Q&A for How to Build an Antweight Combat Robot

It is possible to not use circuit boards and instead use certain programs on android phones to program your robot.

Unless you want it to be destroyed, than no. You can always make a prototype out of foam, however.

Try putting a small rubber belt on some small tires so there is more friction with the ground, plus it looks cooler.

If you use a programmable circuit board like an Arduino, yes. If you do what everyone else does, everything should be plug and play minus a few remote settings. What I personally do for my cardboard bots (usually around 350g) is I get a beefy ESC for my weapon motor, and plug the battery into that. Then all my drive motors get power through the BEC (5v supplied from the weapon esc) and run on brushed 10a ESCs.

It depends on the rules of the event organizers. Most would allow it, but it usually weighs too much for a 150g bot. Plus, with most antweight weapons, there's no need for armor that strong.

By plugging the receiver in so that the transmitter (or remote, as you have called it) can send a signal that will be received by the receiver and do what you tell it to do.

If you mean run like scoot around the floor on wheels, get a battery, receiver, ESCs, motors, and a chassis, bolt them on, and you should be good to go. If you want it to have legs, that would be very hard to build, especially two-legged ones. I would go with six legs if you want to even attempt that.

Only about £50 - £100 for a simple antweight, but they can get to about £200 if you want a high-quality robot.

It is very likely; that is the usual range for an Antweight battle bot. The better ones are usually around $200 though.

No, they cannot. The size is limited by the size/weight requirements (4" x 4" x 4", 150 grams). If your robot is bigger than the requirements, you may not participate in the competition.

It depends. If you have an active weapon, you also need a weapon servo. If you want a 4WD robot, you need 4 for the drive system.

It's risky. If they have a really fast robot that's hard to control, you could try it. But if you don't dodge them quick enough, you could go in first.

Yes, you build it like any other robot, but with a longer chassis, and rollers either behind, or in front of your drive motors. Then you get wheels with grooves of some sort so your treads (rubber bands would work) don't slip off while turning.

Typical serious builds are in the $500,000 range, though lesser models can be assembled for as little as $90,000-$250,000.

You could, but it would not be as durable or high-quality. You could make a pusher or one with a body and two wheels with a small axle attached to the body. This would be easy to code and to assemble.

You don't use Arduino, or really any sort of micro-controller setup, on these robots unless you specifically need some sort of semi-autonomous control system, like with a Melty Brain spinner (which is not something you'd want to be building without previous experience anyway). An off-the-shelf hobby RC radio system is sufficient.

No, you can have the wheels protected within the frame of your robot. There are many different ways to do this; however, the most common is to still allow the wheels to contact through the top and bottom of the robot, while protecting them from the sides.

Anything is possible, although this would most likely be very difficult to implement and may not be an effective weapon if you plan to battle with it. A ball and chain weapon would be best designed to be removable, especially for a display bot.

Yes, you can if it is safe and goes with all the safety precautions. These bots include bar spinners, disk spinners or full body spinners.