Robo Challenge Open Day & FRA FW Awards 2012

Hi Guys

Well the UK Championships will certainly go down in history as an event be remembered, now its time for the FRA 2012 Featherweight Awards!

Robo Challenge will be hosting an open day which will be announced soon. As well as being the ceremony for our 2012 awards the open day will be open to everyone and is designed to get people inspired, learning and ready to build! We plan to invite guests to run mini seminars on everything from learning about low and high pressure pneumatics & how to build reliable spinners to tech check training and how to build an inspiring robot. Its going to be a fantastic day and we hope as many of you as possible will be able to make it. We also plan to have a few facilities available so people can bring their robots to test and get some help with any problems. More details will be coming shortly in the live events section.

Please find below the link to the 2012 FRA Awards. The nominees for each category are now available and have been compiled by the FRA and Robo Challenge for you to vote on. Voters must be a member of the FRA and each person gets one vote. Any multiple entries will be deleted. Good luck to all the robots that have been nominated and we do hope to see you at the Robo Challenge Open day.

Opps here is the link http://robochallenge.co.uk/Events_and_E ... wards.html or head to the news section of the FRA website.

Wait, no 'Best Dancing Robot' category? I thought I had that one in the bag for sure! :rofl:

I'll give you a run for your money in that one Jamie ;) Got boner doing mad dancing at the yeovil event

A sign up form will be opening as soon as we have the date announced. There will be a small fee per team which just helps cover a few costs such as CO2 etc. We are currently also organising the seminars too. Each will be approximately 30 mins long and we will be having breaks in between so people can do some testing with their robots and maybe a few whiteboard battles.

As I am organising the content are there any topics in particular anyone would like covering? for example understanding the different battery types and how to look after them or how to build a simple robot from scratch? please shoot over your ideas, this day will be design to help as many people possible and not just newcomers.

You got a rough date in mind?

last bank holiday weekend of may or early june?

The weekend of the 2nd/3rd June would be good, as I'm off the 4th/5th as well thanks to ye olde Queenie. Not to influence you or anything :proud:

And Gary, you're on! The best I have to offer so far is 20 seconds into this fight, although Dave Taylor got some good footage of its boogy-woogies in a demo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-MpAQKCb44

any idea of the location?

I would love to know how to make external buttons for transmitters through the trainer port... example, mounting another button on the bottom of your transmitter to act as a weapon kill/firing switch so you don't have to take your hands off the steering or weapon throttle in the case of a spinner

Thats a good topic actually, I shall add it to the agenda. The location is most likely to be at our workshop here in Birmingham. Less than a mile of the M6 junction 6.

Ive had a couple of emails asking if people can bring Heavies. All weight classes are more than welcome, problems are problems which ever weight class you are in. Testing of heavies though is possible depending on the type of robot etc. We will do our best to cater for all. We are most likely to be putting up the inner arena and some screening to make testing possible. That way hopefully people can try new things and give the robot a quick run around.

How big is your workshop?

Everything is relative i guess. We have a reasonable area where we can put up some pit tables in the main loading bay. In the stores room we will try and set up the inner arena which will double up as a stage for presentations and seminars. Im going to try and get some images to go on a big projector to help for the talks that are held so fingers crossed should make a good event. If there is plenty of support we will make it an annual or bi annual event/awards ceremony.

We already have 1 guest to talk about our first topic. I am passionate about learning, and its not just for new people. I too am hoping to learn a lot whilst I am there. Its also a good time for people who would like to learn how to tech check or learn how to use CO2 refill equipment or just get their robots running nicely.

I would also like to specifically invite all the nominated teams to come. It would be great to have everyone there for the awards. No one will know the results until on the day.

Should be a nice event/get together. Hopefully a good amount of new roboteers can get to it, They should be able to learn alot from an event like this

Sounds ike a great idea James!
I will defo be going!

How big is it in sq foot? Can spinner testing be done?

Might be interested in going, could also do a talk. Though if it's as packed as gadget show I'll just rage quit .

The Gadget Show event pits-area was busy yes, but it was a small sacrifice for a great event.

There's a strong likelihood that I'll be living/working in or around Durham at the time of this event/get-together, which means it should be easy enough to pop down whatever weekend it's held. Not sure if there's much I'm enough of an expert on to talk about, but I'd be happy to film the talks and upload them for the people of the internet to enjoy. I'd also be quite interested in the possible tech-checker training and CO2 filling station segments.

If I manage along, it should be with both robots. Just ordered a new belt (and a spare!) for Drumroll's drum, although it's not a problem if we can't run spinners.

