Welcome to Bailey Robotics
Our founder has been in love with how things work for as long as she can remember. From a young age, Emma has been keen to take things apart and see how they work. Most toys and electronics were taken apart and put back together at some point during her youth (not always successfully), including her TV, NES and Stereo. There was a particular gift from a family member that she remembers capturing her imagination. This was a ‘160 in One Electronic Project Kit’, where the realisation that she could easily create an AM radio transmitter that could be picked up on the family Hi-Fi, made a huge impact.
This then morphed into fixing and repairing mountain bikes to keep hers looking as fresh as her friend’s much newer bikes, and cars in her late teens. She also had a fascination with LEDs in her bedroom, and making the bedroom look sci-fi was a big deal (and still is). She started training as a mechanic at a backstreet Subaru garage in 1997, and the garage was impressive. The owner was working on a jet go-kart, a Ford Capri Pickup she ended up owning, and she was regularly around monster, jet and wheelie trucks being run down the drag strip. Emma left here with an in-depth knowledge of engine tuning and turbo systems.
Starting work here as a mechanic was crucially a year before the now famous Robot Wars started to air on television in 1998 (UK). When the show was broadcast, it had such an incredible impact on her 18-year-old self, that almost immediately, Emma started to collect parts from old cars, and machines left to rot in the breakers yard she eventually started working at. Anything from old pieces of chequer plate and hydraulic rams to imitate the gripper of ‘Sir Killalot’, to making early end effectors (grippers) from sheet steel, pulleys and steel wire from a photocopying machine, to picking up stray bolts from the floor.
In 1999, while she was learning about robotics (involving many library books), one of the first robots she started to build was intended to be a bomb disposal/planetary/rover type robot. She was never keen to smash them up in droid on droid battle (although she did have the robot wars rules to hand), but was keen to build them. It would have had six wheels, a basic chassis and a robot arm on top, all controlled remotely using the kind of RC hardware you might find in a model aircraft of the time. The motors were 12v window motors from cars, and the chassis was made of wood. Even the opening to get into the batteries used car boot struts and the battery indicator was analogue and also from a car. The robot chassis structure was so strong you could jump up and down on it.
Further below are the only images she has left of the plans and the early prototype from 1999. The gripper we still have, although it has not fared well the last 22 years.
Unfortunately, a house fire destroyed the prototype build for that robot, and it has never been revisited. Emma later in life, having been a mechanic/engineer for many years now and mostly using a wheelchair to get around, cannot viably work in those industries any more. She has however been a home educating parent for nearly a decade at the time of writing, and so has spent a vast amount of that time exploring not only science and physics with her (now adult) children, but has used her knowledge of engineering to teach robotics to them. It’s not unusual to have one or more robots staring at you from different parts of the house.
The History
We started the project as a family who knows what it’s like to be fearful of being a beginner at something. Many sites/channels that may be experts in a certain subject tend to forget what it was like to be new at something, and how easy it is to get lost in the jargon of a brand-new hobby.
The original purpose of Bailey Robotics was to be a Home Ed site, dedicated to helping people with learning, regardless of age or education level, with the main focus being robotics. We have a sister website that had the same goals, but was focused more on engineering and science projects that might not be classed as robots.
As time has gone on, however, we felt like splitting the projects up onto different websites might not make too much sense. Plus, we found that figuring out which project should go on which site was harder than we thought. Some projects fit so easily into both website’s goals.
Forward!
We realised that the best way forward was to split the sister websites in a way that made more sense. Bailey Robotics will now be focussed on our robotics. The things we make, create, and get up to in our world of robots. Here, you can find blogs describing events we’ve been to, bots we’ve made or repaired, and of course, all the information you could ever need about our robots.
Over on our sister website, Rocking Sprocket, will be the place where you can learn to build it all. Whether you are looking for a robot build, jargon, a science or engineering project, we will walk you through them in a beginner-friendly way.
We are still passionate about Home Ed and encouraging people to learn regardless of age or ability. Learning is a big part of our family, and we don’t ever intend to stop, so we fully intend to bring you on the journey of everything we have learnt, and whatever we learn as we go.
Happy creating!
Emma, Cerys, and Jacob
Bailey Robotics
