So did Andrew just prove that these great Fail safe's everyone must buy don't alway work like I keep hearing about? Good on Andrew.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spockie-Tech:
Speaking officially, Robots are not allowed to be powered up in the pits *at all*. This is to keep the insurance companies happy. Other Event Operators may have different opinions according to their willingness to accept liability for pit-accidents.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spockie-Tech:
If you get scooped from the side and cant go back and forwards enough to get free, then after 30 seconds, Mel would be required to make an attempt to reverse away from you, and if she was unable to do so, she will say "I'm stuck" then the robots would be considered jammed together and a pause would called to seperate them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spockie-Tech:
The hold/release rule is 30 seconds.

As far as "completely free" goes, at a guess, I would say anything that results in complete seperation of the robots would be considered "free" - there is nothing in the rules that I know of that requires someone to move away a significant distance giving a spinner a chance to spin-up again or anything like that. If they can keep you cornered without "pinning" you (physical contact), good for them. Does anyone else know otherwise or think this should be interpreted differently ?

---

Just to clarify the issue.

The problem was a person entering the arena while a robot was out of control and not that the failsafe failed. Is this correct?
_________________
So even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spockie-Tech:

At RoboWars 2, it was caused by me reprogramming the Radio Tx and being unaware that Mel had plugged Scoopy's batteries in.. (The danger of having more than 1 person working on a bot at once).

---

Man i seem to talk alot and nobody seems to listen these days

@Kerrisons- WELL PUT i mjust say indeedy, i completely agree with all u said above and the whole pinning things needs more addressing as if i was held for more than 30 seconds and wasnt given any chance of a match by scoopy and something got majorly damaged i would be ULTRA PISSED.

@aaron-whatever fella

@everybody, the reason Orbit failed was 1) failsafe button was bumped and thence failsafing servo didnt hit the microswitch which kills all power. Also in match against Cobra the reciever batts came loose and connection came undoen which left everything on.

All i need to do is vefore a event or match have some sort of sevice (tape or cable tie) to hold teh connections down and replace cable tie with hose clamp and Orbit shall be one super safe robot again.

I do admit that what i did was probably very foolish BUT i was very careful and i would not have done anything like that if i felt i was in ANY danger at all.
_________________
Andrew Welch, Team Unconventional Robotics

All this talk about getting stuck in the tray got me curious so have been watching some of the fights from the recent rye event and it made me go Hmmmm.

IN the fight against Hellraiser, that robot was stuck in the tray for over a minute getting cut with no pulling back and then got a pretty nasty cut after match was over.

Iin the fight with KO, after the first 30 seconds KO was in the tray getting cut for about 130 seconds before the word seperate was even mentioned.
As there seems to be more of this type of robot coming out soon It seems this sort of thing has to be managed.
Especially as this type of robot goes after your aerial/electronics when u are stuck in its tray.

How would you feel if you lost because u had your aerial cut off after being stuck for over a minute, once the damage is done then seperating is absolutely pointless and useless. If you disable a robot illegally then its questionable if you deserve the win IMO

Looks like we need a Referee or some guy with a baseball bat standing behind the drivers. lol
_________________
Bots that do not destroy you, only make you stronger.

I had had a bit of a think about pit safety, after reading some comments about Scoopy & Orbit. I was wondering, what happened to the old rule of all weapons must have locking pins??

Team Vertex has been a bit guilty of this, I have had Annihilation sitting in the pits a number of times with the large steel weapon lock sitting on the floor. I'm sure a lot of you have seen me using it when putting the robot in the arena and powering it up. I also had a little gripe to Andrew (Totally_Recycled) on the weekend about not having the locking pin on Vertical Limits like it usually has, his comment of just hold the flywheel and you'll be right didn't sit too well with me either.

If all us people with spinning or flipping or any moving weapons should have a locking pin i believe. None of the previous in-pit accidents would have happened if this was followed.

Maybe we should stop looking at Orbit and Scoopy for a few minutes and look at what we do ourselves. How safe are YOU ?
_________________
https://www.halfdonethings.com/

hmm, i have some baseball bats i believe

I agree and thats sorta why i brought it up as i have ehard stories from events where people felt a little upset and ripped off

One incident (not blaming peeps as most was misunderstanding) was hell bringer and clamping jaw bot from kerrisons (sorry forgot name) versus old school basilisk and ahnialation in that they were immobile for a good long time or barely moving at all to be considered still in the game and the spinners layed into them causing alot of damage. That left a REALLY lousy taste in my mouth and thats sorta why i created this thread.

Id be as pissed off as the kerrisons where if that happened to me and if the rules werent followed correctly and i was robbed a match or a part damaged id feel pissed.

I think a way we fix the problem with holding other robots etc is that as soon as somebody is stuck then somebody with a stop watch starts the timer and when it gets to around 20 seconds they warn the driver on time and when it hits 30 seconds say "release now or match is paused" and if released then cool if not then pause the match and seperate them.

same with count out rule as if movement cant be viewed start the timer and count them down.

SImple.

