After a reasonably successful year, its time to plan some improvements for 2010. I hear the new floor is ready to be laid, although I'm not sure is we have the money to paint it. As mentioned at the last event, I have a giant 620 litre fridge/freezer to donate to the venue. Its not is good shape but if we only turn it on for the events, it will last another year or two. I still have that Bandsaw to donate; it just needs 2 or 3 people to help me load it in the van (ditto with the fridge).

There were some good ideas floating around at the last event; getting TAFE and Uni students involved sounds particularly promising. The last Uni interest resulted in them running an internal competition which was pretty lame - we need to get them into our comp with the idea that they will be pushing their skills harder.

There was also talk of a show n' tell at a local school. we would need 3 or 4 bots, some printed hand-outs and lots of video footage.

Finally, we need to start collecting some money. I can tactfully call this year a fee-free recession year, but without some cash, there is no expanding the facilities or attracting more members! Next year its back to $10 per bot per event, plus an annual membership. We had several levels of membership last time and I'm keen to extend that to make it easier for newbies and students.

Event Dates:

20th March

8th May

26th June

14th August

2nd October Battle Shed

4th December

Last edited by Nick on Thu Feb 04, 2010 8:14 pm; edited 1 time in total

main things i can think of are enforce payment to assist us in repairs of arena

look into shows like supernova which i still believe would be perfect to hold a public event, i emailed them with numerous pictures 2 years back and they showed mild interest but didnt persue it further due to other commitments and got lazy

ill be going flat out from mid this week to robowars fixing current robot and starting some new ones, am hopeing to have three done for robowars in feb

repairs to arena, maybe some form of non damaging hazards, was thinking if jeff still had that massive 10kg steel drum with shaft etc put some teeth on it and have it in a wall section and i have a geared motor which at 12 volts does 400rpm and 800 at 24, its a beast and doesnt stop ever (golf buggy motor its series wound) wouldnt do damage but would lift and flip maybe, i know this will get flamed but yeah just throwing it out there

maybe look into woodbotics class again or a sportsman class so we can build more creative designs without fear of being shredded first match by scissorhands

just some ideas off top of my head
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Andrew Welch, Team Unconventional Robotics

I would like to get the battleputer installed somewhere around the arena in a more permanent way, carrying it around makes everybody dependant on me and its not fair on you guys. I did origionaly plan to leave the computer there but theres nowhere out of the rain.

People seem to like the additional fights they get from the system there are some concerns though, in some kind of order.

Its taking too long to set up at the start of the day.
Judges are copying each others scores.
Its not very transparent
People aren't getting feedback about how they are progressing throughout the day.
We should run more rounds in a day.

I don't think we need to change the event format to get new members, dylon seems to have managed. Plan-G is 4mm mild steel angle and it stands up to scissorhands well enough.

Now that Chris is using steel even his bots can stand up to the spinners.

I can see the MDF classes working if we wanted to get into younger school stuff but they would probably learn the most in the unrestricted classes.
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

Last chance if we want a battery / drinks fridge!

My old fridge is waiting to go and all I need is a couple of helpers to get it in & out of the van. If I can't get that lined up by next weekend, the fridge has to go the the recyclers

I'm in Perth otherwise i'd help. !
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YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

I'll be citywards some time next week, let me know when you want to do stuff.
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

What do you mean its not very transparent Jake?
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Farnsworth - "I hate these nerds. Just because I'm stupider than them they think they're smarter than me."

Well at the moment I sit off to the side and make proclamations about whats going on, If I were a dodgy bastard I could rig it such that we only got matches we liked.

The process is detached from the people. I'd rather it was more "communal" if you will such that everybody can see the draws and the results as they happen. Get people a bit more involved.
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

As for next season im not sure which way to go with things.
Heres how i feel about a few things
I have spent $350 on the arena floor,Russell has spent around $70 on paint and the the floor was painted many months ago and has been ready to install at least as long im sure it was stated on the forum somewhere.
Unfortunately due to me running a buisness etc i can only contribute in the form of materials etc it is mostly difficult for me to spend time at home little own installing things.If folks are waiting for me to organise it then you could be waiting a lot longer.
As for the fridge i wouldnt worry about it,it is just another piece of stuff in the pit area and another obstacle to be moved.
I think if numbers increase then maybe,but id dump it for now .
The NSWRFC website issue is something i dont have the ability or knowledge to even discuss,it is something someone would have to do free of charge and continue to maintain on his or own time if folks are willing to this then wonderful,if not its a complete waste of time and best be forgotten.
The battlputer idea is great and streaming of results immediately after the round would be great.

What we all have to decide on and im no different is if we want to have another year of 4-5 robots per round and just chillout on the day, have a sausage sanger 3 battles and go home then cool.
But i dont have time to be proactive in regard to the club and if thats the case or feeling of the 6 builders we do have then lets leave things as they are and just have 3 or 4 a year and dont stress.
But if the majority want more than that then its up to" them to do it" as ive said i can help with materials etc but thats my limit
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Photos- http://community.webshots.com/album/166819552PDWWqP

OK, I got the impression that the floor was a "Chris 'n Russel show" and you didn't want any help. If that's wrong, we need to collectively work out how to get everything over to the arena and then get it laid. I can move full MDF sheets in my van, but its definitely not easy; perhaps we do it 3 or 4 sheets at a time?

I probably have all the installation tools. Is the plan to biscuit join them or glue them down to the existing floor? We also need to work out a quick way to patch the floor. Builder's bog was mentioned, as was a system for making MDF patches with a router and a jig.

The floor will need to be really flat before we lay the MDF or there will be raised edges; we probably have to attack it with angle grinders to knock off all the rough bits

After the last event i think the mdf floor would need to be replaced if it was already there. With all the spinners i think it would last no longer than a day.
Not to mention the full time maintainence crew between rounds.
If a massive divett is created in a battle it will need to be fixed there and then.
Something we need to look at before we install it.
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Photos- http://community.webshots.com/album/166819552PDWWqP

Just wondering what happen for 2010
Events
competition
Arena
classes or leave of bots
membership
money
Have not heard the bottom line on any of these things?

Here is a totally different idea for the new floor: concrete! The original garage floor was pretty uneven and we wouldn't want to damage it with spinners; if we make some simple form work, line it with building plastic, then lay down a 5 cm thick block, we could have a flat floor that should take quite a pounding. It would be repairable with more concrete and would be high traction. If we omitted steel reinforcing, we could break it up and take it away in a weekend.

The steel sheet floor was going to cost several thousand, this could be $500 or less if we get a good deal on the concrete. using an on line calculator, it looks like we would need only 1 cubic meter of concrete to make a 6 by 6 metre slab 5 cm thick. To make this we need: 1.5 tonnes of gravel, 0.75 tonne of sand, and 6 bags of cement. We will also need a small roll of building plastic and some wood for the form work. I suggest we use the floor tiles as part of the form work and simply leave them in place.

Some other advantages:

Lower than the current floor, so bots will be easier to load in and vertical spinners are less likely to break lights.

Water proof; we can even hose it down.

Flame proof

If this gets enough support, I will kick in some cash to get things started!

You might want to consider getting in a concrete truck rather than mixing the individual ingredients. The volume looks like 1.8m^3 to me. That would be 4.3 ton. That is a lot by shovel.
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So even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems