Featherweights - Active weapon rule

Lets see if we can get some sort of debate going on here. For those that were at Worthing, you may have seen the Featherweight final, we had only pushers and a couple with slow lifters in the final (I think due to some of the flippers breaking down before the fight), and we ended up with one of the most boring fights i have seen in a long time. Its difficult enough for the featherweights to make an impact in a heavyweight arena, and its getting harder to make the featherweight fights entertaining, we've already had to introduce Battleaxe, and in last weekends final we opened the pit from the start and had the flipper active (which we don't normally do in comp' fights) in an attempt to try and liven up the fight.

Therefore im proposing that for competitions, all robots must have an active weapon. This is something that has come up several times in the past. With the introduction of the 13.6kg weight limit a couple of years back, its easy enough. As its now getting to a point where if we have many more of the fights like the final at worthing, we would have to look at reducing the featherweight fights to one per show. I still think the feathers have a place in the show, people can relate more to the size of them, and can see them building such a thing, and with the likes of Explosion, LH2, LF2, TinyHurtz etc they do provide entertainment, but to have something like Thor and Iron Awe fighting and then going into 6/8 drill powered feathers, it just slows the whole show down.

I know people are going to say that beginners don't have the skills/money to fit a weapon, but simple weapons can be built easily and without much cost. Im not suggesting that they all go out and fit FP flippers. I don't know how the other EOs feel about it, and what they think. I would still allow machines without weapons to run in whiteboards, but the only other option i see is either dropping a featherweight fight (pushing more machines into the one fight) or letting the House Robot having more freedom (which basically more damage, being put on flipper ect), I try to be as reserved as possible with it at the moment but you have to remember, i have to look at it from and audiences point of view, at the end of the day they're paying for the arena to be there.

So let me know your thoughts, or see if this thread is going to die like nearly every other on this forum!

Alan

i think letting the house bot put bots on the flipper etc would be great but only having oe feather fight per show would be boring for us that cant afford to build HW's. ram bots still have a place since bots like Bonx and stiff breeze are amazing bots and are both still rammers

Bonx & Stiff breeze are good, and entertaining as they both do 15mph+ where as most drill powered bots only do a third of that.

Is Seraph boring? :shock:
Tron is for me, and that's when I'm driving the thing! :cry:

I would say the fights are more interesting when there are more than six or seven robots starting, I don't know if it would be good for the sport, but I think the event organisers should try new things to make the shows more popular and profitable.

Good luck with the debate Alan :mrgreen:

I can see the point of introducing this rule for the competition fights as recently I have been finding the featherweights becoming more and more boring to the point where our 2 flippers Whirlwind and Heatwave are being taken apart so that the valves can be reused in our new heavyweight.

The problem that I have is that in order to make the fights entertaining for the crowd we fill the arena with about 20 robots most of them being pushers or lifters which are not that interesting even with large numbers the ones that really make the fights interesting are the flippers and axes which there are not enough of.

I understand that to try and make things more interesting we need things such as the house robots and arena flipper but I think that these may have gone a little too far in terms of power and damage. At Worthing for example Whirlwind suffered a fair bit of damage from the floor flipper very early on and as a result could not be used in any more fights and I believe that explosion suffered with the same issue which immediately removed both of the FP flippers that were at the event from the remaining fights. At other events I have also had the same problem with Battleaxe retiring our robots earlier than we would have liked.

Personally I think that the featherweight fights were much more entertaining a few years ago when you had no more that 8 or so robots in the arena with ones such as Little Flipper clearing the arena the audience reaction was much better than seeing them all hit the roof in the first fight and having no robots left for the later shows.

Hopefully this makes sense and doesn't sound too much like I'm ranting but this my view

Seraph i would classify as having a weapon, and isn't boring. :) I agree more robots , the better, but it seems by the end of the event, not enough are running. Maybe we scrap the competition and just do all whiteboards for the feathers?

I understand what your saying Will, i do try and not attack the more advanced robots, but sometimes they are the only/first ones immobile, so I dont get alot of choice! I do only try and give them one hit, Battleaxe is basically as low powered as it can be, i can turn it up alot more, but dont. I have thought about having a lower power setting on the flipper for the feathers.

