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robot rebuilds

For two years in a row I've missed out joining in with Ian Watts robot bash at the Uni. So I'm making sure I've got something running before it swings around again.

So I welded a couple of new gearbox cages into the 4 wheel push bot, and dug out a set of Electronize speed controllers. I fitted the titanium plate that has been cluttering the basement for a decade and have been doing some testing with a set of LiON batteries that used to belong to a cordless strimmer, which fell apart from overuse.


I've run it up and the battery doesn't really have enough life to power 4 motors, but is useful for testing. I've stuck some old NiMH units on a charge cycle to see if they have enough life for a bout or two. The only things I actually need to "buy" are a 2.4GHz radio set, as the old 40MHz stuff is against the rules these days, so I've ordered a Hobby King 4 channel set for £20 off ebay.

Strangely yesterday Mentorn emailed a bunch of robot folk to say Robot Wars is coming back, and filming starts in March in Glasgow. I got a copy of the application form and letter but I'm not going to enter. I remember the fun, but also the pain of having to coordinate my life around them, and I'm not willing to play that game again, though I'm sure loads of folk will.

In fact I'm beginning to feel that fighting robots isn't as much fun as it used to be, chiefly because they are now being used in combat to kill people.

I've signed the petition against autonomous weapons  but am not sure if even that is the right thing to do, having recently watched the Wikileaks documentary that shows the US helicopter crew machine gunning people I can't help but feel AI couldn't be much worse, certainly not as gleeful.

Anyway, ambiguity huh?



Comments

Unknown said…
Rob ...

This sounds like a lot of fun ... far too technical for me ... I'm worried about putting the final metal/plastic struts on my favourite Christmas present - a model of the Lunar Landing Module. My wife also got me two little astronauts on bits of plastic moon surface, and they look great next to it.

'Robot Wars' sounds good from a media perspective, but they ought to be 'Robot Gladiators' ...

Anyhoo, it's nice to know you are keeping yourself busy!

Cheers,
Paul Palmer

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