The AWS43 Feedback Thread

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Andrew_Hibberd
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Re: The AWS43 Feedback Thread

Post by Andrew_Hibberd »

I would like to add a few comments on the last event. As I didn't do as well as expected I have few negative feelings about my performance. However the event ran very smoothly without some of the normal delays due to problematic robots. Many thanks for Will and the UoR SSE for organising.

The 4 fights shown on the board and switching between screens was very good and a fantastic turn out. Congratulations to Andrew for winning.

I was a little disappointed with the arena compared to last year, with an unpainted surface. Although there was less spinners than previously the multiple holes in the sides are dangerous if a spinner broke and someone was hurt etc. The port holes in the side did significantly improve putting robots in and taking them out of the arena.
I prefer a bigger surface as it leads to more tactical fights, although it was to the rules robots are significantly faster than when this was written. Also we are seeing more and more pusher robots due to the large drop off. I feel that the arena should be a fair playing field that any design should be given equal opportunity. A quick push in 1 second off the 50% edge gives fast pushers the advantage atm. We are loosing spinner and walker designs because they are disadvantaged as NomNomNom proved in the two grudge matches. Less drop off, meaning pushers have to control the opponent should give more design innovation.

With regards to the judging I feel the rules need to be clarified on what counts as a win. The two examples I have are when a pusher or spinner hits the opponent and they both go out. We have been doing first to hit the ground but it can be close if the pusher/spinner goes off just before the other robot. Maybe we should re-fight them in this situation rather than call it a loss for the aggressor.
The fight between Fandabadozy and Robot Simulator 2014 was a close match, but I feel that I should have won. My reasoning is as follows:
I could not have done anything differently as my robot did exactly what it was designed to do, every attack from either side resulted in my wedge getting under the Haz and I did the majority of the pushing and pinning. Although I was about half the speed, the tracked robot being designed to push failed to get past the defensive shape and do any pushing. If I had sat in the middle with the fan running not attacking then I agree Haz should have won on aggression. I would like to see the video of this fight as I am only going on weighted memory. We need a clearly defined set of rules that can separate this sort of fight in the future.
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Max
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Re: The AWS43 Feedback Thread

Post by Max »

This was my first AWS and I was very impressed with the organisation and thought it was a great event. My only comment would be if possible it would be good to have a separate screen in the pits/in the main room with a longer list of fights on it (like the entire round) so you've got more idea of when your fights coming up.
But this wasn't a big problem and was partly my fault for not listening to which group my robot was in at the start after panicking when I heard our teams other robot was in one of the first fights and nowhere near ready!
mTubes
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Re: The AWS43 Feedback Thread

Post by mTubes »

BeligerAnt wrote: First off, massive thanks to everyone involved in running the event. I know how much work goes into it! I'm also relieved that AntLog2.0 ran so smoothly. There are plans afoot for an even better AntLog3, but I fully expect it to be a long while in the making...
Thanks! As I said previously, AntLog was absolutely invaluable - I'm looking forwards to seeing what version 3 is like. By the way, I noticed that your website still says AntLog + LibreOffice is 'untested' - hopefully after yesterday you might be able to update that :)!
BeligerAnt wrote: We were very disappointed that the non-spinner contest was dropped at some point between Thurdsay when Will posted the timetable and Saturday. We have always managed to fit it in before, even with a large field for the AWS. By limiting it to one robot per driver and running in parallel with the fleas it doesn't take long to run and at least gives everyone the chance of a fight or two before the main event. Also gives newcomers a bit more justification to come along.
I'm sorry that we didn't run the non-spinner contest. Unfortunately, between Thursday and Saturday, sign-ups leaped to 105 ants, and we got a bit scared when we realized this would require more than 200 fights.
BeligerAnt wrote: It's fine to have a microphone in the arena for the web stream/video, but is it really necessary to feed it through the PA in the venue? The constant level of noise got rather wearing after 4 hours.
I'm by no means an expert, but unfortunately I think it'd be very tricky to remove the arena audio from the PA mix but also play it through the stream. If we run another event, we'll try to balance the levels better.
Max wrote: My only comment would be if possible it would be good to have a separate screen in the pits/in the main room with a longer list of fights on it (like the entire round) so you've got more idea of when your fights coming up.
I'd love to be able to implement this, but unfortunately running two streams would mean double the work for Max and Joe, who IMHO already had the hardest jobs of anyone yesterday. That said, I'll see what we can do about this.

