12/13th July 2008 - Roaming Robots - Royal International Air

Well done to Mr Grimm, a well deserved if lucky win! (up to the point Dantomkias link fell out it was ahead on points, I know, I was judging!)

Sarah, well done for a well deserved 2nd place, some exellent driving throughout the event.

But next time you feel the urge to launch a small robot from half way across the area towards the judges table at head hight... PLEASE warn me first!! :uhoh:

In addition, a BIG thank you to John and the RR crew for salvageing what turned out to be a real roboteers championship from a potential disaster!

geoff , its on video to! so hopefully it comes out good - liam from KO has it - he was just behind you so it could be one of those videos which will get ALOT of hits on youtube so liam edit the video and start the video with the roamingrobots link on and then end it with that to so its well advertised :)

i was ready to dive in with my hands though and save you from getting hit geoff - i promise :P

After getting back and unloading the robot at 2am this morning its a good job Im not working today.

Shame about the Air Show being cancelled, but well done to roaming robots and all the roboteers who still made it happen. Nothing seemed to go right for us apart from the robot. Set off Friday morning, got 5 miles and had to turn back as the turbo didnt work as my Dad couldnt get the caravan up the hills. Luckily the garage fixed it and we were on our way a few hours late. Got to the campsite and a Land Rover tryed to pull the caravan on the field and failed, but with a tractor as well suceeded.

We were all disapointed when we hered it was canceled, but with a full extra day on saturday all the robots were well prepared for Sunday and no delays between fights all went very quickly.

Some really good battles on the day, best for us has got to be against Tiberious, been a while since we were that nervous against fighting anohter robot, every time that claw came down and just missied us I cringed. One day we will find out if that arm is powerfull enough to get threw our armour.

IA5 were on top form again as they have been all year, and made our driving look like amatures :sad:, well done, its been a long time in the waiting. Good to see DTK back on form again and the new hinged front and brillient driving by Sarah made them almost unbeatable.

One thing for sure is that roboteers dont make for a good audiance, but it carmed down when Angela got the armed police involved :)

...armed police? :proud:

Just a joke really, they were watching the robots for a while as they had nothing else to do! and certain unnamed roboteers were heckling Angela while she was on the mic :)

doesnt take a genius to work it out does it so just name them mark :) oh and can you get my number from graham and give me a ring please i need a favour if you can

Well yes we did launch a small robot out of the arena Geoff, but as we thought you might be asleep we thought we should throw it at you just in case. at least we made sure you saw it leave the arena.:mrgreen:

Rob thoroughly enjoyed our battle, ok our key came out, these things happen, your robot worked better than mine in that battle, a well deserved win.

I enjoyed the audience very much.

In the arena its Apocalypse.

Its Turbulence.

O no it isnt!

O yes it is!

:)

well done jonno for making it possible even with all the bad news.

A well deserved win for Iron awe :)

Im currently processing my pictures and... oh my... theres definitely something to say for outdoor events because Mister Sun is just the best lighting system there ever was. Weve got levitating robots, atrocious damage being inflicted in clear and detailed close-up, and the reactions on the faces of audience and roboteers.
Just a few hours patience people. Or will Stu beat me to it ? (He uploaded my piccies just before we left.)

Ive put some videos up on you tube :)
http://uk.youtube.com/user/ballistixdriverhttp://uk.youtube.com/user/ballistixdriver

Did not enjoy the mud or hanging around all day Saturday.

Did enjoy the evening socials - drinking - and Sunday was probably the best day of roboteering I have been involved in. OK my machines did not do well but the whole atmosphere of the day was so relaxed and we just had fun. Maybe we should get rid of the audience next year, eh.

Top marks to Jonno for saving the championship, and laying on the Red Arrows just for us.

Well done Rob and Gilbert, we have been friends for years and have shared some real lows in the past, but you got there in the end, and I am chuffed to bits for you.

Well done Sarah, you took ripper out a treat, the best driving of the day. Shame about the link, but thats robotwars. Theres always next year.

