Flail as a Weapon

I am currently building my first bot and was wondering about making a variant of a thwack bot. If I attach a rope and a weight to each side of my robot, when the robot spins the weights will spin in a large orbit due to centripetal force and would also spin faster than a normal thwack. Also during collisions the robot I hit would be affected like a normal hit from a horizontal spinner yet my bot would be unaffected due to the rope being slack. Although I worry about being entangled by a spinner.
I hope my ideas make sense.
Please could you help diagnose any problems before I get pummeled in an arena.
Kind regards,
Matt.

You mean basically like Nuts? The concept works, just don't expect to do any damage, and spend most of the time tangled in your own flails :L

Flails are an out dated weapon, and were very ineffective when they were used. The moment they hit anything they wont dig in or do any damage because they can just swing to the side.
You are best doing a design like Stinger (UK) or Blade Runner (US) with heavy weight on the end to spin around rather than a flail.

Thx

Your machine needs to be tough enough to take its own forces but, this is the Blade Runner style thwackbot Alex mentioned. If driven well and with some speed behind it it's pretty nasty.

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/...20121229225958

As Eventhorizon says, its outdated but somewhat fun if you want to try. The only thing is its hard to move around the arena whilst spinning - and people tend to either avoid you or hit you so hard its ineffective.

Realistically for a first build i wouldnt worry about spinners. Come along to live events and enter the whiteboards there. You will receive little damage and can develop the skills needed to build a full on competition robot.

Once your at that level, in the world champs you need to consider spinners. However then you have the problems as stated before.

Go for a flail. Is it ineffective? Compared to conventional spinners, yes. But it's something a bit different and I'm sure it'd be fun to use. At my very first event, there was a robot called Pannibalism that had heavy flail weighs on ropes, but they were also elasticated so that when the robot wasn't spinning on the spot, the weights were retracted, reducing the risk of getting caught on your own weapon.

Actually, found a picture:

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...psgkxvnt6e.jpg

The weights were brass and chunky, you could feel the bass in the floor as they spun around. Flew out on chains when spinning and retracted via elastic when driving around normally. They made quite a mess of the red and yellow robot by the end of the fight, although it was only made of chipboard.

A flail and a short length of chain on the end of a rod (think mace, not flail) can be fairly effective. It can act as a temporary entanglement weapon against spinners - my bot Scissorhands got absolutely wrecked when it sucked the end of the flail between the blade and the body. A weapon like that can also work as an overhead thwack bot to damage the lightly protected top of your opponent. Lastly the rod can be used as a keep-away device to avoid spinning weapons.

The trick is to make the rod longer than the weight + the chain so that your bot never gets tangled in its own weapon.

Just expanding on that idea, I'd like to see how this design would work:

http://www.nswrfc.org/Nick/mace.jpg

This has five weapons in one: the weight itself, a spear point for stabbing and wedging and points on the back of the spear for grappling and pulling. Finally, the arm can be used as a keep-away stick against spinners. The single arm allows it to work vertically or horizontally.