Almost posted this to electronics. I wonder if we can get into this and do a group build like the lemons race.
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First two seasons ROCKED. Third season was totally wrecked by the presence of Carmen Electra who was only hired as eye candy. Poor thing had no idea what a robot/computer/geek was. Let’s hope ABC keeps the focus upon the interesting people who build these things and the science behind them… NOT the flash and BS.
Let the bots rule!
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There are some former 'bot builders at DMS including myself. I’m glad they are bringing it back, it was a great premise for the 21st century; gladiator style battles with robots.
That said, maybe organizing a small antwieght 1lb./beetleweight 5lb. competition at the space, we would need an arena with safety lexan.
So I won battlebots back in the day and would be interested in getting back into competing in the show if there is some interest. The first order of business has to be funding though. Battlebots are expensive.
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I would like to petition that DMS be a sponsor of you Matt or a DMS team
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Holy crap Blender was your 'bot? Poor guy at 1:10 had no chance. Wheels popped off -left- and -right- in time with the music… haha.
Yeah DMS totally would benefit from sponsoring a bot. Huge opportunity for visibility. But… isn’t it a bit late to get into this upcoming season? A lot of bots are already ready and tested by now.
I can’t take full credit for the Blender as it was a high school and eventually college project but I was the lead designer, co-captain, and driver of the team. I doubt it would be able to compete in this upcoming season. We would be preparing for the season after. I personally know several of the people behind the creation of the show and could reach out to them if we are serious about competing.
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I would be down for this too…
Dude that is awesome! Battlebots was such fun. I think it would make a good reality series going into more detail of the people who build them, the current Maker movement, etc. A TV tour of DMS would probably happen as well if we sponsored an entrant.
Yeah man this is within our grasp, totally. I imagine DPRG folks would be all over it.
Speaking of bots, Micro Center has a bunch of the AndyMark robot building parts on clearance. Some of it isn’t even listed on their web site.
http://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.aspx?Ntt=andymark
I sent out emails to a few of my old Battlebots contacts querying for competition information. Hopefully I get a response soon. I will probably be up at the space again tonight after work if anyone wants to talk about this in person.
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sounds like fun.
i’m interested in helping where I can (grad school in EE… working on human-machine interfaces/ robotics/ prosthetics)
Ok. I have just heard back and from one of my sources. Looks like we might need to light a fire under this. We have 13 weeks. I am waiting on more details, including the contest rules, but we will need a place to discuss this that is private because I can already feel the NDA coming and we won’t be able to expose competition details on a public webpage. Let me make this clear from the get go. If we do this, we do this to win.
At the same time, we need to form the Team. This is going to be an undertaking with the accelerated schedule. Here is my breakdown of the sort of team niches we need to fill in order of the most needed:
- Organisation, Communication, and Documentation - Every single team
member needs to be adept at these three skills. Without them the
team will not succeed. - Financial - We need someone or multiple
people who can aggressively pursue financing of this project. To
give you an idea, the Blender cost around $10,000 in parts,
materials, and services and that is with donations etc. Without
this, nothing else can happen. - Machining - We will need some fairly
capable machinists to manufacture robot parts. The work will be
mostly ALU 6061 and 7075 but we will also need to work with some O2
and S7 tool steels and 6AL4V titanium sheet. - Electrical and Firmware - We will use mostly off the shelf components (KISS) but there will be need of wiring and some custom circuitry for lighting and camera
- CAD - I will need a small team who are experienced in Solidworks or have used other CAD packages in the past and can pick it up quickly. If there is any professional grade talent in this area, let me know.
- Video Recording and Photos - A big part of this would be getting funding for future years from potential sponsors and for promoting the makerspace. We need to have access to a few good HD, non interlacing video cameras and people who can be using them to document the progress. I also have a camera that can do high speed footage for analysis.
If you know someone who might be a perfect fit for any of these roles, please point them this way.
I am proposing a full body spinner design ala The Blender except bigger, badder, and even more deadly. Interchangeable shells for different opponent types is something I have done in the past as well:
I will be out of town until tuesday but really want to see if we can get the ball rolling on this.
Edit : For those of you who are interested, let me know if you would be available to meet tuesday or wednesday night at the space next week.
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Tagging @RoboGreg to see if this is something he is interested in. I know he just started a company doing some robotics stuff, so I am not sure what his schedule is like.
As for myself. While I am willing to help, with only 13 weeks I think I would be more of a hindrance as I am not proficient enough in CAD or electronics. I am good for manual labor if needed though.
Bad News. Alright, I have just talked to the cocreator of the new season on the phone and long story short, we are too late for this season. They are making final selections about the robots that will be competing on Monday and unless we could get a robot concept sent over by Monday with some fancy renderings, we are going to be too late to make the cut. I could probably scrape this out over the weekend but would have to cancel my travel and don’t want to sign up to make a robot without funding in place. I have received further information if we want to forge ahead on this project for Season 2 if the show gets renewed.
Tl;DR - Unless we can find 20k funding over the weekend, no dice for this season. Next season is a possibility though.
sign me up.
I can handle #1,help with #3 & 4 & 6 and be a Lead of #5.
Been a professional mechanical engineer for over 20 years. Using Solidworks
/ Catia / Inventor / Autocad 2D /Femap
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That is awesome Travis. We need to talk in person. I do this for a living too. Which package are you using now?
Count me in for electronics.
I’ve found our battle-bot to submit for Monday!
But honestly, my youngest almost stroked out when he heard the news about BattleBots and DMS. I’m in for whatever I can give to the team.
I’m available any night next week, though I prefer it be seven or later due to extended drive requirements between work/home/DMS.
I was at BBIQ in 2003 and 2004 I remember Blender. We were Team Cerberus with the 'bot called D-monic. You were probably there. Yes battlebots are really expensive.
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