that is submitted.

I think one potential issue is that a lot of roboteers can't really be bothered to make a video tutorial or are even unsure how to do so. There is only a select few who would probably bother.

There is already a media section, with a section titled "how to's and guides"- currently there is only 1 video in there! I'd suggest trying to get more videos in there first then perhaps think about making a separate site for them.

That's the elephant in the room, finding enough builders who are both motivated and knowledgeable enough to create some guides. They don't all have to be videos though, written articles are probably better for theory and product reviews.

It's not really about people being motivated to write new stuff, it's just that the info is already kicking about so why duplicate stuff that's already out there.