Dominance of pushers at AWS46

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

Agreed. My idea would be to chip in for the cost of building it but have it stored and brought to events by someone who always can. Peter is always willing to bring his arena, would it be much different for him if it was a different arena he was bringing, long as it took up similar space? (I'm not volunteering Peter, just using the example). An ideal candidate for storer/transporter would be Dave Weston, but again, not volunteering anyone.

[razerdave]

Then I'll volunteer myself .
My arena was a bit scrappy because I used what was free/what I had. If the community is willing to fund a new arena I'll be happy to build, transport and store it.

PS: I haven't forgotten about getting the rule vote together, just not had 5 mins to sit down and go through the various opinions/options.

[EpicentrE]

For reference, the polycarbonate for mine and Andy's arena was a 3050x2050x4mm sheet, and it cost £201 with free shipping and cutting.

I think if we're looking at having someone transport the arena in their "normal sized" car, then realistically the arena surface will need to be in multiple pieces, so we'll just have to ensure that when it goes together the surface is as smooth as possible and that there's no ridges for bots to catch themselves on.

[Shakey]

It'd be really tough to get a smooth join, it would be easier to have some kind of flexible material; for the floor that can be rolled/unrolled and secured over the arena.

[EpicentrE]

The ability to be rolled up, the rigidity to provide a flat fighting surface and the durability to take hits from spinners bouncing along it don't seem to be compatible . The only thing I can think of would be some fairly thin polycarbonate which could be forced into a car in a U shape.

[Rapidrory]

Alternatively, just make the arena floor as big as it can be whilst fitting in the car; Joints or removable surfaces are likely to be more trouble than a slightly smaller arena..

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

I reckon the size of the fighting surface can be slightly smaller if the drop off is decreased. In all the US examples, the drop off parts are like additional units rather than part of the fighting surface like we currently have. Peter's and Scott/Andy's arena all have to have a big enough battlebox to cover the fighting platform AND the drop offs combined. With the US ones this is not the case. The drop off part can be a whole separate module and thus easier to store.

[MikeNCR]

Seeing as a few of you were interested in my arena I figured I'd link to a post I made about it recently on my site-

http://nearchaos.net/bringing-an-arena- ... etirement/

That post shows a lot of the key features of the box, but doesn't cover everything.

Area: ~6ft square
Floor: Painted MDF
Structure: Steel
Walls: 1/4" lexan

The arena consists of the following major sections:
Floor (Includes combat surface, kick plate, pushout cutouts)
Roof (includes lights, access hatches)
Legs (4x)
Walls (4x)
Pits (2x)
Pit Covers (2x)
Hazard

Setup process is generally as follows:
Attach legs to floor with single massive bolt per leg
slide pits into pit mount holes
insert hazard into hazard cutout in arena floor
slide lexan into wall grooves (brackets welded to legs and upper surface of kick plate)
pin pit covers to walls
drop roof into openings at top of legs
plug in lights/hazard

The whole process takes <15min with two people and outside of the roof, the whole assembly process can be done solo with some careful maneuvering.

[Occashokka]

Wow an arena floor flipper as well, ant weight arenas here are nowhere near that fancy.how much would a flipper add to the cost?

[EpicentrE]

Well we'd want to question whether we want one first. I certainly don't. Never been a fan of non-static arena hazards outside of button-activated pits.

That arena does look really good though, and looks fairly painless to put together.