20th August 2016 - The Oxford Games, Carterton

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joey_picus
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20th August 2016 - The Oxford Games, Carterton

Post by joey_picus »

The Oxford Games 2016, a Team Hell & Team Picus co-production
"They're serious, and they're actually considerably* outside of Oxford"

*to be precise: Carterton Community Centre, Carterton, Oxfordshire, OX18 1AX. (map here)

REGISTRATION:
Sign up on RW101 (here) with a maximum of two robots. If you only have one robot, sign up anyway, we'll sort one-robot entrants (see entrants here) into teams on the day :) If you have two robots, bear in mind the football requires you to have someone to drive the other robot!

FORMAT:
Teams - a 'team' consisting of two robots - will be drawn into groups of four on the day. These groups will then compete in five events (three actual 'events' and two combat rounds), with points being awarded for performance in each event based on a 4-3-2-1 basis. The group winners, decided on points, will advance to a final group, run on the same basis, with the winner of the final group being crowned the 2016 Oxford Games champion. (In the event of us somehow running short on time, the final group might be replaced with a full combat tag team competition, run as a league. Hopefully it won't be needed, but the contingency plan is there!)

EVENTS:

Football: Both robots on a team compete at once in a two minute football match. Each team plays each other team once, with standard football league rules (3 points for a win, 1 for a draw, please do not touch Mike Dean) being used to construct a league table, with goal difference separating the teams. Positions in the league table are used to allocate points. For additional safety-related rules pertaining to spinners, please see this post.

Nuts: One robot from each team competes. A number of large plastic nuts are placed in the centre of the arena, and robots have one minute in which to get as many in their own corner as possible. Points are awarded from most to least nuts; any ties are dealt with by an additional one-minute round using only the robots involved.

Raceway: The raceway is a 2 robot event like the football with each robot facing each other over 3 laps. Robots will be ranked in a league based on win/loss record, with results between the robots involved being used as a tie breaker if necessary, and points awarded according to positions in the league table.

Gauntlet: One robot from each team competes. Each robot has one minute to try and get to the end of an obstacle course, with the other three acting as house robots. Robots are ranked by time taken to complete the course, and then by distance, with points allocated accordingly. Any ties will be dealt with by a "race-off" between the robots involved.

Pinball (final group only): One robot from each team competes. Robots have one minute in which to score as many points as possible from the game everybody knows and loves from two episodes of Robot Wars series 2. The other three robots will act as house robots. Robots will be ranked by points and, if necessary, time taken to attain a score, and points will be distributed accordingly.

COMBAT:

Each group is made of five 'events' - three of those are drawn from the events as above, and the other two are rounds of full combat. Teams must use each of their robots in a round - e.g. robot 1 will compete in the first round, and robot 2 in the second, not the same robot for both. The combat will be run as a mini-league, with four robots each fighting each other once for six fights in total. To save time, it is proposed to run all the fights for a round at once where possible - with everyone being fully charged and a quick turnaround, an entire combat round shouldn't take more than ten or fifteen minutes, although you will be given time for repairs when needed.

Points for each combat group will be allocated by ranking by win/loss record - ties will be broken by the results between the robots involved. In the event of a three or four way tie, unlikely as it may be, all robots involved will have a melee to decide the winner!

OTHER INFORMATION:
Aim to arrive at 9am for a 10am start time; we have the hall from 8-6. There will be plenty of opportunity to use the arenas for informal competition, and we'll try and run something to keep people busy who've been eliminated towards the end of the day. Offers of arenas and cubes are gratefully accepted if it's not too inconvenient :)

Hopefully that provides most of the info people need - any questions, feel free to ask!

ORIGINAL POST:
Hiya everyone,

Over post-AWS pizza, myself and Dave (Weston) were discussing possibly hosting an antweight event sometime next year, most likely in mid-to-late May between the first and second AWS of the year. The aim is to try and get something in between the Reading Robot Club and the Antweight Team Championships - there'd be more events than just full combat, potentially including football, racing, an assault course, pinball, and all the other fun things everyone likes, with the overall winner's title (and medals, that may be a thing that happens) being decided by more than just whoever wins at full combat. It would be a Team Picus/Team Hell co-production held in or around Oxford, since only about 3 people would come to Lancaster, and if it went really well it could become an annual thing.

There's still a fair bit of the format to be worked out, but how many people would be interested in attending if this were to happen? And what sort of games would people like to see?
Last edited by joey_picus on Sat Jul 16, 2016 6:42 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: May 2016 - Oxford - more "fun" non-AWS event with games

Post by razerdave »

I should point out that combat will be involved in all this (full combat), but as part of the whole structure rather than just stand alone (like we ended up doing at Snibston for those who remember).
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Re: May 2016 - Oxford - more "fun" non-AWS event with games

Post by BeligerAnt »

I must say I fully approve of this format! Hope to be there, all things being equal.

Suggestion: limit full combat entries to 1per team/driver and/or run it as single elimination so that there is actually time for all the other activities. ;)

I'm sure you'll put plenty of thought into the exact format, like can a team/driver enter a different robot into each event or do they have to use the same one throughout? Could be interesting having to use the same one... Anyway, that's half the fun of a non-AWS event - you get to play around with the format and rules :)

Have fun, and thanks for putting an extra event into the calendar!
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Re: May 2016 - Oxford - more "fun" non-AWS event with games

Post by razerdave »

Depending on how many are involved we were hoping to have 2 robots per roboteer allowed but as far seperate dad they could be. The entries might require some limitation depending on our chosen format (likelihood is, 4 robots per heat and the number of heats needs to be a multiple of 4 in order to work (4, 8 or 12 heats is workable).
The combat part would be each robot within a heat fighting each other once, number of wins and losses will determine points.

I did consider the team games approach of having 2 robots you can swap in and out depending but that would require some extra work and I haven't discussed the idea with Joey yet, it was one I had for the ATC's
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Re: May 2016 - Oxford - more "fun" non-AWS event with games

Post by limpet »

The 'swap in and out' thing sounds interesting, you play your preferred robot depending on the fight/task. Proper team stuff.
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Re: May 2016 - Oxford - more "fun" non-AWS event with games

Post by joey_picus »

That was one of my initial ideas too - everyone would enter a team of two robots, and have to use each one for at least one event. I also have to admit I liked the marbles idea from the last Ant Freeze so much we may, erm, borrow it...
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Re: May 2016 - Oxford - more "fun" non-AWS event with games

Post by limpet »

Already spoken to Dave, its booked :)

I`m going to run it again at Ant Freeze 3 and this time use nuts instead of marbles to avoid the levelling problem.
Probably M12 plastic nuts should do, I`ll get them nearer the time.
I can bring the whole arena to Oxford if needed.
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Re: May 2016 - Oxford - more "fun" non-AWS event with games

Post by earthwormjim »

Sounds great!
I'd love to come.
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Re: May 2016 - Oxford - more "fun" non-AWS event with games

Post by Spaceman »

Local Ant awesomeness. how could I not come.

Maybe some kind of off road assult course thing would be a cool addition.
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Re: May 2016 - Oxford - more "fun" non-AWS event with games

Post by baker01t »

Sounds cool! i'll try and be there! :D
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