Plugged the Forums at BOTSIQ SWPA!

Hey Guys,

I Plugged the Forums pretty hard at the Local Bots IQ PA Meeting yesterday.

I am sure that there will be a whole lot more newbies coming on here.

37 schools and 48 teams worth of students striving for info.

Remember..... Be kind and also remember that most of them are new and have little idea on a lot of parts.

Try and help them out as much a possible.

Thanks...

FRISCO

ive tried with no luck I really hope they'll listen to you though!

alex told me they decided to make a rule that a school with two bots must now fight itself with weapons. How is this going to work? There are so many problems with this rule that i can see including mechanical failure. I could kinda understand in the finals but i just see this being a problem.

as long as they don;t put them in the same bracket first fight, I don;t see the problem....plus I'm sure some creative thinking can find a way to minimize this, if that's what you want to do.

when my robots come up in the brackets, i fight them at their full ability if they are able. i find anything else would just be and insult to other teams that fight their hardest but aren't able to make it through the brackets

I totally agree with Kyle there...

The biggest reason why they did this is the new points total for the new grand champion...

There were a lot of rule changes this year...

Points wise:

Documentation gets a chance of 400 total points.....

Fighting:

Showing up in the arena 5 pts
Losing a fight 10 pts
Winning a fight 50 pts
Grudge match appearance 10 pts...
King of Ring 100 pts
Best Engineered 75 pts
Coolest Bot 75 pts
Best Sportsmanship 75 pts
1st Place 300 pts
2nd place 100 pts
3rd place 75 pts
4th place 50 pts

They are deducting points for not fighting in a match 25pts

Winning team from a forfeit 35 points

If Same school non combat rule is decided then both teams get a loss and 50 point penaltyand both go to losers bracket...

Also they passed a 10 second controlled movement back to the starting squares in the case of any movement judgement call to end a match....... If they both get back then they continue to fight....

I like the changes and they make sense!

The other thing they passed is all teams make finals....

Prelims are for ranking only....

Brackets are arranged as this:

12 teams from 1st and 2nd year schools in Group A

12 Teams from High School Teams in Group B

12 Teams from The More Experienced (3+ Years) High School Teams in Group C

12 Teams from Technical Schools plus Plum and West Mifflin in group D (Most Experienced)

I like it, It puts the same caliber teams against the same caliber instead of a experienced team killing and wrecking a new team beyond fixing...

A Good Look for future Competitions!!!

Frisco

should be intresting to see how it goes.
They had the mobility rule at the NRL nationals but it has to be clear what happens with the clock, if it stops or rolls while the bots are trying to make it back that was really the only problem involved, i definitly like it though because there is no problems with actually defining movement

from what I saw, I didn't like the matches being interrupted every 2 seconds for bots to return to their squares....took away from the action

well i dont get that what if neither of the bots get back to there square but there both barely moving

we has that problem last year down at nerk with one of our bots only the front left wheel moved so we would move back and forth but not really move anywhere we fixed it but still

This is only going to take place if one of the bots become immobile....

No stoppage unless one is not moving...

Basically it covers the judgement decision when both bots are not moving....

No one can fix their bots when they are stuck together or both immobile....

If neither can move then it goes to the judges decision about who was winning at that point..

Frisco

oh that makes scenes

I like the idea of having teams with multiple bots having to fight one another. The competitive side in me says if we build it to fight then we fight whomever the draw says we fight. I find it to be a bit of a cheap win if you simply get a forefit from your own school. I understand that some teams are looking beyond the BOTS IQ to nationals but does that not cheapen our competition?

Alex Udanis wrote:

Ragnarok wrote:

I like the idea of having teams with multiple bots having to fight one another. The competitive side in me says if we build it to fight then we fight whomever the draw says we fight. I find it to be a bit of a cheap win if you simply get a forefit from your own school. I understand that some teams are looking beyond the BOTS IQ to nationals but does that not cheapen our competition?

Can you guys say 3 2 1 tap out? 3 2 1 oops doesn't look like my robot is moving?


SWPA is really getting some odd rules.

Grand Champion? Yeah that is so plums rule. People got tired of the same people winning that they whined and cried about about it SO THE BEST ROBOT IS NO LONGER THE WINNER How does that make sense? It's like a boxing match and who ever have the top IQ * the number of points is declared the winner.

People need to learned to start building and researching and stop complaining an whining.

hahah people need to start building isn't that funny

AAAAAhhhhh,

Know how and what they are there for before blowing a lid.....

Basically no one will be able to win Grand if they sit on either side of the spectrum with battling and paperwork....

If one bot goes undefeated, the only way they can lose grand is by not participating in grudge matches and king of the ring and not doing good paperwork....

If another bot comes in 2nd and wins king of ring and a few grudge matches and does better on paperwork then they have a chance of winning grand.

I agree with that......

A better bot does not necessarily mean that a team is the best......

Better understanding of paperwork, teamwork, design, materials, machining, fundraising, revisions, parts, etc... is basically what you want every kid to learn and experience.

If a kid and team understands all of this then yes they should have a better Bot but a lucky hit might cause them not to win..... If the points total out where they are that much higher in Documentation Points (125+) and have competed in 3 extra KOR and Grudge matches then they have a chance of winning Grand....

Once again I agree with this....

