This year was the second year we went to Portmeirion’s Steampunk event. It’s a beautiful venue, in one of many incredibly scenic places in Wales, filled with a whole heap of amazingly dressed people. We like to go dressed up in our finery, and we especially enjoy taking part in teapot racing.
Teapot racing (in case you aren’t familiar with it), is exactly what it sounds like. A bunch of teapots of varying sizes, colours, shapes, and materials, get mounted to chassis’ and raced against each other/against the clock. No two racers look the same, for it is also a competition of decoration and creativity, that accompanies the standard timed-lap.
Last year, we created our first ever teapot racer, a feat we were incredibly proud of, as it was something we had been wanting to do for years. We started creating her mere days before the event, only completing her with hours to spare. We checked her over so many times, we lost count, and test drove her until her batteries ran dry, multiple times. She didn’t, however, do as well as we’d hoped. An understatement, I think, since she caught fire. Twice.
Nothing so dramatic, only a few puffs of smoke, but she was out of commission, and definitely out of the race. We were devastated, until a fellow racer lent us some wiring, a battery, and a receiver, so we could take part. It was a lot of fun, and she did well, however, she wasn’t as nimble as we’d have liked, and too big to go over many of the obstacles. Read more about her, and last year’s shenanigans HERE.
So this year, we felt like we had our own little mission. A goal to make another teapot racer for this year’s steampunk event. We had two extra brass teapots, and decided that we might as well make both of them. We gave ourselves plenty of prep time this year (a whole week!), and got to work.
We each had a teapot, and the two of us had different ideas on what we wanted our racer to look like. I had a desire for mine to look beautifully messy, with a kind of chaotic ‘Mad Max’ feel to her; whereas mum (Emma) wanted hers to look clean, smart, and futuristically detailed in a minimalistic way. As with all builds, though, you must make sure the system/electronics work before you start aiming to get the look you want.
The systems inside/powering both of them are identical. Each of them have two motors, two motor drivers, one receiver, a battery, a fuse, and a switch. They each have a controller assigned to them. It’s always interesting to see how different our droids turn out when using the same parts.
The size and shape differences of our pots of choice meant that we had to be differently creative when we mounted components. The lower half of mine is more bulbous at the bottom, so I had to expand my base to allow more space to mount items, and the neck being narrow meant I couldn’t put many things inside. Emma’s on the other hand, allowed for more things to be mounted inside, but the sheer size meant she had to be picky about how she mounted essential things outside.
Over the course of a couple of days, we each produced a droid that we were incredibly proud of. We both decorated ours in different ways, mum making her love of LEDs known with two small headlights, and a large blue police looking light bar, mounted to look like a spoiler, while I used bits of chain and a broken watch to give mine the ‘steampunk chaos’ I wanted. You can watch a sped up video of us making our droids further down this page, or search for Bailey Robotics on YouTube.
Completely last minute, we had another great idea for a teapot racer, only it would be entirely made out of LEGO. We built this racer mostly off camera, supergluing certain fragile pieces together on camera. We were, unfortunately, completely rushed by this time, so we couldn’t get her functioning reliably in time for the event. She does look marvellous, though, and we would like to get her working for next year. If she’s not too fragile, of course.
The day for steampunking rolled around, and we were excited. We all got dressed in our finery (steampunk attire), equal parts nervous and thrilled.
Arriving at the venue, we grabbed our droids and made a beeline for the site where the race would take place. We had a lovely morning, catching up with friends, meeting new people, and most importantly, making sure our racers worked. The race rolled around at about 1pm, and we were more than confident that all of our work this time would not go up in a frustrating puff of smoke (literally).
Surely enough, we were right! Both of our racers made it around the obstacle course with ease, happily navigating the course, and each of us securing decent times. I cannot remember what they were now, but since we didn’t win, it isn’t an issue.
The main point, and most valuable takeaway from this, is that last year we were incredibly frustrated that things happened as they did. We felt dejected and upset that something we had worked so hard on, broke so easily before we even got to use it for its purpose. Instead of admitting defeat, however, we used the small failure as a learning moment, and even though we didn’t win, we successfully created two amazing looking droids who work beautifully.
Given time, we will also make the other two teapot racers work, and maybe someday the first one can make a proper debut.
Cerys
#RoboticsIsForEveryone
