Northern England & Scotland event startup

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;

http://robotrally.co.uk/rrally_black.png
*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!

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.

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 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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maxamuslead

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...

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Retroman

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.

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.

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sean retro

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

I'm not sure about Ikea tables-to be honest most Ikea furniture I have
come across fell to bits after a week or so.
You might be better with a older solid plywood table (possibly folding) with a
formica or melamine top.
I still have one in the kitchen, its about 50 years old-still solid and the surface
is as tough as old boots-you can still find good examples at auction rooms or
e bay.
Also what about this for an idea-a ready made arena for ant weights
all you would need to do is add a inner boundry and maybe line the glass with
2mm polycarbonate to protect from scratching the glass.
I would give you odds of 1000 to 1 that no ant weight would break 10mm glass
lined with polycarbonate
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fish-tank...gAAOSwcwVa20fq
Some large fish tanks hold upto 1 ton of water and have toughened
glass.

I think only toughened glass would be acceptable due to safety concerns. But perhaps using a fishtank or lizard/snake tank frame would be nice option and then retrofitting polycarbonate in place of the glass. Personally I think any arena must be large enough for the robots to accelerate and allow room for a chase. For ants a square 1.5m X 1.5m would be a minimum I think. Any less and it would be like two sumo wrestlers in Willy Wonka's glass lift.

On a larger scale I what just came to mind when I was writing the above, the competition squash courts they use of televised matches. Polycarbonate three sides I am sure. They would fit featherweights. Surely they would be way to expensive and out of scope. But if I see see one on eBay...... lol

Quote:

---

For ants a square 1.5m X 1.5m would be a minimum I think.

---

Antweight World Series rules say the minimum need only be 762mm squared and my ant arena is 810mm squared. Plenty of room to have a play on that ;)

Think we should start a carpark street fight series lol.

Bare-knuckle fighting robots lmao that would make an epic parody.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by team death

I'm not sure about Ikea tables-to be honest most Ikea furniture I have
come across fell to bits after a week or so.

---

I have two desks lined together in my flat to form a wall of table for varying computers, printers (which rarely work), several monitors (more than one computer, and all have more than one monitor attached) and they've lasted about 10 years so far with no major issues, bit of veneer coming off. I have however tested something, I've drilled a hole in the bottom of one of the tables to verify they're solid, as some new IKEA stuff has been found to have thin layers of wood at the top and bottom, but the insides are actually packed with cardboard rolls. It's possible these tables were made before that practice came into action though, and if i was to get the same now, they'd be the cardboard packing type. I'm certainly thinking using a suitably sized table as the floor, and then building a polycarbonate shield around the legs of the table(s). So there is still a moat / drop before the polycarb for pushing and flipping out - but they'll be caught under the table surface so won't fly off under the table and nibble little Timmy's ankles. Using a table also provides the off the floor level required for convenient watching and placing in and out of the arena.

I'm definitely wanting to try doing some fun stuff, of course have the head to head battles, but do lots of fun 'because we can' little games on the side.

Money is again and unsurprisingly the main issue i am facing.

A bit of a radical solution I am thinking of, is perhaps it is worth setting up a collective of Roboteers, and together work towards buying a shared arena, for use by anyone part of the group as they need, and we all go about with this one (plus probably another few for the mini games). Doing this, the costs are split, and no one person owns anything, it's for anyone to use anywhere they want, and start little events across the nation. Bringing fun to roboteers where ever they are, with this little shared bit of kit - instead of waiting and hoping one of the main events goes near them.
Thoughts on that?

Have just returned from my local event in Manchester 14hr round trip, so anything closer would be great for us, ants, beetle and feather's ready to go í ½í¸

Quote:

---

A bit of a radical solution I am thinking of, is perhaps it is worth setting up a collective of Roboteers, and together work towards buying a shared arena, for use by anyone part of the group as they need, and we all go about with this one (plus probably another few for the mini games). Doing this, the costs are split, and no one person owns anything, it's for anyone to use anywhere they want, and start little events across the nation. Bringing fun to roboteers where ever they are, with this little shared bit of kit - instead of waiting and hoping one of the main events goes near them.
Thoughts on that?

