SparkFun AVC 2018, held at the Boulder County Fairgrounds on September 7-9, will include all of our favorite competitions with the addition of a 60-lb combat bot weight class. We’ve made some changes this year to how we’re structuring our student competitions and we’re excited to see all of our middle schools, high schools, and universities join us again this year.
Combat Bots
In an effort to create the best experience possible for our school teams, K-12 teams are more than welcome to enter any weight class, but only Plastic Ants and Featherweights will have separate K-12 brackets and K-12 prizes. K-12 teams entering any other weight class will compete as adult teams for adult prizes. This will also hopefully allow us to keep the K-12 competition to one day only and reduce the need for teachers and students to be present both days.
Pending registration numbers (greater than 5) we will have a separate class for Featherweight (30lb) robots. If registration turnout is too low we will bring the K-12 teams into the adult competition and rank them separately based on wins-losses. We'd like to cluster our K12 teams into these two weight classes so we can hopefully create separate brackets for those students and provide more opportunities to compete.
Classic AVC
All Classic AVC competitions will have student divisions and university-level teams will have their own prizes for all divisions, though will be incorporated into the adult brackets for combat bots.
As a reminder, your team qualifies as a student team if ⅔ of the members are students.
Logistics Class
This competition will be coming back this year, but the rules will have some slight changes. We aim to have the rules posted by the end of May and will announce via SparkFun social media, our blog, and updates to avc.sparkfun.com.
Registration Cost
This year the cost per vehicle or bot will be $45. All proceeds from registration go directly back into funding the event, and we have several special features to this year’s competition we are excited to share with our competitors in the coming months. If you are a student team (K-12 or university) and have trouble with the registration fee, please get in touch with us.
Team Size Limits
Due to last year’s wild success and our plans for this year’s event, we are trying to do a better job at team and crowd management. Combat Bots teams will be limited to two pit passes per robot, and Classic AVC teams will be limited to three pit passes per vehicle. Exceptions can be made for student teams and decisions on those exceptions will be made starting August 1, once we have an estimate on the number of individuals, vehicles, and robots registered.
As always, if you have any questions, concerns, suggestions, or words of encouragement, feel free to reach out to the SparkFun AVC 2018 Crew at avc@sparkfun.com.
announcement, AVC, robotics