AWS 40

[joey_picus]

I think they definitely have the critical mass for it to be something that could be done at the SAC or RFRC, organiser permitting of course! It's something for the committee to mull over I think, but removing them as an obligation for hosting the AWS would free up a lot of time spent tech checking and doing the draw for them, as you've said.

As for being able to function as their own event, it might work out for people whose organisational skills don't stretch to hosting a full AWS (such as, as was sadly proven in Pontefract, me) who could use a copy of AntLog and random.org to do something for a smaller number of robots - also the numbers of people involved would probably be low enough to be able to host it in a classroom or even part of a pub like the 'good old days'! The big problem though would be getting people to turn up I think, it's hard to see the fleaweights being enough of a reason to put time, money, planning etc. into attending an event for a lot of people.

Apologies if this doesn't make much sense, I am running on about three hours of sleep right now XD

(Thinking out loud, might a two day AWS work if the fleas happened the evening before the main event? That would reduce the strain on attendees who only had antweights, although obviously the extra hall hire and things is still an issue...)

[earthwormjim]

Hi Guys. I seem to have missed EVERYONE at the end! Was it something I said??:( (LOL)
Fantastic day,thanks to Will,and everyone involved.And to the winners.Well done guys.My robots performed very well. Hell boy was into the final 10 or so,and Omelette Du Fromage came 3rd in the fleas! Fantom did very well,right up to when it met Ripto! But it will return,for sure. The Barbarian was a nightmare,and ripped the charge wire and power switch off TWICE! That'll teach me for using hot glue to hold the swith in place on a big spinny thing!The distance from the arena to the pits kept me fit all day running back and forth.But the extra space was great,especially with so many people being there. As a big fan of fleas,I think getting rid of the FWS might be the best solution. Fleas can still ennter the AWS as part of a cluster,so they wouldnt need to dissapear altogether,and I think that we do need to slow things down from where they were today.
Brilliand day though.Nice to see everyone,as always.
Cheers,Jim.

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

I think the FWS is gaining strength all the time and needs to be kept! I'm a big fan of it and we will struggle to fly across for 3 AWSs a year, so never would for a stand alone fleaweight championship. I think we could do other things to speed up the day. The obvious one that hasn't been said yet is to do two arenas for every AWS, at least for the early stages. You could be setting up in one whilst the fight in the other happens, or have two fights go simultaneously if time is getting tight.
Or maybe move the FWS to the end of the day, get straight on with the main AWS from the start, no warm up comp, then FWS can run alongside the fun events at the end given time. Then if someone wants to chance their flea in the AWS beforehand its up to them.
Lots of solutions before a two day event though, which would probably just decrease numbers anyway, therefore negating the need for it in the first place.

Hi Jim!

[razerdave]

Hey folks.

First off, massive thanks to Will, Kat, Finian and Co. for a great event, hope you'd can do it again some time (but we want headsets next time so we can all do commentary ).
Secondly, I want to profusely apologise for my bad mood after a few of the matches; frustration set in and my general moods not been great over the last few weeks, so if I was rude or crass with anyone (Dave L, Oliver, Will, etc), I am very sorry.

I've learnt a few things from this AWS, like giving Little Devil a Ti flipper and some to drive it that can drive 2 sticks (sorry Jarvis ). And a few other things for the other machines. Also learnt not to underestimate certain robots (Ant Clank being the noted one).

As for fleas, I agree with Dave, they should stay. If you get rid of anything, it should be the non spinner comp. I think the main factor for slowing the event down was having the pita and arena in 2 rooms and we couldn't hear the mike for half of it.

So, lets do it all again shall we? . Anyone volunteering for AWS 41?

[dcr raptor]

With the FWS, if we make it its own event, why not run it along side a smaller antweight event, and possibly even a nanoweight and super antweight event if those weight classes gain a bit of popularity.

[peterwaller]

I had a great time and thanks to Will and co for organising the day.
As has been said the seperation of the arenas and pits seemed to be the main cause of delays but there were a lot of fights to get through.
The reduced dropoff I think made the fights more interesting but probably also lengthened them also.
If anything needs to be dropped I suggest the warm up event not the fleas but I think the real answer is running the events simultaneously in two arenas or coming up with an alternative to double elimination.
Someone at the event asked about a repair to one of my controllers but I can't remember who so if they could PM me we can sort something out.

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

I think that might've been Will, Peter. I gave him mine for May Nothing but Happiness... but it mysteriously stopped working.

[BeligerAnt]

Dropping the non-spinner comp wouldn't change anything. The FWS took much longer to complete.
We already run the non-spinner in parallel with FWS and limit people to one comp or the other and non-spinner to one robot per person/team so it really doesn't affect the overall time.

The reason for introducing the non-spinner comp was to give people more fights, particularly newcomers who probably only have one robot. Similarly, double elimination gives everyone at least 2 fights.

