The "one stop shop" for robot builders

Robot Wars Series 2 winner Kim Davies from Cwmbran, Wales, now works as part of the Robot Wars technical team, and has used RS Components for the past 15 years.

Kim Davies from Cwmbran, Wales, won Series 2 of Robot Wars in 1998, the TV series where homemade radio-controlled robots go head to head with one another in a fight to the death, with his robot - Panic Attack.

Panic Attack performed so well in Robot Wars that Davies was offered a permanent position on the programme as part of the Robot Wars technical team.

He has since been working on the show for two weeks every year, for the last five years.

Throughout his robot-building career, Davies has relied heavily on having a trustworthy supplier that can provide a huge range of products for next-day delivery.

Davies has used RS Components for 15 years, mainly due to its unrivalled next-morning guaranteed delivery.

"It is important to minimise machine downtime and RS have never let me down on a delivery, no matter where in the world I have been", he says.

Davies also chose RS due to its breadth of product range (128,000 products).

He orders electrical, mechanical and safety products in the knowledge he can get anything he needs in order to build or maintain his robots.

Davies buys a vast range of products including pilot ball sprockets, bearings, electrical connectors, low-profile xenon beacons, motors, screws, bolts, aluminium sheet-tapes and lubricants.

Since his early triumph, Davies has taken Panic Attack all over the world.

Panic Attack competed in Battlebots, the US equivalent of Robot Wars, and went on to compete at other events around North America.

Lately, Panic Attack has stayed closer to home, visiting Ireland, Scotland and Cornwall, and was on display at the Motor Show at the NEC, Birmingham, at the end of May.

Davies is regarded as a legend among roboteers and for years considered to be the finest driver on the planet, attributed to his ingenious inventions.

Davies cites the fact that RS will also source some noncatalogue products for its customers when they require it.

"I like the fact that I do not need to spend hours searching for a particular product and that they will find it for me", he says.

For instance, RS recently sourced an electrical linear actuator, which Davies needed for the Robot Wars show.

Since working on Robot Wars, Davies has come to realise the importance of having a reliable supplier.

He remarks: "I have lost count of the number of times that it has been imperative to have a particular part in a short amount of time and that RS has produced the goods, so to speak".

Davies usually orders from RS by telephone but has also been impressed by the company's online capabilities, as well as the CD-ROM catalogue.

In particular, the CD-ROM contains data files with essential information on a product such as its dimensions and weight.

These sorts of information are vital when building a robot, as you need to factor in a component's weight and size before purchasing it.

As for the future, Davies expects to be involved in the new series of Robot Wars, which has been bought by Channel 5 (from BBC 2).

The eighth series will be filmed in August 2004.

Davies is now considering building Panic Attack 2, and although his involvement in the programme prevents him from competing in one of the teams, he is still free to design and build robots to appear on the show - for which he'll continue to rely on RS.

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