RED vs. BLUE

What's you guy's opinion of the RED vs. BLUE divisions? It seems kinda pointless to me.

1) There weren't THAT many teams last year (we had to combine college and hs) as there was a total of 30 registered bots
2) Is there a large number of teams that want to compete in a ...different (weaker?) division?

I dunno, maybe I'm missing something, but what's the point of splitting it up?

...OHHHHHH what if one of the stronger bots (aka fluffy or aftershock) were to enter in that division too? would that be frowned upon by Nola?

teams dont want there bot destroyed
they wouldnt let them in that division
college will be with highschool again cause itll be all the teams from miami again and they may be lucky with a random team who are actually commited
such a "well" run organization that announces there "national" competition two months before it happens

you really should look into going to the NRL nationals senai

Cody Harris wrote:

teams dont want there bot destroyed
they wouldnt let them in that division
college will be with highschool again cause itll be all the teams from miami again and they may be lucky with a random team who are actually commited
such a "well" run organization that announces there "national" competition two months before it happens

you really should look into going to the NRL nationals senai

I was mentioning the nrl to paul...when is it and is it an edu only event?

I actually really wanted to go to both nationals, but the NRL event coincide with Finals week for us. As for my opinion the red division is all that matters. And if BotsIQ can get its poo together in the next 2 weeks most of the MAssachusetts teams schould be going.

I was at a meeting yesterday and I believe that registration is open for the botsiq nat's in miami

WOW! HOW COME I'VE NEVER HEARD OF NRL!?

They seem to be a VERY well organized competition. I always thought the arenas with the red, white and blue was just BotsIQ old arena. Who knew?

They seem to be a cool place to compete, but I kind of wonder where they differ from BotsIQ. Aside from letting people know about the competition in advance and having an awesome website, they seem to mirror BB.

It appears to me that battlebots in general is a shrinking competition. Not as many people are interested in it as much as they used to. I mean Miami attributes to half of the BotsIQ's teams alone. Where's the rest of the nation?

Do you guys see it in the same way or am I just way off on this?

The following is way I understand it (and I could be wrong)

Battlebots is a for profit venture, and BotsIQ is a non-profit, educational institution, and this is fundamentally the source of the problems.

Battlebots has to approve of some things BotsIQ does, because they own some rights and some arenas. Battlebots pretty much only runs what is fiscally feasible (and I really cant blame 'em for that) This means that, for the organization of the events, BotsIQ does not always call the shots.

Nola is also spread too thin. She has a lot that she does with Starbot. (And I mean A LOT--she really is committed to bringing many different forms of 'hands on' technology--way more than just combat robots--to public and private schools from middle school on up, and has always got several projects going). Then she has to negotiate everything with BattleBots on the other coast, AND do all the fundraising for BotsIQ.

Of course, most of you probably don't really care why it's so screwy, you just want a reliable event (and I can't blame you either)

And the reason Miami Teams dominate the BotsIQ field is really because of all the work Nola and Bill (And Alan Crockwell too) have done with Starbot, so there is a lot of interest and opportunity here for teams to 'get on board'. (It's also just easier to be part of the event if you personally know the people in charge, and see them just about every two weeks!)

The most remarkable thing about Miami's representation is that this is NOT an 'industrial' city. By far, most of the money around here is in fields like banking, insurance, tourism, and, uh, lawyering. (And yes, I know that there are almost no cities in the US that have a lot of industry anymore, but Miami doesn't even have a history of it)

Again, I am not a representative of Battlebots, BotsIQ, or Starbot, so I am just saying things the way I see them, and I could have it wrong.

Oh, and red vs blue?--it's an attempt to get new and poorly-funded teams to compete without risking total destruction of their investment. (which seems like a good goal to me)

I mean, think of what it must look like to a school admin if they see a coupla thousand dollar investment get ripped to shreds in the first 30 seconds of the first event.

And you and I know that it's true that the enduring part is what the students have in their heads--the bot is just a temporary symbol of the progress. Also, all the machines back at school are still there too. But a parent and an administrator is not likely to see it that way.

