2016 Robogames Mech Warfare Final Results

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Here are the final results for the 2016 Robogames:

Gold - Apophis (R-Team out of Tucson)
Silver - TwitchMx (Team Numa out of California)
Bronze - Super Mega Microbot (Team Savage Soldier out of Boston)

Being from R-Team I'm really excited that one of our own took the gold this year. Also excited that there's a lot of good competition out there and the Silver and Bronze went to two other great teams.

I'd like to use this post to post pictures, videos, reminisce about the good times, etc....

I'll start another post within the next few days where we can discuss ideas, improvements, etc... for 2017 Robogames.

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Bracket Results:
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Congratulations to everyone who made it to the tournament -- that's the real win :-)

Also congratulations to the top-three winners for your building and piloting Skillz!

Jwatte, Thank you for designing and sharing your Breech Block with us!!! That design works better than any other design I have seen yet!! Not sure if you noticed or not but, almost all of the Mechs at Robogames had one. It also worked great in the hotel room to test fire after making some gun repairs!!

You're welcome; glad it worked out!

There's actually a fit difference between Shapeways-printed and home-printed, so next year maybe I'll tweak the files for a Shapeways variant, too? Main change would be to tighten up the barrel hole, as it assumes 0.4mm or so of home-printing shrinkage.

Some pictures from my camera:

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RoboGames 2016 - Video Links

Match 1 - Thorn vs Apophis
https://youtu.be/1P-vxVbrvcI

Match 2 - HD3 vs Super Mega Microbot
https://youtu.be/OkF2CjvgVj4

Match 3 - Odin vs TwitchMX
https://youtu.be/P-NHh0KC5_M

RoboGames 2016 Videos:

Match 6 - Thorn vs HD3
https://youtu.be/y60EBPbijb4

Match 7 - Immortal vs Nomad
https://youtu.be/_GylNVADP54

Match 8 - Thorn vs TwitchMX
https://youtu.be/wLTXwc0V-tg

RoboGames 2016 Videos:

Match 9 - Super Mega Microbot vs Odin
https://youtu.be/jeUS8XMEqeM

Match 10 - Apophis vs '99
https://youtu.be/K43dBbde6es

Match 11 - Immortal vs Super Mega Microbot
https://youtu.be/dJnkAxs960w

RoboGames 2016 Videos:

Match 12 - '99 vs TwitchMX
https://youtu.be/KqKBBuJMBm8

Match 13 - Odin vs Apophis
https://youtu.be/rgWY6r5tIRY

Match 14 - TwitchMX vs Super Mega Microbot
https://youtu.be/DnwF7CNsjoo

Match 15 - Odin vs TwitchMX
https://youtu.be/aSknZqPg1MU

RoboGames 2016 Videos: Third Place Match - Odin vs Super Mega Microbot
https://youtu.be/sj2yhoBagfs

RoboGames 2016 Videos: Championship Match - Best of 3 - Apophis vs TwitchMX

Round 1:
https://youtu.be/H5TETJaVCMQ

Round 2:
https://youtu.be/kGSILlPajfM

Question about match 7:
It looks like Immortal should have gotten a bunch of hits on Nomad earlier. Even just 15 seconds in when it comes up from behind, it fires, but nothing detects. Was the laser aim off or something?
(I'm asking for reasons of analyzing robustness -- when Onyx hit SMMB last year it worked fine from that kind of distance.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jwatte

Question about match 7:
It looks like Immortal should have gotten a bunch of hits on Nomad earlier. Even just 15 seconds in when it comes up from behind, it fires, but nothing detects. Was the laser aim off or something?
(I'm asking for reasons of analyzing robustness -- when Onyx hit SMMB last year it worked fine from that kind of distance.)

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Not quite sure exactly where your talking about in the match... but don't assume just because the lasers are on the target their firing, and if they are firing that the lasers are perfectly lined up with the BBs.

Or it could be that the scoring system was knowingly flawed this year... different targets plates had different sensitivities, some of the LEDs were hard to see, observer might have had a blocked view, human error, etc... I'm sure if you analyze a lot the video you can pick out a lot of errors. (And me being one of the prime observers... I'm sure I made multiple mistakes.)

It could be any/or all of the above.

As for robustness to hit distance, that's part of our rationale of why we're going to a standardized plate for 2017 and intend to characterize what velocities trigger at what distance... it will give people a design guides for their gun. Hope this helps.

The time I was thinking about was this: https://youtu.be/_GylNVADP54?t=39

You can hear him firing many shots, and the laser is wiggling onto and off-of the target panels. Nomad was running away -- it's possible Immortal actually missed all of the shots, but there were other cases which seemed similar later in the match, where I would have expected at least something to hit.

Your explanation seems credible, so this is more food for the thought that we do need standardization :-)

If anyone is interested, I've posted the videos from our operator console for each of Super Mega Microbot's official matches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNCp2Ivnfxc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVbZo7j1HM8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00LPO1I2QqE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTy4dX_tswc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYJBNzcs10

Very cool. I was wondering if the judges in the arena were giving away the position of the other Mechs. Doesn't appear so.

In the first championship match with Apophis, you can definitely see his hits scoring ever so slightly faster than TwitchMX's. I should have gone full auto, I guess :)

Thanks for posting so much video, gentlemen!

I've been on travel and have not read the forums until today. Nice pilot views! We should do more pilot view videos next year. I saw the question about Nomad getting hit by Immortal while Nomad was running away and I think I can offer some insight as to an explanation. Nomad's target plates are very reliable and have consistently registered all hits thru-out all the scrimmages it's been in. Also the rear target plate is the most rigidly mounted when compared to the side and front plates (even though they are all mounted pretty rigidly). The target plates were all tested before the match and I checked them after the match because I always do. The target plates registered fine. On Friday morning I saw Immortals guns firing and noticed a number of misfires. The gear boxes did make a cycle noise. Since I have supporting evidence that the rear plate did function I therefore offer up the explanation that the guns had a combination of misfires and/or misses.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not accusing anybody of foul play; I hope you don't take it that way!
I'm trying to figure out what conclusions to draw for next years improvement, not having been able to spend the full three days immersed this year :-(
The long distance, dry firing, and poor aim while moving are all totally plausible explanations.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jwatte

I'm trying to figure out what conclusions to draw for next years improvement

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We (RTeam) feel the gun is one of the most important factors (along with reliable video) in making a mech competitive and is often overlooked by competitors. We've spent a lot of time focusing on the gun and have learned a lot about the AEG gearboxes and operation. We've found a gun that shoots fast (velocity), accurate, and in quick succession is superior to the ones that spray a lot of bullets.

We also had discussions on trying come up with a "kit" gun people can buy to try to get newer competitors up and running faster. I planned to post thoughts of that on in the ideas for 2017 forum at some point.