This category has the following 3 subcategories, out of 3 total.
The following 7 pages are in this category, out of 7 total, this list may not reflect recent changes (learn more).
1. Autonomous Robotics Ltd – Autonomous Robotics Ltd, previously GO Science Ltd, is a UK company developing an Autonomous underwater vehicle with an Ocean-bottom seismometer application. Initial funding was from the South West Regional Development Agency in 2006, in November 2008 ICON Corporate Finance raised significant investment for GO Science from Kenda Capital, the manager of the Shell Technology Ventures Fund 1 with Kenda directors joining the board. The prototype vehicle was developed in the University of Bristol labs, then at Redhill Farm Business Park and later at Aztec West, an office was opened at the SETsquared Business Acceleration Centre at the University of Bristol. In September 2009 the company announced that it had won a £6m contract with an oil company. This was later confirmed as Shell E&P, adding the challenge of a deepwater specification, shell’s Chief Scientist Geophysics stated that the concept was to be tested in earnest for a few months whilst recognising the cost and acknowledging that we’re happy to partner with others. Shell provided the company with over £4 million of investment, subsequently GO Science announced it was under contract to two very large companies. In May 2012 the planned trials for Shell E&P consisted of a five vehicle trial in the Gulf of Mexico, USA, for the summer of 2012, neither of these trials were undertaken. Pressures on the company increased through 2012-13, STVF were looking critically at their investments, following a review of the portfolio companies by a senior Schlumberger executive in 2011. The GO Science accounts to the end of 2012 showed a loss of £0. 3m, in June 2013 the company applied for funding from the West of England Going for Growth campaign. At the same time the company’s commitments to Shell E&P, with regard to the trials, were slipping. On 31 July 2013 GO Science Ltd was placed into administration at the request of STVF, six of the thirteen staff were made redundant. However ten potential buyers approached the administrators, BDO, and in September 2013 Thalassa Holdings Ltd agreed to pay £3. 6m for the company, at the close of 2013 the GO Science shareholders expected to receive Thalassa shares if Go Science’s principal customer contracts are re-activated. Thalassa, which possesses expertise in OBS, has made the acquisition on what appear to be extremely favourable terms according to AimZine. In 2014 it was revealed that Thalassa had paid less for GO Science, $2. 9m. Thalassa appointed a previous Managing Director of Saab Seaeye Ltd as CEO, the initial markets investigated included military, environmental and exploration applications. In June 2008 the company committed to developing an application for seabed seismic sensors for oil, the ambition at this time was for the first production vehicles to be operational by 2010. Thalassa have described this technology as having the potential to have a impact on the way marine seismic data is collected. GO Sciences RHyVAU was an underwater vehicle, a type of unmanned underwater vehicle
2. Robot Wars (TV series) – A celebrity special was shown on BBC One on 27 December 2000. The show was presented by Jeremy Clarkson for the first series before Craig Charles took over until the seventh series. Philippa Forrester co-hosted the first three series, the fifth and Extreme 2, the fourth series and Extreme 1 were co-hosted by Julia Reed and the seventh by Jayne Middlemiss. Jonathan Pearce provided commentary for all series, the new presenters for 2016 are Dara Ó Briain and Angela Scanlon. The fourth series of the UK Robot Wars was shown in the US on TNN as Robot Wars, Grand Champions in 2002, earlier series included assault and trial courses for competing robots before they were ceased from the first Extreme series onwards. Its merchandising was commercially successful, being one of the most popular selling toy ranges in 2002 and it included a mini arena, pullback toys and radio-controlled versions of Shunt, Matilda and Sir Killalot. In 2003, the roboteers themselves formed The Fighting Robot Association and with their associated event organizers, in 2013, Roaming Robots purchased the rights to the Robot Wars brand from Robot Wars LLC and now operates their travelling robotic combat show under that name. The use of the name Robot Wars ceased in early 2017, in March 2003, it was dropped by BBC Two after eight series and Mentorn announced it was making 22 episodes for Channel 5, concluding with the third World Championships broadcast in