Kickstarter

Knightmare: Our project is called the Knightmare project. We will be building a mech, that one to two people at a time will fit in. There will be one pilot, and possible one extra passenger. We will be using metal found in a scrap yard, re-shaped and welded to fit our needs and minimize version 1's construction cost. This is a life-size mech, people fit in like vehicles.

Movement:

 Our mech will in version one, be moving on tracks, these tracks will be suitable for on, and off-road terrain. If this project becomes large enough, we will release a faster version with Tires. We hope that the mech can reach speeds of 15-25 Km/Hour, but speed will depend on the engine. The mech will be able to turn, and go backwards.

Where the pilot/driver sits(Cockpit):

Similar to the inside of an excavator, the mech will have a cabin like shown in this picture, there will be two joysticks that will control movement, and both arms of the mech. There will also be a circuit board that has multiple buttons one it for features described below. There will be bullet-proof glass for the window, and there will be a view to behind the mech also. Behind the pilots seat, there (still deciding) might be another seat for a passenger. The passenger will not have any controls. The cockpit will be in the upper-body portion of the mech.

Arms:

Above is a drawing of a robotic arm, ours will not be nearly this advanced but it's an idea we will be going off of. We will have two joints, the shoulder and part before-elbow, and the part after the elbow, the elbow will bend, and there will be multiple attachments for hands. These arms will be able to move independently through each joystick in the cockpit.

Engine and other necessary parts: The engine and other necessary parts will be located under the cockpit, or above/behind it.  

How it will start, how will people enter/exit: It will start via a key most likely. There are future plans for Bluetooth starting from your smartphone/smart watch also. This is not likely on the first model though.

Extra features: There will be multiple attachments to the hands which are still open to ideas, but other than that inside the cockpit there will be a circuit board with many buttons (simple buttons) that will have features such as:

Microphone/Speaker: You will be able to talk and project your voice outside the mech.

-Lights:There will be lights you can turn on/off outside the mech

-Killswitch: Just incase

-More to be decided.

What will we do after the first one is built?

We will through the process of building it, write down our steps, and we hope to commercially produce these. We will be selling them for little-no profit as we just think this is a massively fun thing to do, they will be sold world-wide, to every country we can ship them to. (Shipping prices WILL Vary).

Our plan:

Our plan is to first buy tracks cheap from a broken "Caterpillar", and will build from there. We know several scrap metal dealers around us where we will buy/salvage metal from to build. Once the lets are finished, we will work on the cockpit, and then arms. We will be using hydraulics to control arms. We have found a programmer to help with any coding needed also, we ask Kickstarter to help us fund this so we can afford parts quicker, and higher quality parts. During construction of the project, everything will be extremely documented so it can be reproduced, and we will make more for sale to the public. We are debating releasing construction plans to the public also.

How we will spend the money:

We will spend money we receive largely on buying circuitry, a laptop to run the mech, metal we will need, rubber tracks. All the money we get will go into the mech, we will also spend $3,000 on advertising to get more people knowledgeable about the project. There will be no left-over funds after the Kickstarter, and we will still be going into our own pockets for a lot of this project. We just ask Kickstarter to help, so we can make the machine of our, and your dreams!

Thank you for looking at, and/or backing our KickStarter. We will constantly post updates on the project, and currently there is a team of 3 working on it. We have just turned 18, and are looking to make something big out of our lives, and bring some fun and useful technology to especially North America, and the rest of the world too!