Trev

Got back home at 2.45 this afternoon, what a great weekend despite the liquid sunshine.Sunday 4.30 John Bell was anxiously awaiting the final with Iron Awe 5. 4.35 he had joined the centuries old debate of where is the missing link?
Congratulations to the following: Iron Awe on your victory, Sarah and Sean you should be very proud great driving all day and Jonno great event despite everything.Many thanks to everybody involved in keeping the cups of tea flowing and the burgers and sausage sarnies whilst we were taking the arena down.
Looking forward to 2009....... Andy his Army is on the march

2009 is the year ;)

found out we had a faulty wire so thats why we stopped working

Hi guys,

Well I¡¦ve just hit planet earth again.... after leaving the show ground for home, 2 hours sleep, unload the truck, get straight in my car and fight the traffic up to Scotland to a haven park, 15 minutes to setup the arena and robots, run the show for 1 hour, and then travel back to a hotel, and SLEEP !!!

Firstly well done to Iron Awe, we all knew they would be one of the favourites and have been on form all year !!! Unlucky for poor Sean and Sarah who came so close, fantastic driving all weekend by Sarah... it must be the driving lessons she¡¦s been having!!

The whole weekend was full of high points and low points, and after a hard week of educational work and very little sleep, of course when the show was cancelled on the Friday it was a killer blow. We all know the history of UK champs and what can go wrong, ( not just for Roaming Robots ) and I admit I thought it was going to all happen again.

However, I took the decision to try and save the arena / show for the Sunday in hope that it would go ahead. Saturday night when the Sunday show was cancelled again was a real low point from the years of organising events, and of course roboteers started to go and get their cars. I was so close to just giving up, but found the strength to fight for the event once again!

After a long battle with the powers that be, I convinced them that we needed to proceed with the championship as planned. Roaming Robots and the UK champs was taken to the highest level possible, for them to agree to let us carry on as normal.

I have to say a huge thank you for the support of the roboteers present, I¡¦m sure even though an extra day tinkering with your machines getting them ready wasn¡¦t unwelcomed, but we¡¦d rather be fighting them. Thank you for sticking with us, and obviously believing that the event would go ahead.

How ironic that even though the shows were cancelled, we all ended up with sunburn yet again!!!!

Another massive, and I mean massive thank you to the teams who stayed behind to help take the arena down, you don¡¦t know how grateful we are. I can easily give you some red t-shirts if you want to do it again !!

From a personal point of view the event on Sunday was the BEST day of roboteering ever, not only because Ripper EVO rocked... but their was a real sense of the old robot community back, there was no arguing, there was no politics, we were doing what we do best... Roboteering, and lets keep it that way !!

Ok so the arena has now been packed away for its summer vacation while we are on our Haven Holiday Park Tour. But rest assured, when it comes back for Portsmouth, the changes Ive been discussing and exploring over the last few months will be in place...... be prepared for a big change to the way Roaming Robots events are run !!!!! Æ’º This weekend has really inspired me to take that leap I¡¦ve been planning !!

Have a good summer, and hopefully see you on our Winter Tour !

John
http://www.RoamingRobots.co.ukwww.RoamingRobots.co.uk

Three cheers,

well done everyone!:)

I do agree Mr Kane!

Heres some photos - http://s276.photobucket.com/albums/kk1/LiamBryant_photos/Robot%20Events/UK%20Championships%202008/http://s276.photobucket.com/albums/k...vents/UK%20Cha mpionships%202008/

Envy went black :uhoh:

Hats off to you Jonno for not giving up and turning around what would have been a complete disaster into what turned out to be probably the single best day of robotic combat in the UK.

Bring on the Winter Tour!

Well done Iron awe and DTK.
I had a feeling Iron Awe would take it this year and proved its on form after beating last years finalists on the way.

I always enjoy fighting Big Nipper, certainly a good battle this time, so close to finding out the question we all wanted to know....what is the claw really capable of!

Ive certainly gained the motivation to make improvements to Tib after this event.

kody, team buds new colours

black and silver

sam you were close a few times - im glad that i didnt have to fight you again in a full combat event lol

Not the best event ever, due to the weather etc. But I agree probably the best day of roboteering ever. I think having Saturday off meant we could all prepare properly, meaning very few technical problems on Sunday. Things ran very smoothly indeed.