---

I wouldn't go for that, the question of who owns the arena(s) would still be present and what if I wanted to use it for a few tests for example? I might have to traipse across the country to get it, which rather defeats the point of this.

Your best bet, in the short term really, is for someone to own the arena and for them to be happy for Robot Rally to use that arena until Robot Rally's arena is ready where Robot Rally (or Bad Sciences) owns that as an asset.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ocracoke

I wouldn't go for that, the question of who owns the arena(s) would still be present and what if I wanted to use it for a few tests for example? I might have to traipse across the country to get it, which rather defeats the point of this.

---

Well, the idea was to cover events, not just tests. You are of course right, there would need to be some body (in this idea, probably Bad Science Limited) or something that ultimately owns the assets, but essentially loans them out.

That idea was more thinking out loud than anything serious.

My apologies, I've just re-read my reply and it might have come across a bit harsh, sorry. :( I can kind of see where you were going with this but I'd think it'd create more problems than it would solve, best to keep it simple so everyone knows where they stand with this ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ocracoke

My apologies, I've just re-read my reply and it might have come across a bit harsh, sorry. :(

---

It's absolutely fine, it was a bit of a radical idea to begin with. Just basically spitballing with myself there, trying to figure out the best way of doing it, and also the quickest financially. There's certainly Roboteers in the north and Scotland, so i'm just trying to get them some action, without driving half way across the island of Great Britain

For Anyone not familiar with the size of ant weight Robots, which includes
me! here's a Robot Wars example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiRQDNfGpIg&t=131s

I like the idea of car park fights too bare knuckle fights as retroman said
or cage Robot fights (easy to fit some bars to a arena)
You could even take your ant arena on the back of a pick up and
go to countless venues like
Boot fairs
Agriculture shows
Markets
Beach events -next to punch and judy:D
any place theres going to be crowds
Maybe you could fit it in a suitcase Del Boy style which pops up
and then down again when your rents due and just run off :lol:

The typical rules for an antweight are, it must fit within a 4 inch cube, and weigh 150 grams or less. They can come across as a lot bigger on camera with some trickery, but they are actually tiiiny. I'm not sure if Robot Wars stuck to the 4 inch cube max size, or just the weight limits.

An arena for antweights is certainly something you can shove in the back of even a decent sized car or MPV and take to anywhere there is interest. if its made portable / modular / flatpack, you might be able to shove it in a backpack and take it on a train. Entertain randomers at Manchester Piccadilly waiting for their delayed trains. (probably not that)

This sounds like an amazing idea, going to be following all this very closely.

I l8ke the idea of slapping it on a pickup and just rolling up somewhere, but we'd need plenty of co-operation from the legendary northern weather...

I'll let you know how plans for a backpack style arena go, that's my plan so I can transport it on the bike while I've no car still, be an interesting challenge making it decently sized but still portable.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Retroman

I l8ke the idea of slapping it on a pickup and just rolling up somewhere, but we'd need plenty of co-operation from the legendary northern weather...

---

I've thought of the weather issues, I've lookeed up prices of renting a few places, it isn't that bad really. Just organise it with a school, and roll up really - seems to be easiest places to book, with their gyms and halls.

School halls (or gyms) are usually about £20 to £35 an hour. Available from about 5pm onwards on weekdays, and all day on weekends when school isn't open anyway.
Sports centres are more expensive, but you have more room in their halls, and they need to recoup the money they'd be maing from renting those halls out to badminton, tennis etc. Schools don't need to do that, as they'd be empty anyway.

Some schools claim to be 'school of science' or 'school of technology' - i'm not sure if this is meant to be literal, or just something that is meant to appeal to parents. If literal, might be easier to book with them.

