Armour ideas / materials

[Team Invade]

Can't fault your attitude! Whilst you may technically be able to build a heavy (which I don't doubt), I honestly think you would struggle (along with most other first-time builders) and you still need some experience to know what to build. As many heavyweights are constructed in many similar ways, a 'best' way of doing things has evolved. For example if you look at heavyweight gearboxes they all tend to be pretty similar. To make it competitive you're going to have to keep up with the standards which unfortunately will cost a few thousand pounds!

I agree with Gary's post above. Like most newcomers you don't really seem to understand how good the current robots are. To a certain extent looking at old Robot Wars videos on youtube is pointless as the vast majority are made obsolete by the current robots unless they have been updated to the new standards. You really do need to come to an event beforehand (before you've even designed your robot) to see how it's evolved. One thing you've hopefully noticed is how much it is dominated by flippers. That's the way it's evolved and it's not going to change. The successful robots that aren't flippers (Big Nipper, Thor, Titan etc.) do have to be really top machines to do well when the arena could be argued to be a disadvantage to them. You're going to need an effective active weapon to do really well, but that's going to make it much more difficult to build!

All in all you're really going to need to get some experience beforehand to make a competitive heavy. I still think the best way to do his would be to make a feather first, but if you're dead set on a heavy first time, coming to a few events will still help.

To answer your question about the Gadget Show Live, the UK champs have been held there 2011 to present and I'd say there's a strong possibility of it being there next year as well. I think RoboChallenge were also there a few years before that with demos/pay to drive robots.