I was wondering about everyone's thoughts as to where we want to be in 10 years time in regards to combat robots.
Do we want it any different to now?
Do we want to see 'All terrain" robots?
Do we need to change our tact and develop our hobby to be more appealing to the masses?
How do we attract more builders?
Is there a future?
Do we scale down our robots and build small areans 2Mx2M therefore making displays etc a lot easier.

Just a thread to throw around ideas and everyone's thoughts.
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quote:

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Originally posted by chrisjon65:
Do we need to change our tact and develop our hobby to be more appealing to the masses?

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IMHO, I think spinners are the biggest issue of the sport. Now, I don't say this because I hate spinners and think they should all be banned (Quite the opposite), but the damage they cause (I know we love it!) taxes heavily on the builders, who do this crazy hobby for fun.. Now it's just like motorsports, everyone loves seeing crashes, and it's great entertainment, but it's not so good when your the one shelling out the money. Spinners bring not only the costs up for builders, but also for event organisers with expensive arenas to contain all the debri and strapnel.

I strongly believe without spinners, we could have more people with robots able to survive a full event without much work needed between events. Therefore, most people should be able to attend more events regular (pending other commitments). Also, without the need for expensive arenas, we could have a lot more back yard events where only basic safety screening would be adequate.

And yes, less wedges would make the sport more interesting... Or at least wedges with weapons that do something...
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lies, spinners are probably the easiest robots to build actively speaking. and whenever a new person sees the robots thats the first thing they want to make.

just look at pretty well everyone heres first build post its all spinner spinner spinner. and without them the sport is as interesting as watching grass grow. most of the events we have without at least one spinner are completly yawners (sorry but they are )

If the last robot you made gets ruined build it better or build something to go against them. whatever you build should be THE BEST. if it gets trashed it was not and you use whatever you learnt from that last effort to make one even better again!

my last robots take on spinners pretty well with impunity (sorta ) they just couldnt really beat anything that wasnt a spinner cause they had no weapons of their own thus i make one with the same armour and chassis with a big ass spinner on the front. still take on spinners and actively take people out. if that doesnt work ill make a better one again

skills have been learnt from previous attempts and enjoyement is the result! i can honestly say if we still had the arena we originally had and had no spinners i would definitely not have the same level of interest or probably even still be building.

BUT

how do i want the future to be..? personally dont care much for getting new people in. if its easy to find through google (which it is unlike when most of us got into it) then the people that want to do it can get into it. if i want to get into bike racing i google bike racing nsw and find it.. simple. ive never gotten into a hobby by finding a poster somewhere and going hmm id like to give that a go.

i just do it for personal enjoyment so id like to see something more challenging as our skills improve. only way is up! = bigger weight classes. also like to see more local attempts back into it to have bigger events more often. some events are big others small. need to do something to have bigger events (10 robots at least) more consistantly in nsw..

the big public events once a year in brisbane and melbourne are plenty enough fun for me in all regards (shut up aaron XD)

so yeah in the future id like to see bigger weight classes come into play. all the way up into heavyweights eventually. feasible? perhaps not... but thats the way i really would like it to go in the ideal fantasy world

how to wrap up such a sensless rant.. oh i look foward to destroying you all at robowars, mwahaaa
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My plans for the Robowars Arena go something like this.

Get it home on a tandem trailer and in one of my Valiant station wagons.

Prep trailer with purpose made frame to locate and support panels and minimize number of people needed to transport arena.

If this works out I might feel more inclined to take arena out on other adventures but at the moment I will leave that to Danny.
All that promoting etc was never my scene.

I am a builder and that’s what I wont to do with the Arena.
I wont an elevated floor so the sides are tied together so the lightweights don’t push the walls out and so we can run a pit.

I an in favor of using a pit in certain matches between similar pushy bots that are evenly matched and difficult to judge.
These matches can get a bit repetitive.
Getting your opponent in the pit is a good way to demonstrate that you have the best-driven or most powerful bot etc.
The builders and spectators seem to enjoy the pit fights and the judges defiantly do and there is less chance of someone feeling they should of won.