A two-day event would bring its own significant problems. A Friday/Saturday event would mean people taking a day off work, a Saturday/Sunday would mean travelling on Sunday (more difficult for those relying on trains). Both would mean significant extra effort and cost for the host. I don't think I would be willing to host an event if it was forced to be 2 days just to accomodate FWS.

So how about having an early start for the FWS? It actually only affects a small number of people, who simply have to get up a bit earlier . Most halls are rented for the day so available from 9am or so. Starting the FWS at 10:00 and allowing it to run "autonomously" while the AWS is set up, tech checked, etc might be a workable solution.

There is always the option of reducing the number of entries by limiting to 3 per team instead of 4. The rise in popularity of fleas, and hence clusters, has increased the number of 4-robot teams - although whether this would make a significant difference to the number of entries I don't know.

Another possibility is to change the format of the competition as PeterW suggested. One idea is to keep double elimination for the group stages, then go to straight knockout for the last 16. It would only reduce the number of fights by 7 (I think) but it would make the final stages a lot simpler to follow with straightforward quarter-, semi-, finals. Many big competitions work this way with multi-match group stages leading to a knockout final stage (e.g. football World Cup).

All this does leave me wondering what we used to do all day back in "the old days" when we had no fleas, no warm-up, single elimination, and only about 30 ants...

Oh yeah, we spent most of the time waiting for people to fix their robots...

[olivers]

I think the flea/non-spinner warmup could have been started earlier as I think we didn't start fighting until 11 and then the main event at 1.

If the fleas were from 10-12 then a quick break for lunch and then AWS from 12-30 to 5 then this would be perfect.

Will's organising was superb but as always there can be improvements. Towards the end there was more notice of matches coming up, this was great as people didn't know when they were on.

In the past we have had the group stages printed out so people know when they are fighting, this is something I really missed as you didn't know what was a group stage, loses stream, winners stream. If we had projectors this could be shown on a big screen and updated as each match happens and could show the next few matches.

All the above seems negative but it was one of the best run and most efficient AWS we have had in a while, and is hard when people have a few ants each and there are lots of people.

[robotmad]

Many thanks to everyone involved in hosting the AWS40 event (and the university for providing the venue) it was a great day and a huge event.

Reading the comments and suggestions for how to evolve the event in future to accommodate the increase in populatity and hence number of participating teams and robots my input would be:

• We do need to do something so that teams which are not likely to be in regular competition for the top places can be sure of getting more than just 2 fights per robot - the "fun" battles (tag teams, meles, annihilator) contribute massively to this. This is particularly important for new teams which, as someone else has already commented, often start with a single robot. Across the whole day we got 14 fights across two teams but that was only because we now have 5 robots, if this had been our first event with a single robot I'm not sure we'd be coming back. Please don't take this as a criticism of the organisation on the day as I felt that in the circumstances everyone did the best they could - it was clearly necessary to give priority to finsishing the main event over facilitating other battles.
• Other than the shear number of robots taking part I felt that the lack of visibility of the fights coming up was the main cause of delays (not the separation of the pits per se). Personally it takes us about 5 minutes to connect batteries and secure all robot pieces in place ready to do battle (assuming no damage to repair). When the upcoming battles were announced in blocks ahead of time that was a big help.
• Huge fan of double elimination, please don't drop it.
• Huge fan of combined FWS and AWS at the event, I don't think FWS would survive on its own.
• A two day event would be unwelcome, an earlier start seems OK.
• Huge fan of the new arena features which are conducive to longer fights. If you consider the time spent getting robots setup and into the arena I think that having longer actual fights doesn't contribute much to the lenght of the competition but is much more rewarding to the competitors after the hours and hours that are put into building and maintaining the robots.
• Allow 4 entries per team but if the total number of robots wishing to take part gets too large then limit each team to their "top" three (4 copies of virtually identical robots is a bit boring after a while).
• To maximise the number of distinct teams getting through to the later stages could the draw be organised so that only one robot from each team could progress from the group stage - this would also mean that competitors in the final stages would only have one robot to focus their attention on so it would be more likley to be ready to battle? I can imagine that this is a contentious point and has probably been debated previously - are we trying to get the very best two robots (which might in fact be from the same team) to the final or are we trying to maximise team participation and enjoyment?
• But the best suggestion I've seen, now that there are multiple excellent arenas in existance, is to run two arenas during the early stages. This would enhance the video streaming by providing a more continuous level of activity. Now that radio frequency allocation isn't an issue (imagine trying to run an event with 80 ish robots where you had to control the transmitters and change frequencies between battles too!), once the main competition has entered the final stages, the second arena could switch over to "fun" use for those already knocked out.
Thanks again for a great event, it was good to see so many both familiar and new faces. :D Chris