A Brief History
Antweights first came about in 1999 and were devised from the concept used on the BBC television series Robot Wars. In the show teams would enter remote controlled machines that would fight each other, attempting to win the bout by immobilising their opponent's robot by damaging or destroying it. Antweights follow this basic principle of Robot Combat, except on a much smaller scale.
Antweights must weigh 150 grams or less, and fit inside a 4 inch cube prior to being allowed to fight. These small limits make building an effective Antweight a challenge, however when successful the results are often spectacular! These rules only apply to European Antweights, in the USA the 150g class are called Fairyweights, and American Antweights are larger and heavier than their European counterparts.
Basic Rules for Antweights
If you wish to build your own Antweight then you will need to make yourself familiar with the latest version of the rules. A full version of the latest rules can be found here but below are some brief bullet points outlining the main rules:
- Robots motivated by rotary motion are limited to 0.15kg (150g and robots motivated by non-rotary motion (i.e. walkers, shuffle-bots) are limited to 0.225kg (225g)
- The arena will be a raised platform 30" (762mm) square with at least 50% being a "drop off" area.
- A robot must be capable of being contained within a 4" (101.6mm) cube prior to competition, from which it may be placed directly into the arena without any modifications being made to it.
Antweight Events
The Antweight World Series (AWS for short) is considered to be the main competition for Antweights. The AWS is held two to three times a year and attracts many Antweights from all over the world. It can get people traveling from as far afield as Sweden and Holland to the UK just to compete.
Another popular event is the Reading Robot Club event, held roughly twice a year in Reading. This is also quite a popular event and always gets quite a large amount of Antweights turning up to compete.
If you are looking to compete in an event and want to know what's going on when, check out the Robotwars101 forum as that is where most events are organized and announced first. The address can be found on our links page.
