Middleweights - Back In Business!

Good evening roboteers!

I'm very pleased to announce that middleweights will return to the UK at Extreme Robots Chatham! Pending FRA approval, we will designate this the FRA 2018 Middleweight Championships. Due to it being a quieter event than some others, we'll have space for a fully-fledged tournament. Depending on the amount of entries and slots we get, we can adapt the structure to meet everyone's needs, don't you worry ;)

Plus, I'm very pleased to announce a prize of £500, very kindly funded by ACE Robotics! More than enough to make another, so get building! It's a great chance at really giving them the start they need; some great exposure like that will help consolidate them as a legitimate weight class in the UK, and thus help give them a bright future.

In the past, people have wanted to build the cheap and cheerful featherweights, or TV-ready heavyweights. But with no show now, we're entering a new generation of live robot combat, and these finally have a place (plus I'd argue they're a better fit in the arenas than heavies).
With Robot Wars fresh in people's minds and interest at an all-time high, it's worth another go right?

That's what I though three months ago when I considered building one. Turns out a few other teams were putting some together as well; things developed from there. Now, we've got four built and six on the way, plus great interest from others, far better than ever before. And they make so much sense; I'd long wanted to build a heavyweight, however they were simply too impractical for me om my own, not to mention a tad out of my budget. But a pair of TZ85s, 350w scooter motors, heck even wheelchair motors: these give a more than decent drive for a MW at a fraction of the cost. I'm able to build and transport this all on my own with relative ease, which would be a hell of a task with a heavyweight.

But what to do with these new robots?
Well, we have confirmation from Jonno that middleweights are absolutely fine in his arena, and Alan says we can fight any non-Full-Pressure HW flipper because of the roof. The choices are great at the moment; Robogames is the obvious one, however I know FMB are really keen to accept more middleweights this year. Even a Chinese TV show as a clusterbot. But we have some great options at home: we can run on our own, in clusters, or of course the champs.

What do you say?
If you've ever thought of building a heavyweight but don't quite have everything necessary, why not give these a go? They're less of a major investment, plus we'd welcome a new middleweight with open arms; and you'll be part of something truly great.

Good luck!


Theo - Second Chance Robotics.

Pretty Cool!
I´m a big fan of Middleweight. Maybe I should calculate for an Middleweight, cause I will visit Chatham with my Heavy

YES! I always wanted to build something bigger than a feather, but didn't have the budget or the space to stretch to a heavy. Manchester and Gloucester are all I can get to, so fingers crossed they open up other Extreme Robots events to MWs next year!

See, you are exactly our main audience, go for it dude! We're not just limited to Chatham, we can still run at the events on our own or in clusters. But Chatham is where the main tournament will be.
Good luck!

God dammit. I just bought all the parts I needed for a BW, if only you'd been a few weeks earlier with this, i'd have shot for MW parts and gone whole hog!

Team Death might be able to put together a little surprise though, if we hve enough time after the HW!

Crackers and Smash will be there. Maybe they'll even get to fight each other. After the friendly fire hits at Guildford I sense a lack of brotherly love in the air :lol:

Kaizen will be there... if I can get past all the problems I am having with it at the moment :P

Just a note on spinners:

Jonno's said Chatham is important to show off what the class is capable of, and how entertaining they can be (especially if we go with a head-to-head structure). So making the robots and fights as good as possible only makes sense. However there will obviously be a small number of middleweights at the event and indeed for a good while. This means it's necessary to avoid causing terminal damage to any of the entrants, as that won't do anyone any good.

So if you're building (or thinking of building) a spinner, please don't make it completely overpowered for everyone's sake; this has been agreed by a number of MW roboteers. If you're designing with foreign competitions in mind (RoboGames, FMB, etc), then by all means make as destructive as you'd like, but you may want to tone it down for the UK live events.

We are proud to be offering a £500 prize fund for the FRA Middleweight Championship at Extreme Robots event at CHATHAM.
We would also like to offer a newbie team the opportunity to design, build and compete at the event.
The sponsorship would include cost towards the robot, Tavel and hotel expenses for the event.
Our workshop is open to the team if they require access to tools and materials.
We will be posting more information over the next few days.
If you are interested please can you fill out this form :
https://www.emailmeform.com/builder/form/k0z9OhbB6ufn7/
We will be reviewing the applications on Saturday 14th July

When is the application closing date? Is sat 14th?

Saturday July 14th at 2.00pm

Hi all, this sounds interesting, but for costings what recomendations do people have for brushed ESCs for middle weights??

Whatever you like really. But most of us are using wheelchair motors, as they're a lot more viable on a middle, plus really cheap.