You are basically asking teams to show and compete in everything instead of just the battles to win...

I think that is what they are trying to achieve....

There are extra points for all of the winners and places. This will kinda separate it.

Putting Plum and WM in with the Technical schools is a complement.

They are basically saying these are the 2 best High Schools (although on different sides of the spectrum)

We machine almost all of our parts on our own and have had some good designs that just are not quite all there and perfect at the end.

You guys have some great machining done and have some good designs that are pretty solid and do well in battle.

It is a compliment for us to be put in there not a downgrading.

I can honestly say that most of the changes I agree with to this point....

It levels out the playing field a little but I am still pushing for schools machining their own bots to a certain degree....

I think that will be the only way to really level out the playing field.

Ya there is help need for certain things like titanium and S7 machining but anyone can machine the rest of the materials. Even with just a drill press jigsaw and belt sander.

FRISCO

I just like explaining things in detail a little bit....

I am kind of a typing hog I guess!

Frisco

Alex Udanis wrote:

Your post was longer than mine. You win

why are you selling all your robots?

Alex Udanis wrote:

@rjw

Dude do you know how expensive titanium is?

That's why you shop it out and when you find agood deal, you jump on it and build around it.

We found a bunch or .035" up to .1" for $7.50 a pound last year....

Otherwise, Titanium Joe.....build around what looks reasonable.

The entire Ti content of any one of MLEC's Ti drumbots coast under $160 complete from Ti Joe.

Under $200 for all the Ti in one of those bots isn't all that expensive...I think?????

Heck, the last S7 drum I made cost around $800

Alex Udanis wrote:

Frisco wrote:

I just like explaining things in detail a little bit....

I am kind of a typing hog I guess!

Frisco

Like I'm really going to spend the time to read that lol jk

I just feel like the team my kinda my baby, I literally spent 5-6 hours a day working with the robot stuff putting everything in place, and it evolved to something well.....epic.......I really don't think any other team has had as much success at the local level as us and I don't think any team ever consistently did as bad as we did on the paper work. I just really feel like Plum is still kinda my responsibly, hell, I've been helping them with their designs, and I kinda see these new rules as a hinderance to my designes. Plum did well because of our designs and we had the team work to back it. This year we really don't have the team work to back it as we did last year, so it comes down to the designs. In reality it doesn't now. Last year I practically designed a robot that as long as you keep the weapon moving Plum won. (actually come to think of it that was every year) Now not only do we need the design, we need the backing team to support the bots and paper work.

I'm really surprised they didn't change the weight class to 10 or 20lbs. That would of been the best thing to throw teams off. I would still like to compete and help, but I don't know in what capacity I'll be able to with the new rules.

Don's a fairly good designer, a little weapon heavy, but he is pretty good.


That all might of made no sense or it might not have? Basically I feel these new rules are almost a personal attack.

my team last year was pretty much just me in the beginning and then a some people helped me out alot
mainly frisco but anyway later on someone else one my team actually started doing work and we got our paper work barley done. our robot barley ran ( weiring problems) but we still competed knowing that we have a slim chance of winning nut we still went out and tried.
u cant back down because u might not win who cares.

The drum was internally balance , true single tooth, bearing housings all part of the drum, etc....not an easy 4th axis item to make...try wyachi....I don't have the equipment that they have, but I'll bet they would charge at least as much.

Unfortunately, S7 doesn;t come in tubes AND I'd put that drum up against your beaters any day...full force hit with the weapons spinning against each other...in the past, so far Rattler 1 has broken every beater it's come up against. You guys lost 1 against a spinner with probably 20% of the energy of MLEC drums.

So is that a good value...you tell me?

rjw wrote:

The drum was internally balance , true single tooth, bearing housings all part of the drum, etc....not an easy 4th axis item to make...try wyachi....I don't have the equipment that they have, but I'll bet they would charge at least as much.

Unfortunately, S7 doesn;t come in tubes AND I'd put that drum up against your beaters any day...full force hit with the weapons spinning against each other...in the past, so far Rattler 1 has broken every beater it's come up against. You guys lost 1 against a spinner with probably 20% of the energy of MLEC drums.

So is that a good value...you tell me?

that wasnt a whyachi beater he was talking about, his are actually prety heavy duty, id be extremely impressed if i saw one break

Alex save your money and build a good robot....

If you come up against MLEC's drumbots, they will all spin against your weapon and trust me, either the beater, drum, bushings, bearings, shaft , motor, frame or whatever your weakest link is...will give up the ghost.

and if you make it past 1, then you'll have 2 more to deal with, plus a melty carrying 30 or 40k joules testing the sidways rigidity of your bot.

So.....all I can say is, I'm sorry and bring it...

It's all in good fun

I can tell you one thing...if you ever do show up in Miami, we will do everything in our power to make sure that your bot makes it as far as it can.

Last year, we tried our hardest to help everyone out that we possibly could.....we are brethren of sorts...winning is NOT everything, showing sportsmanship and a bit of class is worth a lot more...at least to me.

And on that note, I again thank Bob Dubard...a true sprotsman and gentleman....thanks Bob

just throwing this out ti Joe has a minimum order of 75$, and i wish i could find good ti somewhere else because they are pretty pricey even with their thin stuff

I heard that there's a place in middle florida, but i forgot the name???

Is it ALRO or ARRO or something like that?