Funny how everyone tries to keep their designs secret!

I had to laugh when I got an email from someone in the PA BotsIQ realm explaining how we may have messed up any surprise by going to MOTO and letting people take pics of our new designs.....

WELL....

If we didnt go, we would have not seen some of the problems we had and would not have met other builders and shared ideas....

We only took 3 of 6 robots.... 3 New designs were not done yet!

We would have not found out that our new weapon design can launch and damage other bots...

And who cares if we keep a new design secret, let other people see it and share the design process.....

We are hoping that 4 of our bots are around for the next 8 years...

They seem to have good hit power and good defensive builds so HEY here is what you will see in the future....

Dont hide and dodge just because you have a new design....

It is all in the driving anyway...

If you can get the electronics reliable and the weapons and motors reliable then you have a good bot...

At this point, we have unreliable electronics period...

The frames and weapons and motors are good to go...

A little fixing in the electronics department and walla here is what you will see for the next 8 years..

I sure as heck dont want to spend another 100 hours designing and building 4 new robots every year.

We will just keep improving on the existing designs and making them more reliable and better..

So, I just had to vent a little on the thought process by some as they hide and dodge their new designs by not going to other events and have companies build their bots instead of their students...

Their excuse... We dont have the equipment!!!! BS!!!!!

We have a manual mill and lather with about 3 bits for each and a drill press and yet make our own bots......

The only time we have a company help us is if something needs thousandths tolerances and carbide cutting bits......

Dont hide... Dont Lie... Dont run something you didnt build but rather assembled.... and dont pass on a competition just to hide a new design...

Run it..... Hit it..... Blow it up and destroy it...... It is the only way you will see where problems are!

Venting Done!

So how is everyone else today?

Frisco

hahahahaha
kids are ridiculous with curiousity and the competitiveness is obnoxious anymore!
Can we throw in exactly copying another bot in this thread?!
The new designs looks good!
What works with your own twist
I cant tell you how many people I've over heard saying that companies built our bots entirely for us
We have a drill press, disc grinder and an old south bend lathe, with some help from our sponsors(we draw everything, they cut it out and we do the rest of the machining, drilling and taping) we get by pretty well id say

I would have to say that many many people took pics of the insides of our bots...if the covers were on them, we told them that it was ok to take em off and have a look, take a pic ...whatever.

Not saying that ours are any better than others, but we were very open and answered a lot of questions

very few secrets left in the bag....but a few that either couldn't be seen or might not have been noticed.

we want others to bring the best that the can muster up...it's how the sport gets better and grows,,imo

so if some people borrow a few things from us...well that's really a compliment

rjw, absolutely. Imitation is the purest form of flattery, or something like that. So if you've really done something noteworthy and people try to copy/adapt it, you should be proud. In addition to that, since you "did it first," there's a good chance that whatever you did is better than any imitations until it really catches on and gets perfected, so there's not much to worry about in terms of people beating you with your own idea.

it's all gonna come out eventually, and you're gonna lose a lot of credibility if people ask you questions and you either lie or refuse to answer them...

Well then send me some pics cause we didnt get any while there.....

Too much work being done!

I agree totally!

there on facebook! lol

Cant get there in school (Facebook)!!

can your kids get on the forums from school too?!

Cody Harris wrote:

can your kids get on the forums from school too?!

Cody..show Rick our stuff....take him for a guided tour...lol

btw: Idid make and bring the secret weapon, but tssh never got to fight a horizontal.....it's prettyy nice and simple...

ttatt and tssh will be sporting this at botsiq against any horizontals...it includes a belt shredder....lol

We are blocked from just about everything at school!!!!!!

Guess what just finally shipped......

My darn XL's!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dammit CHRIS I NEEDED THEM A WEEK AGO!!!!!!!!!!

im no one to go around and take pictures of everyones bots for every detail actually
I just watch lots of videos lol

It's good to be studius!!!

You learn a lot!

I am totally in agreement on this.

Collegiality over competitiveness. There is no doubt in my mind that every time we've had someone else look at our bots we have gotten ideas and advice that have made everything better.

Until the arena doors close, every team should support, advise, share, help and encourage every other.

(Of course, once the doors are closed, the gloves are off--do your best to make a mess.)

Heck, that's what makes it fun.

In my opinion, the best teams are so confident in their skills they will literally turn their work over for all to see. (rjw/MLEC for example) If you think you can do better--just try.

Battlebots is not for the cowardly.

And, really, most of the times I've seen secrecy, once you get a look you find the bots don't really have anything all that interesting to hide.

The only time might I endorse being coy is if a totally new idea is being developed--something you think might be a 'game changer,' and even then the motivation is mostly to wait until you know you can make it work--by then it's usually too late for someone else to come along and just steal it before a competition anyway.
(Classic example is our vacuum assisted downforce--we had students bragging about how awesome it was .gonna be, and since we had not worked out all the details, it was kinda lame. I wish we had gotten it right and tested in battle before we had mouthed off, simply because it weakened our credibility)

secrecy or not....if they make it to the end of an event.....just hang around and watch all the covers come off as they scramble to get ready for 20 minutes...lol

At that point, no one is wasting any time or energy trying to hide their 'big secret'

Hell, at CalU, teams watched us as we put Redemption together. No secrets on him really... Only thing i am super confident in that is all my design is the eggbeater weapon.

We also had tons of people at Ohio come over and take video, pictures, and ask questions..

Now Plum on the other hand is very touchy about people taking a peek....