What is a Moebius?
How did you get started?
How much did/does it cost?
That much!?! Can I get some financial help?
What should I build?
Any advice on building a robot?

 What is a Moebius?

The name for Moebius came about after several other names that we just weren't happy with. Since he was started as a project for a club at the University of Central Florida we were thinking about naming him after the school mascot, Knightro, for the UCF Knights. But Knightro has been done in so many other school projects so we wanted to call him Knightmare. After speaking with Jim Smentowski we both agreed that this was waaaaaay to close to Nightmare (duh!) and started thinking of another name.

I wanted to call him the Beaver from Hell because he has lots of teeth and likes to chew through anything that he gets near. Then my imagination went wild and I was thinking about creating signs for the crowd to hold up like, "I like Beaver!" Then we could put a saying on the bot itself, "Want some Beaver? Come and get it!" Well, since we were getting some money from the school to help finance the bot we decided that this would not be the best choice of names.

So, back to square one, I thought about naming him after one of the Japanese comic books that I use to read (I do know a little Japanese), Silent Moebius. After discussing it with the other team members and verifying that the name wasn't already in use we decided to keep it.

How did you get started?

Well, we started as a group of students at the University of Central Florida with some extra money in the club funds that had to be spent or else we couldn't ask for more later (politics, go figure). So, with $1,400 we had a contest between us to see whose design would be picked to get built. Each person got up and gave a 4 or 5 minute explanation of their ideas then I got up and gave a 30 minute dissertation on why my idea should be built. My idea was voted upon unanimously.

Next was 4 months of design and research before we bought even one single part. Afterwards we started the purchasing process and the costs started adding up real quick. So quick in fact that we went over our $1,400 budget and the next $1,200 came out of my pocket (my pocket, not the rest of the team, mind you).

Through a mutual friend I was connected to an amazing machinist who was interested in building a bot as well so we teamed up and he donated his time, energy, and considerable skill to the bot. We missed the May event so we decided to play around with him and learn some more and get the word out about the team.

We made another presentation to the UCF Student Government Association, but this time with a fully functioning robot. They were blown away by him and offered us $5,000 towards future endeavors.

Of that money, half of it went to build a new, more powerful, and more solid Moebius, the one that competed at in Season 4 and 5. The rest of the $5,000 came out of my pocket and the pocket of Mike, our machinist.

Now, we are building Moebius 3 to be ready to rumble in Season 6. We are taking some of the things that we learned in the first two iterations of Moebius to make him even tougher and meaner.

How much did/does it cost?

Well, I'm not going to try to make it out to be something that it isn't. Battlebots is an expensive sport. Wait, no, it is a VERY expensive sport.

So far we have almost $10,000 wrapped up in Moebius from the prototype up to the current bot.

There are some things that you need to consider when deciding to build a robot. First find out what you will need, ESCs, motors, Tx/Rx, chassis material, armor, etc. Now add the cost of each of items together to get a total cost of parts. Now, DOUBLE that number and you will have a good approximation of how much it will cost you.

Why double? Well, you will need to buy tools, you'll break parts, you'll let the magic smoke out, you'll refine the design, etc. I came up with a general formula to determine how much it would cost to build a competitive robot. Now, this is just an average number. Some bots will cost more, some less, but I have found that on average this is relatively correct.

First let's number the weight classes:
     1=lightweight
     2=middleweight
     3=heavyweight
     4=super heavyweight

Now, apply this formula: Total Cost = $1,000 x 2^(weightclass)

So this gives us the following general costs:
     Lightweight bot = $2,000
     Middleweight bot = $4,000
     Heavyweight bot = $8,000
     Super HW bot = $16,000

That much!?! Can I get some financial help?

Well, yes and no. You can try to get some sponsorship money from businesses. But, as the saying goes, "You can't make money without spending money."

While Battlebots does have a huge underground following, it is still 'underground'. Battlebots is slowly coming into the mainstream. But, that doesn't mean that companies are falling over each other looking for bots to sponsor.

If you do not have a working robot of any kind your chances of getting a company sponsorship are somewhere between slim and none (and, as the saying goes, Slim just left town). There are teams out there like Raptor Robotics who are a proven successful team with many bots and they struggle to find companies to sponsor them. You need to sell them on the bot, not the idea.

Also, do not think that it is 'free' money just for slapping their name on your bot in the hopes that you might make it to the TV rounds. You are entering into a business relationship with the sponsor and you need to go out of your way to make it worthwhile for them to sponsor you. It helps to make you and your bot available to them whenever they want it try to promote their own company, like at trade shows, company meetings, etc.

There are other things that you need to consider as well when getting a sponsor aside from just putting their company sticker on your robot. It helps to have a website that they could refer client to. And I am not talking about some freebie Geocities or Anglefire site with a million pop-ups either. You need to have your own domain name and server (which costs money) and a professional looking website. If you are good with web design then you can whip something up and save yourself some money. If not, learn or pay a friend or a professional to do it for you. Consider also other means of promoting their company (remember you are no longer just promoting your bot, you are being paid to advertise for the sponsor) such as t-shirts, stickers, etc. Also, one of the rules of marketing is to 'butter-up' the hand that feeds you. They get free t-shirts, free stickers, buy them one of your discounted tickets to Battlebots (they gotta pay their own way there and back ;-p).

Of course, how much you do for the sponsor depends upon what they do for you. There are no set rules in this area. Basically, take care of those who take care of you.

What should I build?

Build a robot that works! As for what type of bot, wedge, spinner, flipper, crusher, thwack, etc. well that is up to you. Each bot has its strengths and weaknesses. It is like an expensive game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

But remember, to have a successful bot you need to have the four D's:
Design
Durability
Driving
Draw

Design means having a solid bot whether it is a wedge, a spinner, a rammer, etc.

Durability means not building it out of plywood. Spend the extra money to use good quality parts and you'll usually still have something left to rebuild with.

Driving. I cannot stress this one enough. Practice driving until you know every little nuance about how the bot will act. Then, practice some more!

Draw mean the luck of the draw. You can have everything go right and have a bot that will beat the snot out of 95% of the other bots in your weight class and then you could end up facing the one and only bot that could possibly exploit your weakness. This is what happened to us in Season 4.

 Any advice on building a bot?

Yeah, read, research, check out the tips page, check out some of the links on the links page, but above all, DO NOT expect someone to give you a 'paint by numbers' plan for a bot.

Build your own bot. You will learn more and you will appreciate what it means to be a builder. As long as you follow these simple things you will be welcomed with open arms into the Battlebots builders community which is one of the best things you will ever be honored to be a part of.

Don't jsut buy a bot of E-Bay and expect to be a part of the builders community. It has been proven in the past that those who do not apply the discipline to learn and do it themselves do not appreciate what it takes to be a builder and therefore become bad sports over things that are generally accepted and expected by your fellow builders.