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QLD - QRSC - Monthly Edge Meet
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marto
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Joined: 08 Jul 2004
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Location: Brisbane, QLD


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QLD - QRSC - Monthly Edge Meet

So guys the first Thursday of April is coming up. Meeting will be 5:30 - 7:30 at The Edges temporary space in southbank.

Not sure if anyone else will come along but worst case will just hang around and do some CAD.

Future Meeting Dates:
April 7th, 2011
May 5th, 2011
June 2nd, 2011
July 7th, 2011
August 4th, 2011

If we can have one or two of these and show that we are going to keep doing it regularly will get the edge to add us to their weekly mail out and advertise.
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Last edited by marto on Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:50 am; edited 2 times in total

Post Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:13 am 
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marto
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Location: Brisbane, QLD


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Well meeting today was a little smaller than hoped just Daniel and me.

Had a chat about a few things:

Arenas.
New ant arena should be done soon. Polycarb should be picked up next weekend. Antweight arena just needs that bolted to it and the legs shortened and stabilised.

The feather arena is another story. Daniel didn't seem opposed to my idea of shrinking to 3x3 for the time being. I also explained what I wanted to do for the floor and the roof is still an open question. I will try cleaning off/setting up a few panels when I get time. Still a bit of screwing round in CAD to be done before we go building anything.

Sponsorship.
Was discussed briefly. Not really anyone we had in mind to approach Miles had a few suggestions via SMS proxy. I showed Daniel a short promo video I have had Anthony working on and got some good feedback. We still have a bit of cash but not enough to do a proper repair/upgrade of the Feather arena. We can setup the panels but as we have no roof atm we might have to run a few non-spinner events. Aaron via msn proxy has also suggested that we make the rest of the events for the year spinner free. This would mean that we would not have to worry about the cost of fixing roof/arena for time being and everyone can build that cool walker design you have been thinking about.

Plans for next time.
Next meeting will be a few days before a possible demo at the edge. So should be good timing for everyone to bring in and show off their Feather/Antweights for the weekend.

I am also considering doing a quick tutorial from start to finish on how to program the plush30s, tz85as and possibly a Silicon Labs ESC. Not sure if I would solder on the wires before hand or not. May have to as using a soldering iron at the edge could cause issues.
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Last edited by marto on Fri Apr 08, 2011 8:55 am; edited 1 time in total

Post Thu Apr 07, 2011 8:02 pm 
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Philip
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Joined: 18 Jun 2004
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Location: Queensland near Brisbane


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quote:
Originally posted by marto:
Well meeting today was a little smaller than hoped just me and Daniel. (Daniel and I for all you school teachers out there)
Daniel and me.
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Post Thu Apr 07, 2011 8:35 pm 
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Daniel
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quote:
Originally posted by Philip:
quote:
Originally posted by marto:
Well meeting today was a little smaller than hoped just me and Daniel. (Daniel and I for all you school teachers out there)
Daniel and me.



The Supreme Grand Overload and his minion

Post Fri Apr 08, 2011 7:52 am 
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Knightrous
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quote:
Originally posted by marto:
Aaron via msn proxy has also suggested that we make the rest of the events for the year spinner free. This would mean that we would not have to worry about the cost of fixing roof/arena for time being and everyone can build that cool walker design you have been thinking about.


Thought I'd just elaborate a bit more on this.

I think we need to have a realistic approach to how the sport is travelling at the moment and how we are going to keep ourselves going for the next few years. Without funding or ways we can generate revenue for the club, we need to consider changing direction a bit to ensure we can keep doing this amazing hobby we enjoy.

No Spinners
I don't want to create another class or impose restrictions or guidelines on spinners, but the simple fact is, we cannot afford to support spinners anymore. The funding required to rebuild the arena to support the high powered spinners of today out weighs any positives of having them. We run local and interstate invitation events at zero cost to competitors, so it's not like we get any form of cash flow back from the outlay from the spinners owners.

With no spinners another side effect will be a lower requirement of armor on robot designs, this 'may' encourage people to build a variety of different designs like hammers/flippers/crushers. People can probably go back to using 3mm poly/aluminium as armour and get a few events out of it before replacing it. Hopefully people could take this as an opportunity to make something interesting and not lame since they will have a bit of weight available.

