Regional and Nationals

Place discussions about upcoming events here in this thread.

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Skillz
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Regional and Nationals

Post by Skillz »

I know I'm knew to all this and I don't really come from a techi background. I really want to help this grow and have several ideas on how we may be able to achieve this.

Not sure if this has already been implemented or even tried before but what if we had an event where we held regional events where maybe the top 3 bots would go on the a national championship. At the national championship maybe there could be 1 on 1s as well triple tag teams or similar where a region goes up against another so you have 3 v 3 in the arena.

Just some ideas let me know your thoughts
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Occashokka
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Re: Regional and Nationals

Post by Occashokka »

We have always previously been able to fit everyone into competitions so anyone could enter anything, I don't think we are at the stage full regionals would work but hosting a north and a south with say the top 2/3 or half qualifying and having a final in middle ground but I don't know quite how many of the new enquirers will translate into bots and how the influx will affect space at venues or time and I think nearly everyone would want to avoid making everything serious and weaker funnier robots are what truly make it fun, fitting everything in is a task we have fought since I first joined a year and a half ago but generally everyone would rather try and cram it all in than any alternatives

But I guess we gotta just wait and see
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Skillz
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Re: Regional and Nationals

Post by Skillz »

Just a suggestion and maybe a long term idea.

Ofcourse you wouldn't want to eliminate the open events
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Skillz
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Re: Regional and Nationals

Post by Skillz »

I just thought maybe we could hold more events through out the year on a smaller scale as they would be easier to organise it would depends on how big the roboteer community is
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BeligerAnt
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Re: Regional and Nationals

Post by BeligerAnt »

Historically the geographical spread of antweights has been poor, with most builders based in the south-east of England.

(Fun fact: The Antweight World Series (AWS) is so called as a joke. The first very small event drew competitors from a small area, but if the Americans can have a baseball "World Series" then why not one for antweights? :) Subsequently we have had competitors from Wales, Sweden, the Netherlands and Ireland, and we have held the AWS in England, Wales, Ireland and the Netherlands)

I'm not sure there is currently enough geographical spread to realistically run regional heats leading to a national "final". Also, the AWS has always been an open competition.

Apart from the AWS we have always tried to encourage people to run smaller events which are often more "regional" as people are less inclined to travel long distances to non-AWS events. Ant Freeze and the Antweight Open have been popular, as was the (sadly no more) Reading Robot Club. If someone is willing to organise a venue there are generally people willing to provide an arena and competitors!

We could definitely do with some more non-AWS events, it would be nice to have one between each AWS. However, with the high cost of venues we are sometimes struggling even to find hosts for the AWS.
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Occashokka
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Re: Regional and Nationals

Post by Occashokka »

I agree on the struggle to find venues, I looked around me and looked at about 6 places and they all had something wrong whether it be price plugs, having tables, room space,toilets, access to get the arena in or anything else I always found that a perfect venue doesn't exist.
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joey_picus
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Re: Regional and Nationals

Post by joey_picus »

Regional events would be nice as a complement to the existing system, I agree that we should never lose the openness of any antweight event. I miss the Reading Robot Club though, and the Brighton University events and everywhere else I used to get up at 4am to travel to :(

For me the problem has never been venues (there's loads locally) or cost (I work for the council now!) but interest - the reaction to a possible AWS in Liverpool from most people slightly convinced me that if I held something in Lancaster or at the university, about three people would turn up! I think there might be enough local interest now to think about something though, and of course, if you build it, they will come...

(would still need to build or borrow an arena though)
Joey McConnell-Farber - Team Picus Telerobotics - http://picus.org.uk/ - @joey_picus
"These dreams go on when I close my eyes...every second of the night, I live another life"
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