Rookie College Team Looking for Some Guidance

Hey guys,

I'm in a robotics club at the University of Maine, Orono and our team is very interested in participating in a combat robotics competition. We would like to do a smaller robot 30 lbs or less as we are a pretty small group right now and want to get some experience. We were very interested in the Battlebots competition in Miami Florida this year but I haven't been able to find any reliable contact with the competition to ask questions to. My searching turned up this forum, where you all seem to be pretty much "in the know" about what's going on in the combat robotics scene.

I just read some posts about Motorama and it was the first I'd heard of it. Sounds like it might be just what we are looking for and a lot closer than Miami. It also appears like the people are a lot more accessible to get in contact with. One thing I didn't see though is the building and competition rules.

Basically if any of you have some input on where I can look to get start and get our team registered to a competition in the 30lb or less weight class please let me know.

Thanks in advance, we're very excited about competing.

do a search for NERC

North East Robot Conflict...all he rules for Motorama are there

they have a forum as well...link on their home page.

BotsIQ in Miami will only be 15 and 120 pound bots

Also, there is plenty of video on the tube, so you can see what has been winning at Motorama and other events.

Motorama is a biggie , so if you're in that area, you should attend...just beware that the floor is wood, so adust accordingly

Welcome to the forum...it would be nice if you and others would introduce themselves in the the general area....

Hey, I'm Jeff from RoboJackets, Georgia Tech's robotics club [specifically its battlebots team]. Considering your location, Motorama is probably right up your alley for a first-time competition. Tech will be bringing a 120 lb robot to the February Battlebots competition in Miami (barring some sort of greek-tragedy-level catastrophe), and if you want to attend that competition as well as Motorama the best bang for your buck approach is probably making a 12 lb robot that can be stepped up to 15 lb by changing weapon and exterior armor materials (ex: having aluminum parts for 12 lb competitions and steel parts for 15 lb events).

Other than that, take a look through some of the threads. You can avoid a lot of mistakes that way, and see what's the current cutting edge [at least] in the edu-centric competitions. I would particularly recommend you read the guide made by Riobotz if you haven't already; you can find a link to it in the Design section, or click this.