This will also help lower the costs of building a robot. Steve's work towards cheap ESC's and the current supplier of cheap radios, batteries, chargers and other parts, this benefits us even further. There is also a possibility that the attrition rate at events will be lower and there will be more robots running, therefore keeping events bigger and better for all involved.

I don't see this as dumbing the competition down or making the sport lame. I don't want to see a boring wedge fest, there is plenty of space for the return of Marauder class flippers, Cobra like wedges, Avenger style hammers/axes and annoyingly effective lifters like Sproing, all action packed, exciting robots. I'm all for running spinners, the Demon's, Bender's & Scissorhand's of the spinner world are entertaining and add fierce competition, but until funding is readily available, I think it's time they stayed home.

If you disagree with this, please provide $xxxx funding from your bank account to the club and we'll gladly upgrade the arena to handle your spinner Smile

Change of Format
I've been thinking of this for a while now, maybe the whole 1 on 1 format is getting a bit stagnant. Maybe we need to look into Tag Team, Annihilators, 3-Ways, 2 VS 1, or any other combat scenario. We've tried both Annihilators and Tag Team's in the past, and these are some of my favourite memories from over the years. I've looked at the UK scene and they seem to be the only Robot Combat community that is regularly running events with audiences and breaking even on costs, and they run it as a bit of a show without scripted crap like RobotWars/Battlebots where robots lost due to scripting.

With a tag team style event, we could even push a bit of wanky show crap for the crowd with an MC talking to each team before the battle and covering a bit of trash talk. Anything to get the crowd excited about a match and to get them keen on trying it themselves.

The Arena
I think we need to just get it back to a running state, get a new floor in and get some events happening, no point trying for another fancy rebuild if all the interest and robots die out in the mean time. More regular events too, I hate it when I have to miss an event and then there isn't another one for 3mths, totally kills off the interest between events. If we have an event ever 4-6 weeks, if I miss one, there is another one not long after it that I can get to (This isn't a personal thing, it's for anyone who knows the problems of juggling money, hobbies, work and family).
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Post Fri Apr 08, 2011 2:58 pm 
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RogueTwoRobots



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Sounds like a sensible plan. Unfortunately it's one of these hobbies that can fluctuate in terms of popularity and competitors which doesn't help with sustainability.

Just a couple of points to pick up on based on what things are like in the UK.
No spinners - it's a pain, especially for the spinner builders, but it's not the be all and end all. Since 2007, spinners have only been able to compete at one or two events a year due to there currently being just one arena suitable to contain them. It means you don't get to see as many flying parts as often, but when a spinner event does roll around, there's an extra edge to it (in our case it's also usually the UK featherweight championships) and it really raises the level of competition. The spinners over here went through a lull a few years back when they almost weren't justifying the hassle of assembling the full-combat arena but in the past year or two they've really raised their game.

But to have spinners competing every event would be detrimental to the hobby over here. It would just cost too much to repair serious damage after every event and eventually the numbers would drop off. So having limited spinner events does have its benefits. Having said that, we are over-run with gas flippers in the UK, perhaps as a result, but overall they cause less damage and don't require as strict arena requirements, so the number of featherweights at all events is consistently high.

You also talk about varying up the battle structure with 3-ways and annihilators etc. Our UK championships consist of 3-way melees to begin with (with every robot guaranteed a minimum of three fights) and then it changes to one-on-ones at the later stages. There are also 5- and 6-way losers melees and an Annihilator run so there is quite a variety there and I feel that is something that helps keep the roboteer interested. It's a big enough battle generating enough interest to keep the audience keen, but if the roboteers start to get bored then the battle gets harder!

Just my two pence worth.
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Post Sat Apr 09, 2011 2:48 am 
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miles&Jules
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Hi guys
Cant we just put some metal fence style mesh over the roof (on top of the thin poly carb)?

Miles
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Post Sat Apr 09, 2011 10:18 am 
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Jaemus
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What about beetles? Are you QLD guys going to get into that?

Maintaining a beetle spinner-rated arena, or even segmenting off the lightly-armoured feather arena to run beetle spinners in, should be no problem, yeah?

I love coming up to QLD for big events and I'd be sad to think I would only have NSW beetles to compete against Smile
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Post Sat Apr 09, 2011 3:05 pm 
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Daniel
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I won't be building a beetle. Seems like the only reason to build one is because the NSW guys have them. Ants cover the small and easy class that can build built while watching tv and feathers cover the larger engineering aspects that I'm interested in. I don't have the time to focus on a third class that doesn't interest me.

