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DavidM
Joined: 07 Jul 2004
Posts: 41
Location: Victoria, Australia, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy
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We are yet to have our finest hour.
I'm a relative newcomer, but I remember a meeting with Team Rotwang, Tim and Jason at Spockies house with only two bots and hearing of Vertex up north. Less than a year later it was Robowars, recently the Annihilator was huge and RW2 is up the barrel. Exposure on TV, the websites, looking at the number of people we are growing modestly, I'm certainly not worried about not being able to find someone to rumble with. _________________ "Limitation shows the Master."
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Sun Aug 29, 2004 8:29 pm |
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Spockie-Tech
Site Admin
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 3160
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Organising big gala events like the public RoboWars one takes a fair bit of effort, plus SideTracked threw a spanner in the works by disassembling their dodgem car arena on us.. They have plans to reassemble it, but it will take them at least another 6 months. in the meantime we are working on plans to hold a big event anyway, and quite possibly at least 1, maybe more builders events before the years end.
This year we got distracted by the TV filming project, followed up by the big trip to sydney..
Since we've been back I *have* been working on the next event - it was our original plan to hold them 6 monthly originally and encourage other states to do about the same, so every month or two there would be a major event on in a different state for those who want to travel, but keep it easy for the locals who dont to get to a major event once or twice a year.
Instead Sydney has gone for smaller fights more often, and Andrew has had a few small fights in queensland, and thats it. Its not the sport thats dying, its the number of people prepared to get off their ass and organisie a proper event that is low.
At the first Robowars event, we had 16 bots and most didnt work very well, 6 months later at marayong we had 30+ bots and the fighting quality was much higher. nearly doubled the numbers in 6 months, with TV coverage to occur just after, and someones worried about it dying ??
In America and the UK, they grew *too* fast, went straight for the boom time with major TV coverage, the sport exploded in popularity not because the people who got involved like the sport, they liked the *TV*. When the TV went away for a while (The general publics interest is a fickle thing), then the big $ bot builders disocevered that its hard to do out of your own pocket at the 100Kg + classes and closed up waiting for the TV fame to come back.
In the meantime however, a new generation of *real* builder who arent just seeking the fame of the TV lens has sprung up and the sport is now growing at a healthier sustainable rate.. have a look at
www.metalmunchingmaniacs.com
- I just ordered their 4-DVD set.
I have no doubt that this sport will still exist in a signifcant way on 50 years. it may or may not be on prime time TV. We may end up being the creators of Skynet and get turned on by our own creation (the old frankenstein myth), or the skills we are acquiring may make us all the designers of a future company called "World Robots inc." (or similair).
Where it goes is up to *you* - watching others to see if its dying so you know whether to jump ship or not just means you arent living your dreams, instead your fears. Go Forth and do as your imagination tells you can be done.. _________________ Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people
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Mon Aug 30, 2004 9:26 am |
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