In short, everything here is possible, if a little fiddly and time consuming. It's just if there is enough interest to make it worth doing. As Colin (team death) noted, once its done, it's a case of rolling up and taking it anywhere there is interest and fun to be had.

Think there should be a house robot for each weight class? It'll add bit more fire to it and just to make sure that one of the robots is dead. Also here's an idea a prize draw (£2-5) for one of the audience to drive on of the house robots, they might drive well or be like Shunt back from the 90s, drunk.

I would be against a audience member driving a house bot, controlling arena hazards are fine but not a house bot

Maybe see if someone would be happy to let someone drive their own bot would be better than a house bot, less chance of total carnage, could even have a couple of pushers (or something non spinner) for an audience face off? Plus a raffle would be a decent fundraiser. Everyone loves a raffle.

As for renting spaces, I know of somewhere locally (scout hq) that was £15 an hour and had kitchen, toilets etc and 2 rooms but limited availability... so it's definitely something to look at as I imagine there are some pretty sweet venues about and some deals to be made. And the "school of technology" theory might just be on to something. I'll make a few tentative enquiries with places I know and scope out a general feel.

Hazards are a cool idea too, trying to work out the neatest way to make a dropping pit with release button...

I know the Bristol Bot Builders guys used a Beetleweight in a "Beat the Boss" event (I think that is what it is called) in which all the AWs faced off against the BW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYtyk4KAxp0

(42:50 on the video)

Perhaps a smaller BW could serve as a house robot but to be honest, AWs are perfectly capable of making enough danger/entertainment all on their own.

Quote:

---

Hazards are a cool idea too, trying to work out the neatest way to make a dropping pit with release button...

---

If it was functional as a button, I can see it breaking really easily, especially against a AW spinner. Personally, I can't see why someone can't just watch the match and then when a robot hits the "button", that person pulls on a string which releases a catch and a pit swings down open like a trapdoor.

[QUOTE=Ocracoke;472290
If it was functional as a button, I can see it breaking really easily, especially against a AW spinner. Personally, I can't see why someone can't just watch the match and then when a robot hits the "button", that person pulls on a string which releases a catch and a pit swings down open like a trapdoor.[/QUOTE]

Thats why I'm having think so much about it, I like the idea of automatic operation, havebwwn thinking along the lines of a bumper bar, likely a section of wood like the walls, that can move to contact a microswitch or similar... but I like to over complicate things...

Wouldn't beating a beetle be insanely difficult? I know that's the point? But holy smokes...

Quote:

---

Wouldn't beating a beetle be insanely difficult? I know that's the point? But holy smokes...

---

Well they did beat Mr Cats Mouse House so anything is possible ;) Wouldn't like to enter 10 AWs as a cluster BW though :D

To be fair, I suspect Robot Wars (new and old) used manually controlled hazards and triggers - with pretty front ends, eg; the dial of doom
All hazards and even the pit release triggered at spontaneous times, there where times when a heavyweight tapping on the pit release tyre didn't hit it hard enough to trigger, and then later on the mini bot of Nuts managed to sink Behemoth after triggering it flawlessly and releasing the pit. The flipper and spikes also didn't have regular patterns to trigger them, and seemed to randomly decide when to activate - so i hypothesize these too are manually triggered, and don't detect something like weight above them.

RE: automatic triggering for things
It's probably not worth going to the effort of adding lots of little switches and stuff to automatically trigger things, if you have an unbiased person able to trigger them manually (and preferably be less biased than whatever was triggering Robot Wars' stuff)

RE: concern of breaking buttons;
If the automatic triggering was done however, you can get very resilient buttons - think of all the abuse arcade machines receive, yet can last decades. If you have a nice frontage to the button, that'll take the impact of everything and not the technology hidden behind it all - this also contributes to arcade machines longevity, the pretty plastic button frontage taking the hits, not the little tech behind it. I've done a few arcade repair contracts, when those machines fail, it's nearly always old batteries on the motherboard rupturing, or a kid spilt something on the top and the water resistant seal has been broken through old age. Very rarely broken buttons.

