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Daniel Marshall
Experienced Roboteer
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Posts: 167
Location: Hampton Park
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Exhibition Class
Hi all,
I'm starting this topic to get some feed back from you all on a new robot circuit in the planing.
I'ts aimed at small one to two hour shows, call it an Exhibition Class for now.
The idea is this.
We hold an event aimed at pure entertainment. The robots are hand picked. We will have commentary, promo girls, whatever enhances a good event.
We could use the 3 minute rounds still, but have some introduction of the builders and there bots.
Another idea would be to have a sumo or smash comp as half time entertainmant.
of course there would be money to. From ticket sales, DVD's etc.
As far as I know, there is no other event like this in the world.
Your thoughts? _________________ Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
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Sun Oct 21, 2007 8:06 pm |
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Daniel Marshall
Experienced Roboteer
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Posts: 167
Location: Hampton Park
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You're right, it's still in the brain storming stage.
having said that I do have a bit of an idea on the event layout.
I think there will be an intended winner.
If the fights are predetermined it would allow us to predict a number of things like time, entertainment factor and cost. also I would like to keep this completely separate from the Australian circuit in as many ways as I can for the reasons you mentioned.
So yes this means no wedges, unless there is a plan for them
There would be money for the builders. how much, I wont know for sure until we begin, though if we charge what it cost for a movie ticket say $13 each and get in 300+ like I did in Rye (Junk Yard Arena) we could divvy the earnings and make it very worthwhile.
We would start by hiring a school hall, advertising in the school and local papers, and using there facilities for the show.
I thought we might even make a weekend of it and have a tournament during the day, having an all access pass available to people.
To answer Bort on the changes question, the Robowars event is the same, we have tried a few different things at the last event, some worked, some didn't, but this new Exhibition Class idea is only coming to surface now because we have a new fully portable arena. _________________ Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
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Mon Oct 22, 2007 9:18 am |
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Bort
Experienced Roboteer
Joined: 15 Jun 2004
Posts: 696
Location: Sydney, NSW
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Daniel K: Assuming i get what you're implying by that video, I think that's a whole different story/argument.
This proposal would see the robots do more than nudge each other. It would more than likely see robots completely devoured, at least on the exterior until they transplant the inards into another bot.
All: What i think would work well is if builders could have two robots. One their sacrificial but cool looking robot, the other their crowd pleasing robot. In then end this would make it no different to Robotwars UK. How many robots qualified that could barely move and little armour? Then if a robot dropped out, a reserve robot that was twice as good seems to come in. The organisers intentionally threw in a few goats to the T-Rex for entertainment value.
I wouldn't see a problem with intended winners. If by chance the other robot wins (or wins in the crowd opinion) then just go along with it. Also a prolonged draw would work better than round robin or double elim. By that i mean just like the wrestling, you say that this robot is up against this one this week, with no real correlation in who is fighting who. I guess its more sort of no draw. If occasionally two "good" robots want to have at it for a title then put on one of those matches.
However Daniel K raises a good point about the possibility of reducing the believability of the real combat. Or at the very least making it less appealling. I know when I used to watch Robowars before becoming a bot builder, that the more carnage the better the match was. However now i can enjoy the tactics and suspense of less "exciting" matches.
I guess this kind of idea appeals to me in a way. Maybe its because building robots out of junk that looks cool but are no chance against finely tuned destroying machines (cough Jolt) is what Lindsay and I have done previously. Where as I have tried to move away from it in the hope of building something more competitive, I have realised that more money and better materials doesn't always translate into wins. I must admit that the most enjoyable(and quickest) robots that I've built were the ones out of junk.
Interestingly we haven't heard anything from people who have previously espoused the idea of jazzing the sport up, or making it more about pleasing the crowd.
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Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:13 pm |
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Spockie-Tech
Site Admin
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 3160
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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OK, I misworded that.
What I meant is that an exhibition class is designed to be visually appealing and keep spectators happy in between "unrestricted" combat rounds, so quick-kill knockout-capable bots should be discouraged in that class.
Quite the opposite to a normal fight, where a quick knockout is the best way to win the competition, but bad for the show.
Saws rather than KE Spinners, Flippers rather than Launchers, Flame Throwers rather than Undercutters - or something like that anyway..
like I said, its hard to define in written rules because what exhibition is about is the competitors working together rather than opposition and having an understanding that in this class the idea is to do something entertaining for 3 minutes rather than disable your opponent as quickly as possible -
So its not going to be easy to write a rule that says "you cant do this" and still have people trying to push the edge of what they *can* do to kill the compeitition quickly.
In an exhibition class, killing the opponent quickly would be a "bad thing" - it would be better to pick them up and carry them around (Sproing), roll them over (Stealth) , or throwing sparks with saw cuts (like Scoopy) rather than bouncing them off the ceiling (Marauder), Disintegrating them with KE (jolt), or chopping wheels off (IG3)
Perhaps assign points in a fashion like Battlebots used to pretend they did ? with flips, slams, rams getting points.. maybe you get a certain # of points for every 30 seconds your robot is active, agressive & mobile in the arena ? and maybe go so far as to actually deduct points for knockout blows in anything other than the last 30 seconds of the fight ?
Then at the end of competition, total up the points - highest cumulative score wins.
That way theres incentive for the builders to keep their exhibition bots turning over and get them back into the arena and fighting at every opportunity - ensuring there would always be exhibition class robots lined up just waiting for an opportunity to get in there and score some points - which would make it much easier for the EO to keep a good show going.
Encourages lots of "arena-time" and driving for the competitors as well
Again, just ideas off the top of my head - cooperation rather than competition is the key thought to keep in mind for this class though. _________________ Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people
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Mon Oct 22, 2007 5:29 pm |
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