University of Greenwich Open day - Saturday July 1st

[Andrew_Hibberd]

I would be keen to come in July, I haven't touched my ants in so long. I have my arena in london now so I can bring it along.

[Garfie489]

Had a meeting today discussing the event, the University is very keen to have the event take place and is now organising the best way to fit it in around pre existing arrangements. They will provide the pit space needed, aswell as space for the arena and Wifi - thus its possible to do a live stream.

With regards to placement, it will be in Medway - however they need to get back to me on which room we will be in. Theres currently 2 likely places, both of which have advantages and disadvantages. They intend to make the competition a centerpiece and thus it will be in the programme of the open day for spectators to come along and watch. Thus we will need to keep 1 side of the arena open for people to come along and view - i hope thats ok for everyone.

The only potential difficulty is one of the 2 locations would involve having the pits in a seperate room through a door. The pits however would be private, and would have a projector in there which we can broadcast the live stream for everyone to watch whilst sitting down. It would be the same pit space the Heavyweights use when the University hosts the Roaming Robots live show, so should be big enough.

Once i have confirmed details, would everyone want to make this an AWS? - The University is willing to advertise for you in their programmes, however i would need a single contact for them to discuss with regarding any branding, requirements, safety ect.

So as regards to what id need to run the event. Pete or Andrew, i dont want to inconvenience anyone to much so who would be best placed to bring an arena? - i could potentially ask for the space to set up 2 arenas if thats something people may be interested in for testing ect.

Also is anyone any good at setting up live streams? - my cameras dont have a wide enough lense, but we could certainly set something up.

Otherwise is everyone ok with whats been said so far? - i realise the idea of spectators is abit different to usual, however if you want to go speak to people about antweights your more than welcome to.

[UserFriendly]

This sounds great, should be a really good time. There are lots of resourceful people here to make it work well!

[BeligerAnt]

I'm sure we can make this work

One thing to bear in mind for spectators is that Ants are very small! A big screen showing the action would be really useful otherwise only a very small number of people can actually see what's going on.

From a health & safety point of view we need to segregate spectators from roboteers and we need to enforce the "cover all sharp points/blades" rule, especially if robots are being carried between rooms. It's a bit of a faff and something we're all usually lax about but it's the one thing that's likely to get us thrown out by "the authorities". Let's not go there

[Puddle]

Sorry to piggyback off of a thread to ask another question but it's related I swear! If my robot is ready by the 1st I'd like to come down and compete but I don't really know much beyond bring a robot, batteries and a transmitter. Is there some sort of registration? what should I bring spares of and how many? y'know what stuff should I know in advance for an antweight event

[Occashokka]

You can bring is many spares as you can make basically but ive been where my only tools and spares have been big scissors screwdrivers polycarb and tape.
There is usually an online registration that will be linked when everything is finalised

[peterwaller]

I would be happy to use Andrew's arena as he is closer, though I would probably bring mine anyway but leave it in the car as a spare, in case of any unforeseen problems.
I think it is something to do with my age I tend to worry that a whole event could have to be abandoned just because the person bringing the arena broke down or worse.

[Puddle]

Ok thanks Occa

[Garfie489]

Just thought to give an update as to whats currently going on.

The University naturally has several departments which all need to co-ordinate together for open days like this and unfortunately not all of them are finalised atm.

What this means is the exact location within the University is still unknown, and thus i cant do any of the requirements to get the competition finalised (Risk assessments, ect).

Thus atm the event is not formally confirmed, though the upper management remains highly interested. Im also forwarding them onto Shakey to discuss how the tournament will hopefully work, as in terms of structure and requirements ect (effectively the Uni wants a single point of contact as they dont know much about these events) - however ill stress the format will be in the hands of this community.

Thus atm we are still getting there, but not getting anywhere at all atm - just dont want to leave people in the dark and hopefully soon everything will be rubber stamped and i can actually open sign-ups.

[patlinnett]

Is there any more news? I'll need to book time off work relatively soon if I've any chance of attending.