GeekMomProjects@gareth I've never done this before, but the rules of this particular 1lb competition specifically make it a low barrier to entry (most of the bot must be 3D printed, etc...) And there are a number of 1-lb (US Antweight) and 3-lb tournaments around. You should definitely look into it if you are interested. The Reddit forum r/BattleBots has conversations about many different weight classes, and I've found a lot of helpful information online.
John@geekmomprojects @gareth
Neither my kid nor I had a background in this stuff, so we went for the easy mode and built from a kit meant for beginners (in our case Fingertech's Viper kit, which builds an antweight wedge).
We got it assembled and working in I think 3 sessions none of which were more than a couple hours.
It's obviously not going to be as competitive as doing a more serious build, but the point was to dip the toe and see if this is something she'd like to really invest time & money in without biting off more than we could chew. And a kit seems like a good approach for that.