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Thread: Northern England & Scotland event startup

  1. #1
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    As I touched upon in a differing thread, I am in the process of trying to start up a series of events, however to avoid cluttering that thread more, I'll post a new thread, and here it is, so introducing;

    *name not final yet, but this is what I am using to refer to it in all the paperwork and emails i'm sending currently

    From Liverpool to Leeds, Glasgow to Gainsborough and Sheffield to Scarborough, I'm aiming to of set up a semi-regular event / circuit in northern England and reaching up into Scotland, I want to bring events of some description to those currently without, both roboteers and interested members of the public who'd love to watch them. To this, i want to try acting as a spearhead with which to bring in interested people, and help the hobby continue and gain new people with new ideas and new bots, rather than just have a laugh and a bit of fun.

    So the important details, aims and what I'm hoping to include in each event.
    - For the first one, I am aiming for at minimum, arenas suitable antweight and beetleweights. Although if I can find the funding, featherweights too. The weight classes factor hugely into the appeal to the public attending and how much they're willing to pay, so the cost of the venue rental can be paid for, at least as much as possible, but naturally each step up in weight classes is a step up in the strength of arena needed, which can raise the cost exponentially. If things go well, I'd love to support the heavyweights in time.
    - A focus on education, as well as fun, I'm going to aim to teach interested people who want to get into the hobby varying helpful things, either through leaflets, or live workshops on things like soldering, different types of plastic and other materials to use, battery care, everything they'd need to get into the hobby, and hopefully compete the next time the event (or any) occurs.
    - Mini games! - Something you can just drop a bot into and try to set a high score, for those that don't have time or patience to take part in a main competition that may require them hanging around, or just people who need something to do during repair time.
    Here are some i'm confident can be done on a small scale suitable for bots;
    > Pinball (similar to the Robot Wars version)
    > Ten Pin Bowling - aim to knock down the oversized pins in the fastest time
    > Football
    > Tug of War - on bots that have the ability to have rope secured to them, first to pull the other across a central line wins
    > Assault Course - a full on labyrinth with dangers like air or water jets, swinging boulders and all sorts. This should be not too difficult to do in even small spaces with a bit of clever building to fit a lot into small spaces, with a surrounding transparant cube wall to ensure there's no water or even a mistimed bot and air jet flying around, shouldn't take too long to reset after each one either.
    There are several others i have, so i'll probably rotate between them each event - these are just a random selection for sake of the post.
    - Sales - I'm going to try seeing if its viable to set up something like a 'Carbot' (instead of carboot) sale. Roboteers selling off parts, souvenirs, or even if we can get them, some pre-made 3D printed bots that can be sold to the public so they can instantly get up and running into the hobby, should they wish to not go through the often frustrating route of building their own.

    Of course, there would also be the bit everyone loves, and robots going head to head in a tournament style series of live matches. So don't worry about that being overlooked.
    So the main barrier to this starting up, is the initial cost of building suitable arenas for everything. I'm not sure the best route to go with this issue. Either trying to find an investor in the underlying company registered in my name (Bad Science Limited), a sponsor, or even going to crowdfunding sites like Indiegogo & Kickstarter. So that's an immediate point of issue I need to resolve pronto. However, I don't think it'll be too hard to self sustain after the initial cost of building the arena, and any props needed for the mini games are initially created. It's also been noted that some places may donate, purely out of an interest in keeping the sport going, or upon agreeing to support and encourage people into STEM areas.

    I'm currently talking to sports centres, colleges, and schools about renting their halls. I'm having a bit of luck with school sports halls, as after all, they don't need them on weekends and they're willing to charge a lot less than something like a sports centre, as they have nothing to lose renting it out on weekends when its of no use to them, but sports centres need to take into account all the money that hall could earn them over those two days through actual sporting stuff. I've also been trying to barter with them, and offer any students of the school free or reduced entry, in return for a cheaper rent agreement. I'm not expecting nor wanting to make a lot of money off this, but ideally it needs to pay for itself in the long run, obviously.

    I'd love to hear any feedback on this plan / idea, and I'd welcome anyone who is willing to help setup this venture or has advice or even constructive criticism, and hopefully we can bring robotic chaos and mayhem to the north of Great Britain in regular bursts!

    There's lots of stuff to do, so I better stop writing this, get off to bed, and figure out a few more things!
    Last edited by Redirect Left; 22nd April 2018 at 02:53.

  2. #2
    This sounds great, surely more events are better for the sport?

    Just throwing In, I've gotten a few friends and family interested in the sport with my recent success in building something that works, I am in the design stage for an Ant arena with interchangeable arena space, and have been thinking about an assault course to improve my own driving skills, I'm a NW guy and I'm sure we could sort out some arrangements once I've finished these things.