Thanks, I do have already 2 x 300w wheel chair motors which i assumed would be ok for a middleweight, just hoping people had experience of current draw required during a fight so i could get a suitable one. Tom

If you're interested, I'm using TZ85s and the Cytron dual 60a for my middleweight. Only 24v mind you

Yes Cytron dual 60A seemed like a good choice, will probaby do that.

It survived in a heavyweight after being thrown around by Apollo, so it'll more than do in MWs

Question: What would be the typical dimensions of a middleweight? I ask because I have a rather interesting idea in mind, but it rather depends upon the size of the machines it would be up against. Looking back at old Robot Wars, around 60 to 70cm long and wide seems fairly average, but what are the rest of you guys looking at?

Well, Voodoo is about 600mm X 600mm (same as Hobgoblin which is convenient as I'm buying its wedge). My second will also be around that. But really anything that fits into the weight

Excellent! I'm taking inspiration from old middleweight runners-up S.O.B. from Battlebots and building a giant dustpan. It'll take a long time due to extremely limited funding, but after crunching the numbers I should be able to go for a solid metre wide and still have 8 or 9 kilos left for a small weapon!

Dude, there's a disturbance in the Matrix somewhere.

Last year at around the same point, we both thought of making a Roadblock replica
Last Summer (Starting about this time) I spent a load of time making a heavyweight SOB! (scrapped it in the end though)

Go for it! it'll certainly be a very interesting addition, and really effective

I probably won't go for a saw, but we'll see. One big difference is I plan to cover the bottom of the dustpan with raised studs, to beach anything it scoops up so they can't just drive off again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Theo

It survived in a heavyweight after being thrown around by Apollo, so it'll more than do in MWs

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it sure did, it was flipped numerous times by both Eruption and Apollo, against two robot wars champions, the ESC survived unscathed, despite not ideal padding. They're definitely good for the price, just a bit big!

Glad it can survive that much of a punch, the stakes are growing for this tourney :)

If I had an MW, I'd definitely be there, so hopefully there is another later on when I or myself and Colin get one done for Team Death. We're working our way through all the weights :p

Actually Team Death did have one planned all those years ago. In fact, my featherweight motors came from it/what was left of it

Well at the moment MW isn't a focus, i also don't think we have any specific parts for one currently, might be a focus next, I doubt it'll take us long to complete the BW we're currently on.

Hi Middleweight people.... There are 2 more events this year, and assuming we are allowed to fight them, I was wondering who is coming to which event!

Due to a busy family life I cannot do all of them but thought I may be able to pick a day or two days where more middleweights are there for better fights. So if you do know you are going to either below please can you tell us on this forum or privately

Maidstone 2019
Sat 19th October 2019
Sun 20th October 2019

Cheltenham 2019
Sat 9th November 2019
Sun 10th November 2019

Thanks all

Tom

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Team Helix

Maidstone 2019
Sat 19th October 2019
Sun 20th October 2019

Cheltenham 2019
Sat 9th November 2019
Sun 10th November 2019

Thanks all

Tom

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Aren't those next year's dates?

Yes my mistake I just copied them from the website!!! But last time I checked they were the last 2 dates on page but I did not notice they had released the 2019 dates. Sorry about that you are correct it should be..

Maidstone 2018
Sat 27th October 2018
Sun 28th October 2018

Cheltenham 2018
Sat 10th November 2018
Sun 11th November 2018

Aye this is true. Jonno’s happy to give us one fight per show if more than 3/4 attend, like the featherweights. He’s also informally put me in charge of this stuff, tournament structures and the likes (so it helps to know the numbers)

So saying that, what’s everyone’s preferred tournament structure to make use of 4 fights? I’m thinking of possibly 3 melees across Saturday and Sunday morning, then a head-to-head final, or just 4 melees, just an idea it’s up to you really.

As I see it, I’m not sure there’ll be many dedicated MW fights at Maidstone because I doubt there’ll be more than 3/4 attending, but Cheltenham looks very bright, should have 6 going!

I want to put out my thanks though, Chatham was a roaring success, and as a result has consolidated us a bright future for the class. Thank you all who competed and put on a great show, you were ace! Speaking of which, a special thanks to Team ACE for the donations, parts and sponsorship, probably wouldn’t have been nearly as good without you. Oh, and thanks for not killing Voodoo :p

Here’s to the future!
Theo

I plan to be at Cheltenham on the Saturday only.

Ok looks like Cheltenham is the one to go for so we will do that.

Oh amazing!! Backflip shall return!

I'll be sending out messages to the people competing about tournament structures - it'll also help if people just tell me if they're attending. I discussed it mostly above, just want to confirm it with people.