I'll try and harass Will into answering these arena questions as soon as possible.
Mark Pattle
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BeligerAnt
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Re: The AWS43 Feedback Thread

Post by BeligerAnt »

For Max, and anyone else wishing for more visibility of their own robot's progress rather than just the next 4 fights:

The thinking behind AntLog3 is to address this very problem, but that's something for another thread!
By the way, I noticed that your website still says AntLog + LibreOffice is 'untested' - hopefully after yesterday you might be able to update that :)!
Thanks Mark, I'll update the website... :)
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teamocean
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Re: The AWS43 Feedback Thread

Post by teamocean »

Right guys, I've been reading through this thread with interest and now its time for some answers to your points :)

Firstly thank you for all of these points, it is good to know what you like and what you feel needs some work as it means we can try to put on a better event next year.

Firstly relating to the judges, I am sorry that some of you feel that they were not suitable. I chose the 3 judges for very simple reasons. Both Mark and Fin have competed in a number of antweight competitions. Mark has also competed in the featherweight UK Championships too and judged AWS 40 last year along with Ian where no objections were raised. Ian was asked to judge again as without him the event would simply not happened. All three judges were fully briefed on the rules in advance of the competition as well. For the record I do agree with their decisions throughout the day.

As for the arena. The main reason for a new arena was the fact that it was not available on the day of the event due to it being stuck back at home with no way of getting it to Reading for the event. Not to mention the fact that there were complaints about it being too low and difficult to see into last year.

The new arena was only built this week as an emergancy replacement and was built around the pieces of polycarb we had in the workshop. It was finished the evening before hence the unpainted arena surface. We also didn't get time to add in any extra walls like my arena.
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peterwaller
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Re: The AWS43 Feedback Thread

Post by peterwaller »

First of all this is just my opinion and I am not trying to upset or wind anyone up.
Personally I believe that 3 independant judges, who are as we have heard experienced, who judge all the fights is much better than just selecting 3 roboteers who are in the competition.
In most cases the people are not picked until after a fight or at least a fairway through it when it is beginning to look like a judges decision is going to be needed.
I find it is difficult not to be influenced by friendship and the possibility of coming up against the robot in later fights so much prefer not to judge.
So by all means lets have a discusion about how the judging decisions should be made but I still think the judges who gave up a day for us did a good job and at times had to make decisions that I would have not liked to make and that I am not sure I disagree with.
As to the arena I do prefere a larger arena with less drop of but while our own AWS rules still stipulate a 50% falloff we can hardly complain about that.
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Re: The AWS43 Feedback Thread

Post by EpicentrE »

I want to apologise to the judges for insinuating they weren't experienced or qualified to judge. I still disagree with the decision, but shouldn't have assumed that you were unqualified to judge just because I don't know you personally.

Regarding arena rules, I do think we should amend our rules to either reduce or scrap the 50% drop off rule, now that we've shown to (as far as I'm aware) universal agreement that things are better without it. This could be incorporated with Craig's new scoring system if we decide to adopt it. However committee-related matters have been quiet recently, with no activity on the committee forums and meetings not taking place at events. This thread is not the place for those discussions, obviously, but how should we go about starting discussion on this sort of thing? Last I checked I don't think I'm on the committee so don't want to overstep my boundaries :P.
Scott Fyfe-Jamieson, Captain of Epic Robotics. Champion of AWS38/41/42.
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Rhys
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Re: The AWS43 Feedback Thread

Post by Rhys »

All in all, I'd say it was a very well organised event. The only issues/suggestions I have are:

1. I'm still not crazy about hiving the pits in a different room to the arena. I know it was a record attendance and space was at a premium, but it felt a bit disjointed. The stream in the pits would often cut out and go to an advert. So if you were in the pits, you might not hear if you were up next. Also, as Pete mentioned, there was a slight delay, meaning it was sometimes hard to distinguish who was up next. Not huge issues, and I'm guessing there's not much that can be done to fix them, but I just thought I'd mention it.