And the faculty advisor now has a bunch of kids who worked hard to be there and now have nothing to do (Yeh, yeh, they can patch it up an lose one more time--but sometimes it hardly seems worth it)

So we want to reduce all those 'rookie problems'

Of course, I'm not sure Red V Blue is the best way to accomplish that.

Any ideas?

I always thought that rather than go with the red/blue divisions, that a simple gentlemanly jesture would solve the problem.

When 2 teams enter the arena, the blue team would simply ask the red team not to spin up their weapon or whatever.

The blue team acknowledges the loss and they just play pushy pushy ...If it loks like the blue team is winning, then they tap out prior to the end of the match.


jmo

would work for say nerc or something i think and it would be nice for botsiq but it goes back to alot of people being up tight and so competitive

I think that most if not all would take the win ...it's like a foreit but with a bit of pushy involved...especially since a lot ofthe high powered weaponed bots don't push all that well...so it would be like some practice if their weapon went down.

the winner of the blue is what? best of the lousy??

rdubard, that was a very well thought out reply. It made me think of a lot of things.

I always knew Nola had too much to do, but I've never been able to help. Nothing we can really do about that aspect. We as students never see the back side of these things and what's going behind the scenes, but Nola deserves A LOT of credit for her work. She really is amazing.

And I never thought about the "industrial" side of the location of teams. UTA being in Arlington is surrounded by some of the biggest names in the industry (Raytheon and Lockheed just to name a few) so it's no wonder why there are plenty of ME and AE engineers here. Now getting money from these companies is another story. Their check books are harder to get into then Fort Knox.

Also I can see how admins wouldn't want their robot to get destroyed in 30 sec. but maybe having some courtesy can go a long way. Ordinarily, when teams fight and one seems to be dead or badly hurt, most teams don't go in for the kill. Most let them tap out, but I've never seen a team go after the others internals already knowing they were going to win. Batteries and ESC's can get expensive real fast so...

One thing that I am seeing come out here is the unexcuseable form of the bots being built....

I can really say that there are some teams up here that completely build their bots and not the advisors and companies..

Then we have some that claim they build their bots but if you ask them how they turned something or milled something out they are clueless...

This I totally disagree with....

The students are the ones that should design AND BUILD THE BOT not just design it and tap and drill a few holes....

The learning curve is not there when this happens and it ruins the outlook for those that do build a bot from ground up....

I think if more teams did BUILD THEIR BOTS BY THEIRSELVES then you would get more people tapping out or staying in..

The problem is you have teams that have too much company involvement and dominate the tournaments over teams that build the bots theirselves.....

If we had a bot built by the company that helps us then we would assemble it and kill just about everyone and never worry about messing it up because it would have titanium for every part and welded components out the wasu but We build ours ourselves and there are holes that mismatch and parts that come lose and so on, so the kids often think about what may come lose or happen if they put another big hit on so they simple take the gentlemens agreement of enough is enough...

I sure would like to see the percentage of students involved in botsIQ that truly build their bots and that they machined their entire bot....... THAT PERCENTAGE WOULD BE BELOW 25% I BET...

If a kid knows electronics great and if he is matched up with a kid that knows CADD great but it is very hard to find all three kids from the same school that are wiz kids in both of those plus machining.

Everyone on here will claim they built their bot but I'll call them a fib as soon as that comes out of their mouths....

How about this:
A Group is with company and advisor involvement within the build process.

B Group is with no hands on involvement except advising what to do in the build process.

That sounds more like the explanation that should be given as to which group you should enter.

Heck a company that helps a school out might have access to some aerospace engineering components and coatings that are harder than any titanium or AER metal. They machine or coat a part on the bot that is failsafe.. The cost to have it done is somewhere near $4,000 per part lets say.. They go out and dominate over other schools that have a budget of $1,500 WHO DO YOU THINK IS GONNA WIN?

Think it happens???
I'll guarantee it...
Is it fair????
No.....
Will it be changed??
No...
What's the solution??
Group B!!!!!

Bottom line...... Only claim you are the best if and when you design, machine, wire, test and fight on your own and not with the help of sponsors and companies.

If you dont have the machines to build it then go find them at a local company and use them there.

I agree with the A-B Groups and what they are there for.....

