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Thread: Hovercraft Battle Bot

  1. #1
    Redirect Left
    Guest
    I was browsing the build rules for Robot Wars & FRA events, for an idea me and friend had about hosting, I'll be posting a thread about that in a few days, but one thing on the Robot Wars rules stuck out that I just had to post about, you can view the document in its entirity here. However this is what I am referring to;

    3.1 All Robots must have (easily visible mobility) in order to compete.
    Methods of mobility include:
    [..]
    3.1.4 Ground Effect air cushions such as a hovercraft
    [..]
    A quick search led me to note that in Robot Wars, no hovercraft based vehicles have competed, at least listed on the wiki.

    This led to me thinking, how would you even approach this, how can it be approached to begin with? It'll be very easy to rupture the skirt and have your air bubble escape faster than its restored and leave you grounded, you might be able to add skirt strips of metal, but good luck against something like PP3D with its low spinner.

    Assuming that is overcome, I can't think of any weapons that'd work. Surely everything will bounce you back slightly and not be able to sustain the attack? Maybe a spinner might go fast enough that it'd do some damage before it bounced you everywhere?

    I'd love to perhaps see a hovercraft fighting bot prototype, or maybe even an entry attempt (lets face it, if it has any where near potential, it'd probably get on purely for it being a new thing), so how would others approach this? Perhaps maybe the specific noting of that in the Robot Wars build rules is an vague invitation that they'd like to see it come to fruition, so might be worth me trying to pursue any series potential.
    Last edited by Redirect Left; 14th July 2017 at 18:58.

  2. #2
    Ocracoke's Avatar
    Team Kaizen

    You could have a completely solid skirt (as older hovercrafts were constructed with) but that would need to be fairly lightweight to allow the robot to hover and still have the potential for breaking (fibreglass would be a potential way of doing that). Then again, with a powerful enough motor, anything is possible.

    As for a weapon, a good overhead weapon (i.e. a fast enough axe or a crusher) in the right place would mean curtains for the robot for movement but as you say, a horizontal weapon, such as a spinner, would be less effective. Heck, if it rose high enough off the ground, low slung spinners would be ineffective but then at what point does it become a drone?

    My main concern would be control. Airbrakes in addition to movable ducting on the engine might make it somewhat controllable. Also, what weaponry would work on a hovercraft? Anything pushing (spinners, axes, rams, flippers etc) wouldn't work as there is no grip on the floor. As a distraction half of a clusterbot, I can see this working with the other bot being a "traditional" robot mind.
    Last edited by Ocracoke; 14th July 2017 at 22:35.

  3. #3
    Hovercraft are a waste of time: they are not invertible and are highly vulnerable to open pits or the flame pit at Robowars. They would also be vulnerable to wedges and flippers and as mentioned, its hard to mount an effective weapon on them - until flame-throwers are allowed .

  4. #4
    Redirect Left
    Guest
    So pretty much as I anticipated then, fairly undoable even if you did get enough power to lift a heavyweight rated robot, and even then, I can't think of a way of righting a hovercraft back to the hover side in any sort of reliable method. Unless both sides were capable of hovering, and it just had a large spike or circular saw through the central part of it as its 'active' weapon.

    Still a bit of a shame the general consensus is not worth it /impossible, as it'd be one hell of a neat looking monstrosity.

  5. #5
    Yeah it might be best to go for invertibility, with a second skirt on top. I'm picturing something similar to Expulsion from Series 2/9, with a weapon in the middle like you mentioned. My personal opinion is that it's not worth it but that's just me; if someone wants to give it a shot though, I certainly wouldn't discourage it and would love to see the results

  6. #6
    Redirect Left
    Guest
    I'm not sure, if double side, where you'd source the air at a high enough rate to pump it into the active side, unless skirt around the edge, and then inside that at both sides was fans for the opposite side. Then a button on your controller, or even automated, to flip air to the other side if its inverted.

    Would be a project with a lot of trial and error, and in the end, you might come out with error no matter what you do in terms of viability.

  7. #7

  8. #8
    Redirect Left
    Guest
    Using air + castors/wheels is an interesting combination. I imagine it must be on the light side of feathers though, to get a decent speed, but also not too much momentum/inertia (always forget the correct word for that) to be too difficult to quickly change direction if you're heading for disaster (say a pit)?

    Using air is something i'd considered, but didn't give much though, as I expected the driving to be worse than trying to drive a piano down a hill.

  9. #9
    Ocracoke's Avatar
    Team Kaizen

    How is the air being directed? I guess there is either one air outlet with directional propellers or is there two outlets which direct one side of the robot to move forwards? Either way, a unique entry to be sure.

  10. #10

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