Robot Combat League
Robot Combat League
Robot Combat is not have an offical organizing body. Although most events use the http://sparc.tools/ or some varient of them, each event participating in the league is independent and can run their event as they see fit as long as they fit into a very broad set of guidelines. Starting in March 2022, more than 30 independent events have agreed to use the league event results tracking system that will help determine which bots are the top competitors.
Why the Robot Combat League doesn't use the SPARC Botrank system
Although the SPARC Botrank system made an attempt at tracking how well robots performed, their system had several shortcomings.
- The primary issue is that the system used to calculate scores is greatly influenced by the number of events a bot as competed in which favored bots that competed a lot rather than bots that placed highly in events. This led to situations where a bot that competed and performed 'ok' in a half dozen events would be ranked higher than a robot that competed in and won two events.
- Another issue with the SPARC Botrank system, is that the calculations are done on an 18 month rolling period. Having no defined seasons or periods where rankings would be set makes its calcuations ever changing and difficult to evaluate.
- The SPARC Botrank system didn't have a way to disambiguate robots with the same name. Common robot names like 'Hazard' made the results unreliable.
When is the league season?
The season starts the first day of March and ends on the last day of February. Event data prior to March 2022 isn't complete so take historical rankings with a grain of salt.
What weight classes will be included?
Currently, ranks are calculated for the most popular weight classes: 150g, 1lb, 1lb-plastic, 3lb, 12lb, 30lb, and 30sportsman robots. If additional robot-classes become popular, the ranked classes may be expanded.
How are rankings determined?
Robots earn points by how highly they place at an event. A robot's season total is taken from their top 3 - highest point events.
How are points calculated?
Points are determined by how well a robot places in a competition and is weighted by the number of robots competing. The exact calculations to determine a robots score can be viewed on this calculator.