March 2004. Channel 5 later axed the show after one series due to low ratings, in July 2016 the show returned to BBC Two with a new arena, house robots and presenters. After the success of the relaunch, it was confirmed that series would be filmed. Robot Wars was the brainchild of Marc Thorpe, a designer working for the LucasToys division of Lucasfilm, in 1992, Thorpe had the initial idea for robot combat sport after unsuccessfully attempting to create a radio-controlled vacuum cleaner. In 1994, Marc Thorpe created Robot Wars and held the first competition at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. Approximately one month prior to the event, Thorpe formed a partnership with New York-based record company Sm, )e Communications, later Profile Records, Mentorn acquired the worldwide television rights from Profile in 1995 after Tom Gutteridge had seen an amateur tape of a San Francisco event. Gutteridge and one of his producers Steve Carsey created a format based on the Robot Wars concept. The Controller of BBC Two, Michael Jackson, attended the event, which was not filmed, however, it wasnt until 1998 that a subsequent Controller of BBC Two, Mark Thompson, fulfilled Jacksons promise and actually commissioned 6 episodes. Gutteridge and Carsey were producers and Foxwell was the supervisor and senior technical consultant. Mat Irvine, initially a member of the team, served as member of the judging panel in 2002 and 2003. The three person judging panel consisted of Noel Sharkey, Eric Dickinson, Adam Harper, Martin Smith, Myra Wilson, Mat Irvine, Sethu Vijayakumar, on the first day, I was in the dressing room and looking in the mirror, and looking down at the arena
3. Student Robotics – Student Robotics is a volunteer based organisation that runs an annual free-to-enter robotics competition for 16- to 18-year-olds. The group was founded at the University of Southampton in 2006, students at the University of Bristol and Grenoble INP joined the project in 2010. The project is funded through sponsorship, the competition lasts 6 months, starting in October and finalising in April. The 2015 Competition was held on the 25th &26 April, the competition consists of the first day being a Tinker Day as well as hosting the first league matches. The second day is the continuation of the matches and then a knockout stage to determine the winners of the competition. Historically the competition was hosted on the Highfield Campus of the University of Southampton. Participating teams are introduced to the competition, as well as given their kit at a KickStart event at the beginning of the year in October. Kickstart involves multiple talks by Student Robotics volunteers who are knowledgeable in the subject, there is also a Mini-game to introduce the teams into the sort of problems they will encounter in the next 6 months. There are then multiple Tech Days held at locations where teams are encouraged to work on their robot under the supervision of Student Robotics Volunteers. The competition rules mandate that the robots are autonomous, rather than remote controlled, the competitors may program their robot in Python via an IDE provided by Student Robotics. Student Robotics does not ban, nor support other methods than the IDE for programming their robots, the competition costs schools nothing apart from travel to enter, with a budget also being given to schools to spend on equipment. The group develops a modular robotics kit to aid teams through the competition, the current revision of the kit uses an Odroid U3 as its central controller, previously a BeagleBoard was used. The competitors can use the Python programming language and are provided with a library to ease interaction with the provided kit and it is not a requirement that they use Python or the provided library. This allows for markers, placed in the arena, on other robots and on game objects/obstacles and these provide information such as distance, position and rotation. Due to the competition being free to enter, Student Robotics requires that most of the kit is returned post-competition, blogs of teams who are entering this year can be found at Meet the teams. The task involved rotating cardboard cubes to the colour of the respective teams, the competition was held on 30 April to the 1st of May 2016 at The Racecourse, Newbury. The task involved capturing small wooden cubes from their positions by moving them into the teams scoring area. The competition was held on 25–26 April 2015 at The Racecourse, Details on the 2015 competition and awards can be found in the 2015 rulebook The task involved moving 20 cm3 cubes from their start positions into slots in the centre on the arena