Just decide which one you might fit in and go fight!

Never heard of the Red Blue thing (or just didnt pay attention), but from my experiences in Ohio, our school was the top dawg there. And everyone else was like rookie bots.

I personally NEVER went full bore at anyone during the comp. I would hit, back off and wait. Even if they told me to hit them and etc.. i would try to not completely destroy them. I wanted everyone to have fun. And have another chance to battle. We had nothing to really prove. Althought the ones we did destroy loved that we destroyed them. Go figure...

So i think the more powerful bot should be a gentleman about it. Be in control, and not annihilate them.

ouch....
not trying to create tension but if thats your opinion then BotsIQ isnt the right program for you. The whole goal behind BotsIQ PA is to get kids intrested in the machining and engineering field, not as another high school competition. Thus the only reason the pittsburgh chapter of the NTMA sponsors and runs the program. I have had several conversations with Carmen about trying to get teams MORE involved with there sponsors, this is the whole reason that they are there!
She had even asked me to go around to visit some of the different teams and try to get them to talk to and use what was there for them more but once again my school/work schedule did not cooperate with this.
This is a hobyy/sport unlike anyother, it not only takes a different kind of skill but also overwhelming knowledge. It is extremely hard to find anyone, especially a student who not only has the knowledge but willingness to learn about every aspect of battlebots/robotics. Thats why schools compete as teams!
There are kids in our program who have no intrest in acutally machining anything and enjoy just doing CAD and paperwork(as wierd as it may sound i know).
As well as you we spend ALOT of time fundraising. We dont recieve any funding (and hardly and acknowledgment) from our school. We have a boosters club who sets up the fundraisers and helps plan our trips.
Do you think wayne should have to compete in a different class because he had team wyhachi machine his frame?!
We would not be where we are today without Whyachis contributions!
This is a sore subject with me because of all the comments I hear about our bots, I know people put us in this category, so when i spend hours and hours after school working on a robot only for people put me down by saying it was professionaly done, i take offense to it.
There are plenty of pictures of us in the building process.
I dont think i ever did thank you for the ride offer to motorama and i really do appreciate it as a very strong gesture and still extend the offer of helping with any thing i can!

Luv seeing Coy on the defensive....we all know that Plum's bots are ALL designed and built by rocket scientists from nasa...no biggie.......everyone gets down on the winners....all the losers complain...that's how it goes....lol

Go get em Cody....

ps and next time alex is in touch with the nasa scientists, please ask them how things are progressing with our bots!!!

If Whyachi Built a frame then YA it should compete in another class......

That robot is then considered a professional build and not a high school build.....

If something small needs cnc'd like a part to something then it could be ok but not someone machining 80 % of the bot..

I know where you are coming from saying how much time you spent after school Cody but just imagine if you had to machine every 80% - 90% of that bot....

It would be a lot harder and 3 times the amount of time would be spent there doing it....

This is precisely what I am talking about....

A school that builds their own bot spends twice as much time there and run into twice the amount of problems which in turn creates twice as much learning in the troubleshooting process....

This is how it should be done....

The teams that have the problems are the ones that build their own stuff.....

This is why a second - B level should be used!!

As far as IQ being the right program that's is exactly what it should be....

Advisors give ideas and tips not building the bots....

I help my kids machine some of their stuff but if they can do it then they are going to do it...

If you have a sander and a drill press then you should be able to build your own frames a Mill isnt even needed...

It's just the point that with Tool and machine associations attached to the competitions,,,, you should learn how to run tools and machines not draw something up and not machine it.. You need to see how that that part actually takes shape through the machining process.

A designer needs to know how something is machined before he can design it so that he is sure that it can be done by their machinery..

I think you are the one that has it kinda backwards in what IQ is about...

It is there to tie in the students to the engineering field through meeting the advisors and learning what they do at their jobs and how the engineering process actually takes place by : designing something..... Changing the design through feedback..... Machining a prototype..... Changing the design through feedback then machining the actual part and testing it then remachining the part as a final product...

That's engineering and that is the way the program is meant to run and what it is all about...

