To those who care to read

[craig_anto]

finally it arrives my rant,..........

As Ive mentioned in another thread, im leaving to go travelling for 7 months, Australia and new zealand mainly.
Ive been away for a while with illness and robot damage so ive not competed since march and have missed being involved.
My plan was to still have tanto being run while i was away but have decided against it now, for many reasons mainly because of the lack of community we have here.
I dont know whats going on and why we have this 2 or 3 way divide but if were goin to survive we need to pull together and support each and everyone as a whole and not let the bickering and infighting take control like it most certainly has.
Its down to serveral people really and after much sole searching ive decided to name names stuff it , its about time people were made accountable for bringing out sport down this year.

Robots live and roaming robots have got to put the community first and work together and the bulls**t thats been spread has got to stop you know who u are, it comes from both camps and it wont take a genius to work out who it may be.
Sorry but whats the FRA doin to resovle this? as a member since day one and former weight rep i think i have a right to voice my opinion on this (btw delete or remove this post and itll be reposted again and again til its seen)
On the FRA please get your collective finger out of your collective a-r-s-e and start allowing new technologies quicker aka Spektrum and Lithium, its perfectly ok for cars but not for us? funny that, they are in much dangerous situation and under-go much stricter tests to be deemed safe in cars.

I will return but if the community isnt making progress in resolving its issues i certainly will not be returning for long and more and more people will be leaving, this is hard for me to get out of ive been around you lot for the best part of 10 years but i hate watchin it all destroy itself.

maybe a roboteer union to help protect the interests of the community??? just a thought

guys the past 10 years or so have been a pleasure ive made some great friends people like Jonno John Lear The whole tilly family Dave Moulds Gary Cairns Stu the coopers to name a few so many people i can name theres such a good community its a shame its going to the dogs

see you in 7 months ill send you a postcard

[pressure]

All I can say is:
Together we stand, divided we fall!

[andy_kane]

Could not agree more Mike.

lets just try and answer some of Craigs points.

A. Spectrums are allowed. The FRA has been waiting for its expert to write up these rules on radio since the new year. It could be the case that we have to turn to another source.
B. Lithiums. With the known fire problem with lithium polymer cells people are very wary of their use.(At least one set went on fire while I was at Robogames in the states)
This has made the FRA have a cautious approach to the new Lithium Ion cells. It is my belief that these cells will not pose the same problem as lithium polymer types.
These new lithium cells are fitted to vehicles and used by De-Walt and Bosch for drill batteries.
These user manufactures have spent an immense amount of money in perfecting their individual technology. We roboteers do not have the funds to really sort out individual battery formulations.
The FRA governing body agreed to run a trial with two teams with a relatively low consumption and two teams with a high power consumtion.
These teams are Mute and Terrohurtz for low power and Das Gepack and Kan-opener for high power.
All who have agreed to do the trials have undertaken to release all information to all teams as and when there are some results.

Three of the teams are going down the route of dismantling De-Walt style packs and reassembling them into bot packs. The manufacturer of the cells is not happy with this route. To make bot packs spot welded tabs have to be removed and then links have to be soldered on. This is difficult because you have to solder to aluminium casings.
The other team has bought cells without tabs and is exploring a connection system that does not require soldering.(apart from the link connection wires)

These batteries do not like going out of a voltage balance with each other and require balancing every so often. It is this that is the technical problem with our sort of useage.

John Reid is doing some really good work on your behalf on the balancing problem. Kees Sicking of Das Gepack is an electronics engineer who could also add a great deal to the cure of this problem.

Commercial chargers are now availiable but the associated multicell balancing is not.( We are told Sept release)
Balancing is best done in conjunction with a charging function.

Terrohurtz has run these batteries for two events without problems so far.

To the point Roaming Robots v Robots Live

Robots Live is relatively new as an event organiser and it was always enevitable that some roboteers would opt to go only to their events and others only to Roaming Robots events.

To a degree it is good that there are two heavyweight capable event organisers, it gives us the roboteers choice.

The FRA executives view is that the roboteers and the FRA itself should not get involved in the commercial wrangling between event organisers.

This alledged style of competion between commercial organisations could be the death of our sport.

The FRA is the roboteers union, it is democratic, all of the members have a say. It is unfortunate that most teams keep their heads down when it comes to having some input. Most of the controversy surrounding the FRA either comes from hot head non members or event organisers having a bat at another event organiser.

The FRA executive this spring and summer have doing work that the FRA should be doing which is promotion of our sport.

