AWS 39 - Coventry - November 3rd, 2012

[joey_picus]

Very, very well done to both Daves (Weston and at long last Lawrie!) for winning, Adrian and Team Invade for making such an excellent debut, everyone else that won awards, and also especially to Scott for the quality of the live stream - it was very jerky early on but something seemed to happen and it ran smoothly and quickly - it made me really really wish I'd been there! (unfortunately I only caught the FWS and the end of the warmup competition before sleep caught me - it was past 5am...)

The standard seems to be going up exponentially and the new bigger arena seemed to work very well in making the fights last longer, at least in the warmup - overall everything seemed well organised and very very well run, so many congratulations to everyone involved. More please

One comment on the live stream though - would it be at all practical to have some sort of interaction between stream watchers and the people there/commentators? The only contact I had at all was with Harry by text message...*

I could fit six robots into a biscuit tin, could actually carry them and didn't need a trolley to get them in and out of the arena. I can see why people like antweights!

Biscuit tins! That's what I need to transport my robots around

*EDIT: Harry tells me everyone was on the chat tab - unfortunately this never once worked for me >_<

[Team Invade]

I'm Michael, Joey. I don't think we'd have done as well if my dad was driving

[joey_picus]

Aaaaaah, apologies Michael! I blame incompetence

[Team Invade]

I suppose it's an acceptable mistake to make considering you weren't there

[earthwormjim]

Well done Dave.
And well done to Scott.Great effort from all.Nice commentary guys!!!
It looked brilliant from this side of the internet!
I am going to make bloomin sure I am at the next one!!!!

[peterwaller]

This was a very well organised event in a great venue thanks to Scott and Andrew and everyone else who helped.
Well done to Dave and everyone else who won something in a very competitive yet still fun event.
Probably not the right place to put this but a couple of people asked where I get the material I print my PCB masters on and the rivits used in the boards and the answer to both is Mega Electronics.
PCB masters also front scoop palstic sheet is LaserStar: http://www.megauk.com/artwork_films.php
Rivits are 0.4 and 0.6 ID depending on the pad size: http://www.megauk.com/through_hole_rivets.php

[earthwormjim]

And what about the arena??
It looked super awesome,and I thought it worked brilliantly.What were everybodys impressions?Are the the drop off rules going to be amended? Huh? Are they? Huh?

[razerdave]

I'm hoping we are able to change the rules; it was noted that the current rule set is rather archaic.

Massive well done to Dave Lawrie, about time you won something big . And now Oliver's website will have to put in, for all to see: 1st Place: Kellogs Corn Snake

Also, big thanks to Micheal for doing the best job driving Little Devil out of all the guest drivers I've had before (sorry guys, it's true), and for giving me a great final fight(s) with Irruption (?).

Finally, massive thanks to Scott and Andy for putting on a fantastic event, with a lot of new things involved. Loved the commentary aspect .

[EpicentrE]

A massive thanks to everyone who came yesterday, and of course massive congratulations to Dave Lawrie, and everyone else who won something.

It was a bit of a messy start in the morning as I wasn't let into the venue quite as early as I'd hoped, which was why sign-ups and tech checks were a little bit late starting, but after lunch everything smoothed out and I thought the main competition ran very smoothly. To all the people who helped call fights, sort brackets, commentate, and helped me clear up at the end, you have my thanks and appreciation; we couldn't have done it without you.

I'm glad to hear the stream aspect went down well, and apart from a couple of technical hiccups, it went very smoothly. I was half expecting the stream to be beset with issues, so I'm quite surprised it was so stable!

Both the increased size of the arena and the small side walls were very popular additions. When asked whether we should keep the extra walls on for the main event, there was no opposition, and everyone agreed that the changes led to longer, more interesting, more tactical fights.

I'll be looking at getting the videos of the event sorted over the coming week.

Thanks again .

[Rhys]

Great event, huge thanks to Scott and Andy, definitely the slickest AWS I've ever been to! The big screen and having the draw up where everyone could see it was great, not having to leaf through sheets of paper and having it on screen available for all to see was nice. But I think the most popular addition was the big arena with less drop-off. I know Andy was saying it's a bit of a nightmare to transport, but if future AWS competitions used this arena it would be a definite improvement.

Huge congrats to Dave for winning the AWS. It's good to see that big discs, 3d printed robots and crazy powerful flippers mean nothing, and you can't simply buy success. Great driving Dave.

On a personal note, it was a bit of a disaster for me. Warhorses got drawn against two spinners, which was pretty much a disaster. Duff leaked like a sieve and randar destroyed itself. Cosmos was ok, and both losses were due to monumental driving errors on my part. Oh well, let's all hope its sorted for AWS 40!