Okay, okay - I admit it. I watched Battle Bots this evening (which some may call treason). One thing that struck me though was that they said that over 500 different bots participated this season. Sounds like FIRST may not be able to say that they are the largest robotic competition for much longer. Think that FIRST can stay on top?
~Tom Fairchild~, who isn’t a big Battle Bot fan but watches now and then.
I wonder if all 500 hundred of those battlebots compete??? (that would be a lot of robot smashin 
)
But i think that FIRST can probably stay on top even if they do limit things like they did for this upcoming season…
You know the punishment for treason is 11 lashings with a wet noodle…lol…sorry, i had to say that. Anyway, in a post in the general forum it said that FIRST has 652 teams registered to attend at least one regional. So we beat battlebots 
Further, I think that even if BattleBots had more robots, FIRST would still ‘stay on top’ because of the quality and overall purpose of the orginazation. I suppose that I’m pretty bias though…
While battlebots may or may not have more robots competing over the course of one year, let’s consider the average lifespan of each battlebot.
Not very long :eek:
Let’s say a battlebot somehow survives for a whole 3 months before it is killed by another robot. Now let’s make an even more ludicrous assumption and say that all battlebots live for this long.
Thus, we can multiply the average lifespan of a robot to the number of robots to find out how many robots at any given time alive and having an influence in the world:
Battlebots: (0.25 years/robot)(500 robots) = 125
FIRST: (1 year/robot)(500 robots) = 500
Thus at any given time FIRST has 4 times as many functional robots in existance This is just one way that FIRST is bigger. Look at the # of matches held per year. FIRST probably blows battlebots away. Look at # of people involved. Battlebots has many fewer people per team, so FIRST is bigger in that sense as well.
Patrick
As you can plainly tell by looking at my avatar <— , I watch BattleBots. If you watched it last night, Tuesday, November 27, Bill Dweyer went back to his college to check out their robot. When the segment ended, he noted that they lost in pre-qualifing. I may be wrong, but I think that only the top 20 (ish) robots make it past pre-qualifing in their weight class. With six or eight weeks of shows, including the special hour-long finals shows, there is only room for a certain number of the better robots to fit into the season of shows, so the majority of robots are KOed from the competition in the pre-qualifing, or seeding, matches.
PS: I watch BattleBots because I feel that I can learn a bit of strategy from it, in some way or another.
although you have to admit it is kind of funny watching the hundreds of hours of work being destroyed in 3 minutes or less…lol
*Originally posted by D.J. Fluck *
**although you have to admit it is kind of funny watching the hundreds of hours of work being destroyed in 3 minutes or less…lol **
That’s actually my main problem with Battlebots and the like…I personally can’t justify putting that much time into a project, knowing that it will be most likely be coming home in pieces…
I think that it’s hard to see unless you compete, but the value of the robot is in the journey not the destination (it’s “path dependent” for you physics types.)
When you lose your entire robot you still have the journey and everything you learned. Consequently building that same robot would be much easier, cheaper, and faster the second time around. Most builders don’t just rebuild their robot of course. They set out on another journey to improve, thus learning more and making a better robot.
This is one aspect of the destruction I think Dean would appreciate. You better believe he has tested IBot to destruction to find it’s limits; this is the same idea except it’s entertaining too.
With all this said BattleBots is expensive and of course you risk losing a lot of expensive stuff during any given match. But realistically the damage is usually structural.
The core parts of a BattleBot (electronics, motors, batteries) last just as long as any FIRST robot and even better you don’t have to buy a whole new (but mostly identical) kit every year.
Standard disclaimer: FIRST is cool, BattleBots is cool. But they shouldn’t be compared or compete with one another.
Dan
basically what i ment was that i like seeing how crazy people are that they can get their hundreds of hours of work destroyed in 3 minutes…i would never do it…im not that crazy
I agree with BSMFIRST. It is a widely known philosophy (if you could call it that) of the reward being in the journey. Their journey is pretty similar to ours. While they’re a different age group and are building for a completely different purpose, we’re both learning teamwork and enjoying engineering. Yes, perhaps their robots get destroyed in a three minute competition, but lets be honest here…after nationals ours, in a way, are destroyed too. Sure, many teams, including ours, use it for a lot like driver training, publicity, and a general tutorial for the newbs, but it no longer serves the purpose for which it was originally created. I’m sure this will stir up some opinions, which are more than welcome. Please don’t misinterpret me though, I love “Li’l MOE” - and always enjoy seeing it and driving it around. Just wanted to give some credit to the Battle Bots people, as the reward is truely in the journey - one which is not that different from our own.
Whenever I go canning and say the word “robotics”, people automatically say “YOU’RE IN BATTLEBOTS?!?” and then I explain how its FIRST Robotics and explain it…and then they say “oh…” and walk away.
