Welcome to the online home of Team Picus Telerobotics, a Canadian combat robotics team competing predominantly in British events in the "Antweight" (150g) category. Here, you can find more information on our robots and the events they have attended, as well as background information and disjointed ramblings on a myriad of subjects related to the sport of robotic combat. Team Picus will be nursing a headache at these upcoming events: 22nd March, 2016 - I have absolutely no clue where my camera has gone, and unfortunately it has all my pictures from events since September on it...consequently the Ant Freeze report is a bit delayed, and a couple of other sections (mainly events and robots) are slightly light on pictures. I'll fix this when I find it, sorry! 20th March, 2016 - "Okay, Joey, what's happened this time?", you shout, your howls of discontent drifting in over the Lunesdale hills. Well, the answer is simultaneously a lot (I built a new S. D. F., I nearly finished a new Jigsaw, Tracy finally moved to the UK and is properly part of the team) and not very much (the AWS and Ant Freeze events didn't go spectacularly, a lot of my more ambitious projects stalled). I've updated the website a bit to reflect this - the team, robot, and event pages have been updated - and hopefully there'll be some more news soon, along with Robot Wars. Yes, Robot Wars! I'm as excited as anyone for the return of the show, especially since I know an awful lot of people who are going to be on it, and I was lucky enough to be able to see the filming of the pilot live - suffice to say I'm confident it's going to be pretty good. I'm still in two minds about whether to enter myself - as much as it would be fun, it'd be an expensive project, and it'd be a big step up from 150g to 110kg, but you never know... 15th July, 2015 - After all that updating, I, um, forgot to actually upload the updated website, so this is a double update! Working on a new team didn't really go well due to immigration-related paperwork, and neither did the AWS, although I had a lovely time nonetheless. I've added another event report, and written up my finally completed transmitter conversion (which survived battle testing at the AWS!) under the About page. I've also got hold of more pneumatic bits, so some interesting robots are coming, including a successor to Arcus... 19th June, 2015 - And we're back! Since the last update, I have got married (hoorah!) but while I was in Canada doing so my laptop died (boo! hiss!), hence the time between updates, apologies! During that time I attended Morgrugyn Destruction in Wales and had a lot of fun (see the event reports page) and have been slowly working on my team for the next AWS which is now a little over two weeks away. More to come soon, including new robot pages, new artwork, and new weight classes (!)... 31st March, 2015 - AWS 46 has happened, and it ended in a rare good result for me - I enjoyed it very much and S. D. F. came in the top 16 of over 100 robots! An event report has been added for that (the 2014 events will eventually be part of the archive - there wasn't much to report anyway...), along with a robot page for S. D. F., and changes to other pages to reflect new suppliers and the (eventual) end of Spall. The graphics updates are coming soon, I promise... 13th March, 2015 - Some general housekeeping has been done on the website (ear infections aren't fun, but are conducive to coding), the 'About' page has been replaced by a less rambling one after I actually read the previous version, and various images/links/other things have been modified. Coming soon - as well as the actual robot updates promised - should be some new artwork, a slightly more interesting background than the current abyssal plain, and the long-awaited (by precisely nobody) opening of the Team Picus Online Store. 12th March, 2015 - "Some robot updates will (hopefully) happen over the next few days..." ...and here we are! Unfortunately my health has been more or less consistently playing up over the last few months, which has precluded robot work, but - having basically written 2014 off, although I did win that one fight at AWS 45! - I now write this full of (probably misguided) optimism for the upcoming year, with new robots, new weight classes, and even some driving practice planned! A new antweight page has been added for S. D. F. (which will be updated soon as the new version is built), and there's a few more minor changes to other pages. Stay tuned for further updates...no, really, do this time! 25th October, 2014 - So, about the last few months...^^;; Antweight World Series 44 and the few months before and after did not go especially well on a competitive or personal level, unfortunately, due to a myriad of factors (procrastination, general uselessness, graduating, moving house, and minor ongoing health problems). However, I'm hopeful of being able to end 2014 on something of a high by doing half decently (read: winning a fight) at at least one event, and then hopefully I can head into 2015 with a new Jigsaw, generally better robots, and better luck! Some robot updates will (hopefully) happen over the next few days... 20th March, 2014 - Antweight World Series 43 has come and gone, and with it there have been updates to some of the robot pages as well as the first event report of the year. The coming months will see a few changes to the Team Picus robot lineup, and hopefully there'll be more news soon... 6th February, 2014 - Apologies for the long time between updates, this was due to a combination of dissertation work and incompetence...Team Picus is back to being based in the UK, and in preparation for Antweight World Series 43 in March, this website is having a slight overhaul - aside from the title bar now being teal, there have been minor updates to a few pages, and the 'Events' and 'Store' sections are now accessible, if a bit empty - check back soon for updates! 16th March, 2013 - This website is now live! The 'Events' section is closed off for now - largely due to the time and memory investment needed to write event reports going back four years! - but the rest is open, and hopefully it's not too bad. If you see any mistakes or corrections that need to be made, report them to me at joey.mcconnell@nospam.picus.org.uk. |
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