AWS 46- University of Reading- 28th March 2015

[alasdair]

Great event guys, thoroughly enjoyed it all. Congrats to Andy and Alex of course.

[AntRoboteer]

I would just like to say that it was a fantastic event! Will, you and your team ran it so smoothly it was amazing. Loved it all.

I would also like to thank everyone else just for being there and making it a fantastic event and also for all of the encouragement I received as well.

Thanks again!

PS: Dan, GiANT is fine; I found the gears from the shattered servo, put them together and the servo works! No damage done then!

[joey_picus]

Literally just got in (after, among other diversions, being headbutted on a coach by someone possibly off their face) from what was one of the better World Series I've been to in a long time well done to Andy, John and Will for winning, and to Alex for coming second twice! and to Peter and for everyone else who won or just made it good. The venue was brilliant; if you could just have separate feeds to the projectors and food then it'd be the perfect AWS hall I think. It was good to see Simon again too - sorry about the lack of name labels

I was really, really pleased with how I did; given my weight issues I wasn't expecting S. D. F. to do more than maybe win one fight, so to win four and end up intact and in the top 16 out of over 100 was brilliant, even if a very lucky draw was involved (apologies again to Will for accidentally messing up the entire last third of the event with the Stewie fight - sorry!). Mecha-Spall went out spectacularly, thanks to Alex and Will, but the actual Spall part of it appears to have survived relatively unscathed - if we ever decide to institute a permanent trophy for 'most damaged' then I have just the centrepiece for you...

Thanks to everyone for being nice and tolerating me, especially the newcomers (glad you enjoyed it Jim and Occashokka and everyone else who I can't remember because I am rubbish!), to Dave and Ceri for being good company on Friday and all the lifting, and just to everyone for really, genuinely reigniting my love for robots again. Here's to AWS 47 being as good!

(and, further to a point Will raised, I think it'd be only appropriate if we held AWS 50 back in Oliver's front room again...)

[Hogi]

thanks to Will and the reading uni boys for anothher fantastic event! it was brilliant fun and a great way to begin the antweight year. can't wait to return to reading next year for more robotic action. sorry for any temper tantrums i may have had. all who beat me did so with skill and excellent. also, congratulations to the winning robots and roboteers.

team crash and occashocca: thanks for driving the other botlets of my clusterbot, we had fun and did very well.

antroboteer: thank goodness for that. giant has been one of my favorite robots for a long time so i felt quite bad when cut up damaged it. i look forward to seeing it again next time.

[peterwaller]

Thanks to Will and his team for another great event I couldn't believe how many fights there were with 101 ants and how smoothly the organisation ran.
As promised the actual venue was really well suited to the event and Reading does seem to be the most central location for these events.
Congratulations to all the winners there were some really great robots fighting with a good variety in the designs.
I had some issues with my driving as usual and a few reliability problems (Thanks Alex and Rory for fixing Anticyclones weapon) but still had a great day.
It is nice to have so many people to talk to that don't glaze over when you mention robots.

[Rapidrory]

Yesterday was great and ran spot on time with everything packed up by 6:00.

My actual performance yesterday was decidedly poor; a mixture of bad luck and terrible driving put my whole team out before any of them got even close to getting out the group stages. Bad Idea worked exactly as expected, getting one big hit then throwing itself out both times, but was still a laugh. Skutter was definitely my favourite on the day, working much better than expected and getting a few good flips (Sorry to Gemma for my rather dubious win; I think I went out in the next fight anyway ). It'll be getting a redesign and make its return next time.

The less said about the fleaweights the better, and I lost every fight in the nano's in straight sets as well except for Nibble which came third (which I hardly feel I deserve given my performance during the rest of the day ).

Aside from that, I very much enjoyed the event, and genuinely pulled a muscle shouting when Lemmings won for a second time (Bad luck there Dave :L). Hope I can get my driving back under control before the next AWS.

On which note, I am still planning to host the next AWS down in Somerset on either the 4th or 11th July.

[teamocean]

I would just like to say a huge well done to everyone for coming to and supporting the AWS yesterday- even with a few last minute drop outs we still achieved a record 101 robots in the main competition which is absolutely fantastic!

Well done to all of our winners.

Ants:

1st- A little bit of fail
2nd- Stanley
3rd- Fandabadozy

Fleas:

1st- Zoni 3
2nd- Fleadom Fighter
3rd- Deflea

Nanos:

1st- Reducto
2nd- Sharkbait
3rd- Nibble

Also thank you to the following for all their help:
The School of Systems Engineering for funding the event
Venue Reading for the use of the room
The IET Berkshire branch for the prize money
Mark for running Ant Log and judging
Joe for organising the stream and judging
Peter for bringing his arena for us to use
Dave Lawrie for his help with the flea and nano draws
Alex and Rory for helping set up and pack away.

Finally thanks again to everyone who came along- we are hoping to run the March AWS next year and are tentitavely putting forward to host AWS 50 as well- unless there are any objections?

[Nixon]

Had a cracking time at my first AWS. Can't wait until the next one.

[EpicentrE]

Thanks all for a great day, and congratulations to the winners .

[BeligerAnt]

Thanks for a great event, smoothly run and an almost ideal space.
The space was much more "sociable" than a lecture theatre as there was little fixed seating but the balcony provided a nice viewing area. This meant there was the chance to move around and mingle when not fighting without obstructing other peoples' view.

Congratulations to all the winners. There were a number of good close fights so I think the wins were well-deserved.

Will, please can you publish the full results. It's something that seems to have fallen out of favour recently but with such large competitions it's very hard to figure out exactly who went out where!

Also, w.r.t. AWS50 I think Reading could be a great venue but I don't think both AWS49 and AWS50 should be at the same location. We need to ensure that the AWS moves around a bit and although Reading is a reasonably central location that always attracts a good turn-out I don't think we should run 2 consecutive events in the same place.