Maybe you have to have a weapon, or a robot which goes over a certain speed, so the proper rambots can still fight, like Tiny Toon, because they actuly cause damage apon impacts, and it's less boring seeing them fly around the arena...

I fear that introducing this rule will be critically bad for the sport. Choosing if a robot is good enough to compete before it even enters the arena by what components it has or whether or not it has a weapon is not a good way to go I say. Afterall, the experienced guys won't be there forever and its already a complicated and expensive game to get into nevermind adding all these extra requirements and expenses onto it along the way.

It might be slightly more boring for the audiences if there are only one or two high impact active weapons such as HP flippers and axes, but it would be a lot more boring if there were no robots allowed to compete at all.

Doesn't seem like there would be any way into the sport either, I mean Beetles need an active weapon so a lot of the Feather guys are getting involved with that, but if Feathers also need an active weapon then it seems to me like what was originally jumping in at the deep end for most people has become jumping into the shark infested ocean.

I raised this as an issue a couple of years back (seemed more recent than that!) and it certainly prompted some debate:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2812

The overall impression I got was that;

a) there were a lot of people supporting it, but not as many as those against it
b) enforcing an active weapon rule could not be done by the FRA as it goes against one of the FRA's core aims (promoting the sport of robotic combat in all shapes and forms, or words to that effect) and that it should be left to the discretion of the EO whether they implement an active weapon policy.

My position on the matter remains the same; I am all for a active weapon rule for featherweights that applies for competitions only. By that, I mean if you want to enter the UK Featherweight Championships, your robot has to have a weapon. If you want to fight in whiteboards, you don't need to have a weapon.

I classed whiteboards as all fights at Roaming Robots and Robots Live! events as I've never really thought of the FW fights at these events as being competitions (at least not compared to full-combat championships) but if you run separate competition and whiteboard events then the rule could always apply to the competition side of fights, as you have proposed Alan. At the end of the day, you're the EO and it's your job to make the show interesting enough to entice the viewing public to pay up, so you're free to make that call.

Then there are the arguments that you can stick a servo on a FW with a toothpick on it and call it a weapon. Hope that stance doesn't arise in this debate as, frankly, it's a crap and out-dated way to look at such a proposal and I would hope that the roboteering community would be above that.

And just to clarify, I consider robots like Seraph to have active weapons (that goes for horizontal thwackbots as well). And I also accept that a robot like 540 was exciting to watch despite not having a weapon. But my opinion still stands.

Forgot to add, if this rule was implemented, I would be in favour of a beginner's clause. Basically, if you've built your first robot, which doesn't have a weapon, and haven't fought before (or only fought in whiteboards) then you would be granted one 'free pass' to a competition event. You'd be allowed to compete in the event without a weapon, but if you wished to enter competition events in the future, you'd have to incorporate a weapon or compete with a new weaponised bot. The logistics of regulating who has fought in what and when would be a nightmare, but it prevents total exclusion of a new roboteer (my first robot was a weaponless piece of crap but the experience of the event helped me improve future incarnations)

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Originally Posted by blazerbotics

Seraph i would classify as having a weapon, and isn't boring. :) I agree more robots , the better, but it seems by the end of the event, not enough are running. Maybe we scrap the competition and just do all whiteboards for the feathers?

I understand what your saying Will, i do try and not attack the more advanced robots, but sometimes they are the only/first ones immobile, so I dont get alot of choice! I do only try and give them one hit, Battleaxe is basically as low powered as it can be, i can turn it up alot more, but dont. I have thought about having a lower power setting on the flipper for the feathers.

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Not too fussed on the whole active weapon rule but I would say we need to be better about providing info on how to do it. Simple fact is an active weapon rule make it harder to get into the sport. Whilst i accept that they are simple to make when you know how, it's the knowing how bit which can be a bit daunting (wiki anybody??)

Oh and also about push bots. Tiny Toon, 540 etc can be really good to watch. Maybe it's simply a limitation on the motors you can use (eg: if you use drills or bosch 35's then you need a weapon etc). High speed impacts are a very effective weapon and tbh you can make a good mod 1 gearbox using some plastic a hack saw and a drill.