Congrats to the Iron Awe team, much deserved win, although I think it was a very open champs with lots of people in with a chance. I think Tiberious was unlucky against Nipper they were very aggressive, just kept missing. Also the much improved Thor was impressive, Thz was its usual reliable self and DTK of course very well driven and seems reliable once again. Apocalypse did as well as the year before so Im not too disapointed, considering Im only just learning how to drive it.

Big thanks to Jonno for getting the go ahead on Sunday. And thanks to all the roboteers there was a true sense of sportsmanship in the pits, with every prepared to help each other.

yeah not the best event ever, we did miss the 700,000 people which were supposed to attend !!

:sad:

John

But the 60 or so annoying roboteers in the audience made the event so much fun to run.

Jonnos Quote:
This weekend has really inspired me to take that leap I¡¦ve been planning !!

You or Us? LOL!
Can i send you the list again. hehe.

I jetted to Spain the next day to come see my parents here in their villa and copied all the pictures and movie clips onto my (new) USB stick i got just before the event ended, and came here to spain with the USB stick and its corrupted. So all videos and pics i dont have with me here in Spain, so will be Sunday when all the media goes live - sorry. Stupid Ebay buying.

Mr Stu

(Message edited by stu on July 15, 2008)

quote of the weekend was little Alex i know lots of words i shouldnt

bless him

i had a conversation with him, and sarah bell, and out of the two its definately sarah whos the innocent one !!!

:)

Well that was certainly an interesting weekend. when we turned up a Friday there was a river running through the marquee, and we were told we couldnt put the campervan on the campsite (we spent the weekend camping in a lay-by ,Lucky heather anyone?), and the robot wasnt finished !

We managed to get the the robot running, I for one was glad for the extra day,it had been a frantic week trying to get Hortron up and running and i have admit to a few silly mistakes (I know the Burket has an arrow on the side, but when your tired !). so a big thank you to all the people who helped us out.

Well done to all the teams especially Iron-awe and DTK.

The biggest thank you has to go to Jonno and the rest of the crew , as others have said the Sunday was one of the best.

Just a couple of other things , One is how the hell did we get into the last eight! firstly with robot we have never run before, and we never actually fired the flipper once? I hope this is a lucky robot. The other is congrats to Mr Stu for getting a 2:1 .


:) +1>Gord

quote:

Wasnt that the intention this year as well, Leo? :)Lets just say we had a bad dress rehearsal this year, so next year we will have it right for the grand opening. :)

Im still waiting for our webmaster to put the pictures online. But just to wet your appetite... a levitating Thor can be admired in my profile.

lol, not only is thor flying..... the axe has disapeared !!! :)

THATS SO COOL!!!:)

that looks well cool.

I didnt know Thor could float! LOL!

That picture is awesome, well done:)

And the rest can be found here: http://www.bugs.nl/media/album/index.php?path=L3J3L2ZhaXJmb3JkMjAwOC9iZS1iYWJzLw= =http://www.bugs.nl/media/album/index...OC9iZS1iYWJzLw == Have fun browsing. Theres only 372 piccies... :proud:

Ripper is using the force too... fantastic photos !!

http://www.bugs.nl/media/album/view.php?&path=L3J3L2ZhaXJmb3JkMjAwOC9iZS1iYWJzL0l NR18yNTk5LkpQRw==http://www.bugs.nl/media/album/view....OC9iZS1iYWJzL0 lNR18yNTk5LkpQRw==

That is why I love outdoor events... the sunlight gives me an extreme shutter speed and then you can indeed see levitating bots and such.

But from the roboteers point of view outdoor events should be schunned like the plague.

there good when the weather is like what it was on sunday and past years

prefer outdoor events when its like that

The problem is that you cant plan good weather. you can jinx it though by shouting every 2 messages how hot Faiford always is. :)

You can also be 80% sure it starts to rain when you put your robot in the arena when its outdoors.