King Edward Terrace Canberra ACT PO Box 5322 Kingston ACT 2604 +61 2 6270 2800 [email protected] https://www.questacon.edu.au

Transcription of Enterprising Australians video Erica Hediger – The Creative Element - BattleBots

The video for this transcript can be found on the Questacon YouTube channel at: https://youtu.be/58J4AQL2MDs

Transcription from video:

[background music playing]

[Erica sitting in her workshop, speaking to the camera]

Erica: The path to making my first robot was a really funny one, actually.

I went to my first robotics competition and I thought it was fantastic and really interesting, but I thought I’d never be able to do that myself, ‘cause robots are really complicated, right?

[Several photos flash for a second that feature various unnamed machinery and tools in Erica’s shop, plus several photos of a green metal machine].

Around Christmas time that year I got a massive box of what I thought was junk, and that was it! No instructions!

[More photos from around the workshop flash for a moment, more machinery and the large green machine, several other unidentified people start to appear in the shots, a whiteboard with plans appears for a moment].

So, from there I just started YouTubing everything and so I ended up putting it together in my shed,

[Photos of several parts of machinery being brought together and connected into one machine, electronic components such as wires being added, tyres being added]

and I rocked up a few days beforehand and the local competitors actually gave me a hand putting the electronics together the last few steps

[Many different people in the workshop, finalising a BattleBot – the large green machine we saw at the start.]

[Switches to footage of Erica speaking]

and I competed with a wooden wedge that got absolutely destroyed

[Switches to footage of an arena with large plexiglass walls. The crowd outside the arena is watching two robots – a large black wedge-shaped robot with red and white decorations drives into a large circular saw wheel, and appears to get cut by the saw]

in about 10 seconds in my third match. But, yeah, I made my first robot out of scrap wood and old cordless drills and a chopping board.

[Shot of Erica in her orange BattleBot team shirt]

Making science fun and relevant for everyone King Edward Terrace Canberra ACT PO Box 5322 Kingston ACT 2604 +61 2 6270 2800 [email protected] https://www.questacon.edu.au

I actually got to be, really luckily, the team captain for ‘BattleBots’,

[Photo of the finished BattleBot we saw being made in previous footage – It now has green paint in multiple mottled shades, a large red disc in the centre and spikes on the front.]

a TV show over in America which is a bit like the Olympics of combat robotics.

[Footage of Erica being interviewed on TV next to the green BattleBot].

So, I get to spend a couple of weeks over there

[Footage of Adam Savage being interviewed for BattleBots]

with a massive 150kg super heavy weight robot called Death Roll.

[Footage of Erica and her teammates waving next to the BattleBot arena].

[Switches to footage or Erica remotely controlling Death Roll].

The best way to start in combat robotics is definitely to just try and get some motors running around

[Footage of Death Roll battling another BattleBot, a large white spinning disc].

on a chopping board, and see if that can work, and then just go from there. There’s a community in Australia that’s pretty strong at the moment, just jump online and have a chat to a few of the builders.

[Footage of Erica speaking to the camera].

Everyone’s really, really welcoming and even if you’re not an engineer or you have no understanding of how the robots work, everyone’s really, really excited to have more people competing, so everyone will help you out.

[Image shifts to Enterprising Australians logo].

Making science fun and relevant for everyone