The Combat Robot Hall of Fame - Rules, Rumors, and Tips

Useful Information for Voters

Starting with the 2019 Combat Robot Hall of Fame balloting voters have been required to complete a short 'info-quiz' to assure that they are familiar with the way the balloting works and how the ballots are scored. This action was taken to prevent a recurrence of the large number of disruptive ballots received in 2017 from voters who clearly misunderstood how robots are elected to the Hall.

The quiz is 'open book' and all of the information required to pass is provided in the 'Rules, Rumors, and Tips' section below. Completion of the quiz provides a single-use numeric code that must be submitted with the ballot.

Combat Robot Hall of Fame: Balloting Rules, Rumors, and Tips

  1. The Combat Robot Hall of Fame was established in 2003 and opens for the selection of new members in August of odd-numbered years. The balloting dates and a link to the ballot are published in combat robot builder social media sites on multiple continents.
  2. Robots are selected for membership in the Combat Robot Hall of Fame (CRHoF) by consensus of the combat robot community. Starting in 2021 full membership in the CRHoF is a two-step process:
    1. Robots appearing on at least 25% of submitted ballots will gain Honorable Mention status and will become eligible for promotion to full membership on future ballots.

    2. Robots with Honorable Mention status will be promoted to full membership in the CRHoF if they appear on at least 50% of the submitted ballots in any ballot year after their election to Honorable Mention status.
    This method of voting is modeled on established 'Hall of Fame' voting practices. See Baseball Hall of Fame Voting for an example. The waiting period following Honorable Mention status corresponds to the common waiting period following retirement from the sport before becoming eligible for Hall of Fame membership.
  3. Your ballot may include as many as twenty-five robots you believe to be worthy of membership in the CRHoF. This limit was set in response to multiple ballots received in the 2023 balloting with an unreasonably large number of robots listed. A typical ballot will name eight to ten robots. Ballots with a very small number of robots disrupt the consensus process and will be given less weight in scoring. Large blocks of identical ballots are considered suspicious and will also be given less scoring weight.
  4. The CRHoF recognizes that voters from any given region of the world may not be familiar with robots competing in other regions. To assure global scope for the Hall, a small scoring bonus is added to robots highly popular in ballots from their home region. The details of this and other scoring adjustments are kept confidential to prevent the system from being 'gamed'.
  5. Ballots with their entries in alphabetical order are given extra scoring weight. This bonus in included to make it easier for the ballot counters to enter votes into the tally sheet. Minor errors in alphabetization will be overlooked.
  6. Membership in the Hall is open to any robot that has competed in a combat robot tournament and may reasonably be considered to have claimed excellence in at least one of four categories:
    1. Dominating success in combat;
    2. Pioneering or perfecting influential designs;
    3. Having great fan or entertainment appeal; or
    4. Otherwise making a lasting impact on the sport.
    Note that winning ANY single tournament does not by itself qualify as 'dominating success in combat'. A robot with no discernible standing in any of these categories will not be allowed full membership in the Combat Robot Hall of Fame regardless of the voting outcome. The Combat Robot Hall of Fame membership committee has not yet found it necessary to enforce this rule.
  7. In spite of the large numbers of small combat robots competing in lower weight classes around the globe, less than 10% of full members in the Hall weigh less than 60 pounds. More than 25% of the "Honorable Mention" recipients are from these 'sub-light' weight categories -- consider promoting one or more of them to full membership via your ballot.
  8. In the 2023 CRHoF voting there were 438 different robots named on at least one ballot. HUGE! was inducted as a full member of the Hall, and only 31 other robots appeared on at least 10% of ballots. You may vote for any robots you like, but these 31 have demonstrated a chance of attaining membership:

    Apollo/Kronic, Beta, Bigger Brother/Little Sister, Blip, Chomp, Deep Six, Diotoir, Droopy, Emulsifier, Endgame, Firestorm, Hydra, Hypershock, Lynx, MegatRON, Mixtape, Mudskipper, Nuts 2, Project Liftoff, Pussycat, Sawblaze, Shredit Bro, Spectre/Quantum, Tantrum, Thagomizer, T-Minus, Touro Maximus/Minotaur, Warhead, Whiplash, Witch Doctor, Ziggy.

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Contents copyright Mark Joerger, 2003, 2021
'Combat Robot Hall of Fame' is a trademark held by Mark Joerger, 2003