I am not coming down on your team, there are several teams in our IQ that do this.... Especially this year.... I spoke with a team to ask how they are doing and the reply I got kinda scared me......

"We have not seen our bots for 4 weeks now and are waiting for the advisors company to get them back to us"

So in other words our company has built our bots frames and pieces and we are going to put them together with some extra pieces and put the electronics in them....

That's not what the program is about....

I guarantee you this team wont be able to fix their bot once it takes a hit....

And if you look back that is pretty much why a lot of these teams cannot fix their bot and get it running right again after going up against someone half decent in the past few years..

Heck that is the reason why some bots look great but are 1 hit done and can only drive around afterwards.

Dont take it personal unless you want to,,, I am referring to a lot of teams out there that do these competitions......

There are too many students just standing around and twiddling their thumbs instead of going hands on full bore when something goes wrong at the competition.

My senior year a guy from hamill came to our school to pick up the trophy and was telling us about how he had to take serra catholic there bot (the wedge that took second) so they could hurry up and put the electronics in it, so i know what you mean
Atleast we go to jenison, get a tour, hand our programs to them, watch them upload them and machine the part
There just not big fans of us touching a $50k+ wire edm lol
they cut stuff out for us and thats what we get
Like you said, it'd be nice if other teams would atleast go for field trip :/

Wow, um, I was just simply asking about the future of Battlebots (as though it could be easily answered) and instead an inflamed argument about who's building what comes up.

If I could, just for a second, derail this conversation to the topic of competition growth, I'd like to ask what the ideal size for a competition would be? I've always felt BotsIQ was a little small, but maybe I just wasn't being realistic.
Because of what I consider to be declining numbers in the battlebots world, would it be better to combine ALL of the competitions into one? I know this will never happen, but 30 teams seems like a medium number. How about 300!!!

Btw, was it just me or did Deathinator compete at NRL? Any videos?

As far as Red & Blue level competitions, a safe way to handle Blue robots would be to make them "sportsman" class in whatever weight category you want (I know sportsman is officially 30 lbs, but you could pull off a 15 lb sportsman no problem). Sportsman robots are much more forgiving in a lot of ways, despite generally being less exciting than bots with high speed spinning weapons, and you still get the benefit of learning how to drive, building something that can survive a bare minimum amount of damage, etc. It would level the playing field very well for a lot of rookie teams, and keeping it under sportsman rules eliminates chances of 'spoiler' robots [like Fluffy 2.0 being entered in a blue division tournament].

On the topic of competition size, 20-30 teams sounds like a good size really. One sort of cool idea I had recently concerning competitions is keeping closer records on the numbers of wins/losses of a robot; imagine an invitational/rumble with robots that have no fewer than 10 wins on record.

the sportsman class idea is a good one....

We just put our all freshmen team on a wedge so we kind of follow that same scenerio..

Driving is key and thats the way to learn it!!!

we didnt get off topic just explained the difference between red and blue bots....

we are all friends and a little vent here and there wont make enemies it will just make us laugh at each other later...

I just like to type on here after one of my video students put me in a bad mood from not doing their work and then arguing with me thats all...

The numbers game would depend on a national or regional...

A true national should have at least 8 bots from each region of the states

So we will say 48 bots with 6 regions????

That would put the brackets at a competition time of bout 8 hours to finish that bracket with idle time...

Then you could go with other weights on different days or go with 2 or 3 arenas for the different classes..

I do see less participation and a lot of that is from students either having so much going on or the laziness factor plus teachers are getting more demanded to do other things than teach and bots...

I know how stretched I am to do these and most teachers would not do it...

Plus I have kids in track, wrestling, basketball, play etc so they split time or come and work on them after 6.

We are trying a mixed competition up here memorial day weekend with the lights the open and the HS classes so we will kinda see what happens with entry numbers..

My guess is they will be down !!!

But we are trying to grow it to make it better and have more than 1 local comp a year for the HS.

The committee needs to target 4-8 graders and do a little tour of schools with some of the bots just to generate excitement and have them eager to get into a program when they get into HS..

I know our committee is going the wrong direction towards the kids... they wont even let my son who drives bots at moto into the pits as a member of the team..

