Hello! I am Roland, I'm new to the forum and thought I should introduce myself before I start rambling.

hi Roland, welcome to the forum!

Here goes. I'm 14 years old, and I'm a total newbie to building robots.

thats okay, we all have to start somewhere! im 13 but have quite a few robots :P the people here are really friendly and give great advice!

I'm wanting to have building Robots as my active hobby, I no longer see sitting and playing Xbox all day as a sufficient and productive way to spend my life,

good choice, although the xbox is awsome

I enjoy engineering and electronics from what experience I have. I also want to make my Grandpa proud before he passes away.

having recently lost a large chunk of my family i can understand where your coming from

I'd like to say that I've looked into building robots for a couple of months now seriously, and have considered it for more than a few year

thats good to know, you would be amazed how many people come on here and ask random questions without doing the slightest bit of research

my grandpa was an offshore BP engineer, and whenever I visit we spend a lot of time in his garage making things (Which has given me a small amount of experience in using clamps, angle grinders, saws, drills and the spinney thing which makes stair banisters of which name surpasses me!)

i belive your refering to a lathe?

which gave me the idea to start. So I have come to the conclusion that my best bet was to get advice from real professionals rather than spending endless hours on Google.

good choice, the people here really know their stuff!

So I'm starting from right at the bottom. What I want to know is, can YOU help me with getting started?

sure, everybody here is usualy willing to share their knowledge, helped me a lot

Specifically, I would like to know,

What tools do I need?

obviously a few tools are needed but you seem to have a nicely stocked workshop that should be fine for featherweight robots, i made my first robot with tin snips and and a drillpress , obviously that was my first robot and i have aquired a fair number of odd tools along the way

Where and for what price can I get tools?

the usual suspects, homebase, maplins, b&q etc

Where and for what price can I get internals?

ah well thats personal choice, and it varys robot to robot, but a few useful sites are http://www.technobots.co.uk/ , http://www.robotmarketplace.com/store.html and http://web.me.com/robochallenge/Robo_Ch ... Store.html , most first robots cost £100-£200 but as you gain experiance you collect parts so the cost will go down a bit over the years

What internals do I need?

im sure people will explain this better but the main parts to a featherweight are:

. drive motors (x2)
. speed controller (esc)
. transmitter/reciever
. batterys
.safety devices, failsafe (if not built in) power led, and removable link
.weapon (?)

but you kinda pick it up as you go along

How much space will I need to build featherweights?

a table or a workbench is all that is really needed (although a workshop would be better, they are genrally quite small so storage isnt much of a issue

Where can I learn the electronics and engineering to build one?

like i have said befor, the people on this forum are really helpful and knowledgeable

What method of transport other than trailer/boot (Which I would still have access to) would you suggest?

i put mine in the boot

If I were to get into a bit of a bother, would anyone be able to give me advice on what to do?

yep no worries

How exactly do YOU deal with the risks of building robots?

there are varius safety rules you have to comply too (look on the fra homepage) but really its just common sense, keep a level head and you should be alright

So, those are my questions, I know it's a long list, and I thank anyone in advance for helping out.

Oh, and money isn't a problem, I earn round £60 a month from pocket money and helping my dad and I am looking for a part time job + whatever I earn from items I sell using amazon/ebay, I'm certain my Parents will support me when I have understood enough of it to be trusted to not do anything too awful and I can show myself as willing to act mature about it and to prove I can handle the responsibility.

-Roland (Sorry for the awful grammar)

cool, good luck and welcome to the wonderfull world of robotics

Edit: I'm not expecting to have a robot in two months time, I understand this possibly and most likely will take a long time possibly more than a year, more than two!

it really depend on what pace you work at, iv seen robots built in a few days, but tbh its the ones that have more effort put into them that do well, and remember its likely to get improved and updated over the years