Hi everyone

After being away from robots for 6 years I'm considering comming back.

Given the recent interest in ant weights in sa and qld, and some interest in nsw. I'm wondering if there was an antweight arena available in vic, if enough vic builders would be interested in building ant weights?

ive been thinking a portable ant arena. Could easily be setup at any builders house for a comp, so the need for a dedicated venue would be much less. I'm happy to build one if there is enough interest.

The design I have in mind would be roughly 1 x 1 meter, 600mm high, with a couple of pits that open, similar to the photos I've seen of the sa arena, but not as high so it fits in the back of a station wagon or SUV fully setup.

I'm still living in wodonga, but transporting a small arena to Melbourne for a weekend would be painless.

What does everyone think?

Neweyn

Heres a quick CAD of what I am thinking for the arena, Polycarb on 2 sides, 6mm MDF on the other 2 with access hatches, Plywood / Chipboard / MDF top and bottom.

2 hatches in the floor that will randomly open (Same as SA)

Why not make all four sides from polycarb? Its not that expensive in that size. You lose 50% of your viewing angles with two plywood sides. If you make the top from wood, the arena will definitely need internal lighting.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Hey NMO, I built the two arenas that our SA group uses and they do the job pretty well, albeit with a few issues that had to be figured out (some that still do ).

Feel free to message me if you have any questions about our arena or our Arduino timing and pit control setup. I can send pics if you give me a heads up before Saturday (our arena lives at our venue and our next meet is this Saturday).

Your arena design looks great and I'd been very keen to bring my Ants over if you ever hold any Antweight tournaments.

Hi Nick,

Yes I think that will be the eventual plan, Just in the initial stages MDF is a lot cheaper to replace if we find a design flaw.

Does anuyone know a good cheap source of polycarb?

Hi Frydog,

Thanks for your support, I was thinking about control software, I have spent some time racing RC cars over the past couple of years, they use software called alletcat, wghich fully automates an event. I am wondering if they same thing can be acheived with a robot arena. It would control the draw, either single eliminator, double eliminator or round robin, call the robots to be ready to fight, ask if everyone is ready and then run the fight, ask who won and then continue with the next match.

It would be a significant peice of work to get going, a few of us where writing software a few years ago, I had an excel spreadsheet that would run either a double elim, or round robin, Valen had some fantastyic software that did a similar thing.

This would be taking that a step further and also control the timers and arena hazards.

It would have to run off a PC but I dont see any issues with that.

The other think would be to have a website run from the system that everyone can see current scores, the draw etc. (Also something alleycat can do)

Control software is something I haven't even thought of looking into, I like the idea!

Our arena runs off an Arduino which has a few push buttons, lights, arena downlights and a speaker + amp. The system simply times the match, runs lights, plays sounds and activates the trap doors during the match. As for organising the matches, we are using a speadsheet that I knocked up.

Any suggestions for organising matches instead of the spreadsheet, would this alleycat do? I have no experience in programming except for Arduino stuff.
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Adelaide Robot Combat
Organiser

Fair enough, improving a prototype is what bot builders are best at. In that spirit, maybe use 3mm MDF where possible to keep costs to a minimum.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Hi Frydog,

Alleycat is specifically designed for RC cars so wouldnt be suitable, it also requires a timing loop in the track to operate, a similar idea to full size race cars. (transponders in the RC cars)

However its the idea of a fully self contained system that interests me, something that woud mean the burden of running the event was basically taken care of so that everyone can just focus on getting their bot ready to fight.

The other concept that could be stolen from RC cars, the match after you fight, you judge. along with another builder who isnt up for a match straight away.

Its also worth noting that while I work in IT, my programing skills suck, ill be doing all of this in Freebasic (modern version of qbasic) if I can.

I don't know if judging a match right after your own is going to be popular - most builders are frantically working on their bot and charging batteries.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Fair call, the object is to avoid anyone at the event having to do to much more than anyone else, at the start of the day the event organiser would need to set up all of the bots etc, but after that it should run itself.

I would agree that sometimes your frantically trying to get your bot fixed, so that would need to be taken into account. perhaps you get one fight off, unless you have significant work to do and then someone else covers.

You would probably also want to give new competitors a break as the first few comps are really hectic and you are just getting you feet.

Here in sa we just made the call not to have judges and have a point system instead.
2 for a win 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss. only the finals where if it was a draw we make them battle again.

I'm all for points, but how do you decide who wins if there isn't a KO?
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Its a draw then and its 1 point each.

So you can ONLY win by KO?
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion