The story of Badar 1 - the first combat robot in Pakistan

In March of 2004 I received an email from engineers in Pakistan who had formed a group they called "Operation Badar: an Educational Movement" with the purpose of creating interest in building combat robots in their country. They wrote to tell me of their success in creating "an international level combat robot" with which they intended to challenge all the universities of Karachi to duels.

I don't know what became of their 'Badar 1' robot, or if they ever succeded in staging a robot duel. I have reproduced the email with its two photos of Badar 1 below for posterity. It's an entertaining read.

We are extremely proud to announce that Operation Badar engineers Mr. Shoaib and Mr. Adnan have been successful in building Pakistan's first remote and computer controlled combat robot. We are calling it Badar I. For the last 8 months they have been working extremely hard to achieve this objective. We beleave that Badar I is an international level combat robot, please be the judge (For comparison check out http://www.open.org/joerger/gallery.html for details on robots that appeared in Robotica -the TV program also seen on Discovery and Sports 10 cable channels in Pakistan).

Badar I technical details are given below and more then a 100 pictures are available at: [site no longer available and not archived].

The pictures also cover the visit to Sir Syed University of the Robotic team, this is the first occasion that Badar I was show to the students last week. Tomorrow (Thursday, March 11) we will display the robot again at 12:30 pm in the University. The plan is to visit all the universities of Karachi and challenge them for a duel.

Through out the world engineers and hobbyist have been building combat robots for fun as well as for learning electronics, mechanics, and computer science. We want to start this trend in Pakistan. But before we started classes in robotics we wanted to be sure that our team is able to build robots before teaching others. For the last three years we have tried to achieve this objective. We funded about 8 teams except for two teams all of them failed (Please don't ask me how much of OB's and my own money I have spent on this, it is sufficient to know that it is critical that in Pakistan that we start this trend). We are very proud that we did not get discouraged because of the failures, but marched on. The code name for this project was Operation Balakot, to remember Syed Ahmed Shaheed, I believe he is very proud us today, we never give up.

The plan is to start a 6 month course in Practical Robotics in Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology on the occasion of 23rd March, Insha Allah. Before that day we will hold a seminar. The classes will be held on Sundays only. You can call the university at 4800420-21 next week to get the rest of the details. All classes will be held in the labs, therefore the seats in this class will be extremely limited.

The Operation Badar Practical Robotics team will consist of the following faculty: Mr. Shoaib (Designer and builder of Badar I)-Academic Coordinator Mr. Adnan (Designer and builder of Badar I) Mr. Arif (Designer and builder of RoboPak I)

If you are interested in Robotics please join (I request you to congratulate Mr. Shoaib and his team for achieving for Pakistan you can call him at 0333-220-6875 or by emailing to the group)

Electronics:
Radio Transmitter and Receiver for driving and steering: 27 MHZ
Radio Transmitter and Receiver for weapons control: 35 MHZ
3 Digital IC’s
1 Micro Controller (Atmal 89C51)
24 Transistor Switches
80 Resistors
2 Power Relays one side
5 Power Relays two side
7 Relays small

Control System: PC Computer Control: Java Program using serial port
Mobile Phone Control: J2ME (Java)
Internet Control: Tomcat (Java)

Badar 1 - the first combat robot from Pakistan