Something to think about.

I have been looking around various countrys build rules for featherweights and I have found that the FRA build rules are the only ones that still have a 12KG weight limit.
The RFL use 30Lb (13.6KG)I believe that our friends in Australia now use the RFL rule set. (Maybe they could confirm?)
In view of this I would like your opinions as to whether you would like to bring the FRA rules into line, and increase the Featherweight weight limit from 12KG to 13.6KG.
This is just a fact finding project at the moment and I can confirm that there are no plans to make any changes to the rules at present.

my personal opinoin NO lets keep it 12kg plenty bots are very destructive and UNDER 12 kgs imagine adding another 1.6 kg to a already dangerous bot

i would like the weight limit to be 13.6kg

Well following the path of other weight classes you divide the weight by two (100, 50, 25) so i think it should be raised but not that high, to 12.5kg as this would follow on from the other classes.

Unfortunately, Geoff Smith is correct. We voted on it and changed to the American weight. One day I hope to have a feather worth taking to the UK to compete. I will have to make two shells one 1.6 kg lighter than the other.

Do Americans bring their feathers to fight you?

I think we should go up to 30lb, it just makes everything simpler and gives us a little more weight to play with. Remember that all the heavies have a standard weight (220lb is near enough to 100kg) so why not standardise the feathers?

No doubt in my mind, leave it at 12kg. I can see no justification in changing it at the moment just to match the USA. Australia made their own choice and rightly so. If UK teams want to go to the USA they can always add weight. I do not see that many US featherweight teams coming to the UK to warrant a change to such a fundamental rule.

Paul

Id be in favour of raising the weight ....Thus making it possible for the Roboteering community worldwide to compete.

I have to agree with Paul on this one, moving the weight limit up is not really that helpfull. Few bots move around enough for this to be a real issue.

Also has this issue not been raised in the FRA world championship thread already.

There was a poll about this on the Featherweights.org site a while ago and I think the majority of the votes was to keep the 12kg weight class (if Im not mistaken). Personally I think it should stay at 12kg, cant really explain why, I just prefer it as it is. However Woody has a good point that having it at 13.6kg would allow for even competition across the globe.

Jamie

I agree it would be a good idea to Standardise all featherweights throughout the world but 12kg limit is nice. However does everyone remenber the controversy when robot wars raised the heavyweight limit from 80kg to 100kg. Everyone said theyll just add more armour. This has turned out to be totally false with very few of the robots built to the 80kg weight limit still around with extra armour (mute is the only one I can think of).

I personally dont mind either way but whether it stays or goes up featherweights are still very dangerous and great fun.

Regards
Ian

Well, it seems as if the keep it as it is brigade is in the minority. I have to agree. Keep it as it is.

Ewan mentioned that Battlebots have a 220ld ruling and that this is similar to our 100Kg. In a way he is correct. But in a huge way he is incorrect. Battlebots take the weight os gas and fuel. So, your 220lbs includes consumables unlike RW or FRA rules. So, a new machine has to be made or adapted. They even weigh you after a fight if asked for and if you have picked up shrapnel and you are that close to the weight then you could be disqualified.

We fought long and hard to get DTK within 12kgs. I would love the extra weight so that we could rearmour it and bring it out of retirement.

Unless the rules on weighting are standardised throughout the whole world we will be stuck with different weight limits throughout the spectrum.


My vote is to leave things as they are. If the rules are standardised then I will seriously reconsider.

Mike.

it would be nice, but if you want extra weight then build lightweights.

It works, why change it?

yup, keep it 12kg. i like having the constant challenge of trying to take grams out of everything just to get it in the weight, and finding new lightweigh products that no one else has thought about before. its all part of the fun

12kg is a nice even number, its served us well for several years now and if everyone else has 1.6 kilos more than us thats just all part of the fun.

But dont RFL require that pneumatic robots are weighed gassed up?

I agree with david. 12.5 sounds better than 13.6.
13.6 seems to big a jump even though i could do with that extra weight for my feather.

i like having the constant challenge of trying to take grams out of everything just to get it in the weight .

I agree with Grant on this one. It is a challenge to keep under the limit. Rasing the limit by 10% would take some of that away.
(Feather still not finished due to weight saving efforts, lol!)

