SMIDSY general FAQ.

There was a discussion about Robot Wars cos it was just in its second series and starting to take off. Enough interest was roused to form a Team Ixion for RobotWars. So we started another list and got on with discussing it at length. Because of this unusual start, most of us didn't meet the others till we needed to start doing something tangible. We call our meets 'Buildfests', for obvious reasons, and there is a great feeling at the start of one when a new face turns up on a new bike, and introduces themselves as someone you have been chatting to for months.

Many elements of SMIDSY were chosen with the Gauntlet in mind, but that aspect of the game was dropped before we ever fought. Luckily, being low-slung, stable and manoeuverable is good in a fight too!

At the same time, we built a new chassis, better jaw actuators, re-organised the insides to give more room, pretty much everything was rebuilt, better than before, and in only about twice as many weekends as we estimated. Once again, our thanks to the Pugh family for playing host to lots of bikers who turn up, make a lot of noise with machine tools, sleep all over the house and then vanish into the night.

If you want to keep it cheap, then the first thing we suggest is prototyping everything very carefully. Don't laugh - the first ever SMIDSY prototypes were made from Technical Lego and cardboard!

If you have a chassis and you are bolting armour to it, rivnuts are ace; much easier than nuts and bolts. You will be taking your robot to pieces many more times than you expect.

Mentioning the chassis; if possible, have a strong, welded, chassis. This means that you need to find someone who can weld, but it adds a lot of strength to your machine. Remember, if the frame bends, it won't work as designed, you won't be in control and you won't win.

Think carefully about the layout of the parts of your robot. Make it as modular as possible, and make sure that you can remove any module without having to remove much else first. We found out the hard way that you will lose a lot of time if you have to take bits out just to get to the bit you want. Equally, if and when you make something permanent, make sure you've thought about how not being able to remove it will affect everything else. You should be worried about connectors vibrating loose, but also about having to remove an entire wiring loom to change the pinout on one board...

Finally, be very careful about weight. A hundred kilos sounds like a lot, but it adds up pretty quickly, and trying to pare down your robot is a nightmare. Don't get in the situation where you have to do it.

"Hectic and dull all at the same time. You spend a lot of time sat around trying to stop Andy from stripping the robot to bits because he's bored. Robin sneaks off and steals doughnuts all the time and you just chat with other roboteers and wait for something to happen. Then you find you've got 15 minutes before your fight and everyone is charging around and while you've been sat around for ages suddenly everything has to be done NOW and the next thing you know you're lined up with the other robots in your bout doing exactly what the stage hands say to keep everyone safe.

"You put the 'bot into its pen and make sure it works, drive it out on to the arena and walk up a set of metal stairs, emerging into a small box in the hot bright glare of the lights with a huge hyped crowd in front of you and all the time hoping it's going to work and you haven't forgotten anything and it's all charged up. Questioning each other in case you've forgotten anything. The countdown comes over the speakers and you're fighting for all your worth, trying to spot what's happening all over the arena, trying to do damage, keep from being damaged, compensate for any problems, win the bout.

"Finally it's over, you feel like you've just finished a running race, you float through the interview (or glower and worry about all the damage) then it's down the stairs to your robot, on the trolley and out of the stage hands' way. Wondering what needs attention. If you got badly damaged, like we have in the past, you're worrying about how long it will take to fix, just how much damage is under the axe holes in the armour and if you will have enough kit and time to get it working again. It's then hectic right through until you've repaired the damage and you are sat ready to fight. Then it slows down to dull again, until you're called to go once more. Andy looks suspiciously at the robot. Robin disappears when you're not looking and comes back grinning and chewing...