I have always wonted a reff bot so I have a POP coming together of him. With the flamethrowers it would be nice to be able to extinguish burning bots by remote control.
The Reff bot will be featherweight size.
Don’t wont to make the competitors look small.
That means I might need a lightweight one too. Mmm just thought of that.

I salvaged an old Vane tune scope a while ago.
It’s going to be the master control consol, I have plenty of ACSSR’s so a computer inside it to control things in RL.
Always wonted to do that.

Another addition will be a sort of bullpen.
Extra panels that can substitute for a sidetracked original with a remote operated door to let the ref bot, arena sweeper, or the competitors enter.
This will be useful for low-level camera work also.

Lots of other plans but must go get a few things done today.
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Satisfaction is proportional to effort and results.

Future wise, eventually i'd love to see it as big as the UK scene, with all weight classes and maybe even televised events.

On a more practical note, I don't think we need to change it to make it more appealing to the masses, i mean, throw 2 spinners in the arena and watch the damage and destruction caused i think should be plenty motivation for the masses.

I think we need to let them know. We have the big events in first Melbourne and now Brisbane. We need a public event in Sydney.

Are the all terrain competitions the way to go? not necessarily, they are something different sure, and yes would not be a bad thing to get running as regularly as the main comp. But originally that concept was to make "hugging the ground wedges" obsolete, as we go on and on, those wedges are becoming less and less prevalent. It makes a good starting robot, because you don't have to worry about a weapon, but the builders themselves are moving past them, because they want the more challenging bots.

I don't think scaling down the size of combat is the way to go, i think having the larger weight classes is definitely the way to become more known. Yes they are harder to have an arena for and of course transport, but bigger bots = more destruction = happy masses. And happy masses means opportunities for TV shows, sponsorship, etc, etc.

The UK and US competitions must logically have been at the same size we are now once upon a time. Look where they are now. Some of us go to the US for the RoboOlympics each year, maybe in the future, we can host an international event.

Speaking of international events...

http://techfest.org/competitions/techtronics/arthrobot/#

We plan on going with a curtin uni team. An other takers?
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They say that he crossed the fine line, from insanity to genius.

I like the responses so far its quiet unusual how we can get such totally different views and directions.
I suppose its hard to cover everyones wishes and come up with one directive.
Do we need or want one directive? or do we all cruise along doing our own thing?
Someone once said to me,It seems it will take 1or 2 individuals who do it all.
Those individuals do it for the love of it and expect nothing in return and they organise and do the lot.
Then the rest just turn up do their thing and go home oblivious to the work that went into the organising.
Difficult people to find indeed.
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Good input from everyone. I would like to see the sport grow across Australia, but not too much - it costs a heap to hold large events and unless the EO can fund everything up front and then get an audience to pay him back, big events cannot happen. Bigger "backyard" events hardly cost anything extra to the current events, so we can certainly grow in that direction.

What we need most is a marketing and promotion guru with some time and money to put into raising public awareness - can't see one coming along any time soon...

One advantage of having the Robowars arena accessible will be Dave Mick and Ian the Kronos guys who wont to do the TV show can work on whenever suits them.
It was there suggestion for a special wall panel for camera work.

Also I am on an acre block so we can run the off roaders without attracting attention.
I still have the unfinished armored trailer I started to control the Ultibot from so that’s still an option.


Once things get sorted I would really like to host a National event as in a private Builders and there teams only event.

We have room for tents and we can accommodate a reasonable number in the house.
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Satisfaction is proportional to effort and results.

Guys whilst I can't claim to be a marketing and promotion expert (though Team Storm is heavily funded by sponsorship, see www.teamstorm.com for details) I'm always happy to offer any input or views.

I'm in Sydney at the moment doing some various bits and pieces, and have just posted with regard to one of the aspects of my trip down here in your forum here http://www.robowars.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1321

Apologies for the cross-post advertising, but thought that anyone subscribed to this thread may be interested in something which could be used to generate some public interest in what you're doing here in Oz. Ashes year, Aussies take on the Brits at more than just cricket ?

It's not quite a marketing/publicity utopia, but it's not far off.

Ed
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Robot Wars World Champions