AWS55 - 30th June 2018 - Dunchurch Village Hall

[cmalton]

I have now updated this with confirmed details.

Date: 30th June 2018
Time: 09:00 - 16:00
Venue: Dunchurch Village Hall, CV22 6PN
Organiser: ARC Robotics - Chris Malton
Sign-ups open: http://antlog.garya.org.uk/event/10
Sign-ups close: Wednesday 27th June 2018
Arena: ARC Antweight Arena (Pete W has been asked as a backup option).

I would greatly appreciate all teams making a donation towards the running costs of this event. A suggested donation is £5.

If you are possibly coming (but aren't 100% sure), I'd far prefer you signed up then dropped out than turned up unannounced. For insurance and fire safety reasons, I need to be able to work out roughly how many people I am going to have on venue at any point in time.

Venue map:


General directions

From the North West (Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool)

• Take the M6 Eastbound towards the A14

• Exit at Junction 2 onto the A46, signposted Coventry (E)

• Take the exit for Coventry Airport, Baginton, Ryton, Business Parks, Retail Park

• Take the first exit at the roundabout onto the A45 (East), signposted Ryton, M45, M1 South, Rugby

• At the first roundabout take the second exit to stay on A45

• At the second roundabout take the second exit to stay on A45

• At the third roundabout take the first exit, signposted Dunchurch, B4429, Non-motorway traffic

• At Dunchurch Cross Roads ("The Dun Cow" pub on your left), turn Left onto A426.

• Dunchurch Village Hall is approximately 0.3 miles up the road on your right hand side

From the North East (Leeds, Newcastle, York, Sheffield)

• Take the M1 Southbound

• Exit at Junction 20 onto the A4303, signposted Lutterworth, Rugby

• Take third exit at the roundabout onto the A4303

• Take the first exit at the roundabout onto the A426 Rugby Road, signposted Rugby

• Continue on A426, passing through the center of Rugby

• You will pass a large Sainsbury's on your left hand side

• At the roundabout after the Sainsbury's take the second exit, signposted Southam, Banbury, Dunchurch

• Dunchurch Village Hall is approximately 0.6 miles along the road on your left hand side

From the South (London, Portsmouth, Reading)

• Take the M1 Northbound

• Exit at Junction 17 onto the M45, signposted Lutterworth, Rugby

• At the first roundabout, take second exit at the roundabout onto the B4429

• At Dunchurch Cross Roads ("The Dun Cow" pub on your left), turn Left onto A426.

• Dunchurch Village Hall is approximately 0.3 miles up the road on your right hand side

By public transport

• The nearest railway station is Rugby (served by Virgin Trains West Coast and West Midlands Trains (formerly London Midland).

• There is a bus stop just outside the venue served by the 63 and 64 buses (operated by Stagecoach Midlands).

• The nearest airport is Birmingham International Airport. There are direct rail services from Birmingham International to Rugby.

[cmalton]

OK, here we go then - I'm closing sign-ups in the next 20 mins or so.

Key points:
- Please arrive promptly! We have a lot of battles to get through and I will make sure that somebody is on front desk from 9AM to take registrations. As soon as I can get a second person on the front desk I will, and if there's space and cubes to do it I'll get a third on it.
- We will, once again, be displaying details of Now/Next/Next+1/Next+2 battles on at least two screens across the room (aiming for 3). Please keep a close eye on them so you know when you're up next and be ready to do battle promptly.
- There will be no official lunch break. We expect there to be sufficient time between battles for teams to have lunch. My crew will take a break where they can for lunch. If we are sufficiently ahead, we may introduce a lunch break.
- Fleas and Nanos will be run at the end of the day if there is time.
- Standard antweight rules apply as per the published rules (I believe v4.2 is current).
- All robots must pass a tech-check - you will be asked to demonstrate correct operation of all failsafe devices to myself or one of the other members of my team.
- Sharp edge protection - I only care about this on edges you / someone else might accidentally cut yourself on. If it's a solid lump with a fairly blunt edge (most discs thicker than 1.5mm or so etc) not massively worried about it - please use common sense and if you're not sure, please err on the side of caution.
- All Lipo charging *really* needs to happen in Lipo bags. If you don't have one I will have few spare.
- Registration & tech check is mandatory on the day.
- There is plenty of parking, however, please follow any instructions from John (limpet) as he will be in the car park directing traffic for me.
- Power tools - Avoid mains powered if you can. Battery powered is fine (although please don't drill into the tables!).
- Chargers, etc - No Heath-Robinson contraption style chargers please. For insurance reasons I cannot allow crazy arrangements with ATX power supplies in cardboard boxes (sorry!). I will, however, have two of my quad chargers (bring your own banana plug to whatever leads) on hand if needed.
- Other electrical equipment may be subjected to checks by myself, or any one of the team working with me.
- My AWS wifi will be in play primarily for competition management (and nothing else - please don't start sucking down your Windows Updates over it - I will kick you off it!).
- Your nearest food vending place is the Sainsbury's ~5 minutes up the road by car. It is not advised to walk it. I would strongly encourage bringing food with you.

If you have a problem with any of the above, please feel free to message me and I will happily explain further or discuss the issue with you. On the day, I'd ask that you bring any issues to my attention as soon as possible so we can fix them.

For those of you still building, good luck - and I'll see you at the weekend!

[GeorgeR]

Sounds good, and thanks for getting the date up so early, that's really helpful.

[AntRoboteer]

Sounds great. Almost certainly be able to make this one.

[Ocracoke]

I should have my new Ant built by then so I should be able to make this

[Shakey]

I guess I can come along and attempt to break your new arena from the inside.

[Derek Dudge]

Awesome. Relatively nearby, and with plenty of time to make sure I'm not working means I definitely want to get to this. Gotta miss this month's AWS so I'm glad to see the plans for the next go up early.

Will have a new robot built by then too!

[limpet]

Pretty certain we could attend this, practically on our doorstep.

[techie]

The day is marked on my calendar, will be the first event I compete at. I'll hopefully have a few working Ants by then!

[cmalton]

We're still doing some juggling on the venue front as one of the choices hasn't quite worked out. There are, however, several choices in/around Rugby/Daventry area and I've just sent off the email to request the booking of one of them and should get an answer fairly quickly. I will provide further updates as soon as I have them.