I am trying to make them do a 180 this year in how they market to young kids... They really need to get a program together that tours elementary schools within the area.

I think it will grow again once the economy straightens up (if it ever does).

The idea sharing is great on here and sometimes it takes a little pissing on to wake some people up and get the real answers flowing!!

I had to pee real bad today!!!!!!

Frisco

Dethinator never competed in NRL, but we befriended the people who started it, so they wanted some footage from us. I agree with the sportsman class, and red/blue is essentially the same thing...

Wow--strong feelings, but with respect. Kinda like combat robots. I like it.

My opinion about Frisco's A/B idea is divided, just like the way I feel about red/blue. Prolly cuz Ransom has had both kinds of experience and I can see the value in each.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and actually tell the whole truth--

Our first two or three years, I was a big part of our best robot. In retrospect, I feel too much so. We did not have good machining capability (no lathe, no mill, no CNC), and no CAD software, and because I really didn't know Nola or Bill or Tom Bales well at the time we had no expertise. I felt it was up to me and me alone to make sure the robot was a good as it could be, and my degree is in education (which is pretty useless, frankly) I made perhaps 50 percent of the design decisions, made about 30 percent of the parts, and did very nearly all the wiring. Anything I did not do myself, I checked assiduously. Also, that bot used a programmable controller system (yeah, a 15lber with an ISAAC 16 inside!), and while I had some pretty sharp programming students involved, I pretty much wrote the program. Oh, and students were patently prevented from charging the batteries.

HOWEVER, every kid on that team knew enough about the bot to keep it running, and had a story to tell about how it came together.

After our first year, we began making more bots, and eventually I became spread too thin to be so involved. And guess what--the robots still got done. Yeah, they weren't the way I would do them, but that was the point!!

Then Will Bales joined our team. He would build bots at his house and show up at competition without me so much as looking at them. He knew enough to be the 'expert' and I could focus on other things. Also, his dad (Tom, mentioned above) motivated me to get CAD, and he followed up by getting us some good machines.

Will just took it a step further last year by drawing up everything really well in SolidWorks and having most of the parts machined in China. In his case alone I feel that it was the next logical step. The guy has proven he knows how to machine, and he was doing a lot of the technical advising for the team, so outsourcing was a good solution. (BTW--This year we are doing Fluffy 2 pretty much all 'in house' either with the school's CNC, or using the CAM software linked with the CNC at Will's house, so I think this will quiet any complaints about him 'assembling' rather than 'building' his bot.)

Nowadays, I think my involvement is too deep on the machining side. Yes, there are perhaps 30 percent of the team that can use the mill in direct readout mode, and one or two (other than Will) can program the CNC part, but typically I am the one doing the programming (Lately, I've gotten really interested in speeds and feeds) But, I do forsee a day when I can turn a lot of that over to the students too

It's kinda like this--I have to learn how it's done before I can teach it to them, but I'm confident that the turnover will happen.

Bottom line?--I think there is a place for all the roles, from engineer to machinist to hobbyist, and we have to trust the advisors of each team to decide what's best for their students.

That's a truthful read and I can agree with what you have done in the past and are doing now...

Our first year I was too involved and almost got kicked out of our tournament for what I said to them....

Last year I was totally hands off and had seniors with a year under their belt..

This year I have 4 or 5 students that are young again but willing to work and seeking the knowledge on how to do the machining and wiring.(They actually already know Inventor pretty good)

I help them out in showing them what to do and they finish the parts....

A CNC machine would be great to do some machining but our tech group is not interested in setting up our machines (yes we have 3 CNC but no one to set them up and I have no time to do it)

I would hope that most other schools and teachers look at this and realize that the learning process is twice and three times the amount when the kids do the robots and by the time they are juniors and seniors they can do all of the work theirselves without help (just guidance)

Frisco

the sportsman class isnt just held to 30lbs, it is the most common

I think a sportsman rule vs. a red/blue division is a much better idea. There will always be a rookie team that still has a well built weaponed robot. Atleast up hear.

West Mifflin is a good example of this. Last year there was punxsatawny and im sure there have been many others. Hell we won the competition and even ripped a few bots apart our first year