b'Partner News Winter 2021 21EnterpriseBattling BotsAish employees robot journeyAish employee Tim Rackley has an unusualawarded the giant bolt award. This is the hobby, but one that has seen him travelfounders award and is given to the team the world and become something of a cultthat best reflects the ethos and purpose of figure. Tim builds robots in his spare time,robot building as a hobby.and has now competed in several versions of the hit TV series Robot Wars, with variousTim is keen to point out there are some robots he has been involved in. great lessons to be learnt from participating in Robot Wars:Tims day job is as a QCT team leader at Aish, where he oversees quality control forFor starters, there is a great team both mechanical and electrical engineeringmentality, he says. Whilst we are obviously projects. In 2016 he was in the audience forin competition, at the same time we all an episode of Robot Wars and having beensupport each other. I often help other teams a fan for many years, suddenly realised heto rebuild their robots in between heats. In had the knowledge and the opportunityaddition, its a fantastic way to introduce to actually get more involved. Havingyounger people to engineering, and the persuaded three of his friends to comeexcitement that comes from creating on board, he subsequently set up his firstsomething from scratch.teamDorset Roboteering Teamand they began to construct their first robot calledWhilst some of the larger robots Tim hasThe Aish Robot Wars teamConcussion. been involved in can command a budget of 15,000 or more, Tim has recently also been We set up operations in one of the teambuilding much smaller and lighter robots, members garage, Tim recalls. Betweenthat often only cost a few hundred pounds.us we had mechanical, electrical and software engineering skills; basically, all theThe Futurepre-requisites you need to build a robot.So, what of the future? Tim is keen to You have to apply to Robot Wars, andcontinue his involvement although the satisfy a number of criteria including power,pandemic has made it difficult: The TV weight and battery capacity. The processseries has been cancelled here in the UK, begins with a CAD design, then we build abut we hope there will be a return to live prototype and finally the real thing, refiningevents soon.the design throughout. We have used localBetween us we had companies to date for cutting material butIn addition, Tim has also started judgingmechanical, electrical and Im hoping Aish may be able to help us incompetitions, where he hopes to be ablesoftware engineering skills; the future. to pass on some of the knowledge he has learnt: When I think back to how I started,basically, all the pre-requisites International Success sitting in the audience, if I can inspire otheryou need to build a robot. You Clearly the process to date has been ayoungsters to take up engineering as a success as teams led by Tim have beencareer then I would consider that a bighave to apply to Robot Wars, finalists in two seasons of Robot Wars,success. and satisfy a number of criteria not to mention coming 3rd in the Chinese version called ClashBots and also finishingincluding power, weight and in the top 8 of the US version, calledbattery capacity.Battlebots. And in the 2018 season of Battlebots, Tims team Monsoon was'