Rc Wars, your questions clarified

[james...venom]

Hello all

Its James Cooper from Rc Wars,
I feel that i need to create this thread to try and clarify to some people the proffesionalism and safty of our Rc Wars events.

Over the past few months and especially the past couple of days i have heard comemnts about Rc Wars that i feel unsettled about. Rc Wars is now a full on REAL item. its come to light that some people (might i add that theses people have never been to an Rc Wars event) seem to think and sugest to others that Rc Wars lacks safty and professionalism.

Therefore i personally would like to answer all your questions regarding Safty and professionalism at our events no matter how harsh. Please dont think of this as a dig at anybody i just want things out in the open. There are a couple of things i would already like to clarify.

1- I hear that some people have thought of Rc Wars as being underhand when inviting robotteers to our events, and they feel that most people arent welcome to them.

A- This most of all concerns me as EVERYBODY is more than welcome to our events. Unfortunatly due to the venue that we have been useing we have had to put a big limit on how many robots can attend. therefore we have only been able to invite roboteers that are in the local area, there simply isnt enough room unfortunatly to make the events open to everybody. I am doing my best to get a new venue for our next event as we would love to see you all attend. Iam extremly sorry if anybody felt that they wernt welcome to our events in the past, it really isnt the case.


2- I have also heard that there have been concerns over our safty involving running dangerous robots ( yet again comments from people who have never attended an Rc Wars event).

A- Our new arena is full polycarbonate and therefore we can run most robots safly. However before we allow any robot into the arena we allways look at the worst case senario and we asses the risks, if for any moment we doubt that we could contain that robot we would not think of letting it in the arena. ALL spinners attending our events are risk assesed and in many cases they are vigorusly tested until we feel 100% sure we could contain it in a worst case senario. At Rc Wars we feel extremly strongly about the safty of our events. if for any reason there was a robot in our arena that we couldnt contain i would be the first to shut the event down.

So far i am correct in saying that we havent had ONE event where anything has jeperdised the safty of that event.

So i know that there has been a few words going round regarding the safty of our events, so if anybody wants to ask any questions regarding our safty or proffessionalism then i would be more than happy to here from you. Also if any body who has been to one of our past events and would like to share there oppinion on how that event was handled, it would be great to hear from you.

many thanks and kind regards

Rc Wars Director

James Cooper

[Guest]

Rc Wars, your questions clarified

.

[storm]

Rc Wars, your questions clarified

James - have you considered that there might be a reason why someone has said something about the safety at your event ?

Why not bring RC Wars into the FRA if youre running public events as an event organiser and then you can get the event reports etc done and stuff which makes people know your events are safe ?

Ed
http://www.stormrobot.comhttp://www.stormrobot.com

[robotwars]

Rc Wars, your questions clarified

James,

One way of killing all bad feeling or rumours is to become part of the FRA.
The FRA has been set up to stop small and large events from occurring which are not considered safe, and to provide a means to help improve things.

By becoming part of it, and having your events reported on, enabling it to be classed as an FRA supported event will kill any criticism.
Event reports are carried out not to jump down organisers throats, but to go through it, and try and highlight how it could be improved for next time.

Just a suggestion if you are serious.

Jonno
FRA Events Chairperson

[storm]

Rc Wars, your questions clarified

Jonnos right James - I know you approached the FRA before about joining in the past, but if youve moved from running events at your house to running public events then you should approach the FRA !

Theres a meeting on the 17th so perhaps you should put something together in an email and send it in ?

Ed
http://www.stormrobot.comhttp://www.stormrobot.com

[shredderteam]

Rc Wars, your questions clarified

Ditto to whats been said by others James..

Id suggest you get someone to put your name forward to the committee, and provide some information on your set-up etc..

Im sure there will be people willing to help.. after all, thats what the FRA was set up to do

Sam
http://www.shredderteam.comhttp://www.shredderteam.com
http://www.robotcrusade.comhttp://www.robotcrusade.com

[james...venom]

Rc Wars, your questions clarified

This is the thing though, i have put Rc Wars forward to the FRA and they wernt intrested unless there were paying public involved. I personnaly feel that people are people, and that aslong as people are at the event safty is of the upmost importance, should it matter weather or not the people are paying to be there. I would love someone to asses our events as i already know they are extremely safe, i would just like people to see that and to offer us help and advise on makeing our events safer and better for everyone not just when the public are around. Hope you understand where im coming from and there is some help out there.

[robotwars]

Rc Wars, your questions clarified

There is james, help is there, before... we didnt know what was going on, now we do, and we know you are serious, we will help you how ever we can.

What you are doing now, wasnt what was described to us i dont think. All sorted now though.


Jonno
p.s yes its 4:30am.... i couldnt sleep

[spinnerboy]

Rc Wars, your questions clarified

almost sounds like join the fra and people will stop saying things about your event.

ho humm.

[james...venom]

Rc Wars, your questions clarified

Ye chris almost a bribery kinda thing going on lol!

Thanks Jonno thats reasureing, so where do i go from here?

[storm]

Rc Wars, your questions clarified

James, unfortunately I do not believe the FRA is in a position to accept representation from everyone who wants to run robot events in their garden. You are suggesting that without representation on the committee the FRA was somehow failing you. This is not the case - there is nothing stopping you from taking on board and using the publicly published FRA rules and event guidelines.

