AWS 47 - Stoke Sub Hampton - July 4th 2015

[haz]

Anyway that unsociable non facebook people can see those pictures?

[PanoramicHarry]

Those who don't have an account should still be able to see it as it's on a public page.

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

Great video as always Harry. Definitely a better angle.

A couple of things I'd like to flag up from the event. First, I would definitely be in favour of shortening the matches to 2min max. Most of the judges decisions on the day came from two nanos being left in slowly eating away the time and the outcome at 3mins would only have been different at 2mins in one case (John Denny and Lemmings).

Secondly, and I hate to call out a team like this but it probably should be me...there was only one team on the day who consistently slowed up the process and that was Team SmartAnt. Later on someone told me that we were always waiting for them because some of their robots shared key components (wheels and batteries I believe). This is explicitly banned in the rules and has been since forever. Now I don't know if its true, it's up to them to confirm or deny it, but if it is then it needs keeping an eye on in future.

Two ideas I had to combat it - some kind of rule about robots must arrive at the event in a ready to run state. So often I tech check robots and the person puts a collection of parts or a loose battery on the scales and there is no way to check they are not sharing with another bot. I propose for tech check that if you have a team of 4, they must all be sat complete and ready before they are allowed to be checked in. 90% of teams do this anyway. But I remember checking a Smart fleaweight that only fit in the cube with one set of wheels but then footage shows they may have resorted back to the other set for competition.
I don't like throwing accusations, but if anyone else was doing this I'd call them out too.

Thirdly, clusterbots. Are we now at the stage where them being included as a fourth entry is obsolete? One of Rory's nanos barely registered on the scales at all on Saturday. However I still enjoy having some of the...lets say more legitimate clusters in competitions.

Three ideas here - One, go back to having the fourth entry on the team as walker only. I realise I've been against this in the past but I think it might be time.
Two, some kind of rule that states a robot may only fight in one competition. Therefore, if you want to cluster a nano and an ant, you can, but that nano must be unique to that cluster, therefore doesn't enter as part of a fleaweight cluster or in the nano comp as well. This would allow all robots to stay as they are, but you'd have to build more robots if you wanted a presence in all competitions. This may liven up the fleaweights especially, as very few people build specific fleas anymore.
Three, if you have a cluster and a component of it dies mid comp, that component MUST STILL enter the arena as part of the cluster, even if it is immediately counted out. This combats confusion (wasn't that his cluster entry?) and also, if that team is entering a cluster in order to gain a fourth entry, then it should remain a cluster throughout, even if part has died and is not repairable.

Anyone any thoughts? Not quite sure where my own opinion lies on clusters apart from they are getting a bit out of control.

[joey_picus]

[...] Later on someone told me that we were always waiting for them because some of their robots shared key components (wheels and batteries I believe). This is explicitly banned in the rules and has been since forever.[...]

I hate to be pedantic - for the record, I do think this is something that should be addressed, even if it had little effect on running time at the weekend, although really it should probably be common sense to not share too many components! - but on a reading of the 4.2 rules no mention whatsoever is made of robots having to be self-contained, just teams, so if there is any explicit ban it's somewhere I can't read it

Also, if you banned the sharing of batteries between robots that might have some knock-on effects - I use Velcro for battery mounting a lot precisely because it allows for swapping between robots in case of damage or one pack needing charging, and as long as you don't go over the weight limit I think that's a legitimate use of 'shared components'.

[EpicentrE]

Good post Dave. Few thoughts from me:

I agree with the 2 minute time limit, as I've previously stated.

Although I agree with you (barring instances such as what Joey mentioned above), I can't find the rule regarding parts not being shared. Which one is it?

Clusters: I'm fed up (and have been for a while) of clusters that are "underweight robot & nano", just for the sake of getting a 4th roller on your team. This seems to be against the spirit of the rule, which was to inspire people to try something different if they wanted to be able to bring a full team of 4. One possibility I had considered was that introduce a rule whereby the lightest member of a cluster can not weigh less than 50% of the heaviest member? This would still allow things like Lemmings to compete, or 2 75g robots, or 100g and 50g.

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

It appears I was wrong! That one about self contained teams used to be a lot longer I'm sure. In my opinion, that needs a rule then, otherwise you could 3D print 4 frames and just use one set of components between all 4! That's just silly.

Joey, I'm sure no one would object if you have two robots and take a battery out of one to put it in the other if its low on charge or the other got damaged but what I propose is that all robots should be entirely self contained at the start of the day, IE. If you enter two robots they both have their own battery etc in place and ready to fight. If it needs swapping out later due to reasons you suggest, that's no problem to me.

EDIT - I should also therefore apologise to the SmartAnt team as it appears they did everything by the book.

[peterwaller]

How is the recovery of the money going Rory have you been inundated or are people being a bit tight.
(Gentle reminder to those who haven't contributed yet)

[Lincoln]

dave
all are robots are split across 2 transmitters and we kept having two fights extremely close together ( this should be addressed by antlog but some how this didn't work) with robots on the same transmitter this is not helped by the fact most are robots you need to undo bolts to get to the battery (we are solving this by putting external switches)
Even if you changed the rules to what you thought they were we wold not be braking them!!!

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

Why does having robots on the same transmitter hold you up? All of my robots are on one transmitter. You just either swap profiles or link all robots to the same TX, depending on the model you use. I don't understand why that would slow you up, unless you were undoing bolts and changing batteries after every fight, which is also unnecessary...
Most people with full teams had their fights all very close together but we didn't have to wait for them so long.

[Occashokka]

I would be fine with it being 3 and a walker as it mean we wouldn't need to reduce it to 3 robots very often as most people would then only have three anyway but if it was down to three I would want it to be two and a cluster.