RE: house robots - seems a neat idea. Although in practise adds more cost, especially for bettleweight and upwards sizes. May be cheaper to purchase a retiring bot and repurpose it for the cause.

this is something that'll need to start out super small, and grow to meet expectations and demand later on, rather than splashing out on the first one, i think?

If your going to treat this concept as a hobby or if your budget is limited, it's
probablty best to start small.
I remember doing my first live event at jonnos with The Wall in about 2003/4
and his arena was very small, about 20 ft square I think.
If you are going to run it as a business and having your hobby as your business
can be very gratifying, you might want to invest a little bit more money at the start
and go modular so you can build on what youve got.

I had one idea-portable Market stalls-they are a ready made frame work and you could
start with one as your first arena-with polycarb sides and then as you expand you could
just add more side by side,I have experience with Market stalls and they would be ok
up to feather weights in my opinion-of course your main strenghth would be how you
brace it with polycarb or other methods

I'm not sure how strong the metal in portable market stalls and similar are.

Here is a random entry from eBay; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/162097443058
It'd naturally need holes adding to connect the polycarb up to, but i suspect they're hollow thin tubes of metal, i'm not sure how they'd stand up to anything serious. I suspect the metal is similar to that used in metal sweepers or clothing line props - which would make sense, as out in the field it's only holding up the bit of flimsy rain defending tarpaulin.#
Something like that would certainly make a decent start point for an arena, if the metal proves strong enough to hang up there.
Similarly, i'm thinking of trying to acquire some scrap scaffolding, and see if they can be made into good frames for beetleweight and higher arenas. Shouldn't be too expensive for just a few pieces to muck about with and try a few things - even if it doesn't work for holding together polycarb walls. I'll definitely use them for featherweight and beetleweight arenas, as they'll make a decent internal wall between arena and polycarb, to make sure the robots can't come into direct contact except in a flip scenario.

Adam I saw this great example of a show tent/gazebo on e bay 6 metres x 3
about twice the size of the one I demonstrated and it all fit into a slightly larger
bag-they do deliver too
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Red-Garde....c100290.m3507

I've added that to my watch list for further down the line. I'm going to put together a list of stuff I definitely want to get into the first event, and work out the cost of that, before I start adding in things i'd merely like to see there, so I know what the budget is going to have to look like - then how much extra for the little niceities that can really make it something.

I live near to a junkyard, so I might have a pop by and fish out some varying metals, and see what works better for varying purposes. The companies i had been mailing regarding building arenas stopped responding, so I'll see the realistic possibility of building one from scratch for beetleweights / featherweights, before getting back to them - as I find it very frustrating when companies you're trying to legitimately seek services from end up just not responding.

I have a meeting with someone later in the week who is also interested in starting events in the area, so whilst at the moment i'm not sure exactly what will come of that, hopefully that will push everything closer to fruition.
As always, I'd welcome any further input, or even a message from people also interesting in helping out to any degree.

Hi Adam!

Good to see people being pro-active up North :)
I started the Bristol Bot Builders group and we've done our first event here now - it was in a pub (the video Michael linked with the boss fight :) )

I'd recommend starting a facebook group (if you can bare facebook) as people seem to engage there quite a bit. And so far venue wise, pubs seem to be the most willing to be free venues for us (bonus of a bar serving booze

Arena wise, we've been using Bristol uni's arena but we're building our own ant arena for £300ish. I know that Sheffield uni have an ant arena and Leeds uni have a larger-than-beetle arena for their 5kg bots. Also there's definitely a beetle arena owner up north I've heard! Definitely worth asking em all!

So what I can say right now is, there are definitely things being planned around the Yorkshire area for within the next 4-6 month. Regardless of my involvement or not in them - so there is always that to look forward to. I believe the upcoming events will be detailed by the people behind them in the not too distant future.

Hopefully I'll also be helping out with them, and if not. I may also still do my own events. Funding and interest permitting.