At the UK champs this year, not only will we hold our AGM to which all members are invited but we have TV producers visiting the event as FRA guests.
It is a great pity that a good number of you are at a competing event and missing the opportunity to attend your own FRA heavyweight championships and AGM.
That is the commercial reality for you.

The large majority of people are still attending both RR and RL events when they can, and most teams are not politcally minded. As a result they see the FRA as more of a government which they dont want to get involved with. We all should it is a forum for us to voice our concerns in person and get a direct response.

From my point of view it is fair game for anyone to hold an event, the FRA should not need to take any action(as Andy has said) unless it is an issue where safety or the future of our sport is concerned.

But I agree congratulate Craig for his rant because he is right there is a divide, but I fear that it too late. I would like to see people are each others events, to help support us all.

[storm]

I write this just as an individual reading this thread, and nothing more than an observation on what has been written. I do not wish to provide ammunition for anyone to turn this into a slanging match about anything other than the topic !

.... Am I the only person struggling to reconcile the following in Andy Kanes post

the FRA itself should not get involved in the commercial wrangling between event organisers.

and

It is a great pity that a good number of you are at a competing event and missing the opportunity to attend your own FRA heavyweight championships

It does seem the FRA struggle not to critisise those who do not attend its preferred event :sad: This kind of speak from the FRA only serves to make people question the impartiality of the organisation.

Appears clear why sentiment like that in Craigs post is bubbling under the surface.

Ed

(Message edited by storm on August 09, 2007)

i have an idea..............

why dont robots live and roaming robots toss a coin and who ever wins hold an event, (tossing a coin seems the only fair way) where every roboteer with a robot attends getting together the whole roboteering community. there we can all get together and have one big event for US the roboteers. yes get a crowd in and pay for the event but then if there is any monies to be made let there be prizes and mabee prize money for various competitions. once a year do 1 event for the community then after that go to which ever event suits. i am sure that grown adults can get together and arrange this and i am sure the community can get together on mass and keep the sport well and truly on the map. so com on event organisers get together and do something for the sport and us roboteers.

thats my two pence worth

regards

shane.........your friendly neighbourhood roboteer

[james...venom]

shane i think that is what the Uk, Euro and World champs are.

Event organisers are given the chance to put a bid in to host each of these, I think then the FRA take a vote to make a decision as to who they think would be best to host such an event.

If it were up to me there would be a Uk champs every year, with the world champas every 4 years and euro every other 4 years. that way it doesnt make the UK champs like another sunday event (which i felt the fw uk this year didnt feel like a big special event for what ever reason?) and yet we have a bigger championship every 2 years (like it is in other sports such as the olympics and world/euro cup)

i think at the end of the day as soon as you get commercial interests involved you will always get the banter. Forget what people say about we only do it to help the community its a load of cobblers

[swanaldo]

i just dont get it all. you know what s.o.d it all i am fed up with it.

[anukhet]

Craig, we have missed you too and I wish you every success in whatever you decide to do and have a great time on your travels - especially stay healthy :wink:

As for the divisions that you describe - the community is growing and its only human nature for little groups to form within it. What you describe as bulls**t only matters to the perpetrators, antagonists and wanabee perpetrators and antagonists of this silliness.

The sport will carry on in spite of the bulls**t. Does that 1% have the savvy to realise this? I dont know. Whether they carry on like this or finally decide that it isnt worth all the hassle is entirely up to them. The rest of us will carry on with or without them - its their choice.

The other 99% of us just get on with doing what we want and love to do - no favouritism, no bulls**t, no problem. What really matters is the safe continuation, development and growth of the sport irrespective of whos who.

As a new member of the roboting community I find this line of discussion disturbing but not unexpected, in all communities of like-minded people you get groups who don€™t agree with each other€™s ideas on how things should be done.
I€™ve found this in car clubs, sports clubs and other communities; the thing is to acknowledge people have different ways of doing things and expressing themselves, and make allowances for this. Offence may have been caused but not intended.
From the outside of this split between the two operators it€™s a situation of one has been around for a long time and the other has started recently the new kid on the block. This is a change that is going to take time to find its equilibrium. The more people take sides the longer and more damaging this disagreement will become,
The two providers I know would not like any hostile conflict between them or the roboting community to continue, as this would affect the shows and the commercial ability of both companies to grow.
I have been at events from both providers and found them and other roboters to be extremely kind and welcoming. I am not on either side. I like a good number of other roboteers think there is nothing to be gained by winning an argument and in doing so loose a good friend.