About

History

I watched my first episode of BBC Two’s “Robot Wars” in 1999 and immediately wanted to build my own robot, however being only 9 years old at the time somewhat limited my ambitions – both technically and financially.

A Lego Mindstorms kit one Christmas kept me occupied for a while, as did building Cybot from the Real Robots magazine. It was around 2002 when I became aware of Antweights. At just 150 grams in weight and smaller than a 10cm cube, they were a safer and more affordable option than the big robots that were on TV.

After more than a decade off air Robot Wars returned to our screens in 2016 and I decided it was time to build something larger. The Featherweight weight class had exploded in popularity by this time so that seemed like the way to go.

At 13.6kg it would be far bigger than anything I had built to date but by late 2016/early 2017 I had a collection of parts and some basic hand tools, so I set about building a relatively simple (or so I thought) four wheel drive box with an axe powered by an electric motor.

It didn’t go so well – although I did end up with a rolling chassis that actually drove very well, the multitude of issues I ran into during the build, mostly stemming from a lack of experience in using power tools and building things on this scale, lead me to abandoning the build half way through.

The next summer I had another go. Starting fresh, I purchased a CNC router and designed a 4 wheel drive vertical spinner. With the help of the CNC and all the experience I had accumulated from building the first robot, this build went much smoother. Ultimately though, it was a little too ambitious and didn’t end up working out.

In 2019 I had originally intended to pick up robot building again, but ended up spending the summer travelling around South East Asia. Then of course towards the end of that year the pandemic started, and all robot events were put on hold for a couple years.

I didn’t return to robots until early 2024, when I finally felt I had built up a suitable amount of experience and had the tools needed to really make it work this time. Since I’d last given it ago, a new sub-class of robot had appeared – the Sportsman. This class limits the power of high speed spinning weaponry, resulting in longer fights that are more about driving and tactics than who can deliver the biggest hit.

It occurred to me that my first, still half finished, robot from 2017 could make an excellent Sportsman. So I dragged it out of storage for the first time in 7 years and begun turning it into Uplift!