Thought I'd share my trials and errors. I was asked by the school I work at to start a electronics/robotics club. My first thought was robot wars. This led me down the rabbit hole of seeing what would be possible with a very limited budget of how I could bring robot wars into the school.
I decided apon antweights. I can build them a base chassis with the parts soldered together and their task would be to build the armour and add a weapon to the robot.
I first tried just using continuous servo, battery and Tx/RX. Cheapest option. Can buy all the parts from hobbyking for £35 a robot. However the "servo creep" after a few minutes of use made the robot very frustrating to drive. Constantly having to trim on the Tx.
Next I moved onto the dasmikro build. (Couldn't get hold of a nanotwo kit) with all the needed parts it has come in at roughly £50. Meaning less teams with my budget of £300. This seemed more reliable.(except the first vendor sending me two differnt rpm gear motors
My 3rd option that I will be trying is using...
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10A-Bustophe ... 2749.l2649
Joining the power cables together to share 1 battery and using a TX that has a built in mixer. These are slightly cheaper and are from U.K. Based vendors and presoldered. This doesn't bring the price down by much but I believe they have a brake built into them.
After tinkering around with these bits I started to really enjoy myself and though why not actually build myself a robot I can take to an event and battle.
Here are some pictures of what I have created so far. Hopeful the kids will be able to build something similar but probably slightly larger.
https://imgur.com/a/3gHpE
My cardboard prototype before I use 1.5mm poly plastic.
Thanks for reading
Paul