Re: Sumo Contest - Sunday 10/9/05, Austin, TX

In lugnet.robotics, Justin Fisher wrote:
> In lugnet.robotics, Bryan Bonahoom wrote:
>
>> That's great, except your rules eliminate the ability to build the "best bot".
>
> All rules do this, from Sumo to BattleBots. The purpose of the rules has never
> been to facilitate the best bot (you'd get Battlebots escalating towards armour
> by the tonne and using nuclear weapons :-), the purpose is to form a
> standardised playing field such that "outstanding design/engineering" can
> (hopefully) be a match for "lots of money". I won't be competiting, but limiting
> to 9V motors seems to me like a good choice to serve this purpose.
>
> Perhaps a better saying would be "May the best designer win". Designing within
> limitations is what design is all about :-)
>

I really have to agree here. I think there is a place for "big bot" contests,
but there is a place for various levels of limitations too. In fact, I think
that is half the fun.

We had a WAMALUG Sumo event last year with a 16 oz weight limit. It is quite
hard to build an effective Sumo bot to get in under this weight limit, even if
you do put those pricey Lithium batteries in the RCX to save the odd oz or two.

(The upside of that competition was Steve H won by proxy. He sent me a photo of
the bot he would build if he would have been able to make it. So I built it for
him and it beat both mine and half a dozen others! grrrr)

JB