how did everyone get involved

[archie2000]

i was wondering how people got into robotwars.
i saw it on someone's shirt and as i was only 5 i had great memory and i was next Saturday and i was bored and i was flicking through the channels and there was robot wars.
so without my life story i started from a t -shirt
anyone else got anything interesting?

[typhoon_driver]

Re: how did everyone get involved

Watched robot wars from day 1. I can even remember roadblock appearing on blue peter to advertise the show. Kept watching it through then got the chance to help build and drive the typhoon bots with the air cadets

[Septic343]

Re: how did everyone get involved

I didn't really get involved until last year with the battle ant kit. But i started going to live shows in 2006.

[Ellis]

Re: how did everyone get involved

Started watching Robot Wars since before I can remember... some 2-3 years old I think. Been a pretty solid relationship ever since. I remember being absolutely ASTOUNDED when I found Battlebots on YouTube, and oh how frantically I searched to see if it was still running.

Building and competing has, as with everyone at some point I am sure, been just a pleasant dream until I signed up here and the possibility was unlocked. Loving every bit of it so far!

Having thought about it, I think I must have started watching towards the end of series 2, or certainly by series 3. I don't remember Clarkson at all (just as well, sigh), then again I was probably 1, hah.

[maddox10]

Re: how did everyone get involved

I stumbled upon in 1999. A friday evening before going out. Watched the whole show. Cool I tought.

But didn't think or do much with it. Later I watched, again by accident, a second show, the rerun on sunday noon.

One of my buddies aquired the series 1 metal VHS box. Watched it, tought about it. Concluded, that can be done better. But not on my budget then.

Early 2000. Met a lady I liked a lot, and we watched the show together. She did see the fun of it too.
That lady had internet at home, started searching for some info, and found the Robot Wars Forum. The Monochrome one...
From there contacts were made, and WJ entered the picture. Team Madmen was formed.... Project One the result... BBC Series 5/ BNN series 1 here we come. Some support from Zenith as third crewmember, and we were off .


Thank you Babeth. June 2000 we formalised our togetherness by me moving in the House of Chaos.

[archie2000]

Re: how did everyone get involved

i didn't think it was on anymore and as a last hope of a.search i tried robot wars 2010 and there was roaming robots.
with help from john and dave i had my ant ready that year (i think)

[limpet]

Re: how did everyone get involved

Watched the first series and me and a couple of mates decided we would have a go, we built Limpet for a total of £10 by scrounging around and finding scrap parts. Limpet 2 got abandoned due to time.
I only got back into it again because two people at work (Richard M and Ken W) both asked me on the same day if I was still building robots and by chance I had just been sent the application form for series 5, so we got together and came up with what eventually was 13Black. Even then we nearly didn`t get on because royal mail returned the (well addressed) application form a day before the deadline!
Got into the live events through my son being obsessed with Robotwars since we competed.

[leorcc]

Re: how did everyone get involved

I watched the series from the first episode, and by series 3 registered into the RW club. I formed a team with some people from the Roosendaalse Computer Club, and tried to get into the UK series. Mentorn did not respond to our application but when BNN in the Netherlands wanted to start their show we were contacted by them. That was the moment we seriously entered the fabracation stage and made RCC, Radio Controlled Carnage.


I never stopped building and competing since then.

[tweedermeister]

Re: how did everyone get involved

I started watching from the first episode, then I started modifying rc cars at the age of 10 and started building last year

[archie2000]

Re: how did everyone get involved

awesome looking bot Leo
btw did you make the Leo RC flight simulator for android?

[RogueTwoRobots]

Re: how did everyone get involved

Pretty bog-standard for me. Watched it on TV since its first episode (missed the Blue Peter episode with RoadBlock but remember seeing the main advert earlier in the week)
Churned out tonnes of useless HW designs, then moved on to covering an RC car in cardboard and duct-tape.
Didn't really start picking up the necessary knowledge needed to actually build anything though until I started collecting the Real Robots magazines. From there, I got interested in the Rex's Robot Challenge section and eventually built a machine to compete in the 2004 competition. Entered the 2005 and 2006 UK Robotic Games events before joining the main featherweight fighting circuit in 2007.

[PJ-27]

Re: how did everyone get involved

Same as Jamie (almost exactly which is weird!), except I never completed anything until 2011!

Always wanted to build something, but HW were out of the question. Me and Dan always have a 'summer' project and one year I just went let's build a robot! Sent an email to RL (after some google searches) asking how I should go about getting into the sport and then a few months later we were at the UK champs with Bitza!

[Max]

Re: how did everyone get involved

I have never seen robot wars!!!! But I knew about the idea and after building some simple rc boats and a rc car I thought it would be cool to build a robot so I started thinking about designs and spent ages looking on the Internet to find out where you could fight them and what the rules are, then whilst i was in Peru I found the roaming robots page on the Internet and from there I found my way to the forum.

It's odd how many people found the event organisers pages rather than this page, youd think this page should be more promenent?

[leorcc]

Re: how did everyone get involved

btw did you make the Leo RC flight simulator for android?

No but I do use it myself.

[Bodge Job]

Re: how did everyone get involved

I saw it on tv when I was quiet young, stared makeing small robot things out of tinfoil and pull back cars and stuff at about 6. Got a few little cardboard robot sets things with small motors that hobbled along. Made millions of designs and stuff. Saw a few live shows around when I was 8/9 early robochalange ones I think but that was just after rw was no longer in tv. I then made a robot out of an rc car, which was aluminium armourd and a steel chassis I think which I fought against a friend who had also made a robot out of a sausepan and an rc car called ropot with an electric screwdriver as a weapon

When I was 9 I went to another show (for my birthday party! And for a present I got the Building bots book) and got handed a booklet thing which had the fra website on it. I found the rules (but didn't know what a forum was so I never went on it) and I made a robot out of old meccano (when it was good) and had the steel/ aliminum shell I made for the rc car. And I nearly entered that into a competition, but I blew up the singal speedo it had (as it steered like a car) and couldn't afford another one. When I did buy one I had steering problems, my dad suggested we could make it tank steering style but I though that would be to expensive so it never moved on from that.

When I moved house at 12 I found the booklet and book again. I went on the website and found there was a competition a Norwich which was only a hour and a half drive away. I then made a robot called armourdillo (which was the worst robot which has ever been made in existence and worse than my meccano one! I then went to the event. Had huge signal problems with my old 27mhz controler and drove it at < 3mph not in a staight line. After that failure a built bruiser. And persuaded a mate who was also into rc stuff to build a robot (called Ben, aka Hardtimes or whatever) and have entered competitions since. Well not for the past half a year but still.

Wow long post...