Im giving away $100 (contest)

[Admin]

Yeap, Im giving away $100 in a new internet-based robot competition Im creating.

You make a neat robot, the community votes, and I mail the winners a big check.

for more info, check here:
http://www.societyofrobots.com/free_robot_contest.shtml

You no longer have the excuse of not having enough money to make a robot

I will make an official announcement soon, but figured I would give a few of you forum readers a head start.

If anyone has ideas on how to improve my contest idea, feel free to post.

[Sam_Charette]

That's awesome.  One of my problems being brand new to all of this is that it's hard for me to figure out how to put something together.  Couple that with a general lack of good tutorials and schematics out there on the web (that I can find) means seeing any sort of result is difficult for me.

This will help to change that for sure!  Kudos, admin!

[trigger]

I applaud the goals of the contest. By getting people to build robots and getting more tutorials posted, this will certainly help beginners.

Caveat: no beginner could win this contest (as I see it--please convince me otherwise). In particular, anyone who follows the $50 robot tutorial will stand no chance against any biped, sumobot, or you name it. I don't have a problem with this, but you might consider revising (or deleting) the language "Combined with The $50 Robot Tutorial, your robot could end up being 100% free!" on the contest page, to reduce false expectations.

cheers

[Sam_Charette]

I agree with the $50 robot thing, and believe it's already in the rules, though not explicitly stated.  If engineering and looks are important, well anyone using a $50 robot would automatically lose

As for the beginners, do you mean that they wouldn't have much of a chance, or wouldn't be allowed?

[Nyx]

I think this could be a nice way of attracting people to the site, especially if you repeated the competition at regular dates.

I think what could be even nicer, however, is if you included in the requirements that people must document the construction of their robot and explain the design... That way, people could learn by observing the competition.

[Admin]

Ive incorporated some of the suggestions, and still thinking about the others.

Its kind of hard to level the playing field between experts and beginners, however . . . Perhaps I should create two categories, beginners for $50 and experts for $80? Anyone against this idea?

Also, I dont really like the name of the contest (its too long and not catchy). I kinda like 'Robot X Prize' but Im fairly sure the 'X Prize' name is already copyrighted . . . anyone have ideas?

[trigger]

Ive incorporated some of the suggestions, and still thinking about the others.

Its kind of hard to level the playing field between experts and beginners, however . . . Perhaps I should create two categories, beginners for $50 and experts for $80? Anyone against this idea?

I like the multi-category idea. If you base these on $50/$80, I think you'd have to say that's $50 on the value of the parts, not the cost to build. Some people have $50 of parts lying around for "free," so requiring a posting of a parts list with current values (standardized as closely as possible, e.g., to digikey for electronics etc.) would help.

Perhaps you could also level the playing field by assigning weights to different factors. For example, assigning a much greater weight to the tutorial quality versus engineering would level the playing field a bit.

[Nyx]

Speaking of tutorials... What about a tutorial writing competition Where you keep the best written ones.

[Tsukubadaisei]

2 questions.
Is it OK if I am a Russian who live in Japan?(Not restricted to US residents)
Can we use whatever we want? I mean, for example, my parents live in US and when I visited it I realised that they mostly use PIC. But I prefer using HITACHI H8 series micro-controller. Is it OK?

[Admin]

There are no restrictions to what you use for your robot.

As for location, all 1st world nations are ok (Japan is ok).

Im thinking about raising the award amount, too . . . Ill make the contest official probably when I get back from California next week.

[Tsukubadaisei]

Thanks man!
I have always wanted to challenge my creativity. Formulating an interesting and original idea is, in my opinion, the most difficult task when building anything, including robots .

[Admin]

its now official:
http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=1018.0