Woody, whilst I do not disagree with what you are saying, I feel the FRA should consider world wide competition a nice to have and if and when it becomes a reality, review it then.

In the meantime, perhaps the FRA could focus on ensuring the future of combat in the UK. If Jonno was to scale down or even stop his live event circuit, where would we all be then? That is how fragile UK combat is. It is struggling to survive after the demise of Robot wars, would it survive the loss of Roaming Robots. I am only too aware that very few new builders are coming along, Geoff, if you want to change the rules, change them to make it easier for new blood to get involved.

Paul

keep it 12kg, it keeps the engineering skills alive. thats the challenge. plus if the americans want to come over here id be more than happy to fight them!
people said originaly the 80 kg heavy limit was perfect, it had skill involved to produce a good machine under the weight. now its 100kg its easy.

Im strongly againest any increase, weve seen some excellent robots built to the 12kg limit. We know it can be done so why would we want a rule change that favours other nations?

Getting down to 12 kg is an enjoyable challenge which shouldnt be swept away for the very rare occasions when we may just see an American or Australian robot in Europe.

What limit do the Dutch and Belgian roboteers use? (as they seem to be the main source of foreign robots fighting over here)

Regarding the issue of raising the limit or not, I think the 12.5kg option would work. It shouldnt disadvantage the 12kg robots (as its not much of a difference), while at the same time it could make all the difference when building it. Plus its logical with regard to dividing by 2 from the other weight classes, as someones already said. 13.6kg is too big an increase, even if it does entice more people into building one (not to mention making it a lot easier when I get round to building a feather).

We use FRA build rules. So were at 12Kg. I wouldnt mind an increase, because my feather is 12.4 at the moment :)
But I dont think an increase would make much of a difference in general. Id say you put the current fethers at a disatvantage. If you design a robot for 12Kg you would have made different descitions for a heavyer one.

If there were to be an increase, then I would side with Dave Young and say it should only be 0.5kg increase, 1.6 is too much. But Im all in favour of keeping it as it is now.

If it isnt broke dont fix it !

12Kg is just fine

:)GORD

As the owner of two feathersweights Id like to add my opinion. I was suprised to find out earlier this year that the Australian limit was 13.6Kg and immediately thought that the worldwide agreed limit was 12Kg - I was wrong. Personally Id like to work to 13.6Kg, its easier to build to a higher limit. Its hard to build a drive + truly destructive weapon + batteries + armour to a 12Kg limit....and the more spectacular the battles the more people will enjoy the spectacle.

Rob, whilst I agree with the biuld difficulties I also know its hard to build within the 100kg limit. So, where do we stop?

Steve, I thought that I had made it clear that many rule sets ( Battle bots and the RFL who use the Battlebots rules ) weight you in your all up fighting weight. Including expendables. ie, gas and or petrol.

A worldwide rule set is by far the most preferable route to take. It makes sence. Maybe some independant country should do a robot count in each country. The country with the most robots in a particular weight catagory should dictate the rules. Just a thought. Lets bounce that one around.

I dont mind building to American rules. Other than their terror of Co2 gas. As long as if I change my robot then everyone builds to the same rule book. Our pneumatic regulations closely follow the Battlebots rules so its no real problem. However, their Super Heavy weight league should stay over there. They are far to large and heavy.

Just my penneth worth.

Mike.

The reason us Asutralians have changed the weight limit is mainly due to the fact that some of us, including me, would like to head over seas to see what a real compitition is like. I was looking into ways of getting over to the FRA World Championships but couldnt afford a plane ticket. Also earlier this year I recieved an invatation to compete at the Robolympics and just to be fair I redirected the invatation to all Australians. Then the FRA world championship died. So we all realised that going to england, even if most of us would perfer it, wouldnt be able to give us the big compitition the $4000 would end up costing us, where as America does. So a group of builders in Sydney started pooling resorces into one robot to take to America for the Robolympics. They soon realised the this robot would need to be 1.6kg heavier then the rest of our robots and would be a one off. And what about other robots like mine. If I went over Id need to boost up the armour for the one comp. So we had a pole about wether we should raise the weight limit to the yankee standard. Most of the decisions were based on which country the builder would rather go and fight in. Also we found out now the yanks are more happy to come here and play as they wont need to change their robots. Basically were all happy now.

sounds fair enough to me! that just shows that we need some big events to start happening over here and bring in the rest of the world! Thats why i stil think that bringing all the event organisers in the uk together and put on something special! Thats what we need, and get others from abrad to start getting over here more frequently.