The idea at rye event with buttons is lovely i must say indeedy
_________________
Andrew Welch, Team Unconventional Robotics

no excuse for not having locking devices, i think nick used to shove a screwdriver down the back of jolts steel bar before and now he just takes it off, same for orbit at the test days i would just kick a bit of chair in through the sides and bar as a certain someone wouldnt, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE

well we all know the rules and have been trying to tiptoe around the safety part i guess. maybe its time we start having failsafe tests as well as the normal weight checks.

i dont mind being rammed into scoopy, because with cobra i could drive it around inside the scoop, if it had the saw clamped on top so i couldnt move it would be a bit bad, cant remember if scoopy had a little half pipe thing on the front of the scoop to stop people getting out?
_________________
www.demon50s.com - Minimoto parts
http://www.youtube.com/user/HyzerGlen - Videoooozzz

OK, This Thread is getting a bit out of hand with all the finger-pointing going on here..

I take it that anyone who has a problem with events past, is prepared to volunteer to be a referee/judge/safety inspector for the entire of the next event ? No ? Then you know someone who will ? No ? Perhaps you'd like to offer to pay someone to do that job then ? No again ? Then just what are you suggesting we do apart from bitching about it wthout a solution ?

@Andrew: your whining about unfairness and rule-breaking may well be being ignored for the simple reason that if there is anyone who is a prime example, you would have to be it. As the only person to be disqualified for lack of safety ("bah, I knew what I was doing") so far, the same person who got weighed in then went and added parts to their robot, and the same person who has repeatedly claimed they didnt need failsafe's, yet had their bot go out of control on more occasions than anyone else, what gets you ULTRA PISSED really doesnt interest me at all..

To everyone else, I agree that in many events past, count-outs, seperation, pinning and other aspects of match control have been below par, The problem is simple.. we dont have any non-competitors who are prepared to volunteer their services to be judges & referees who are also sufficiently familair with the rules & proceedures.

I tried to improve this at the last RoboWars event by printing out a "judging guidelines" sheet that all the judges were supposed to read to famiarise themselves with the rules, unfortunately, one of our pre-booked judges suddenly moved to queensland a week before the event, another became a team mechanic for Vincent and hence was unavailable for most of the event, and third couldnt make it for the whole weekend. Thus we had to juggle judges between competitors who werent in a match at the time, and things like count-outs and pin rules werent always enforced properly.

Same thing at Rye.. Rick did his best, and made some tough calls, but with the Drivers on opposite sides of the Arena, it was impossible to communicate with them both at the same time, which caused some confusion in a couple of matches about when the match had ended, when releases should have occurred and so on. To rectify this, Rye are now installing buttons and lights and so on so the drivers can be clearly informed as to the end of a match and time-outs etc.

If anyone else has any constructive suggestions, or would like to volunteer to be a judge or referee and spend the time to actually familarise themselves with the rules, please get in touch, I will be happy to hear from you.. Otherwise, STFU or go organise your own events and see how easy it is..

@glen: Scoopy does *NOT* have a half-pipe on the front to stop people from getting out of the tray. She has a stainless-steel ruler across the leading edge of the tray to stop it from getting bent upwards, and I was very careful to make the small lip at the back of it smooth by filling it with Polyurathane specifically to prevent people from getting stuck.
_________________
Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

k, i was just going by this picture i have here of it that looks like a pipe and craploads of weld, clearly the ruler and that

http://www.acerules.50megs.com/cgi-bin/i/pictures/image72.JPG

at the next marayong event if i dont have any robots chugging ill be the weigher/inspector/whinger/judge if needed.
_________________
www.demon50s.com - Minimoto parts
http://www.youtube.com/user/HyzerGlen - Videoooozzz

would have to agree with brett on this one folks .....no good bitching over spilt milk ....as ive said over and over again ,easy to find the problems another to solve them .....as for referees etc stop and think for a minute .....its hard enough to get someone sweep the f@#$ing floor at our events cause everyone has their heads up the arse of a robot ,so folks time to put out or shut up about doing this and doing that ,its a struggle to get peolpe to even vote after each battle...so its about time the hands went in the air and stopped the winging and come up with sollutions .......because the same old bullshit is coming up everytime, , .......wether its judging ,safety or whatever ....i tried at one stage to get people to VOLUNTEER to look after certain things at each round at marayong ,and that was a bloody joke ....it gets to a point that if the compeditors are to interested in their robots and not in the whole thing that makes a days battling then we are doomed
_________________
Photos - http://community.webshots.com/album/154092733uokpXC
Photos- http://community.webshots.com/album/166819552PDWWqP

Well, I'll take a stand. I volunteer to be a referee at the next 1-2 House of Carnage events. I will not be driving. I might do a few events yet, depends what my robot building schedule has planned.
_________________
https://www.halfdonethings.com/

Dont forget to bring a whistle with u Aaron.

Does that mean we can call u a white maggot.
_________________
Bots that do not destroy you, only make you stronger.

@Brett and Chris- Well said points and i completely agree Brett, Ive been a bit of a jerk and careless and i stand guilty as charged for above crimes but i am doing things to prevent them from happening again and so far its been very successful besides last events incident but thats fixable pretty easy.

And i have been pointing out probs and not solutions which i am sorry for.

Ill be more than happy to bring a whisstle or whatever and monitor the refereeing duties of pinning and countouts during an event.

Im just glad that these matters r being brought to light as thats why i made this thread. Tthey needed resolving and so be it things are being said and things are being done.

so WOO
_________________
Andrew Welch, Team Unconventional Robotics

quote:

---

Dont forget to bring a whistle with u Aaron.

Does that mean we can call u a white maggot.

---