To the Future

[john_frizell]

Garry said: ‘…the heavies are month in month out with little diversity over time.’
I agree that lack of diversity in the heavies is a big problem. It is that way for a reason - the wedge designs work best – but this can make it boring for non roboteers. Notice how Battlebots made big efforts to have a high degree of diversity in its entrants.

Jamie suggested formats where the robots have to be adapted to different challenges. ‘Scrappy Races meets Crystal Maze’. That sounds great.

As Craig says, this discussion is about trying to find something that will work on TV. That may not necessarily be the thing that we would most like to be doing. I’m trying to think like a TV production company would think. It seems to me that there are at least two things that audiences really like, individuality in the robots and visible destruction with pieces coming off the machines.

I’m enjoying this discussion – thanks to Craig for starting it. Let’s continue throwing ideas onto the table. In brainstorming it does not matter if an idea is practical [that can come later] as long as it is new. And sometimes a great idea can arise when two half-baked ones collide.

[typhoon_driver]

Didn't the whole robot combat thing start when someone tried to make their hoover remote controlled with it going out of control and smashing up their living room? Why not have machines that have to perform some other household function and then go fight.

- A robot that can mow grass and fights
- A robot that grinds coffee and fights
- A food processor that fights
- One of those sit up and down chairs that has a blade underneath
- A fighting BBQ
- A car jack that can also be used as a flipper

Machines have to prove that they can perform the primary function before fighting - no parts can be added or removed before fighting (saftey bars in place for function test if required).

Off the wall enough?

[suvv]

speaking as someone who studied media for a while the most tv friendly battles would be the ones easiest to shoot and broadcast so the fewer bots in the arena the better from that perspective but it is very crowd pleasing to have big rumbles maybe also have an open voluntary competition ware its "binbag rules" ware basically the fight is purely judged on how much of the other robot will be going back in a bin bag and the only thing that is rewarded is pure destruction but make it a separate competition much like the annihilators of old were run