Bamzoooki

Simon Windisch · Post by **Simon Windisch** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 10:30 pm

Hi there,

does anyone play BAMZOOKi?

I can't cut and paste from this terminal but go to bbc.co.uk and search on Bamzooki.

They are basically virtual robots, and kids design them and battle them on Children's BBC. But it looks like there's more to them then just a children's game.

Simon

Post by **BeligerAnt** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 8:29 am

Hi Simon,

I (James) play Bamzooki, its great fun. Bethany and I got through the first 2 parts of the selection process to go on the t.v. we got down to the last 70 teams (out of 400)but didn't get on

It can get complicated but its worth the effort when it works. The new series is being filmed now and will be on cbbc in the Autumn.

James

josh · Post by **josh** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 12:09 pm

i have tried it and got very frustrated coz it kept freezin my comp

Post by **BeligerAnt** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 8:12 pm

Bamzooki is one of the best free PC programs I've come across!
It is rather power-hungry, and the first version did have a few bugs (it crashed sometimes). The new version seems more stable, but you do need a reasonably powerful PC to run it - there's a lot of number-crunching going on behind the scenes!

If you try to get something going from scratch, you are guaranteed some frustration - it really is not simple! The examples and ready-built legs are great though. Once you get the hang of it it's quite easy to improve on what you've got. That's the beauty of software - it's very quick to try things out.

I was really hoping James and Bethany got on the show, because the one thing I can't quite work out is how the Zooks appear to run on the table in front of the teams, and appear to be visible to the teams as well as the viewers...

Meanwhile, here's the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bamzooki/

Andrew_Hibberd · Post by **Andrew_Hibberd** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 9:46 am

This is great fun, can't seem to get a fast spriter working. But got over 800cm in the block push which is a record, but i think i am a little to old for the show

Simon Windisch · Post by **Simon Windisch** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 9:03 pm

There is a terribly technical descripton of how each camera has its own digital processor, and it reads its position by bar codes in the ceiling.

Good luck for next time Bethany and James.

Simon

Post by **BeligerAnt** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 8:29 pm

A fast zook is certainly a challenge, mine always seem to end up with their legs tangled! I'm amazed at the quality of the zooks on the TV show, all created by primary school kids. Lets just hope they don't start designing things in the real world!

Andrew_Hibberd · Post by **Andrew_Hibberd** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 10:12 pm

The most annoying things i found with this is the sprint, high jump and hurdles, With the right set up it is possible to move before the ''go!'' so in sprint and hurdles you can cross the line in a fraction of a second, which isn't very fair. Also the high jump is a bit random. But I like the lap challenge

Good luck to whoever compete's.

-Gary, some of those zooks are amazing, can't belive no one has made this sort of thing up before

josh · Post by **josh** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 7:27 am

gary-ho says they arnt

Bouncy_Bot · Post by **Bouncy_Bot** » Sun Aug 21, 2005 7:25 pm

Bamzooki's good, if you can get the software to work

The first edition didn't work on anything except some laptops and a few computers.

Now the've updated it and it works on XP but on any other windows model, it comes up saying that it wasn't installed with the starting program, so it wont work