In arena & On Board Cameras

We all remember the good old days of watching robotwars, the cameras sometimes mere inches from the action, or the Kill Cams on the house robots that sometimes got a little to close, but i was wondering... is it possible to bring that unique perspective on combat back?

I have been interested in getting a Go Pro Camera for a while but I was wondering what people would think if we tried to attach such a device to enough robots to have a camera in the arena for every fight?

I know there is a lot to think about to get one fitted to 1 in 3 robots (Perhaps even 1 in 2) as not every machine is capable of having a camera fitted. Conker and Binky, luckily, both happen to be the right shape to have one fitted without it interfearing with the operation of the robot.
[attachment=0:w6lgrhrq]Go Pro 3 Conker II.jpg[/attachment:w6lgrhrq]
There is also the fact that a hit from a spinner or a good axe bot would probably wreck the camera but that can be solved by carefully positioning and protecting it.

I think the main question is...

How do people feel about allowing a camera to be attached to a robot they are fighting given that it would probably make it about 150g heavier [A Go Pro Hero 3 is 79g with the waterproof case] and might interfere with the battle.

I have a couple of ideas on which robots cameras could be fitted to; NST, Inertial XL, Conker, Explosion [Possibly] Tormenta 2, Skyfall [Possibly]

Thoughts everyone?

I would be very happy to allow that on one of my feathers (Provided it is one of my interesting feathers). I was infact thinking of mounting one myself but am struggling to find one cheap enough but with a high recording FPS to actually give decent footage.

I'd be interested as to how you'd fit a camera onto Explosion :)

I know Behemoth had an on board camera at Maidstone, it'll be good to see how well the videos turned out.

My idea was to position it instead of one of the lights but it all depends on what is in the wheel arch.. but something tells me its the wheel :-P

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MD80-MINI-DV- ... 4ab2498bce

Bought one of these a while back for this purpose but never got around to fitting it. Dirt cheap and not a bad quality of video (some examples kicking around on youtube)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eventorizon

My idea was to position it instead of one of the lights but it all depends on what is in the wheel arch.. but something tells me its the wheel :-P

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Yep, that's the wheel

I think the only way that could work is if there was a camera the same size as an LED :lol:

Any Ideas for the camera position on Saint :mrgreen:

I'd be up for putting one on Tormenta 2. Sewer Snake did it a year or two ago, the footage was pretty cool.

[quote=typhoon_driver]http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MD80-MINI-... <br /> Bought

could probably fit 1 to scruffy, could either put a hole in the front of the lifter or on the plate to the side

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

Video of a guy playing around with one. They work fine. Found mine the other day. Might see about strapping it to boner/540 for the featherweight champs next year

I am in preference to high quality footage. That is good for the price but its just a gripe I have about cameras and video in general... if you are going to do something, do it properly. [Thats probably why everything I do/make costs so much but it has worked so far as a philosophy.]
I will keep an eye out for other small cameras, say £20-50, it needs to at least 720 but simply having a high resolution is no guarantee of quality by any means.

EDIT: Found this on amazon and clips on youtube...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Recorder-Cam...3855233&sr=8-1
Pretty good for £33.

lol by all means look at spending the bigs bucks but remember, it doesn't matter how much it cost, an axe or a disc through it and it won't matter how much you spent on it.

I've been playing with a cheap camera and there are two problems; 1) quality of footage is poor, especially in poorly lit arenas; 2) Lens isn't wide enough.

Have decided only real solution is GoPro but needs a box making, I'm not going to throw it away :crazy:
More to come in 2013.

I was going to get a block of Alu and mill out a unibody box for mine if I got the chance, or a welded Ti Box as we have some spare from making the robots

Kane stuck a camera on NST for it destroying that Washing Machine at this year's champs, pretty cool perspective!

Got a link to it? Or is it not up on youtube?

I thought about it, but to get decent quality you'd need the expensive stuff with a wide angle lens, as the small cheap stuff often has a very narrow, zoomed in angle of view with a low fram rate, And quiet often would blacks out at impacts. So it would be quiet hard to find the right one. The expensive stuff would be to valuable to shove in something designed for combat. If a cheap one was found with a wide angle of view (I thing that is peticulaly important at seeing what's going on) and a desent Fps then simple video editing combined with 1 or two static cameras (to get rid of black outs/ glitchy video) then desent forage could be made. I had no luck finding the right camera though, but the right ones out there somewhere.