Robogames 2016?

[DresnerRobotics]

Anyone is more than welcome to continue carrying the torch, there's no real info needed from me. Contact Dave at Robogames, he requires a minimum of like 3-4 people to sign up for it, and then everything else is on the event organizer.

The arena is gone, I donated it to a school doing robotics competitions in SF area. I had rebuilt the buildings using ABS as Tician said, but I donated those too (I just mailed the storage key to the school).

I simply do not have the time or spare cash to continue running the competition at this point. I'd like to reboot it at some point and run it at Maker Faire for a bigger audience, but who knows when I'll have time. I invested thousands personally into the competition and it just ended up being a massive time/money sink for an event that only happened once a year for 2 days. Did that for 5 years, can't really justify keeping it up forever.

[jwatte]

You should bring a 'bot as a competitor!

[giantflaw]

I sent in two queries over the last several weeks about getting Mech Warfare rebooted to [email protected] with no reply. We have our old badge pictures and out of date robot pictures on the Robogames website. This weekend we are having the Tucson MechBrawl and will get updated robot pictures and people badge pictures to submit to Robogames.

[nvrdunn]

Bit off topic but along the same lines. I've been toying with an idea to bring this down to kids. I've been a coach for a local FLL team with 11/12 yr olds. I actually have found that FLL is almost too open for the kids and struggle with that. The idea that I have been thinking of is a basic mech robot build class. Using HerkuleX servos and an off the shelf SBC create a curriculum where a "team" of kids would build up the robot. They would get exposure to mechanical build, electronics, programming and such. Have a fee per kid and offset most of the cost with local businesses. If you run more than one team at a time, at the end they have their own game. Our local town has summer events in town, setup a booth using the bots and a area of wood/netting to promote STEM to kids overall. Companies that donate would have their name maybe on the bots, buildings, both, etc.

By using the cheaper HerkuleX servos, RP2 or Beagle Bone Black and regular RC batteries and such, a bot "should" be able to be build on an "inexpensively". Like I said, a pipe dream that I've already started breaking into modules for weekly sessions and such.

Something along these lines might be a good way to get not only kids more interested but also exposure to STEM. That should allow more sponsorship options due to the target audience and overall methodology. Then maybe regional meetups could be setup that can cater to both the "professional" mechs and the lower end kid/STEM mechs.

[jpieper]

Well, it looks like David just sent out the announcement for Robogames 2016, so it seems likely to happen. giantflaw, maybe try his direct email: [email protected] ?

Feel free to cc me at [email protected], I'm happy to help organize.

I'm bummed we couldn't make it to Tucson this weekend, but hopefully looking forward to some pictures!

[mannyr7]

I just logged into registration for Robogames 2016. There are categories available in LW and HW mech Warfare to register for! After Christmas I'll know whether I can make it this coming year. If so, I'm back in!

[jwatte]

Also: new venue. Sadly, much longer drive for me :-(

[giantflaw]

The R-Team Robotics club will come with 5 mechs. We will register around the 2nd week in January. Very excited to seeing Mechwarfare rebooted at Robogames. Since we live in Arizona we usually drive to the event. We will bring our buildings and arena that we have been using and try to organize the event. We will appreciate any help in getting this going again.

[byi]

Odd its not listed on the main event list... are we sure its running? Pending parts and travel funds, CURC will be bringing between 1 and 3 mechs (1 working, 1 in need of upgrades, 1 pending funding). It's going to take some hustle to make it happen, but I hope to see you there.

[nvrdunn]

Odd its not listed on the main event list... are we sure its running? Pending parts and travel funds, CURC will be bringing between 1 and 3 mechs (1 working, 1 in need of upgrades, 1 pending funding). It's going to take some hustle to make it happen, but I hope to see you there.

I emailed David about the fact its on the reg page but not on the list of events. He said it was on the reg page by accident: