Events and Spinners

Our team is currently building our first robot, but It has occurred to me just how little we know about how events are run, so wondered if anyone could shed some light?

Can you go to events without a running robot? (To meet people, get some insight, etc....)

Are there any events ran in the South-East of England?

Are spinners only entered into an event of their own? And is this only at Robochallenge? Would a vertical flywheel count?

How is the competition run? Is there a winner of each event declared, or is there a championship once a year with bouts over the country leading up to this? Could we just turn up to the events near us only?

Thanks,

the answers are for the questions in order

yes

check the live events threads and see the distance from your home

spinners are only run (fw anyway) at robochallenge events you cannot run them in normal events

events are run differently depending if its a competition one or not , ie the up coming fw champs. the hw champs are run throughout the year via roaming robots. Robots live run there own competitions ever event

yeh you can come to any event if your taking a robot and want to compete you have to be registered with the FRA then just sign up with the appropriate EO

hope this helps

alex

If you read up on the arena guildlines (on the FRA homepage under the rules section) you can see the different gradings of arenas. Basically arenas are graded on a number of factors and these dictate the machines that can be run safely in them.

Thanks for the thorough answers guys!

How should I go about, going to an event without a bot?

Just to clarify, does spinning weapons include drums and circular saws?

Thanks,

well you could either buy a ticket to an event and then speak to the EO and see if they will let you in the pits after an event. or ask an EO with good notice if you can stay int he pits throughout the event

yes those are BOTH classed as a spinning weapon (presumably you weren't planning on just sticking them on your robot for decoration :rofl: )

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Originally Posted by psycho_fling

the answers are for the questions in order


spinners are only run (fw anyway) at robochallenge events you cannot run them in normal events

alex

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I'm sure I've watched some videos of roaming robots with spinners in it. I've never been to an event and I guess timesa change. So is the information given here upto date? On no ones website could I see any information that clearly stated what weapons are and are not aloud. There verry keen to sign you up but don't make weapon restrictions clear. There's no good driving across the country to find out that they can't acomidate your robot. It's only queries on here that enlightened me to the restrictions. Unless of course I'm missing something obvious.

currently

robochallenge have the only arena that can safely run FW spinners upto the FRA standards of arena

Roaming Robots and Robots Live dont have arena by the FRA rules that can run FW or HW spinners

alex

Thanks for the quick reply. That's a shame. Are either events likely to upgrade in the near futer or even at all? I'm sure it's within their interest to so right? More Robots competing, more spectators, bigger overall community all to help the growth of the sport (I guess it's a sport if it has a governing body?)

roaming robots used to run spinner events, i attended a fw event in 2007 which contained spinners.
I think not long after they stopped holding spinner events as the arena needed some new upgrades to keep to the standards required by the fra, but it wasnt commercially viable for them, as the costs are alot!
I have read discussions recently that Roaming robots are looking at holding spinner events in the future, but how far that is away, or If it will happen, I dont know....

So to clarify, its only robochallenge that hold spinner events at the moment (feather only spinners), they run 2 events a year i think it is.
I would highly recommend you go to that event, to see the spinners is awesome as their not out to play often.

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Originally Posted by ady

roaming robots used to run spinner events, i attended a fw event in 2007 which contained spinners.
I think not long after they stopped holding spinner events as the arena needed some new upgrades to keep to the standards required by the fra, but it wasnt commercially viable for them, as the costs are alot!
I have read discussions recently that Roaming robots are looking at holding spinner events in the future, but how far that is away, or If it will happen, I dont know....

So to clarify, its only robochallenge that hold spinner events at the moment (feather only spinners), they run 2 events a year i think it is.
I would highly recommend you go to that event, to see the spinners is awesome as their not out to play often.

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I will be doing my best to get my car back on the road to attend the fleet air museum gig. Thanks for the info.

Roaming Robots used to have FW spinners competing at their events and along with Robo Challenge, there used to be a company called XFM that held regular FW spinner events but they no longer operate. Arena guidelines were changed in 2007 which meant that RR and XFM couldn't run spinners unless they upgraded their arenas. RR did host the 2007 UK FW champs in their arena but I believe the configuration was a one-off and, as Adrian mentioned, upgrading their arena to hold FW spinners regularly would be a costly exercise; not just with regards to money but also any extra manpower required to help set up and dismantle the arena at live events.

While only having one or two spinner events a year could be looked upon as being unfortunate, it does add a sense of occasion to the event when the spinners do come out to play. Sometimes it also doesn't feel too long between events for those of us that have spinners so it's not all bad. Last year we were fortunate enough to get three events! :)
Jonno is also currently organising a trial for allowing HW spinners (low-powered) in the RR arena so it will be interesting to see the outcome of that.

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I will be doing my best to get my car back on the road to attend the fleet air museum gig.

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If that is unsuccessful, I'm sure someone from the Birmingham area could probably give you a lift if you ask, in return for a fuel contribution. There are several roboteers around that area, not to mention the current UK champions being from Lichfield. Hope to see you there :)

Isn't your main robot Jamie a Drum bot? Don't you find yourself getting bored with the limited events you can go to?

If I was to go to more events each year I'd get bored. That's why I only build spinners. More fun and like Jamie said, it makes it more of an occasion when an event comes around.

Also helps that me and Jamie are from the good side of the border so any event is an undertaking. Yeovil will be a good 950 mile round trip for me.

950 miles! Be-jesus!

Ok that's interesting, because our plan was to make a spinner, (well after we have made a rambot, upgrade it) but I was getting worried we wouldn't have enough events to take it too........ Could always make it interchangeable!

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Isn't your main robot Jamie a Drum bot? Don't you find yourself getting bored with the limited events you can go to?

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I used to, but now it doesn't bother me as much. Like Gary said, being up here means that most events are usually a minimum of 4 hours drive away (with the exception of Newcastle and Edinburgh recently - they were a nice break from tradition) so if I was to attend more events it would put a lovely dent in my wallet. I think that's one reason why I built a spinner. Aside from the potential for destruction, if I can only manage 1-3 events a year, I may as well make it to the events where robots can be used to their max and/or where there's a high-profile championship at stake.

I would like to attend more RR and RL events to support them but I've got to decide whether its worth shelling out time/money/accommodation for a few big FW melees over the weekend (which, being honest, my robots aren't best suited to). Like Gary, I'd probably get bored after a while fighting the same robots for fun. It's much more exhilarating fighting machines that you know but haven't fought much in a no-holds-barred match.

And yeah, 950 miles, probably around £120 of fuel, £80 on accommodation Thursday/Sunday, £100 for accommodation for my dad on Friday/Saturday (he doesn't want to camp :lame: ) around £40 on food, and then you've got what it cost for the robot(s) too. We're mad but we love it :proud:

I did wonder if support would start to decline as we only host a couple of events a year however like Gary and Jamie said it appears to have increased support. I know of many big teams that spend a massive amount of time and money to build robots specifically for those few events. Weather its the sense of occasion, the full combat, the high profile championships i don't know. But i do agree, I get really geed up when they come around and i hope the roboteers do too.

sounds awesome! does anyone know if you could camp next to the museum? suppose i could sleep in the car. as for the fw i might build two robots, one without a spinner for all fw events. from what ive seen though there's not many different types of weaponry used. theres a robot with a flipper or just a box with nothing. i liked that scale model of razor that was cool. i might experiment and see if i can come up with something a bit different. i think i could do a pneumatic flipper but thats boring. does that scale razor run hydraulics ? that would be interesting to have a play with.

i think 'venom' the mini razor runs a custom electrical linear actuator, my crusher runs an over volted linear actuator

alex

Camping is available, If you check out our thread on the live events discussion you can find out more. If you fancy camping send me an email James at robochallenge.co.uk and il send you the details

Satans Mutt, isn't that the robot from the gadget show? Just noticed it in your list of robots.

it is his robot really :lol:

Yes Satans Mutt is the robot I built for the Gadget Show, we held the event for the filming and a number of teams from this forum attended for the filming aswell - I expect we will be bringing it along for display at yeovil :)
Keep an eye out for us on there soon again :proud: (13th november i think?)

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Originally Posted by psycho_fling

i think 'venom' the mini razor runs a custom electrical linear actuator, my crusher runs an over volted linear actuator

alex

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Awesome is it effective? Do you think you could send me a link to some pictures or something? Sounds interesting, would like to see.