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dyrodium
Experienced Roboteer
Joined: 24 Aug 2004
Posts: 6476
Location: Sydney
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My take on things, have a look at how proper high end rc racing is organised:
http://www.qrccra.org.au/Events/2011AARCMCCQldCHAMPIONSHIP5thScaleTouring/tabid/1165/Default.aspx
1/5th would be comparable to our feather weights in terms of cost, and reliability, they can still flame out or crash on the track.
They have a $70 entry fee + $50 late entry, which sounds fair enough.
I can't really see any word of prize money, tho you get a BBQ included in the fee.
Something professional like this to sign up for big events should really be non negotiable, the EO needs to know the bots details well before the event is due to take place.
Now following through on the idea that everyone pays up front before an event date is announced, a 'rough' date could be organised prior, and to stop payments becoming messy, a service such as pledgie could be used.
http://pledgie.com/
Through pledgie, no money is deducted unless the amount required is reached. This way, if there's not enough interest for what ever reason, no messy refunds have to happen, it just doesn't go ahead. This amount would need to be decided on venue costs, arena maintenance/hiring, insurance etc. A system like this encourages team spirit because we can see how close we are to the total, so would make those national events worth while coming to again.
That's my take on things... As Aaron said, round robin is a must as it gets max fights for your buck and isn't too hard to organise. Following on from that, Bretts idea to get a bit of entry fee refunded per fight entered could easily be implemented.
EDIT: on second thoughts something like kickstarter would be ideal, as you can set threshholds to get things, our event could be 'sponsered' by random people but bot builders pay a certain higher amount and that gets them their entry. Crappy kickstarter is US only... _________________ ( •_•)
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YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
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Sun May 29, 2011 3:57 pm |
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RogueTwoRobots
Joined: 12 Jan 2008
Posts: 135
Location: Irvine, Scotland
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None of this applies to me being from across the water, but it's an interesting idea nonetheless. At the most recent event I attended, we had to pay a £15 (~$23) entry fee up front before we could access the sign-up sheet to submit our robot details. It definitely encourages you to commit to the event and get your machine built. Admittedly, I had to pull one of my machines out of the main competition as I couldn't get it ready on time. That was poor time management on my part, but thankfully I had another machine running and we have a large enough turn-out of robots that it doesn't affect the show too much. But if it had cost a lot more to enter the event, I most likely would have managed my time better and got the robot finished so that I wasn't losing money.
One issue I have about these proposals though:
The EO gets, say, 30 robot signed up with an entry fee of $100 each. That's $3000 in the 'bank' of which a substantial amount would have to go towards putting on a large-ish show (lights, sound effects etc) in order for the EO to fulfil their end of the agreement.
Even though a certain number of robots will always be eliminated at different stages, if they all produce good fights, the majority of robots will receive a large percentage of their fee back.
Just as an example, if all roboteers receive, say, 75% of their fee back, that's $2250 going back to the robot builders. To avoid being out of pocket, that means the show would had to have cost just $750, which doesn't sound particularly large for the number of robots competing and for meeting roboteers' expectations.
My figures might be off, but I guess what I'm getting at is that surely the money from entry fees can't go purely towards putting on a good-looking show that also refunds a large percentage of that money to the roboteers without the EO being left out-of-pocket or have money coming in from elsewhere?
Then again, I might just have missed something _________________ Jamie
RogueTwo Robots
www.rogue-two-robots.vze.com
With great power, comes great reliability
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Sun May 29, 2011 8:49 pm |
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Spockie-Tech
Site Admin
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 3160
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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I dont think theres enough active builders in Vic at the moment for me to consider organising a big Robowars.
Just pulling a figure out of the air, I'd want to see something like 15 bots pre-entered at about $200 each to make organising a Robowars worthwhile at its usual scale of production. or 25 robots at $120...
Another EO might be prepared to go with a smaller event for a lower $ figure or less bots - Pre Commitment might encourage someone else to have a go at EO'ing, since I would really rather compete than organise.
That pledgie page is terrible, nowhere does it actually say what pledgie does, how people use it, do they hold funds for you or anything. If its just a list of people who have promised to pay later, then thats of very little help.
The Sidetracked arena is available to other EO's if you can be professional about its use. (see elsewhere on the forum for sidetracked arena use conditions)
@Vignesh, yes, if your ESC blows in fight 1 and you have no spare, you lose your entry fee.. Why your robot breaks is not the EO's problem. You could equally as easily say "but this hand-whittled plastic flangewhatsit broke and I cant get another one.. waah, not fair" - you keep spare parts to keep fighting, or you lose.
and Im talking pre-entry fees 2 or 3 *months* before a big event, not weeks. If you want a big show, it takes time to organise and get the word out, and you cant start doing that until you are sure you have enough entrants for an event, so you cant decide "if its worth going or not" a couple of weeks beforehand sorry.
@Aaron, you missed the bit I said about *if* its an eliminator, then the EO could reward people for doing filler fights.. but it seems round robins are more popular than eliminators anyway, so its probably not an issue _________________ Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people
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Sun May 29, 2011 8:50 pm |
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