Memoirs of a veteran roboteer

[maddox10]

The amount of proposals for Tesla coils or RPG's on the robots in the years i'm doing this is rather astonishing and annoying.

[almost_there]

Do any robots even have tethered projectiles?

Those are allowed, right? (Just useless)

[maddox10]

There were a few very very early attempts to that. But if you think it trough.

For harpooning a whale, you have or a number boats that have more floation capacity than the whale, of a boats a few dozen times heavier than the whale.

The machines we build don't have a soft skin.

[R9000]

Guys, if you think people on about RPGs and tesla coils is annoing, try being on a Mechatronic Engineering course. I don't know if any of you guys know this feeling, but whenever people ask you what course you're doing, it pretty much goes like this:

Me: Oh I'm doing Mechatronic engineering.
Them: Mega-what, sorry?
Me: Mechatroni- basically robotics.
Them: Ohhh I seeee. (They don't see) So it's 'Megatronics' right? What do you do there?
Me: Oh, we do some systems engineering, maths, electronics and mechanics. Sometimes we build or program robots.
Them: Ah right, like terminator/robocop/wall-e/transformers then. *sometimes they make stiff robot arm movements* Y'know they're everywhere these days, why just the other day i went into a supermarketandtherewasamachine.....(blahblahblah). .. and it's all SO CLEVER!
Me: Yes, there are a lot of computerized systems around these days, but they've also been around in lots of places you don't see them for years now. Anyway, I must be going.
Them: Alright then, good luck with your course, don't take over the world with robots/build terminator/skynet!
Me: *Forced laughter for the non-joke I've heard for the 50th time.*

First world problems I know, but holy crap does it get annoying.

[shakesc]

Them: What do you do?
Me: I'm an engineer
Them: could you fix my <insert domestic appliance / anything slightly mechanical >
Me: dies a little inside...

Yes , I do wear a boilersuit and proud to do so but only when building robots!

[overkill]

Let's face it, there are a hell of a lot of uneducated idiots out that that deserve to be ruled by robot overlords. The ones we secretly control .

[team death]

Series 6 Auditions.....
Team death was on a high from series 5-immortalis had 3 outings,the most we had ever
done,but with that one wheel drive,same wheel steer it was unreliable and a dog to drive so
it was time for a new robot.
My teamate had sourced some motors on dodgem cars located in skegness,so we took a trip over
and negotiated 6 dodgem cars for £100-sounds a bargain but if you consider the cars fell
apart when you picked them up and only the motors when useable, it was a fair price.

So the new robot-Devil rider was 2 wheel drive with an angular body shape built
around a briggs and stratton IC engine, the weapon was a 2 inch thick steel bar about
12 inch long with a cutter in the middle all driven by the engine and braked by a solenoid
rubber plunger against a flywheel.

Four robots went into the arena and we shared a control cubicle with ming 3 team.
Stupidly we didn't make a pact to take out the other two robots before going one on one
but I'm sure the other teams did do this.
I drove straight at ming 3 and took out his removable link within seconds and he
was immoblised our robot had very low ground clearance and got stuck on the uneven
floor within 30 seconds, the other 2 robots clashed and became locked together,they
waited untill Devil rider was counted out and then freed themselves on our spinning bar.
This had the effect of freeing our robot and we had 2 more minutes of battling on.
Ming 3 and the other two robots were invited to the show (series 6)but we were not, which I
thought was unfair-Still we went on to take part in the techno games sumo.

[brandon_nichols]

Where was the concrete slicing saw on Immortalis perchance? I couldn't really figure out where it was.

[team death]

Hi Brandon
Yes indeed Immortalis had a concrete slicing saw -two in fact, located at the back of the machine in
the drainage pipes-they were based upon hedge trimmer attachments and were sharpend to a saw
tooth effect,they were great on concrete blocks and would cut through-pity the other robots were
made out of every other material but concrete,not that we got a chance to use them in the battle we had.

[team death]

Series 7 auditions
Yet another new robot was built for series 7,driven by 2 cim wheelchair motors(supplied by roger plant)
it was a full body flipper with the 3 sided shovel at the front and a pneumatic claw above, it all run off low pressure
Co2.
We made the journey down to nottingham and did the usual tech checks and were ok to play.
Four robots entered the arena and I recall TAN (tough as nails) was one of them, we quickly got stuck on the
arena floor due to lack of traction and found our Co2 had frozen in the tank pipe so we had no flipper,the
only thing working was the claw so we tried pecking the floor like a bird to free ourselves-without success.
TAN came along and managed to nudge us and we were off again,after a wizz round -it seemed to be all over
-I think we were the last robot moving.
We removed our robots from the arena and the producer said "that was boring guys"-after pleading
that our robot should have been so much better ie lack of traction and flipper not working,he seemed
happy to give us another chance on the show itself(series 7)