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FRA urgent announcement
Please note,
Robo Challenge has for some time been of the opinion that arena roofs were not substantial enough to safely contain spinners. This was clearly demonstrated at the UK championships. From that point, Robo Challenge made the decision not to run spinners in an arena with a net roof.
Knowing that the current FRA guidelines were obviously inadequate we decided to conduct our own tests to establish a safe solution.
The FRA would have been negligent not to look at reviewing its guidelines, especially when being pushed by other event organisers.
At the meeting held on the 30th Sept 2006 (the minutes of which are on this website) the FRA announced that it was to review current arenas and guidelines before the end of the year and report back to those concerned in early 2007. This is exactly what they did.
As we had an event arranged for Dec 2006 we performed our own tests and came to the conclusion that 5mm polycarbonate was the most suitable roofing material for our purpose, we already had 10mm walls as that is what the grade 2 guidelines previously required. Our specification also included various other features not in the FRA guidelines at the time, including outer wall kick plates, separation zone flooring and substantial doors. We then built our arena to meet OUR safety specifications before the FRAs were available. Regardless of the FRA we built an arena which we felt was safe for its purpose.
The FRAs tests and the Robo Challenge tests were performed completely independently and without either organisation knowing about the other until tests had finished.
Robo Challenge played no part in and had no involvement in writing or helping to produce the new arena build guidelines and had no influence on the FRAs decisions. The first time we were made aware of the content of the new build guidelines was at the Event organisers meeting on Saturday 29th Jan 2007 along with the other event organisers.
We support the FRA on this matter even though there are items within the guidelines we would prefer to be altered.
Robo Challenge does not intend to discuss this matter further on this forum.
Please note,
Robo Challenge has for some time been of the opinion that arena roofs were not substantial enough to safely contain spinners. This was clearly demonstrated at the UK championships. From that point, Robo Challenge made the decision not to run spinners in an arena with a net roof.
Knowing that the current FRA guidelines were obviously inadequate we decided to conduct our own tests to establish a safe solution.
The FRA would have been negligent not to look at reviewing its guidelines, especially when being pushed by other event organisers.
At the meeting held on the 30th Sept 2006 (the minutes of which are on this website) the FRA announced that it was to review current arenas and guidelines before the end of the year and report back to those concerned in early 2007. This is exactly what they did.
As we had an event arranged for Dec 2006 we performed our own tests and came to the conclusion that 5mm polycarbonate was the most suitable roofing material for our purpose, we already had 10mm walls as that is what the grade 2 guidelines previously required. Our specification also included various other features not in the FRA guidelines at the time, including outer wall kick plates, separation zone flooring and substantial doors. We then built our arena to meet OUR safety specifications before the FRAs were available. Regardless of the FRA we built an arena which we felt was safe for its purpose.
The FRAs tests and the Robo Challenge tests were performed completely independently and without either organisation knowing about the other until tests had finished.
Robo Challenge played no part in and had no involvement in writing or helping to produce the new arena build guidelines and had no influence on the FRAs decisions. The first time we were made aware of the content of the new build guidelines was at the Event organisers meeting on Saturday 29th Jan 2007 along with the other event organisers.
We support the FRA on this matter even though there are items within the guidelines we would prefer to be altered.
Robo Challenge does not intend to discuss this matter further on this forum.
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