A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

[jamieb]

A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

I think he would know if the robots drive chain fell off, you only saw something on the tv which no-one else did, I am pleased Typhoon won, little controversal but it was a very close fight

[fluppet]

A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

Oh dear; this was always going to be a lets get at Gary thread, even though most of us are trying to be nice about it. A pity that when someone so friendly and active on this forum wins a championship, he cant enjoy it!

Gary - thanks for the clarification about the batteries; I just wondered, it wasnt an accusation! Congratulations on buffering them well enough (teach team Whyachi...) As for the motor, sounds fine to me, we wouldnt complain if a flippers flip gets less powerful as the system ices up. Just wasnt clear from the footage.

As for the business of spinning up, that in no way reflects badly on you (just as Tornado having a go at Razer while it was stuck under the angle grinder doesnt reflect badly on them) - its just another example of the director having what could be considered to be an unfair influence on fights. Perhaps they were thinking of editing out the arena damage, like they did when Growler broke it it in Extreme 2.

Anyway, chain aside (I didnt see this, so Ill have to have another look, but if Gary says there was no damage then Ill believe him) it sounds as though damage certainly goes to Typhoon - although Id say not by a lot, since it was largely self-inflicted. I dont trust the judges as far as I can throw them to spot anything wrong with a machine, though, ever since the Extreme Warriors fiasco (regardless of peoples opinion of the result, and Ive not seen the fight, obvious mistakes seem to have been made).

I *am* dubious about the points for style, if Craig wasnt making that up, but if were sticking to that decision then my feeling is that Gary won the fight (more through Eds doing than his own, although not entirely so, and Typhoon still had to be built to stand up to the punishment) but that between the re-spinup and the house robots the fight itself was unfair (as some previous fights have been).

As for handing over the trophy, I dont think Gary can be blamed for not doing that. Hes not just representing the people in the control booth, but all the people in his squadron who worked on it. I dont think we can complain if he didnt want to deny them the reward for all the work theyd put in without giving them a say - and Im sure the award will do more good in publicity for the cadets than it would on Eds shelf (so long as Gary keeps being active in the FRA, of course!)

So, again, well done Gary, and Ed: you were robbed, but you might have left the keys in the door. :-)

Will we next see Storm 2 with an extension on the lifter so that it can turn over wide robots like Typhoon 2?

--
Fluppet

[fwsorg]

A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

Just so clear/input into the did the drive chain/didnt the drive chain come off debate, Ed told me that the producer picked up the chain off the arena floor and said something to the effect of Gary- heres your drive chain.

[bobblebot2]

A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

Ok,
Fistly well done to typhoon 2 for winning.
Secondly, I personally dont think the desision would of been right if the points for style control damage and aggresion were the same but the FACT is they are not so typhoon should clearly og one as you all saw the several pieces of storm 2 ed was handed back

Thirdly Gary had every right to keep that trophy george, I know that it takes a lot of effort to build a full body spinner, but a petrol one as well...
any way they worked hard and ok, so you dont think they deserved to win it because the desision was wrong however what ever you think on the final you cant really deniy the fact that they achieved a huge amount during the seventh wars which i believe if worthy of a tropy

now i know storm II achieved a hell of a lot too but they atleast had some experiance compared to typhoon 2.

any way, thats what i think
Mike
http://www.omegaman.dsl.pipex.comhttp://www.omegaman.dsl.pipex.com

[Guest]

A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

First of all, it seems very likely that the director wanted to continue the battle as if nothing had happened, which is why Typhoon was allowed to spin up.

As for accusing Gary of lying about Typhoons drive chain and weapon motor, if he says that he didnt notice any damage, then I belive him!

Gary Simmons, I strongly think that you should appoligize to him.

As for the decision, remember that the fight was edited and that the judges saw a lot more than we did. So if they say that Typhoon had more style, then who are we to argue?

As for the damage, the judges inspected the robots far closer than what youve done. So if they say there was less damage to Typhoon, I belive them!

[mc_blue]

A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

Jayne was stupid like we care even if she does take an interest you get paid to do it...

[fluppet]

A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

Just to respond to a few points (here I go again):

Christian: Regarding spinning up, I can see that the decision could have been made to try to carry on as if T2 hadnt hit the wall. Nonetheless, T2 *did* hit the wall, and I feel that permitting it to spin up afterwards was unfair on its opponents. My opinion of the directors decision, no reflection on any of the competitors.

Regarding the chain, I have to agree that Gary Ss post perhaps had the wrong tone. Presumably the chain in question was from elsewhere - Id be interested to know from where (although I believe Gary when he says it wasnt from Typhoon). Typhoon would have been mobile even if it had thrown a chain, of course, because the drive train is redundant.

I believe Gary if he says Typhoon was not significantly damaged (although Ill be very surprised if its not slightly dented here and there, or bent a tooth, and if nothings been a bit strained). Im happy to admit that Storm apparently sustained greater damage, although that damage seemed also to be pretty superficial (the armour plate looked intact, just detached, and the rest of the robot was fine). As Ive said, I feel Ed would have done better towards the end of the fight by concentrating on pitting Typhoon rather than trying to break it. My point wasnt that I know better than the judges whether theres any damage, just from looking at a quick bit of TV coverage compared to their direct inspection. Im not claiming that I saw damage they didnt, and Im certainly not claiming that Gary wouldnt know (nor, as Gary S seems to be implying, that Gary knew and kept quiet), Im just suggesting that Ive never particularly trusted the, er, judgement of the panel of judges used by Mentorn. My opinion, and partly tempered by show editing, but theyve clearly been known to make mistakes in the past. Funny how Ive never disagreed with a judges decision at Debenham...

