Future Roaming Robots events

Place discussions about upcoming events here in this thread.

Moderators: BeligerAnt, petec, administrator

User avatar
Simon Windisch
Posts: 1806
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2003 12:00 am
Location: Reading
Contact:

Future Roaming Robots events

Post by Simon Windisch »

Hi there,

I had a mad idea about Roaming Robots that I thought I'd run past Jonno (the head man) before I talked to you about it, because it might have been a no-go from the start, but it isn't, and he sounds interested. Here are the emails...
Hi Jonno,

Just to reintroduce myself to you, I am Simon Windisch, and as a member of the antweight community, we shared a stand at London expo, as well as other events.

My son and I attended this afternoon's Easter robot rumble, and I had an idea that I thought I'd bounce off you, to see what you thought.

Today we watched 8-10 battles over two hours, and each fight had a 5-15 minute gap in-between. By the way we had a brilliant time.

Your announcers did a great job of filling the gaps, but on the way home I had an idea that we could have antweight battles as an additional "gap filler". I just counted the number of battles we had at the 21st Antweight World Series competition, and in the space of about two hours we had 63 battles.

Basically my idea is that we have two or three antweight battles when needed, we can have the robots ready. You can invite the younger members of the audience to watch directly and screen the battles (there always seems to be a projector around when I go to Expo) for the more sedentary members of the audience.

We can show little clips of the "best of" each robot about to battle and introduce them to the audience, but I'm getting ahead of myself. If you think this idea has any validity, then let me know, we'll see if we can take it further.

All the best, and see you soon at the next Expo, no doubt (I assume that Marco is liasing with you as usual?)

Simon
and here is his reply
Thanks for the email.

We tried to do this before but for some reason didn't
get very far, but i agree it has mileage.

There are a few things we need to make this work.

1) a projector, and screen, i have been meaning to buy
one for ages maybe it is time !!

2) frequencies, do you have a current list of
frequencies of your competitors, this is the main
stumbling black last time, as they have to be on
separate frequencies so they don't interfere with the
proceedings, with the introduction of 2.4ghz this must
be easier now.

3) inviting audience around if difficult as we had
problems with viewing past a couple of rows of people.


I am willing to work on it though.
and my reply to him
That sounds great. I haven't put it to my antweight buddies yet. I was waiting for your response.

1. I'll find out who brought along the projector to the antweight events I've been to. We'll need a screen as well, I think, perhaps to go in front of the heavyweight arena so the grownups can watch fom their seats.

2. We can stick to the bottom five frequencies, as we did at Aylesbury a couple of years back, and at Excel last year, although some of us now have 2.4GHz sets.

3. It might work if just the kids watch it live, and the rest watch the screen?

Oh yes, mentioning Aylesbury reminds me of something. We did attend Aylesbury in 2005, but didn't go in 2006 because you implemented a single membership fee to roaming robots which was a bit too steep for us antweight people, especially as we don't have the same safety costs as feather/heavyweights. Could this be negotiable?
So sorry for not mentioning this before, but I thought it would be best to see if Roaming Robots were interested first.

Simon
User avatar
Marco Roberts
Posts: 336
Joined: Sun Jun 23, 2002 12:00 am
Location: London
Contact:

Post by Marco Roberts »

Hey Simon
Yeah this was done in the past. Back in the day of the 2002 easter debenham robot rumble (i think) we did this. The plan was -
We had two tournements, one in the morning and one in the evening.
The quarter finalists would then fight in the main arena. Basically we jus put the ant weight arena in the heavy weight arena (while the heavys were being dragged in and our) and ran the fights through a projector.
But this went down the drain when we had a bit of stick from them. Basically they said 8 ant weight competitors max. Then they only gave us 3 frequencys to work with.
We can try and work with the heavy weights again. But remember, they dont give us much respect.


