How would anyone else feel about a pay-to-enter competition? Simple rules:
1) everyone pays a nominal amount (eg US$2) to enter (maybe to a centralised PayPal account or something?)
2) winner takes all - the person deemed the "winner" gets the contents of the PayPal account
3) the person setting the challenge is not allowed to enter (clearly, this person may already have spent years working on their design!)
4) the entries are judged by LMR members and these members must not also be entrants in the competition.
Something like that might promote some good rivalry with only a small amount of cash at stake. Perhaps if there were a large number of entries, or a particularly long running competition, we might set a maximum amount of winnings with all other entry fees being used to help pay LMR hosting costs?
Creating a compition whose winner recieves money…sounds legal to me. I guess “legally” there are differnt laws in every state…every contry! As far as I can guess, it seems legal to me, but then again, that’s how felons get in to jail.
Other than that, it sounds like a great idea! I love nothing more than to build a robot for a purpose, even if that purpose is to win a compitition. I would certainly be interested in participating.
That’s a fun idea that definitly raises the bar a few notches.
Personaly I feel that only the paying entrants in the competition should be allowed to vote.
Just like the Eurovision Song Contest: Partisipants from all over Europe compete, and vote for the best song. It would seem weird if only Asian, American and African countries were allowed to vote…
I don’t think I would enter any challenge/competition for the prize. Money or otherwise. I’m in it for the ooohs and aahhs from my friends. Those are free. Gratis.
But if others would feel some extra provocation in participating, then I’m all for extr aprizes! I would love to see a busy competition on LMR.
Anyone got stats on the number of entrants for each of the challenges posted so far? I guess the average is somewhere between zero and two. At USD2 per entrant, the pot’s not going to be a big draw.
Most LMR-ians will participatein a challenge by adding ideas, encouragement, constructive criticism, etc. Very few will build actual robots.
I think there should be an open poll to determine the winner of a competition. I’ve seen this faccility on many community sites, so I assume that it’s fairly easy to add.
Touching slightly on the legality aspect, if we do have competitons, and if there are prizes, the management of LMR needs to ensure that it doesn’t develop a reputation for being partisan or sloppy. There have been a number of occasions when material has been deleted from LMR recently. That has to stop, as it does reputational damage.
This would be tricky. I like th eidea, but as Mike said above a lot of competitions only get 1 or 2 entries (TWSS) so the prize money wouldn’t be too big. Maybe make it so it costs $5 to enter (TWSS) and if there are 4 or less participants within the first 3 months the money gets refunded or rolled into another contest. Of course the contests could be more vague allowing for more entries (TWSS). For example make a robot that uses sound and has emotions. This could go a number of ways and allow for more people.
Gambling is probably comonly defined as a test of luck. LMR competitions would/should be about skill, so should fall outside the gambling constraints in most places
