Hi, Im new. My name is Kevin, Im 17 and I live in Canada. I have watched robotwars since series 3. I watched battlebots too. But my dad cut the cable tv in 2002. So I havent been watching much robot wars, but I have been keeping in touch with it.

As I said Im thinking of building a feather-weight but I will wait till Im older to build it, but Im saying it now so you people can give ideas.

I have two designs in my mind for a feather-weight. Opinions or suggestions please. There are:

a)a wedge with a Firestorm/Cassius flipper/sirmech powered by a electric actuator. The outside is all probably going to be alimunim about 10-15 mm.

b)a wedge or a inverrable box with a spinner powered by a fan motor.

The drive motors will be drill motors. Batteries were going to be Ni-Cds. But they expenisive. for three it would be 75 pounds (150 dollars in my money). I wanted to keep it cheap. Or should I use SLAs?. 15 pounds (35 dollars in my money) for 5 of them. Im going to Radioshack to see if they had a 3 channel tx and rx. I was thinking of using a old RC car but I was worried it wouldnt take the strain. I also need 3 speed controllers.

Im going for about 12kg (30 pounds).I found out that my grandpa has some old aircraft alinimnum. That must be strong but heavy.

Im just worried about the electronics, because that will be the hard part of the robot. if I have a 3 channel tx and rx, and I push forward oon the tx, will it send forward to all the motors? Because one of my motors in the weapon.

Another problem has came up. i have to use mechincal speed controllers instead of electrical because of cost. What is the difference? the poeple at the store says it wouldnt work with two speed controllers together for steering the robot. So the receiver picks up the signal and sends it to the servo and the servo sends the motion to the speed controller. is that right? Im stupid compared to you guys.

The people at the store, dont understand the tank steering. They said, if youre going to steer, you would have to reverse the poplarity of the motor.

What if the mech speed controller didnt have reverse? will the servos and speed controllers be easier to break? Would it be a good idea would be spares?

What would the skin be made of? Poly and ali? how thick to becasue the body should weigh 10-15 pounds.

This year, I checked what sort of robots are competiting in the 30 pound (12kg) class mostly all are spinners. Why are spinners so popular? Are they very effective?

But I still think a Firestorm-type robot (Its my favourite robot. If youre going to copy, copy from the best) with the flipper is a good idea. Using a electric actuator would be a good idea too. How quick would the actuator go with 12 kgs on it?

Another name that would be good for the robot is Wolf.

Is it true that robots arent cheap?

Thank you for reading this, give ideas, sughgestions or critisims

Kevin Smith