r/NHRL

I had posted a few weeks ago to get some advice. The advice I received was absolutely spot on. I figured I would drop this here for anyone else running a search on the same topic.

I went to the May 16 event with a group of 10 yr olds. We came from Bergen county NJ. The afternoon traffic added 30-40 minutes for us (about 1.5 hour total).

Parking: if you come from I-95 North, the apartment building will be the parking lot before the NHRL building in your right side. It’s super close. We had no problem running out to the car to drop stuff or get things. When we got there around 4pm, the lot was basically empty. It filled up closer to 7pm.

Arrival/building layout: you walk into a standard lobby. On the left is where you scan your tickets or purchase admission. On the right, you can see the control room for all of the video feeds. Just past that you’ll have 2 hands on experience areas in front of you with a shop to the right side and the main cages on the left. You can walk through the shop to get to the back area which has the bar, coloring, skee ball (free). The bathrooms are through the shop as well. The back area has a path to the main cages from the opposite direction. This was helpful to us so we didn’t have to walk in front of people to grab a seat by the cages early in the day. The back area leads out to the food trucks.

Hands on experience stuff: this is what you buy tokens for. Tokens are significantly cheaper online and in advance. It was $5/token in person. The one experience was 1 token. You could drive a small bot around a table and push a ball. The other experience was 4 tokens. You got to control a bot that had weapons and actually fight. Not sure it was worth $20, but it was certainly worth the roughly $12/$13 I spent in advance.

Seats: metal bleachers around the cages. We had sweatshirts that we folded into a cushion. There’s video screens everywhere in the building. In the back area, there’s chairs and whatnot so you could definitely get up and move around if the bleachers bothered you. Bleachers with yellow/black caution tape were required to get up when a fire bot was fighting.

Crowds: there was a decent amount of people, but it wasn’t crowded. We never waited long or felt like there were too many people.

Food: we did eat at the food trucks, but if we do this again- we are definitely finding a place to eat in town. There is a water bottle refiller by the bathroom.

Event: I have never watched the streams. I had no clue what I was walking into. I was not expecting that level of a production. Cameras everywhere, multiple staff directing things, changing lighting, etc. Video screens everywhere with the current match, upcoming matches, bracket, stats, etc. It was all very well done.

It was an absolute blast. We all had a great time. The kids conked out in the car on the way home.

TLDR: definitely recommend. It was fun and affordable. Getting there around 3-4pm, having dinner, then staying for prime time (starts at 7pm) is the way to go!

And for my personal opinion on what I saw: 3lb bots- Anubis is a fast fucker, I can’t believe the giant wheel design won, and holy shit that one ending up in the wall was nuts, 12lb bots- I wonder if the tally marks on robo-cat are indicative of how many prior robo-cats there have been, yikes that one team taking out bolts to make weight is crazy (or is that standard schtick?), 30lb bots- giant wheel didn’t work well here but it surprised me with being functional after a little fire and splitting in 2, and I don’t like firebots

TLDR: boo kazaa even youtube with unskippable ads is better than you

NHRL war on BORING.

Watching NHRL grow form small tiny events to benign the F2 of robot combat has been interesting but it’s been a bumpy ride and it has a big effect on the Beatleweight scene and how it has allowed it to become as big as it has ever been but in somewhat losing its original identity but has become something very different.

Chapter 1. Active Weapons only: the banning of weaponless robots may seem simple now but it was a huge deal due to the high influx of D2 KIT BOTS which lead to many think those fight are "boring" it didn’t stop other kit bots being entered but it gave it a usp it almost impossible to find many events now that don’t have an active weapon rule now in the USA as many try to copy NHRL’S success.

Chapter 2. First wave of flame: NHRL has not been a stranger to some controversies in its history but at the start its “lack of safety” with flame bots caused much concern from the UK teams and fans. ( all uk events ban fire and are very strict with exposed lipo’s) while fire bots were not serious at this moment of time as most of the items were there to get around the “active weapon rule” now NHRL is incredibly safe now.

Chapter 3: Team smee and full court…. rules and robots have a symbiotic relationship, the rules affect what robots can be built but in contrast certain designs and rule get around can force the rules to change, changing other robots by accident or on purpose, both bots have skirted the rules in different regards so much so whether or not they are the robots to lay the whole blame on why…

-Pins got limited to 2 pins (after the 2nd pin every other pin counts agents you in points)
-minimum active weapons. (all weapons must pass a dummy test and also means if your weapon isn't active in the arena you are forced to forfeit )
-the removal of control as a judging score and the change to Harm, and Attack.

Whether or not these robots were the reasons for the changing of rules but all i can say is rules and robots are not made in a vacuum and that has been part of the sport since the very beginning.

Chapter 4:minimum active weapons: on paper this seems like a good rule however this rule has screwed over many wedge bot drivers and builders some of witch i have sadly screen see leave due to the disrespect and sometimes hate wedgebots have been given, but i’m also conflicted because all things need to progress and evolve and sadly some people will get left behind and the fact more and more events want to be NHRL and i can’t blame them.

Chapter 5; second wave flame: PLA has become popular as a cheap and easy to use materials for many small teams especially teams with fewer resources, this is why they are very popular in beatle’s, flame bots don’t just counter them they single handedly retire robots and teams out of competition petition for months or years and for many this become a final nail in the coffin as the smaller team are trying to fight back their weight class as beetles have slowly become the toughest hardest ot entry weight class in robot combat and this division something NHRL will have to try keep the peace of.

Look nobody wants fire bots banned most people want fire bots kept to the same rules as other weapon types.

What’s next? Well NHRL seems to be trying to divide the class in three categories “pro league” the regular league and “xp” and weather this works and helps the midsize team’s and small team’s will only be found in time and i do trust NHRL will make rules with new era fire bots in mind but 1 thing they desperately need to improve is weapon variety at events but that doesn’t happen on a whim.

I've been watching Battlebots for a while. I've seen clips on YT from NHRL and been intrigued, but it's all a bit overwhelming with shorts and spotlights.

Is there a playlist of season ladder fights? Are they titled something consistent that I should search for?

I'd love to get into it!