  3. #3
    Isn't there a old PDF on here which is outdated but had useful info on what you need construction wise for set classes of areas.

  4. #4
    Ocracoke's Avatar
    Team Kaizen

    There certainly is but it doesn't cover Antweights or Beetleweights and I'd question how reliable it is now given the age (from 2009 I think) of it but makes a good starting point.

    It is a little easier with Ants because of the AWS rules which have the specifications in them. For Beetles, probably best to speak to Dave Weston (of Cracker 'n' Smash fame) who had a Beetleweight arena and see what he specs the arena with but personally, I would have thought the Class 2F specification would cover a Beetle arena with spinners.

    With regards to the Robot Rally, I would like to see this go forwards. The Tug of War is a bit pointless at the Antweight level I would have thought but getting kids involved from a education perspective is a definite unique point. The Bristol Bot Builders group seem to cover some of this already (I am sure I saw a Gauntlet replica in their AW arena), might be worth looking them up to have a talk with them about how they run it?I

    If you need help marshalling/doing tech checks, I've been looking to get into doing that as part of getting more involved in the roboteering community, happy to lend a hand.
    Last edited by Ocracoke; 23rd April 2018 at 14:46.
    Team Kaizen - Build Diary for all the robots

    AW: Amai, Ikari, Lafiel, Osu, Ramu
    BW: Shu!, The Honey Badger
    FW: Azriel
    MW: Jibril, Kaizen

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Maxamuslead View Post
    Isn't there a old PDF on here which is outdated but had useful info on what you need construction wise for set classes of areas.
    There is. But it's rather old, and I'm not sure the specifications on there would hold up to things like Carbide, or Apex's massive accident during the latest RW series - wouldn't probably be OK for non spinning bots though.
    For antweights, i'm thinking of repurposing a tabletop (yay IKEA), which is 100cm by 60cm, for an area of 6000cm (that's 930 inches) which i think is plenty big enough for antweights given their small size, and building a polycarb wall around it, and the wood floor (table) is far too thick to be broken by anything an antweight will generate.

    I think to start with, it'll be getting an arena of sorts together that's safe, and running a get together sort of even with interested roboteers and have a day of battling for a laugh and friendly competition before anything too serious. Perhaps renting out somewhere and having a handful of roboteers come together, do some combat and share further ideas, as I doubt there will be enough interest to run a public event regarding antweight / beetleweight size watching.
    I'm sure people will appreciate a day or two of just getting their antweights and beetleweights some actual driving and battle time, even if it isn't a large event of sorts to begin with?

    But i'm certainly looking at trying to introduce some people to concept of the sport and how to do it, rather than just sitting there thinking "that'd be kinda cool!"

    Beetle arena will be fun to construct and test for prior to construction, especially if i'm doing spinners. I might enquire later on if there is a beetleweight team with a spinner that wouldn't mind coming and doing some tests to try and destroy a mock arena wall, best test for it, i'd say. Naturally they'll also be an additional barrier before the arena wall i'm thinking of just using some scrap scaffolding pieces to build an internal wall with, so there is no direct robot to arena wall contact, except for flips or debris and accidents involving say a huge massive lump of spinning bar hitting it...
    Last edited by Redirect Left; 23rd April 2018 at 21:13.

  6. #6
    That table sounds like a decent size, similar to the test area I've got set up atm, and although inexperienced at the moment, I'm more than willing to get stuck in a help out where i can.

    And the gauntlet replica was the sort of thing I want to build for myself anyway, so I can make that available at any point too when it's finished.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Retroman View Post
    That table sounds like a decent size, similar to the test area I've got set up atm, and although inexperienced at the moment, I'm more than willing to get stuck in a help out where i can.

    And the gauntlet replica was the sort of thing I want to build for myself anyway, so I can make that available at any point too when it's finished.
    Also with tables, as they're a fixed size (especially if I buy two identical ones), two can be placed together with an extra few polycarb walls to create a bigger arena for say, a five or ten free for all last man standing ordeal.

    I have a basic layout for an antweight and beetleweight gauntlet. Essentially the same design, except the antweight version backtracks onto itself on different levels, making use of vertical heights to fit more into it, using the same floor area size.

  8. #8
    Ooooohh! Sounds like this is all very well planned indeed, excited to try it out already if I'm honest, I've watched lots of events and kind of missed the old gauntlet fairly regularly.

    And a variable size arena is a brilliant idea, always having an appropriate space will make for some interesting matches.

  9. #9

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by sean retro View Post
    It would be great if this goes ahead. We need more events up nouth, Sheffield would be a fitting place to have a since Sheffield was once know as the city of steel, maybe try and host one at Magna. VIP tickets seem to sold out quickly so you'll need to have them with something else thrown in as well to make up the cost to all this.
    it is rather fitting and reminds me of Robot wars games of old XD

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