This has been a long time coming...

Steve and myself have been discussing possibilities to bring Australian robot combat inline with the state it is in America. Attract more builders and bring it out of the shadows.

Check out this site for the National Robotics League, which teams up industry sponsors with high school students to construct and fight bots! http://www.gonrl.org/index.php

By no means am I proposing a crazy high-tech site like that; I'm a realist. Here's my thoughts:

Robowars is who we are, and in my opinion who we should stay. I propose that instead of disjointed state clubs with weird acronym names we simply become Robowars NSW, Robowars QLD and so on.

NSW specific, does our club even still exist? All key members are either too busy now for the roles initially nominated or don't even compete any more...

The robowars home page has served us well, but is sadly horribly outdated... The build report pages, links (none work) and such. We really just one want one home page which is dead simple, explains who we are and can link to nsw.robowars.org . I'm no IT guru but could use drupal or similar to do a simple, dynamic and eye catching page.

Lastly, I'm working on an A4 flier, non state specific to generate hype and interest. More on that later... but will tie in directly with the simple home page.

Yeah hands up for that here. Unity and simplicity is good. I personally really hate abbreviated names for anything, how is anyone going to know whatever it is in question is about at a glance?

That NRL website made me cream just a bit lol. Its perfect <3 If they'd let you have it, would be fooking ace to just slap the appropriate terms in and use it for our own XD. And if not, im all for a shameless clone lol!
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I also like this plan.
Not sure if I could help much my HTML coding is not what you would call flash.
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quote:

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Originally posted by seanet1310:
my HTML coding is not what you would call flash.

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The main problem with the site is that it is dated. Ideally we want a single page with information which will always be relevant and other pages easily editable. The update front page makes a difference but unless you go to the forum you probably wouldn't know what we are up to.

I know Robowars is Brett's site but the multiple crappy club acronyms and misinformation strewn on robowars does hurt us.

I think a clearer structure with state sub domains would be a step in the right direction, some way of directing people to information of how to get started and possibly some further abstraction of legacy information.

Steve
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Steven Martin
Twisted Constructions
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The Robowars.org site and subdomains ARE available for the use of anyone who can convince me they are going to do a *serious* job of rebuilding and maintaining it. I dont consider them to be "my" site, I am open to whatever will reward the builders.

I agree that it is dated and in need of attention.

What it *doesnt* need is a novice admin who thinks it would be cool to slap up a slightly tweaked pre-rolled joomla/drupal template with a few hours of work, with no real understanding of php, sql, or security, and then lose interest within a few months, or when some serious work is needed (say migrating a database between programs, or cleaning up promptly after a hack attack), which is what practically everyone who has discussed it with me so far has done.

Also, I know its tempting to believe that repainting the front office (rebuilding the web page) will change the fortunes of Robot Combat and suddenly builders will come out of the woodwork, but personally, If you think that, I think you're dreaming.

Armchair net surfers are just that. they expect flashy sites, frequent updates, and web admins to jump for them, but dont expect them to put down their mouse and pick up anything more than a screwdriver to bolt in the latest graphics card so they can be a cyberspace hero in a fantasy VR land.

As im sure you all know, talk and typing is cheap, working combat worthy metal in the arena is real world hard work. Make the website as flashy as you like, I bet you that it wont get 1 more builder than the current one does. Does anyone remember the Battlebots website ? The UK Robot Wars one ? No ? I wonder why ?

Jims Robotcombat.com was a masterpiece of web work at the time with auto updating links pages, pics, videos, build reports etc. How many people do you think decided to build a robot because of a website ?

If you want to rebuild the front office, by all means do, but dont think it will bring in the customers if the back-room work (Events, promotion, media coverage, structure - effectively, customer service) arent there to match the flashy showroom

Show me someone who has the skills, the time and the willingness to publicly commit to doing a good job for at least a year or three, and a plan on what they intend to do, and I am open to change. But be prepared to stick with it, when the imagined hordes dont suddenly appear.
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well it would be nice to write "www.robowars.org" on the side of the arenas without adding the "/forum" at the end.

If your changing club names you better also let the RFL know so they can change the QRSC membership to Robowars Australia. They basically just update the names on their website and give you a password for their EO's forum (which I forgot since it was a quiet forum). We affiliated to the RFL in an attempt to get more creed with the grant comitees but it was still a bit of a faliure.

I understand everything you're saying Brett.

While I agree that yes it has to be handed over to someone with some serious IT skills, the fact is after running the serial space event I had no where to point people. I do believe that a simple flier which links in with a page saying exactly what it is we do and how to do it could make the difference.

The main home page does this in the bottom left, but I think it should be the main feature, with links to forum and individual state pages.