I suspect style is highly subjective, and if the judges want to decree Typhoon the winner in that category then thats their prerogative, but I was just making the point that I cant see how they reached that decision. Its not clear to me that, unless something incredibly stylish happened and was edited out, anything Typhoon did could be counted as stylish; maybe Storm lost points for hitting the wall (under Typhoon) so often, but I think in addition to exemplary control, Ed showed off all the tactics and capabilities of his robot much better. Unless you get points for painting rings on your robot and turning up in uniform? I dont know, and its not my place to dispute it, but I *am* curious.

The reason I was picking up on that, Mike, was that although I agree Typhoon was (apparently) ahead on damage, and I dont dispute that damage should be weighted more highly than the other categories, I felt that Storm was massively ahead on the other three categories. If, somehow, the style decision went to Typhoon and the others were as close as the judges seemed to be making out during the repairs then fair enough that the weighting from the damage should carry it. But unless the TV footage is grossly unrepresentative (and there was a lot of it for much to have been cut) I happen to disagree with them.

Also, Mike, Im not sure that Id be arguing that Typhoon particularly deserves it solely on the strength of achievement compared with their lack of experience. Bear in mind that variants of Typhoon have been around for several years now, and that they have a large group of people backing them; Storm on the other hand was completely rebuilt for this tournament, the pre-rebuild appearance was their first at a televised event, and the original Storm was also relatively recent. Its true that team Storm have had some live event experience which the Typhoon team havent, but not with the robot in its current form. Im not suggesting that Typhoon 2 isnt a great and laudable achievement, but I wouldnt suggest that its so much more of one than Storm 2. Ed and Gary have both been valuable and vocal on these fora for some time, and I wouldnt class either as a novice - certainly not in comparison to myself.

And yes, Jayne is and always has been (IMHO) an unmitigated disaster. I give her a small amount of credit for apparently starting to care by the end of the programme, but that the director felt the need to show this fact just highlights how much the whole event was passing her by at the beginning (glazed expression). Shes been another Carmen, but probably with less of a viewing figure draw for dirty old men (and maybe a slightly less detrimental effect on the people shes trying to interview).

End rant, again. :-)

--
Fluppet

[mc_blue]

A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

...does that make me a dirty old man? lol

[bobblebot2]

A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

Mmmmm... fair point, fair point

[mc_blue]

A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

...not Jayne, I dont like her. Carmen Electra or on Robot Wars scale Julia Reed.

Let us not go off topic. Back to the matter at hand...

[fluppet]

A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

*Not* at hand, please. Keep them where we can see them.

(Expecting the admin to pull this and send me a snotty message, but hey.)

--
Fluppet

[pcbore]

A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

I think the decision was fair, based on the following points.

1) Typhoon probably won style beause of the way their blows were bouncing both machines around. Judging from Mutes self wronging winning style, style seems to be how visually impressive a robot is when it struts its stuff.

2) Storm 2 DID receive all due points for their aggression and control. This is the part no-one seems to be mentioning. The Damage shouldnt count as much because Typhoon was on the defensive argument is... Well, rubbish. Thats why damage and aggresion are two seperate scores. Damage is damage, no matter how it gets caused.

3) OK, so Typhoon probably received internal damage from being shoved around. But if you think Storm 2 took absolutely no internal damage from being hit so hard they spun around the arena, you have another think coming. On the other hand, only Storm 2 took damage that was any greater than dents and scratches. And panel aside, dont forget Storm 2 took a lot of blows to other body parts. They probably had more dents and slashes that we didnt see.

4) And finally. Lets assume Aggression, Style and Control are worth one point each while Damage is worth 2. Storm 2 would have 2 points while Typhoon had 3. Theres no contraversy, just mathematics.

/rant

[typhoon_driver]

A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

right, let me set a few things straight here....

the whole chain thing. Well one of our drive chains did come off at the end of the fight unknown to us. This was due to us hitting the steel girder in the previous match against XT. The force actually took a large chunk of rubber out of one wheel, took the chain off and warped our wheel box. This was entirely self enflicked and we didnt have enough time to check the alignment of the cogs on the wheels before the final (we didnt realise about the warped wheelbox until we got home). I have probably just opened a can of worms but that is the truth. It came off in the final again because of the unalignment of the cogs. This didnt however affect my driving as typhoon 2 is split into 2 sub systems and hense it can lose half the entire robot chassis so to speak and still keep running perfectly normally. This is the reason for neither us nor the judges picking up on the drive chain.

Our weapon was still working normally, and there were no problems with that.

I knew as soon as we won that the decision was going to cause a lot of contraversy on this forum and so i decided from then to try and keep out of any slagging matches and just tell the facts as i saw them. It is very easy to say that we should have given back the trophy and title but personnally I think that the fight was very evenly matched and it was never going to be a clear win for either. A robot designed to give out punishment vs one designed to take it.

During the last 20 seconds of the fight i seen the panel starting to come loose and hense from then i didnt bother about dodging around trying to spin, i just concentrated a continual ramming into the panel in the hope that something would happen and it did.

I personnally would like to have seen the judges scores for each thing and seen how close we really were.

When it comes to live events, we are considering entering the feather weight and bring typhoon 2 along for static displays, however currently upgrades are being completed on both.

[Guest]

A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

I hate to use the c word that Craig Charles uses so much, but Robot Wars has always, and will always be a sport open to dispute and argument.

There will always be decisions that, for one reason or another, will be open to criticism, and the competitors can do NOTHING about it. All they can do is to to accept the judgement with as much good sportsmanship as they can manage - and Gary and Ed have both shown they are good sports. I hope there will be a rematch at some point, and a clear and unambiguous outcome - either way!

[Guest]

A review of a weird annihilator. Woot anyway.

Well put! Both Gary and Ed have accepted the fact that Typhoon won, so why should it be so difficult for the rest of us?