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decalkins
Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 69
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RFL / FRA weight limits
I thought I'd start a different thread to keep it separate from the ROBlympics thread.
Here's what wer'e talking about in terms of weight limits merging between the separate orgs:
As we're seeing, there are more people coming from different countries - Brazil and the UK espeically, but also Korea and Germany.
I don't think there's a person in robot combat who doesn't see this as a real sport. Of course it's a fun hobby, but it's also a sport - just like pick-up baseball vs. MLB, it can be both.
As such, and as commisioner, I'd like to work with the FRA (UK, Netherlands, and germany), Korea, and Brazil to bring all events together in same/same weight classes.
This will be a bitter pill to swallow, but in a year, no one will remember the shift. In most cases, it's a negligable change. In some, it's... bigger. I think the biggest resistance will be CHANGE! The UK doesn't want to consider the Euro replacing the Pound, the US can't think of kilometers replacing miles, etc. Let's work together to institute a MINOR change now, to save years of aggravation as the sport moves forward. Our kids will thank us. Most robots last a 1-3 years tops anyway, so as new robots get built, they'd repalce the old ones.
In all cases but two, the change is always within 1 pound or 1 Kg.
I'm opening this forum for comment before calling a vote in the EO field.
Proposal to change weight classes to bring weights into intergers for both Metric and US. This would mean some classes would change for both countries, but we'd all have even-numbered weights. In boxing, the weights are often odd numbers (e.g., 121 lbs), so not ending in zero is not such a big deal):
We'll leave the insects alone.
I suspect that the biggest argument will be over hobbyweight losing a pound.
In all other cases, robots are still valid in the new weights, so there's no need to ADD classes, we're merely upping the limit. I do NOT want to add five new classes - just slightly modify the existant classes in all countries, so everyone is on the same scale, and there are never arguments. As 5 of 6 classes get to add weight, I hope this will be an easily accepted change.
US/Australia/Brazil-
340 lbs becomes unified SuperHeavyWeight 341.0 lbs (155.0 Kg)
220 lbs becomes unified HeavyWeight @ 220.0 lbs (100.0 Kg)
120 lbs becomes unified MiddleWeight @ 121.0 lbs (55.0 Kg)
60 lbs becomes unified LightWeight @ 66.0 lbs (30.0 Kg)
30 lbs becomes unified FeatherWeight @ 30.0 lbs (13.6 Kg)
12 lbs becomes unified HobbyWeight @ 13.2 lbs (6.0 Kg)
UK/Germany/Netherlands/Sweden -
200Kg SuperHeavyWeight class becomes unified SuperHeavyWeight @ 155Kg
100Kg Heavyweight class becomes unified HeavyWeight @ 100Kg
50Kg MiddleWeight class becomes unified MiddleWeight @ 55Kg
12Kg FeatherWeight class becomes unified FeatherWeight @ 13.6Kg
6 Kg Raptor class becomes unified HobbyWeight @ 6kg
Korea-
30 Kg class becomes unified LightWeight @ 30 Kg
How this affects Australia:
Hobby, light, and middle-weigth bots get a slight added weight. It doesn't shift feathers or heavy's. Most of what you guys fight is featehrs, and the latest comprimise between the FRA and RFL keeps featehrs at 30 lbs/13.6 kilos...
None of the above are carved in stone (i've already made several changes to my initial proposal.) The goal is not to change weight classes, but bring all events together in an easy-to-understand system between lbs and kilos.
Later, I'd like the general rules to merge so that no matter where you go, you understand the rules and there are no surprizes.
As this goes, I'd like to bring the Aussie orgs into the RFL. You've got nothing to lose, and you get voting rights in decisions - so everythign to gain.
I'm really trying to get all countries to use a common ruleset, so in 20 years when the sport is HUGE, we aren't still arguing over 1/2 a pound or weather or not you can use flame weapons...
-David Calkins
Commisiner, Robot Fighting League.
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Fri Jul 21, 2006 12:35 pm |
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Knight
Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 111
Location: Sydney, Australia
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As Rotwang said, feathers are the most important class to us here. I'm all for this. And i think having a worldwide standard ruleset would be the best thing thats happened to the sport.
As Phillip mentioned elsewhere on the forum:
The US have so many spinners that their ruleset should be followed in that area and the UK/Europe has so many flippers that their ruleset should be followed for pneumatics, IMO.
I reakon that hits the nail on the head, the experience is divided, so use everyones strengths.
On a slightly related topic
quote:
As this goes, I'd like to bring the Aussie orgs into the RFL. You've got nothing to lose, and you get voting rights in decisions - so everythign to gain.
I reakon we go for this, if we are going to make a worldwide ruleset and weightset its worth being there for the deciding. And hey it shows how much the sport is growing down here, that we've been recognised as large enough to need to contribute to the decisions.
My only questions are who wants to be our representative? And voting rights, will each part of the world have an equal say, or will it be one sided?
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Sat Jul 22, 2006 2:21 pm |
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