Sorry Mike, I skimmed your post.

I think if I had the option of using another 1.6kg, all I would do is pack a bit of extra nose armour and add another 7.2V pack. I honestly cant see many people redesigning a feather from the ground up purely because of an increase to 13.6kg.

daniel put that better than i ever could :) it was just a matter of where we wanted to go, and who may want to come here. in the end it seemed the american way was the path to follow.

i was personally not to crash hot on the idea, but then again i just let things happen and build to suit. ive just changed my bot cobra over to 6mm mild steel armour from 6mm ali armour (i think its 12.7kg total at the moment).

another reason i guess for the 13.6kg change is that it DOES make it easier for the younger and newer crowd to get involved. its hard to build a heavily armoured bot to stand up to the big spinners when your using cheap SLAs and steel to keep on a realistic younger aged budget.

but really stick with what your happy for. i guess for us it was the right idea at the right time..

my personal opinion is, I think that increasing the weight limit would be a good thing, if as people suggest that other countries are using 13.6Kg as the feather weight limit it would
surely be a an advantage for the uk to follow the same rule as it sets a world standard which leaves people the option of compeating in other countries with out having to modify their robots.

not saying that it is going to open the flood gates and find thousands of people commuting round the world, but it would be good for the sport to have a world standard. also i think it would make it a bit easier for other styles of robots, for instance we are currently working on a range of football robots, which weigh in at a little over 6Kg, the thought proveils that two could compeate as a clusterbot.

My thoughts are that 13.6kg may well be the way to go. It would mean that we would have a worldwide standard, it would not matter where a robot came from it would be able to compete anywhere.

It may upset some people about the possible weight change, but in the long run, it may encourage more young people to get involved. My nine year old is intrested and we may well start building one for her, but it will be built by her using far simpler materials than I myself used. With this said I found it very hard to get within the 12kg limit, I am no engineer and have had to have a lot of help. I would have found completion easier if the limit had been that little bit higher.

I look forward to a robotering would where we are all on a level playing field where weight is an issue. Yes, some countries do have slight variations in how the weight of the robot is measured(U.S. weighing you fully tooled up with gas included)but you never know if we all use the same weights, then maybe eventually the rules about how the robots are weighed may also fall in line.

Jenny
Team Pillow Torque

I may be repeating myself here but what evidence is there to show that significant numbers of american feather builders are going to be competing in the UK. If the FRA were to adopt 13.6kg, what impact would this have on the domestic scene remembering that featherweight rules currently affect more than just FRA members. Potentially this could split the UK scene.

Any weight limit is difficult, you build to 12kg and it ends up weighing 13kg, you build to 13.6kg and it ends up weighing 15kg. The skill and challenge is in building a machine to the rules whatever the rules may be. Maybe (a big maybe) RW on TV would still be going if the heavyweight 80kg limit had stayed in rather than using much of the extra 20kg on armour.

Paul

If the other countries weigh their robots with gas and we increase our weight limit but dont follow the weighing situation then well be unable to compete internationally anyway. Possibly thats already been pointed out.

To be honest I dont see the problem with the current rules.

I am building my own feather as we speak. Even though im using SLAs, wiper motors and hardox armour i recon i will still have a simple pusher weighing in at around 8 or 9kg. This gives 3kg for a weapon which is plenty.

Keep the rules the way they are, no need to change them. Let the americans play with their large feathers over the pond, and if anyone wants to build one to take them on, make full use of the extra 1.6kg. But I think that we should keep to our 12kg over here, its a nice number and whilst it would mean i could put on more hardox armour, my design doesnt need it.

At the risk of being accused of multiple posting I think it only fair to add this here.