By the way, kain owns the projector used at the excel event. Hes in teh behmoth team and turns up to 99% of the roaming robots compeitions.
<-=AWS 10 1st and 2nd champ=->
<-=AWS 13 1st and 2nd champ=->
User avatar
Simon Windisch
Posts: 1806
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2003 12:00 am
Location: Reading
Contact:

Post by Simon Windisch »

Thanks Marco,

I think that perhaps things have improved since then? I found Roaming Robots quite easy to work with at Aylesbury and at Excel...

Do you think it would be better if we had the antweight arena to the side of the main arena? Then we could set up without waiting for them to clear the arena.

Simon
leo-rcc
Posts: 469
Joined: Thu Aug 03, 2006 8:44 am
Location: Hoogvliet, The Netherlands
Contact:

Post by leo-rcc »

I think showing Katjuscha at a RR event in Swindon has also spiked interest again, because kids flocked to it like bees to honey.
Best regards,

Leo van Miert.
Dutchrobotgames
Team RCC website
User avatar
BeligerAnt
Posts: 1872
Joined: Wed May 15, 2002 12:00 am
Location: Brighton
Contact:

Post by BeligerAnt »

At Modelworld we had no frequency problems with RR because they were only using about three 40MHz frequencies. Most of them seem to have gone to 2.4GHz already.

We used PeteC's projector at Modelworld (just to show DVDs). You would need a serious projector for an outdoor event though...

Sounds good, but the membership cost was an issue last year. Hopefully there is room for negotiation, especially since most of us can only realistically attend a small number of RR events, what with AWS, RRC etc (and some of us have lives outside of robots! :wink: )
Gary, Team BeligerAnt
User avatar
Marco Roberts
Posts: 336
Joined: Sun Jun 23, 2002 12:00 am
Location: London
Contact:

Post by Marco Roberts »

since things have improved then i am up for it. I will be going to a lot more roaming robots events due to building a feather and heavy.
It would improve there events by a mile.
Kain from the behmoth team has teh projector and I am sure he wouldnt mind setting up teh projector to a static camera overlooking the ants.
Mention to jono that he has a following. As long as we are treated with some respect (which we had zero off in past roaming robot events) then were up for it?
<-=AWS 10 1st and 2nd champ=->
<-=AWS 13 1st and 2nd champ=->
tom of technology
Posts: 122
Joined: Mon Mar 13, 2006 7:07 pm

Post by tom of technology »

depends where it is but i think i could do it if it goes ahead

great idea
User avatar
Simon Windisch
Posts: 1806
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2003 12:00 am
Location: Reading
Contact:

Post by Simon Windisch »

From John
It will be interesting to find out if there is an
interest from the antweights to come to our shows
thats for sure, ill try and keep my eye on your thread
to see how it evolves.

Sticking to the bottom frequencies would work, is 5
enough then? And of course the 2.4 makes life easier.

In terms of membership, i wasnt really aware of the
issue with antweights, i think we get too wrapped up
in things and miss simple things. I would be willing
to sort something out
as i can see it is a bit steep for an antweight, we
just have to be right for the insurance etc.. and
links to the fra.

So really its down to me getting a projector and
screen, and then seeing if your guys want to come
along sometime to try it out.

Maybe you would be interested in joining us at the UK
champs as a side attraction.
Well those championships will be on 28th - 31st August which is during the week, so I wouldn't be able to make it... although it would have been great fun. Their schedule is at http://www.roamingrobots.co.uk/events_calendar.htm does anyone have any preferences? I think we'll need at least four definites before we can say yes to John.

Simon
User avatar
Simon Windisch
Posts: 1806
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2003 12:00 am
Location: Reading
Contact:

Post by Simon Windisch »

Hmm, if we can't get four people committing to one of these events then we're probably in trouble as a community.

Simon
User avatar
olivers
Posts: 533
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2002 12:00 am
Location: Reading
Contact:

Post by olivers »

RR in August is in Wales, bit far to go for me as can't really justify it.
Post Reply