/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Travel IS an issue. Battlebots will pay for your travel fees, Robot Wars won't (which is why nearly everyone in RW is from the UK).

Battlebots rules here:
http://battlebots.com/rules/
Robot Wars rules here:
http://www.robotwars.tv/faqs/

Rules don't mean much for either, as they were both changed on-site mid filming. Besides, both competitions are invite/application only, they don't let just anyone in.

The amateur league, however, lets any random fucker with his Autism RC Car in.
http://www.buildersdb.com/

I will not support this kind of thing until the following occurs

1) more weight classes, up to 10 tonne
2) fully autonomous robots allowed
2a) jamming other pilot's control is made legal
3) no restrictions on weapons outside of the really dangerous stuff e.g. tac nukes, NBC (which obviously wouldn't work on other robots anyway), and dispropotionately large munitions (e.g. you can't enter 10 tonnes worth of fuel-air explosives with a remote detonator and call it a compeditor)

it's meant to be robot WARS, not weak ass bitch robot slapfight bullshit

>>1042802
and by ten tonne I meant as a minimum, e.g. additional 25, 50, 75, 100 etc. tonne weight classes would be great too.

>>1042802
Now that would be awesome to watch! Assume the "cage" to be a suitably large area delimited by landmines/aa systems in the middle of a desert and everything's ready.
He'll, I'd pay to have any design of a suitable weapon system I may come up with evaluated by the guys working on those vehicles.
This would also be useful towards fixing the cost issues

This would be a wet dream come true for all of /k/ treadheads

>>1042802
The combat robot community isnt going to miss you

>>1042888
Not the guy you're replying to, but at robot wars/battlebots size and weight, protection from very small rimfire calibers (.22 and lower) shouldn't be that hard to manage for both the audience and the bots themselves.
And what's the issue with autonomous bots? In the end, it still takes a lot of skill to integrate all necessary sensors and create a software capable of handling every possible battle scenario.
Also, that size of combat bots is already out of most hobbyists' league in terms of cost and complexity, so why exactly are you against bigger, heavier experimental combat vehicles beating, cutting, crushing and shooting each other to death?

>>1042912
Not the guy you're replying to but I don't care for truck demolition derby, no matter how automated the trucks are.

Robot fights are about a careful balance of concept, engineering, and control. This has a lot to do with the weight class. Change it and that balance is gone.

And if you picture Autobots vs Decepticons you might have to adjust your playback speed to 4x-8x. Big things move slow. Changing the impulse direction of a 2t appendage takes seconds, not fractions of one.

>>1042913
I am actually imagining weird tank-like vehicles with none of the strict requirements military agencies impose and other requirements that are needed to have a balanced match.
Something along the lines of a 15-20 minutes combat session at most. Lots more tactics, shorter actual engagements.
So no demolition derby, no transformers bullshit (and if you think any tank-like vehicle doesn't involve a lot of engineering challenges to be overcome to make it anything close to useful, you're very mistaken)

>>1042912
Adding jamming or using full autonomous robots defeats the whole purpose of robot fighting. It diminishes the need of a drivers skill.

Taking off weapon or weight restrictions defeats the purpose of building your bot within a confined set of rules. You hone your bot and design, then use your driving skills overtake other contestants.

I dont in principle hate the ideas. It could be entertaining.

BUT, The current tournaments rules and regulations have long since been honed over a long period.
There is NOTHING wrong with the current formats, its like this guy thinks Robot Wars and ABCs Battlebots is the only tournament around.

Nobody gives a fuck that this guy wants a long established sport to change everything they have worked towards for decades.

>>1042912
Arena for Battlebots is already 1.5" thick flame-resistant polycarb which is definitely good enough for a .22 and more. The battlebot I built, and the vast majority of them are clad in properly-reinforced AR400 and AR500 steel, which most people use for .45 targets. The box costs about a million dollars; having to make a new one that can contain AR500-piercing rounds is gonna be in the tens of millions.

Some of our friends did pitch a completely autonomous robot, and here was the studio's response: "This is a character-driven reality TV show, we're here to get the human reactions during a fight. Autonomy removes that completely"

Really my biggest problem with this 'increase in scale' is "who the fuck is going to pay for it?". ABC was unhappy to shell out 6 million, of which .5 Million went to actually building the robots. Megabots got that much from Kickstarter alone, plus a few million from various corporate sponsors and VC sources just for a glorified bulldozer with a paintball cannon.

>>1042917
IMHO it just shifts the skill from the driver to the programmer, but I get your point, and actually agree with you on most of your considerations.
To me, it just feels like watching a go-kart race and imagining what an F-1 race could be like. It still has its own rules, but higher speeds and longer tracks and race duration. I hope it makes at least some sense.

>>1042918
The firearm example was to show that some weapon limitations really don't do much except limit the number of efficient design people can come up with, I'm not entirely sure it could be feasible to host the show inside an enclosed space if someone started shooting a .22lr autocannon with his bot.
Anyway, the cost issue is the only one I actually see as big enough to stop this kind of tournaments to ever happen. Unless tank-making companies start using it to promote themselves in the same way car makers still participate in the F1 championship despite the ridiculously high costs.

What are firearms going to do against a 10-ton solid wedge with an arduino in the center of it?

>>1042805
Who is gonna pay for 100 ton of steel?

>>1042986
Mexico!

>>1042918


So they pay you to make the robots? 500k for robot building, how many robots is that divided up amongst. Also quite interested in the rules even if the fuckers change them mid filming. I got some ideas for some ebik robuts. Did like that they allowed fire but did it actually do much? Wud about cutting torches ^_^

>>1042472
Battlebots, know more people at the event, better contract, stipend to build robots, and travel expenses are actually covered.

>>1042802
>jamming
Yeah great idea, then it becomes 'strongest jammer wars.'

>>1043007
Each team gets an 8000 dollar stipend which can cover building a rather bare bones 220 without many spares. Most teams have sponsors on top of that along with access to resources.

Examples: Team Whyachi family owns Westar Tech Machining, Overhaul has MIT resources, Red Devil builder has a fairly nice home machine shop, Tombstone was sponsored by a Tormach a company that makes milling machines that donated one to the builder.

>>1043635
Also Robowars unlike battlebots does not provide a stipend, or travel money, and also does not allow you to have sponsors.

>>1043636
Not sure that's true mate, the robot Pulsar has sponsors if you check but I don't think they're mentioned on the show

>>1043691
Its nigh impossible to get sponsors if they show won't mention them, or even zoom in on the sponsor's graphics.

>>1043635
>Ovehaul
>MIT

I want this meme to die

>>1043636
Robot Wars had a £1,000 stipend, which thanks to Brexit, was pretty much nothing

>>1043837
>>1043691
Battlebots had SEVERE restrictions on approved sponsorship. They were bendable, sure, but even then it's incredibly hard to get a sponsor. The teams that did it well had a single team member full-time sucking corporate D to get money.

>>1043853
I'll stop making MIT overhual jokes as soon Charles gets his own water jet.

Also hadn't heard about the 1000 pound stipend, when I looked into applying just saw rather shitty initial competitor agreement and nothing else.