At the time of your last application the event you were working on was for someones Birthday party I believe. Whilst in that scenario you would still have to have Public Liability Insurance etc for what you were doing (which Im not questioning you had) it is still an event in a garden, and that is not what the event organisers area of the FRA is about and this is why your application was rejected to join the Event Organisers committee I believe.

You are right - people are people, and you dont have to be a member of the FRA to use and abide by the rules and guidelines which are accepted in the community as being best practice, Event Organisers on the committee are public event organisers - otherwise where does the FRA draw the line, they would be swamped by applications! If you wish to make your events safe and ensure they are running to best practice perhaps I could ask if you are already running to the FRA rules and guidelines ?

Also, joining the FRA doesnt mean that you wont get criticised - in fact it means you are totally open for scrutiny and anything that goes wrong is discussed publicly. For example the recent Inspire Featherweight Smash that happened in December is on the agenda for discussion at this months meeting. You need to be able to take criticism on board and improve where needed rather than just provide justification as to why you thought you were right - some people can react very badly to this !

My suggestion is that before approaching the FRA you ensure that your arena and event procedures fit in with the FRA guidelines.

You can download the safety guidelines here

http://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/FRAEventSafety.pdf>http://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/FRAEventSafety.pdf

And the FRA Build Rules here

http://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/FRARulesandGuidelines.pdf>http://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/FRAR...Guidelines.pdf

Ask yourself if this is something that you want to be involved in - you do have a reputation for being somewhat isolated from the mainstream community (for example your mum wouldnt be able to attend FRA meetings if she saw a robot she didnt like) P

Once youve done that, and youre sure that your events will meet the FRA guidelines and run by the FRA rules then youre up and running as an FRA event organiser; meaning youll benefit from the FRA supporting your events, providing you with help and expertise, a dedicated safety officer at your event who looks after the safety independently of you etc etc etc !

Ed
http://www.stormrobot.com>http://www.stormrobot.com

[james...venom]

Rc Wars, your questions clarified

Ok Ed,

First of all yes i run my events to the FRA guidlines of arena and event safty, i have read through your guidlines throughly and with a bit more work according to the FRA guidlines we would be classed as a class 2 event.

Yes i am deadly serious about being an event organiser and i know its a reachable goal. I have chatted with jono about what Rc Wars does and its goals and his adivce is to become an event organiser with the FRA.

I am very dedicated and i would really like to hear construcive critisisam from the FRA. so where do i go from here?

[robotwars]

Rc Wars, your questions clarified

James I will come along too your event as its not to far away, and will go through an event safety report with you.
This will highlight, both good, and bad points of your event.

I will then feed back to the FRA Committee and we will go from there.

Jonno

[jamesb]

Rc Wars, your questions clarified

Just wanted to add my 2 pence worth.

1st, I am 50% of RCWars, with James Cooper, and as a commitee member of the FRA myself, its not like there has been no FRA influence on the RCWars development. I was the person who put James Coopers name forward as wanting to join the FRA as an events organiser, and to be honest I was disgusted by the response from one or two members. This should be recorded in the FRA minutes so Ill say no more about it at this point.

2nd, the vast amount of critasism is coming from people who have never been to an RCWars event. It seems to have the reputation of a group of kids playing in their back garden. I can say that this is not the case, and with RCWars running without incident or injury for well over 3 years prior to me joining, and the introduction of the fully inclosed arena, I would say that James Cooper and his father have a damned site more experince running events than most of the people on the forum.

3rd, I think it is distructive to the image of RCWars, the FRA and the individuals who raise publically their unfounded concerns over things thay have no knowledge of, to continue to publically, or privatly slate the safety of someone or someones business whaen you have no first hand knowledge of what you are talking about. Though I respect the feedback of people who have attended our events, I have no intention of being publiclly attacked by people who have not even seen our arena.

Jonno has very kindly agreed to attend our next event to give his expertise and experience in making our events as safe as they can be, but make no mistake, as a qualified health and safety assessor myself I have not been idle on this issue. We just accept that we may have missed somethings that a respected roboteer and event organiser like Jonno can help us spot. Someone who has no got Jonnos qualifications is not welcome to puss judgement, especially having never attended.

I have almost had to cancel one event before due to certain people running off on a safety crusade just because we never told them the full story. I would say that although we appreciate any and all input, do not assume that the gossip and back biting you may hear on the grapevine is reliable. Therefore do not condem someones safety when you do not know what is going on.

People need to shut up until they have first hand knowledge, because Ill be damned if I put my livelyhood at risk just because some people like to preach.

This new arena was never designed to have public featherweight events like roaming robots has, we run them as fun and as a favour to the roboteers who want to come. If the public critasism is looking like it may effect what we actually use the arena for we will withdraw its use from the roboteering community, not out of spite, but out of concern for our reputation. Who wins then? not the roboteers who use it, ceratinly not James Cooper and I who love holding the featherweight fun event. The winners will be gossips who can sit back in satisfaction knowing they have pi$$ed on someone elses bonfire.

Sorry to be so blunt, but I have seen posts on other threads relating to RCWars that are discraceful, and I will be bringing this up at the next FRA meeting.

[Guest]

Rc Wars, your questions clarified

I have never seen a rcwars event but i must say any robot no matter what it is can only be good for our (sport)(hobby) and can only lead to bigger and better things .Even the Knex bots if that is what they are called can help the younger end build and get the ideas
So for what it is worth James well done and keep it going