2. It was good having the next 4 fights on screen, but I'd still like some way of seeing the full draw available to the competitors. It can be a bit demotivating just going into fights and not knowing who is up next and how far you haver to go to reach the final stages. Maybe a second laptop could be running the same version of antlog? Or simply just have a paper copy of the draw knocking about? Plus it would also help eliminate errors. Currently if the wrong winner is selected, nobody is able to pick up on it as nobody can see the draw. Where as if the draw was available to all, we'd be able to flag up errors before it's too late to correct them.

3. The arena was a little disappointing, but to be honest that's probably because we've been spoiled a bit of late. It's nice to have big arenas, but the one we used on Saturday was no worse than the majority of arenas we've used in the past. I'd always prefer a bigger more enclosed arena, but obviously that's not always possible.

I thought having 3 judges was a good idea, and have no issues with the decisions they made. I'm not saying I would have agreed with them on the Fandabadozy vs Robot Simulator 2014 fight, but as there's no criteria for judging a fight, their opinions shouldn't be disregarded. As Will say, they were fully briefed and have seen their fair share of robot combat in the past.

And this isn't really AWS43 specific, but I'd second Scott's idea to maybe get the committee kick-started again and propose some rule changes regarding the drop-off. I know the 50% rule has been here since the start, but it's a bit disheartening when you sit down to design a new robot and think "A 4wd pusher is my best chance of winning an AWS". I know it makes it more appealing to newcomers as they can be competitive with a simple pushbot, but it's making all the robots a bit samey.

Anyway, apologies for the ramble, but those are my thoughts.
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Re: The AWS43 Feedback Thread

Post by Craig_Anto3 »

Firstly I'd like to apologize for my previous outburst, I was still angry at how I felt we were belittled and ignored on the day.
Judging criteria is not defined and I am part of an FRA sub committee that is designing a point scoring system, however I would ask that it be referred to as a scoring system rather than "Craig's system" I maybe one of the architects of the system but it is not mine alone.
This issue is not unique to AWS but rife throughout Combat robots, so this will be my final comment on the matter with regards to AWS43.

I do have a concern from the event with regards to the pits, being separated from the arena is an issue. I had taken my walker (Son of Photophattiephobia) out after it failed to work and put it on charge, when I returned the LiPo battery had massively expanded and was on the verge of a fire. At FRA events we are required to stay with LiPos when they are on charge and I was also somewhat concerned prior to my incident that my robots and personal belongings were out of sight during the show. Perhaps if we are to return we could have space at the top of the hall.

I would like to rally the call the reinstitute the AWS committee, however rather than having a single leader or elected members we could use the lunch break to sit and chat as a community rather than locking away a select few.
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Psychostorm
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Re: The AWS43 Feedback Thread

Post by Psychostorm »

If I had any concern over AWS 43, it would be the amount of room around the doorway. 8 competitors in queue? Also a lack of places to stand. Humans can't sit for long periods of time.

Concerning drop off, I'd like to formally object to the minimising of the drop off zone.

People don't drop off the edge of the arena due to an increase in 4 wheel drive pushers. They do so because they have not driven well enough to avoid it.

It is not the purpose of the rules nor the arena design to save people from their own incompetence. (Bold statement from someone who falls off every other match.)

This is a driving contest as much as damage.

Should the majority still wish to minimize the drop off - I propose adding a no corners rule to stop robots hiding in them.

(ps worth pointing out a 100% drop off rule would've settled Robot Simulator vs Fandabadozy)
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