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Thread: A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

  1. #21

  2. #22
    Just to respond to a few points (here I go again):

    Christian: Regarding spinning up, I can see that the decision could have been made to try to carry on as if T2 hadnt hit the wall. Nonetheless, T2 *did* hit the wall, and I feel that permitting it to spin up afterwards was unfair on its opponents. My opinion of the directors decision, no reflection on any of the competitors.

    Regarding the chain, I have to agree that Gary Ss post perhaps had the wrong tone. Presumably the chain in question was from elsewhere - Id be interested to know from where (although I believe Gary when he says it wasnt from Typhoon). Typhoon would have been mobile even if it had thrown a chain, of course, because the drive train is redundant.

    I believe Gary if he says Typhoon was not significantly damaged (although Ill be very surprised if its not slightly dented here and there, or bent a tooth, and if nothings been a bit strained). Im happy to admit that Storm apparently sustained greater damage, although that damage seemed also to be pretty superficial (the armour plate looked intact, just detached, and the rest of the robot was fine). As Ive said, I feel Ed would have done better towards the end of the fight by concentrating on pitting Typhoon rather than trying to break it. My point wasnt that I know better than the judges whether theres any damage, just from looking at a quick bit of TV coverage compared to their direct inspection. Im not claiming that I saw damage they didnt, and Im certainly not claiming that Gary wouldnt know (nor, as Gary S seems to be implying, that Gary knew and kept quiet), Im just suggesting that Ive never particularly trusted the, er, judgement of the panel of judges used by Mentorn. My opinion, and partly tempered by show editing, but theyve clearly been known to make mistakes in the past. Funny how Ive never disagreed with a judges decision at Debenham...

    I suspect style is highly subjective, and if the judges want to decree Typhoon the winner in that category then thats their prerogative, but I was just making the point that I cant see how they reached that decision. Its not clear to me that, unless something incredibly stylish happened and was edited out, anything Typhoon did could be counted as stylish; maybe Storm lost points for hitting the wall (under Typhoon) so often, but I think in addition to exemplary control, Ed showed off all the tactics and capabilities of his robot much better. Unless you get points for painting rings on your robot and turning up in uniform? I dont know, and its not my place to dispute it, but I *am* curious.

    The reason I was picking up on that, Mike, was that although I agree Typhoon was (apparently) ahead on damage, and I dont dispute that damage should be weighted more highly than the other categories, I felt that Storm was massively ahead on the other three categories. If, somehow, the style decision went to Typhoon and the others were as close as the judges seemed to be making out during the repairs then fair enough that the weighting from the damage should carry it. But unless the TV footage is grossly unrepresentative (and there was a lot of it for much to have been cut) I happen to disagree with them.

    Also, Mike, Im not sure that Id be arguing that Typhoon particularly deserves it solely on the strength of achievement compared with their lack of experience. Bear in mind that variants of Typhoon have been around for several years now, and that they have a large group of people backing them; Storm on the other hand was completely rebuilt for this tournament, the pre-rebuild appearance was their first at a televised event, and the original Storm was also relatively recent. Its true that team Storm have had some live event experience which the Typhoon team havent, but not with the robot in its current form. Im not suggesting that Typhoon 2 isnt a great and laudable achievement, but I wouldnt suggest that its so much more of one than Storm 2. Ed and Gary have both been valuable and vocal on these fora for some time, and I wouldnt class either as a novice - certainly not in comparison to myself.

    And yes, Jayne is and always has been (IMHO) an unmitigated disaster. I give her a small amount of credit for apparently starting to care by the end of the programme, but that the director felt the need to show this fact just highlights how much the whole event was passing her by at the beginning (glazed expression). Shes been another Carmen, but probably with less of a viewing figure draw for dirty old men (and maybe a slightly less detrimental effect on the people shes trying to interview).

    End rant, again. :-)

    --
    Fluppet

  3. #23

  4. #24
    Mmmmm... fair point, fair point

  5. #25

  6. #26

  7. #27

  8. #28
    right, let me set a few things straight here....

    the whole chain thing. Well one of our drive chains did come off at the end of the fight unknown to us. This was due to us hitting the steel girder in the previous match against XT. The force actually took a large chunk of rubber out of one wheel, took the chain off and warped our wheel box. This was entirely self enflicked and we didnt have enough time to check the alignment of the cogs on the wheels before the final (we didnt realise about the warped wheelbox until we got home). I have probably just opened a can of worms but that is the truth. It came off in the final again because of the unalignment of the cogs. This didnt however affect my driving as typhoon 2 is split into 2 sub systems and hense it can lose half the entire robot chassis so to speak and still keep running perfectly normally. This is the reason for neither us nor the judges picking up on the drive chain.

    Our weapon was still working normally, and there were no problems with that.

    I knew as soon as we won that the decision was going to cause a lot of contraversy on this forum and so i decided from then to try and keep out of any slagging matches and just tell the facts as i saw them. It is very easy to say that we should have given back the trophy and title but personnally I think that the fight was very evenly matched and it was never going to be a clear win for either. A robot designed to give out punishment vs one designed to take it.

    During the last 20 seconds of the fight i seen the panel starting to come loose and hense from then i didnt bother about dodging around trying to spin, i just concentrated a continual ramming into the panel in the hope that something would happen and it did.

    I personnally would like to have seen the judges scores for each thing and seen how close we really were.

    When it comes to live events, we are considering entering the feather weight and bring typhoon 2 along for static displays, however currently upgrades are being completed on both.

  9. #29
    Guest
    I hate to use the c word that Craig Charles uses so much, but Robot Wars has always, and will always be a sport open to dispute and argument.

    There will always be decisions that, for one reason or another, will be open to criticism, and the competitors can do NOTHING about it. All they can do is to to accept the judgement with as much good sportsmanship as they can manage - and Gary and Ed have both shown they are good sports. I hope there will be a rematch at some point, and a clear and unambiguous outcome - either way!

  10. #30
    Guest
    Well put! Both Gary and Ed have accepted the fact that Typhoon won, so why should it be so difficult for the rest of us?

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