Guaranteed to happen.
All people want is wanton destruction, not something beneficial such as this.
Ticks me off…:mad: :mad: :mad:
Battlebots is on top because of popularity.
Do you think that FIRST would be much more popular without BattleBots? Do you think the public would have a greater appreciation of engineers without BattleBots?
When you see a little kid nervously ask a BattleBots builder for an autograph and run off in delight when they get it…it’s pretty hard to think of BattleBots as such a bad thing.
Dean always talked about creating a “professional” level FIRST competition that high school kids could aspire to compete in, like the major leagues. What BattleBots did is build the major leagues first and now they’re creating the minor leagues (BBIQ.)
Also, I am confident BattleBots & Ginger will pave the way for FIRST’s big TV break.
Dan
*Originally posted by BSMFIRST *
**Do you think that FIRST would be much more popular without BattleBots? Do you think the public would have a greater appreciation of engineers without BattleBots?When you see a little kid nervously ask a BattleBots builder for an autograph and run off in delight when they get it…it’s pretty hard to think of BattleBots as such a bad thing.
Dean always talked about creating a “professional” level FIRST competition that high school kids could aspire to compete in, like the major leagues. What BattleBots did is build the major leagues first and now they’re creating the minor leagues (BBIQ.)
Also, I am confident BattleBots & Ginger will pave the way for FIRST’s big TV break.
Dan **
I think more people would know about FIRST, but popularity wise? Probably not.
I never said BB was a bad thing–it gets really annoying when thats all people ask me.
At this rate, I’m not sure we’ll get a big TV break, but it doesn’t matter, as long as FIRST lives on.
*Originally posted by Matt Ryan *
**Whenever I go canning and say the word “robotics”, people automatically say “YOU’RE IN BATTLEBOTS?!?” and then I explain how its FIRST Robotics and explain it…and then they say “oh…” and walk away.Guaranteed to happen.
All people want is wanton destruction, not something beneficial such as this.
Ticks me off…:mad: :mad: :mad:
Battlebots is on top because of popularity. **
I get a similar response from most people. It really IS quite irksome. I don’t think that Battle Bots and FIRST Robotics are mutually exclusive at all, but people seem more apt to flock towards the Comedy Central hoo-hah (the “announcers” in suits always crack me up). Then again, FIRST Robotics hasn’t really been displayed on TV much (as far as I know). Mabye this walking away reaction is just a classic case of pre-judgement? With that bridge last season, there was plenty of carnage in FIRST for me! 8)
Also, I am confident BattleBots & Ginger will pave the way for FIRST’s big TV break.
Then we will run them over…lol 
Yeah, whenever I mention the words “robotics competition” Battlebots is the first thing out of the other persons mouth. So now I just make sure I add “and it’s not Battlebots” before they get to say anything. But, honestly, the thing that would bother me about doing Battlebots instead of FIRST is that I don’t think I could stand to see my robot get ripped apart after spending such a long time building. That would probably make me cry or something.
~Christina
I’ve also experienced this first hand at a large event. It was the Assembly Technology Expo in Chicago, IL. We had our bot at the IPS booth and there was a battle bot at the Loctite booth…i bet i was asked if we were a battle bot or i heard them talking about it as they walked by more than 50 times. I know DJ knows what i’m talking about and Andy probably does too.
Well, you can just do what I do -
I tell them that I am involved in a robotics competition - and then I tell them that it’s a lot more difficult than Battlebots. I think it is, and if they’re impressed by the Battlebots, they’re in awe of anything that’s more complex.
LoL, I definitly think that there’s no reason to have a poll if you’ve ever had someone ask, “Do you do BattleBots?” or something of that sort. I’ve done more demonstrations than I can remember, and that’s the stand first question out of EVERYONE’s mouth. There’s nothing wrong with BattleBots, but you just get tired explaining that you’re not a part of it - and watching people go “oh…:(” (Gotta love that disappoint look that always seems to appear).
~Tom Fairchild~, who thinks that robotic competitions, no matter which organization they might be in, are here to stay.
*Originally posted by Michael Krass *
**Well, you can just do what I do -I tell them that I am involved in a robotics competition - and then I tell them that it’s a lot more difficult than Battlebots. I think it is, and if they’re impressed by the Battlebots, they’re in awe of anything that’s more complex. **
I don’t know, it seems like no one ever believes me when I say it’s better than battle bots. I usually get the “well, do you get to beat up the other robot?” And when I say “not really” that’s when I get the second disappointed look and that’s where the conversation usually ends. Even if I do say, “But…but…it’s better…I promise!” Doesn’t quite seem to get them.
~Christina