I came into the scene too late to see the original robot wars site but do recall browsing battlebots for hours checking out the bots in wonder

All I'm saying is we need to update the front end, so that I can use the homepage confidently when I explain to uni's and schools what we do and why people should do it.

I think it's safe to say that majority of builders we have came in due to robot wars and battlebots, but with those no longer being on TV it's up to us to drive the direction of robotic combat.

I'm quite keen to drive this...

I think a quick update of content and a bit of an archiving of old material (shifted to a seperate section of the site that is link to a big "Looking for the old RoboWars site, check out the archives here" down the bottom of each page) would be all that is necessary. The RoboWars site is currently in a simple HTML format that anyone with a couple of hours of HTML experience can make effective changes/updates and it requires little to none in perspective of maintenance (No databases, no patches required, no scripts to maintain, smaller security footprint).

OT: Stevo and I went with a single, static page with paypal links for BotBitz instead of a highly functional, complicated shipping cart system simply because neither of us could afford to spend days configuring, changing or maintaining such a setup. We just update the HTML on the site in 5mins and FTP it straight up.


IMHO, we need content and frequent updates, not fancy CMS driven websites and flash animation. Eye candy gets eaten and forget too fast these days, real content keeps people chewing longer.

There are a couple of sections that could be archived.
- Robots Section
- Teams Section
- News Section (it's just an archive already)
- Communicate Section (pretty old, sorta irrelevant now)

With just some basic changes, and the site could be updated with everything we need in a couple of days. I did the nationals update a month or so back, and it literally took me 5mins to change the code and content. The longest part was emailing the file to Brett to upload

In regards to the naming conventions of each state, I reckon we just use the registered club names for the red tape and paper work (like insurance), and just run with RoboWars <insert state here> for event titles. The clubs won't have to change all their paper work, we won't have to form a national club and everything just runs the same as it always has.This is akin to businesses being registered as one name and trading under another.
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I think we are getting a little sidetracted (no pun intended) with robowars website discussion.

The more import aspect of this is the possibility of bringing all the "clubs" under a common name. What do people think of this specifically.

QRSC would be come Robowars QLD and probably still officially be QRSC on paper. NSWRFC would become Robowars NSW.

Is there any simple way to edit HTML code on the server, through a web interface? I don't think we need a flashy site but the CMS make it a lot easier to do the updates.
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Steven Martin
Twisted Constructions
http://www.botbitz.com

quote:

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Originally posted by marto:

Is there any simple way to edit HTML code on the server, through a web interface? I don't think we need a flashy site but the CMS make it a lot easier to do the updates.

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I can write basic HTML.

I know most servers have an GUI which let you login and edit files I was wondering if there was something which we could expose to allow editing online of specific pages. So we don't have to do the whole emailing back and forth. Although probably just going to cause vulnerabilities which lead to issues.
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Steven Martin
Twisted Constructions
http://www.botbitz.com

Paperwork wise probably too much effort to change the offical names. Like other said just calling yourself robowars <insert state here> could be good.

Brett for starters how about modification of the current website with mostly just updated information and a few other small chances. This should keep the security in tact if done by someone with a little bit of experience, get the content correct, and in the future if someone does wish to take on the job of expanding and complete replace having to worry about sanitation of SQL and other exploits having to deal with on modern fancy websites increasing risk and exposure and similar it can be discussed later.

A few graphic updates (Steve, maybe your brother could help out with that ) eg the robowars logo here http://www.robowars.org/info-news.html
A bit of updated information, a page for each state based on the current website basic structure similar to the robots teams sub structure or information substrucutre but with redirects from subdomains to each relevant page. should be doable with limited work, not as much thoughlife support above the current setup compared to a new and fancy site. Remove all the stuff that makes 2004 look like the most up to date information and the site could be decent for current needs. (Just vometting ideas)

If it was to happen so each state organisation had their own page and similar maybe a few $$ from club funds could be directed to upkeep of the domain and hosting to help brett out afterall he has been so generous over the many years.


Would sidetracked have a problem with all states trading as robowars <insert state here> ? I remember at one stage there was some talk about only vic sidetracked events or other events of class and organisation attaching the name robowars.
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Think bringing all the clubs under robowars <insert state here> would be good, stop a bit of confusion and make it work a bit more like one.

All for a change in the website, change is good keeps things moving. Maybe it won't get too many newbies but with a new unified name and an updated website it might give all of us a bit of a lift.

Always thought a bit more of an accessible and bigger profile on the robots and their builders would be good. We always have to delve deep into this site through lots of pages to find out who where what.... and what the rankings are etc.
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Here's what my next step is:

I'm going to mock up a home page to the best of my abilities in how I envision it should look, will post and ask for constructive criticism. We can decide where to go from there regarding how it'll be produced properly and where it will be located.