How to make Featherweight fights interesting!

[craig_colliass]

OK the title for this is a little provocative, but I got you reading this thread.

I was thinking on how to make the featherweight fights even more interesting for the audience at RW and RL shows.

Here is my idea.
1/ All the names of the participating robots are put into a "hat"
2/ The names are drawn out at random and placed in to two piles.
3/ The names in the piles are teams chosen at random, and assigned names any name but for this explanation they are called red and blue.
4/ An identifier is given to each robot for example 50mm wide blue and red tape, this is placed on the robots in a prominent place.
5/ In the arena the teams occupy opposite ends of the arena. the host dose his witch team do you support thing!
6/ Activate is called Red fight Blue and Blue fight Red.
7/ After the fight is finished the robots (that can still move) go to there respective ends and demonstrate they are still active.
8/ Count the active robots most wins.

Cost 2 rolls of tape and a bit of time.

What do people think?

thanks

Craig

[Ellis]

I'd love to see more structure like this. Aimlessly bashing around is a laugh but it can surely look as aimless to the crowd as it can to us. The problem with doing anything clever is the time constraint, I suppose. Having teams would definitely improve this, though, I imagine any sense of purpose is a good thing.

As I've said in the past, I think hockey or football or similar would be fantastic in the heavy arenas too. Could be as simple as the team who gets the ball to hit the other team's end of the arena the most times, and vice-versa, wins, not evening requiring a boundary line for a goal. No need to have any score counters, give that job to the crowd before the scrap starts and ask them after the game what the scores were please. The teams are picked at the start of the day at random, or alongside the draws that are done for the heavies, which leaves less to do on the fly. Of course some feathers end up not going, either in the arrival sense or the electrical sense, but it would probably save time. The teams could be identified with tape, as you said, very simple.

Only downside I can see is for the roboteers in that visibility is often not great, but I don't think it'd matter. Played this at MMM14 last year and it was a ten minute blast, for both competitors and crowd it was hilarious.

[daveimi]

Completely love the sound of these ideas!! Obviously my robot isn't active yet, but if I'm out and about in 2014 with it I'd utterly love to take part in this kind of stuff. I'd be there most weekends lol. And it's manageable as you're robot won't be getting totally smashed to bits each time so the upkeep would be minimal.

[Max]

Although robot hockey sounds like fun it may encourage even more the idea of making a box and it is t exactly fighting robots which is kind of the idea! Although it may be fun for one of the fights.
I like the teams idea though, would make it more compatible as you cannot win one of those whiteboard fights as an individu as there are too many robots

[blazerbotics]

A similar thing was tried years back (8Ack) with 2 teams and a target at each end, but was over complicated, was difficult for the roboteers to follow what was going on never mind the audience!

We've already done lots to try and improve the fights from an audience POV by adding house robots, the arena flipper ect. One of the main issues is just the amount of 'boxes' in the arena, the reason the same machines win everytime at ours is because they are typically the ones that are the most exciting to watch. What we really need is a winder range of weapons, there's no spinners so you don't need Hardox armour etc, so there's plenty of weight to try new things and add weapons.

[daveimi]

As an even organiser, which types of robots would you like to see more of? Is it the Mark Setrakian types that you hope will appear?

[daveimi]

After I thought about it, I can see the rift between EO's and Robot Builders being that EO's need sustainable fighting to sell tickets, where as Builders want to smash something up. And, in a way, the two main camps are at odds.

[typhoon_driver]

Give the controls to audience members. No spinners = no damage potential so let the kids (and big kids) in the audience have a go

[grant_ploughbot]

I'm not sure many roboteer's would be happy spending all the time and money building their robots and just let others have a go. But I think there is a place to have some form of structure to the FW fights rather than throwing them all in. Having a football game or something similar just doesn't do it for me, I'd rather go and drive an RC car if that was the way events went so it would need to be combat related.

[psychostorm]

I've already mentioned my suggestion. Raising structure in the middle of the arena. Let the Feathers play king of the king of the hill.
Last person on the highest platform wins. There pushing boxes would be an advantage.

That ain't gonna happen of course. Infrastructure cost.

[razerdave]

For the wider audience, maybe the hockey/football game won't catch on, but for a smaller audience/roboteers, its a lot of fun, trust me

[Eventorizon]

We have been planning a machine that we can take to RW/RL events and I think we are going to be doing a robot with a 100m stroke pneumatic spike. With no spinners around to bend the 16mm shaft it should be capable of doing some damage and it should look great as well!

Need some help fitting in all the Pneumatics though... will probably need custom parts.

The idea which is basically Team Death Match sounds great! The King of the hill I really like to. You don't need something very steep or tall, just something with a small top! I can see LH3 doing very well at KotH.