Would be great if you could come Jamie although I appreciate it is a long way for you. Your probably the most experienced drum spinner around and have a great knowledge of drum diameters, ways to mount them and dimensions for teeth which I know people building drums would find very valuable. I was suprised to see so many drum spinners at the champs this year so they are definitely popular. Would be great to do the tech checking course too.

I appreciate the pits were tight at the champs, However the main problem was teams that were not competing still left their tools and brought whiteboard robots. Now we do really appreciate everyone's support however at that particular event it reduced space for competing teams. At our workshop it's naturally not a massive space however we should be able to get plenty of teams in with no issues. Its not about pit space it's about the value of testing your machines, making modifications, doing more testing and learning from experienced people with new ideas. That way you don't have to learn during a full combat event against NST lol. We already have some great sessions lined up, we are going to make it as good as it can be :)

If anyone wants to come along and help with getting Erics hydraulics going then as long as i'm fit ill come along :proud: . Could be a good teaching piece if there is a hydraulics seminar going on over the course of the event too.

Not entirely selfish reasons for wanting to go of course though, missed the champs so would be great to get to one RC event at least :lol:

If Jamie isn't off to windmills-new we could probably manage a bus load of us all coming down the M6 :crazy:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by k_c_r

The best I have to offer so far is 20 seconds into this fight, although Dave Taylor got some good footage of its boogy-woogies in a demo

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And the good man has uploaded said video :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS73VwDsjLo

Sounds good man, better getting it right the way it is before starting to add all the complicated stuff to it :proud: .

As always it'll be a last minute call with us depending on what bookings we have and when the actual date is set for, but Jamie S was gutted that he missed the GSL event this year so he might make it along too. I'll get him to finish off Colin's bot with him so hopefully he'll have something to play with as Jr's gas bottle has something weird going on with it.

Hi Tony

Im not an expert but I may be able to help you with your hydraulics, depending on what the problem is. If there is enough interest then we could look at a hydraulic session too.

Can we request a grudge match from the champs? i'd like another go at little hitter

I'm not event too sure if I'll be able to make it or not so don't go out of your way to organise anything on my account. I greatly appreciate the offer though James and if I can make it and bring Eric along then I will take you up on it if you have the time to spare :).

Oh, and will I ask Jamie S if he will do a seminar on chatting up models after you were all relying on him for that at the GSL last year? :lol:

Im looking at potentially Saturday June 2nd. I need to check it with a few people before we can confirm but this is the preferred date at the moment. Got some great talks lined up! :)

One on Pneumatics?

I will announce them shortly but yes there will be a pneumatics one.

I'm assuming it's just going to be a day-long event? Just so I know how many nights to look at accommodation for. Contemplating whether to stay an extra day since it's a long weekend and find something fun to do in the area.

Where is it being held? I can probably get a train to birmingham if its at the Robochallenge workshop but it will take planning, but it will be so worth given what can be learned! Who said lectures cant be fun :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6YvpZb1pOY

Has this event been finalised yet? would like to come along but not sure on date or times

Pugster Would like to be involved with any beetle weight events.....is this one happening,if so where and when?thanks guys.:)

Any luck with a confirmed date yet? Could do with sorting my accommodation pretty soon :kiss:

Hi Guys

Just got back off holiday! Will crack on and get this organisesd for you.

Hi guys

I am currently looking at June the 9th for this event. We have some great talks lined up! cant wait! I am hoping to have this confirmed by the weekend.

Hi Guys

We are currently looking at new dates in July now. We are going to run around 3 x 30 min seminars with special guests plus extra little bits such as About CO2 and What are tech checkers looking for. The day will be rounded off with the FRA awards prize giving so it would be great to have everyone there.

Really looking forward to getting this right and seeing the good that can come from sharing knowledge and our experiences. With that in mind Im excited to announce our first session :)

Current UK Champion & all round awesome engineer Sam Smith will be hosting our first seminar about spinners and the secret to building a really reliable machine. Sam has an enormous wealth of information and his engineering really is second to none. Having produced a UK Champion in NST it was a lot more skill than luck. Sam has very kindly agreed to share his wisdom and I for one cant wait to hear his secrets!

Updates coming shortly

Quote:

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Originally Posted by James

secret to building a really reliable machine.

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Is the next seminar on how to make sure your weapon doesn't get stuck on? :P

Any more info available on this yet?

Hi Guys

We were originally looking at early July however some people cant make it and we have a big project on so we are going to look at early to mid August. Will keep you posted.

Sounds like a brilliant event would love to go