Wooden Robot Class

I've been giving it some thought and looking at the powertool drag racing etc. There aren't many rules there but there are a whole raft of designs.

I propose a nice simple set of rules,

- The outside of the machine has to be wooden with the majority of the structure internally
- The weaponry must come initially from wood working tooling and manufacturers specs on rpm must be adhered to
- The weight limit is the 30lb featherweight limit and the bot must be built with respect to all other FRA rules (pneumatics, power LED etc)

The second rule allows the use of saws, chisels, drills and even axes but stops short of having crazy powerful spinners. I like the idea of having a nice simple to police class that's just for fun more than anything else.

It allows new ways of thinking that gets away from the traditional, lets take a big bit of metal and spin it up really quick and yes I know that I'm as guilty of this than anyone else!

O and the issue of trying to work out kinetic energy and trying to give a yey or ney to whether or not something is too powerful would just be a complete pain in the arse to police

If you set a limit on the simple aspect of rotated mass (easy to approximate in a couple of minutes with a material calculator and a ruler on the spun mass) and rotational velocity (motor should be a searchable brand with reduction and operating voltage known, then speed easy to approximate. If you're being really pedantic use a laser tachometer) then there's no need for awkward kinetic energy calculations.

Allowing non-commercial blades/masses to be used also helps avoid some of the concerns raised earlier in this thread (even though I don't agree with some of the comments on saw blades).

Keep it simple. It's got to be purely made of wood and you can only use hand held tools and power tools as the weapons. Although we do need to run arena tests for saw blades with brazed on teeth for impact on the walls/floor. The issue isn't when the arena is locked, it's when the Marshall is loading up. If a saw goes out of control and hits the walls we don't know how likely the teeth are to just come flying off.

What James said.

Although I'd like to see some Axes in play, could always put a chisel on the end.

For axes it would be easy enough to rig up a drill motor mechanism of some sort, wont be as powerful as the proper axes but fits in with the power tools rule.

Well both axes and chisels are wood working tools and I would have no issue with a pneumatic system operating it. I like the idea of wood working tools having to be the basis for weaponry as it's a completely different challenge to running custom weaponry designed for the task

Wood? This could mean that drill weapons are finally not utterly useless! :lol:

I know right!?

Plus things like reciprocating weapons and ramming spikes! Be creative!

Anyone started making any wooden robots yet? I used today to start mine.