Live Events - Audience Engagement

[Ellis]

I love chatting with the audience. At Yeovil in April, small event or not, we had people coming back to cheer for us time and again. Their enthusiasm is a fuel. It's brilliant.

Having just one feather we're likely to be standing around much of the time at Maidstone (until it starts breaking) so we'll be sure to engage with the crowd.

[teamstorm]

A friendly reminder ahead of this weekend's FRA Championship to please engage with the audience.

Yes those rushing to get their machine ready for the next fight will need to head to the pits, but can we PLEASE try to avoid a pits area full of robots and roboteers just standing around chatting, and a line of audience in front of the arena looking in forlornly feeling totally ignored in their desire for some autographs !

[wendyshep]

As a fairly newcomer to the world of roboteering, I would like to add a comment and I have to agree with Ed's observations about the lack of audience/roboteer participation.

However, not everyone is comfortable chatting to people and naturally if you do have mechanical problems that you want to sort out, then these can be good enough reasons for rushing back to the pit. However, most teams consist of at least two or three people, so I cannot see why there is a difficulty to offer some interaction with the audience from team members.

If you are on a huge learning curve concerning the knowledge of roboteering like myself, this can also be a hindrance, but as a teacher I am used to talking to people, especially children and can €˜bluff€™ my way through most scenarios! When roboteers do interact with the audience the kids love it and I have to say I get a buzz from it too! Signing a poster for some children is all they want.

As one of the few women in roboteering, I initially felt that the children would not be interested in talking to me, especially with my €˜oh so splendid robot Puck.€™ But once I tell them I €˜drive€™ a robot, (most children & adults are extremely surprised at this) and I explain a few details about its build and my experiences with other robots in the competitions, they like to hear what I have to say.

So come on roboteers, if we didn€™t have the commitment of our Event Organisers to arrange these exciting events and our audiences, there would be no show and we would have to look for other weekend entertainment and after experiencing roboteering, gardening and crotcheting would seem oh so dull!!!!!

[terry]

Hi Wendy, did mike tell you to write that ? It's just that if he had of wrote it we would have assumed he was telling us to pull our fingers out sorry , someone would have said it

[Eventorizon]

Why not have a part of the show devoted to showing off a robot like the tested to destruction?

The audience vote when they come in and then that team gets 5 minutes to show off their robot.

So you say have Beast in the arena flipping stuff and one of the team members talking through how the machine works, why it is the shape that it is, the parts, any problems they over came etc...

I would personally like to know why Beast is an Exoskeletal design and no other heavyweight is [for my knowledge].

[blazerbotics]

simple, that because John had no weight left for armour

[cliveb]

simple, that because John had no weight left for armour

[wendyshep]

Hi Terry, he doesn't even know I written it!!! He's at work.

Typical isn't it, I write my first serious post and you think Michael has something to do with it! Oh man!!!

You obviously don't know me very well! I am quite capable of stringing a few words together independently! Michael would be very amused at your suggestion.

Good to see everyone again at the weekend in spite of not competing in the Championships.