Which spinner design is the most effective?

I've been watching loads of Robogames stuff and noticed Touro, Last Rites and Electric Bugaloo. You wouldn't want to get in the way of any of them really, but it got me to thinking: say they all had the same amount of weight in the drum/blade etc. Which design of the three sterotypes transfers the most energy and does the most damage? Of these theoretical designs, which do people find the most devastating or hardest to implement etc. in the real world? Thinking of coming over to the dark side for 2015.

There is much more to a spinner bot than how damaging the weapon is. I would nominate the Touro design as the best as it has very solid construction and compared to a vertical disk, it can turn faster without gyro dancing. If you want to get into the details of each type of design, have a read of the Riobotz manual - written by the guys who built Touro: http://www.riobotz.com.br/en/tutorial.html

There's no real reason why any of them is better than the other, they all have strengths and weaknesses and really it's about what you want out of your robot. Drums robots can be smaller and stronger but the smaller diameter of the weapons means they have to run at higher speeds to get the same amount of energy as a comparably weighted disc/bar. Vertical spinners like EB can run the weapons at lower speeds to get tge same amount of energy and unlike horizontals they impart more of their energy since none is wasted throwing both robots away. The downside to them is they have to be wider to combat the gyro and the weapon supports are usually suspect to a big hit from a horizontal. Spinners like last rites can have huge weapons that are better supported than a big vertical but usually have steering problems due to the inertia of the weapon, also around 50% of the energy is wasted when they throw themselves away during a hit.

Drums are probably the most solid and consistent kind of spinner, but carry the least (least huge, it's all relative!) thwack for a given RPM. Vertical bars/discs store and impart massive energy, but can be fragile and cumbersome. Horizontal bars/discs often have the highest energy storage but send themselves flying in a hit, imparting less. It's a much of a muchness really.

In the Robochallenge arena, it seems drums reign supreme. Big vertical discs tend to be sluggish and in the smallish arena that's a problem, whilst horizontals throw themselves out. A drumbot can be quick and nimble. Though for many they don't have the hardcore-factor of a bigole bar which I can totally understand. :)

rock paper scissors

I hadn't thought about gyro forces. So for outright thump, assuming moving mass and rpm/torque were the same something like Electric Boogaloo would impart the most energy albeit be difficult to drive.