The club doesn't have money for a new spinner rated beetle arena and the feather arena barriers are too high to see the beetles fight, which is why I got no slow motion video of thier fights.

Post Sat Apr 09, 2011 4:35 pm 
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miles&Jules
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Hi Guys
We are about to start building some beetles. We just bought 2 sets of hacked esc's off Steve ...motors are coming and batteries..oh and already got a second set of receivers each. Cant wait to get em going!!

The feathers and beetles seem more interesting to me and jules, because they have a more industrial feel than the ants. I think they will grow as a weight grade. We will probably get some ants going to eventually!



Miles
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Post Sat Apr 09, 2011 7:37 pm 
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Jaemus
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quote:
Originally posted by Daniel:
I won't be building a beetle. Seems like the only reason to build one is because the NSW guys have them. Ants cover the small and easy class that can build built while watching tv and feathers cover the larger engineering aspects that I'm interested in. I don't have the time to focus on a third class that doesn't interest me.

The club doesn't have money for a new spinner rated beetle arena and the feather arena barriers are too high to see the beetles fight, which is why I got no slow motion video of thier fights.


No.

You should build one because if everyone builds one, you will have lots of people to compete against. There you go, Miles & Jules are already planning one, and im sure other QLD'rs like Aaron will build one.

NSW guys having them is hardly the only reason to do it. VIC could get in on it after seeing the momentum from NSW and QLD too.

Fair enough if you're not interested, though I might point out that beetles (IMO) acheive BOTH the small & affordable and the large enough to make for interesting engineering aspects work.

And the feather arena - which you're either going to spend money fixing for the purpose of feathers or youre not - with the simple and negligible cost of the addition of 4 of the low barriers like the 2 we brought up from NSW, positioned further from the outer walls with their higher barriers, will work just fine for viewing beetles in the feather arena.
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<Patrician|Away> what does your robot do, sam
<bovril> it collects data about the surrounding environment, then discards it and drives into walls

Post Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:20 am 
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Daniel
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At our meetings here we are also concerned with diluting the number of robots we are getting in a competition but adding extra weight classes. The possibliity of turning 6 feathers in to 4 beetles and 4 feathers isn't what we want at this stage of development. You might increase the numbers of robots by 2 but you reduce the apeal of the competition

Post Sun Apr 10, 2011 2:38 pm 
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marto
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Anyway getting a little bit off topic. My assessment from this is:

Backyard events may be better to have no spinners. But might be worth considering for public events.

We also discussed this in the thread where phillip asked about beetles. And we sort of agreed the main focus would be on feathers but if people build beetles there is no reason not to let them fight.

Steve
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Post Sun Apr 10, 2011 2:49 pm 
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Don
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ok I thought I might put my $1.50s worth in seeing as I cant make the meetings,and I know I havent been doing this as long as the rest of you guys but here it is, as a spinner builder I dont like the idea of spinner free events,But I do understand y all events cant support spinners.and also I can see what ppl mean when they talk about more bots/ppl being interested when they can feel safe enough that their new shiny bot wont just be ripped to small bits in the first fight.so I would think that it would be a good idea to have a spinner free class in all wieght classes, also it would sound better if you have a hobby class event(just using it as an example) then having an event and just saying no spinners,it could just make it easyer for ppl to understand.

and I like the idea of having beetle event aswell.that might just be becuase I just finished one lol.

Post Sun Apr 10, 2011 5:01 pm 
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Knightrous
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quote:
Originally posted by bastor87:
so I would think that it would be a good idea to have a spinner free class in all wieght classes


The problem with creating new classes is the fact you start to dilute whatever small amount of robots we have now. This has been preposed numerous times over the years and ALWAYS fails to gain any ground. At the moment, the fact of the mater is, we don't have the money to make the arena support spinners in the feather weight class, it's not a case of everyone is too chicken about losing their robot in the first round to a spinner.

If we run no spinners for a while, we will actually have some competitions with the current setup we have, which will promote interest. Once we have the funding to upgrade the arena, then we can let spinners back in to play. Cool
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Post Sun Apr 10, 2011 5:26 pm 
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