Any possable changes to the weight limit are due to be discussed at the next FRA committee meeting, due to take place on 12/02/05.
We will let you all know the outcome shortly afterwards.
If you want your views on this subject to be taken into account, please contact your regional rep before the meeting. (contact details are on the FRA web-site)
Part your regional reps job is to pass YOUR views on to the committee, so please use them and make sure that YOU have YOUR say as to how our sport should develop.

Geoff Smith
Chairman,
Fighting Robot Association.

just a simple statement.

A feather weight, isnt a feather weight in my eyes unless it weighs 12KG, and you would be hard pushed to convince me otherwise.

People, including myself, worked very hard to get our robots to the weight limit. It can be done, and that is the challenge.

I sit back and think how many people come to my events from outside of the uk, we have the dutch belgiums, ( all run at 12kg )
And the only other was the chinese.... they run at 12kg aswell.

If anyone else wanted to, then they would have to run to our rules.

Jonno
Roaming Robots

Reasons for changing to 13.6Kg

Means we can compete internationally.

UK teams adding 1.6Kg to go abroad is fairly easy. None of the US teams coming to the UK for the WCs saw running to 12Kg as a problem. Thus the idea that this is in some way stopping international competition is flawed and has no supporting evidence. Therefore a pointless argument to follow, it is a perceived problem. Total number of US bots that have ever intended to come to the UK to compete - 8. Total number of US bots that have complained or seen 12Kg as a problem - 0.

Increasing the weight will make building the robots easier

Did increasing the weight for heavies from 80Kg to 100Kg make it easier to get them in weight ? People will always build to the limit, increasing that limit does nothing to make them easier to build as the bar is simply raised that bit higher by all taking part.

Enables the younger builder to build something that can stand up to the feather spinners

No, give me another 1.6Kg and Ill just build a more powerful spinner. I could almost double Vortexs hit with another 1.6Kg more than negating the extra 1.6Kg of armour you would have to thinly spread over your bot.

All other weights are in line internationally

Nope, for example the US Heavyweight limit of 220lbs includes all your consumables (gas etc), where as in the UK you get these as an allowance. If we are going to use international standardisation as an argument we should also change the UK gas rules to suit, otherwise were running double standards.

There is already a large installed base of Featherweight robots built to run to 12kg. Please excuse me if Im speaking out of turn, but I honestly believe that the desire to increase to 13.6Kg is being proposed because people have found it difficult to build what they want to build in 12Kg. The suggestion of moving up to 13.6Kg is being seen as a way to deal with this - and is attempting to be justifyed through a number of reasons which I believe are flawed - are we really pretending that the barrier to taking our bots to the US or vice-versa is the weight limit ? I think its several thousands miles of water ! If any change wants to be considered, perhaps moving to 12.5Kg should be looked at. This would slightly reduce the percieved problem between the US and UK classes, and would also bring the weight class in line with the 100Kg/50Kg/25Kg/12.5Kg pattern.

Just my 2 cents.

Ed
http://www.teamstorm.comhttp://www.teamstorm.com

I must agree with the last few poitns ed mention, one being several thousands miles of water away so why change. But also i never understud why Feather Weights were 12kg to start off with as it didnt run in line of the 100Kg/50Kg/25Kg.

But i feel if you do increase the weight limit, people are going to find another motor, batteries etc and find it harder to fit in the new weight limit just as people find it hard to fit in 12kg now. When does the line stop moving.
Got nasty spinners like Scocpion, Vortex, Black ne Blue, and good armoured boxes like Pillow Torque and KR2, you got great flippers like Cutlet, Little FLipper, RIp, G3 - they have all worked hard to build it under 12kg. Under stand to change it so its the same with overseas so we can all compete with each other, but hmmm there is a big long trip to USA and Aus etc to make it worth taking a feather here/there to fight with.

Dont know why USA and Aus changed it to 13.6kg anyway, stupid to be honest and why did they have the right to change it, it was 12kg from the start so why change it.

Mr Stu

I agree with the above. If there was an increase it should just be 0.5kg to stay with the 100kg/50kg/25kg pattern.

I know the FRA want to stick with the weight categories they currently have, but maybe there could be an extra heavy featherweight category for robots wanting to build to 13.6kg? Just a suggestion.