As far as battle axe goes I find it tends to cause far more damage than Major Damage ever does. I think the reason for this is pretty simple and that's the weight of the axe head and the size of the impact surface. i think MD's axe head is hollow so actually less destructive. Maybe something to consider as it would have no bearing on the show but would mean you do less damage to the feathers so they end up running for longer. (although i would accept that MD does do a bit more damage running over stuff :proud:

To that effect Jamie, as you know, I intend to have a weapon fitted by the next Robochallenge full combat event but if I didn't I don't think I would like having to not enter the event because my robot wasn't up to scratch. As boring as I find Cicatrix to drive around pretending to push stuff, I like coming along to events even if my robots happened to be total scrap, you can spend a weekend with mates who you only see once a year (in our case anyway) and get the rare opportunity (again, in our case) to see/take part in a live robot event.

I hope you don't see that comment as being directed against you, as i'm sure you know I wouldn't be a part of the sport if it wasn't for you. It's just an an alternative view to your point :D .

I've never been to an event, but I am building my first featherweight (or combat robot for that matter). It's 4 drills, 18v, and a simple 4-bar lifter style weapon powered by a 5th drill. To me, I know that's kinda lame. Drills are quite powerful but they're nothing in full combat. A lifter is slow and boring, too. I fully understand that.

But,

I don't have the money nor facilities to go out and make a competitive axe weapon, or a beefy full-body hammer, or a FP flipper, or what have you. A simple robot is all I can make at this stage. I have to say that I'd understand the reason for wanting more exciting robots, but I wouldn't necessarily feel very good knowing that my robot is so rubbish to the point where it's not allowed to be viewed by an audience. I think in the roboteer's point of view a newcomer event would be acceptable. If you're not able to accept the fact that your robot is a first robot, it's made out of chopping boards and a drill or 3, which puts it at the lower end of desirability scale, maybe you shouldn't be in the game. So, a few fights which aren't laughable, and are fully supported by everyone, designed to get newcomers into the sport and help them improve their robots would be fine, in fact a very good thing. I don't think completely eliminating the newbies from the audience or competition side of view is quite right somehow. It would make the supposedly fun hobby into somewhat of a chore, wouldn't it?

As you say a simple lifter is easy to make for a few quid if you have the parts around the house. That kind of robot I feel should be allowed to compete, since a lifter isn't a damaging weapon, but it's a tactical weapon, and your robot could potentially do well in a competition environment. If your robot is just a box powered by 2 drills run on the cheapest speedos and some sort of rampy bit on the front, which when looked at realistically isn't going to be winning anything unless luck plays a role, sure, maybe such simple robots could be excluded from the main competition, somehow.

Problem is it's a very touchy subject. Hard to not insult people making more simple robots, hard to not push away potential newcomers to the sport, hard to make the show interesting, and therefore hard to keep the money flowing and to make an income at these events. I can't see a compromise quite yet, other than a side competition which could be just a single fight, or maybe an annihilator style fight, where all of the newcomers pitch their drill powered HDPE creations. Maybe for a goal, whoever wins the newcomer competition, gets to compete in the main competition with the big boys.

I don't know, in truth. As I said, I've never been to an event and know no one on this site other than mutually. Maybe I shouldn't be in this thread at all. :?

No offence taken Tony, I know such a proposal would affect your robots based on their current state, and would have been problematic had it been implemented prior to this year's UK champs. You make a good point about it being rather quite limiting to people who are only able to attend one or two events a year, and I know no-one would ever want to prevent people from enjoying the social side of events either. Nice to have a bit of interesting debate on the issue though :)

I think Andy has raised a valid point too and that is regarding information available with regards to making/implementing a weapon system. I keep wanting to try and write some guides and what-not but admittedly I'm guilty of not being motivated enough. There is some form of Wiki in the works which I believe Kane is working hard on, but at the same time we can't expect him to do everything with respect to guides, how-to's, resources etc. A lot of good information is out there too, it's just lost among endless threads and posts.

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Originally Posted by blazerbotics

Maybe we scrap the competition and just do all whiteboards for the feathers?

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TBH one of things you could do is let anyone not in the competition final to the 2nd qualifier.

I must wonder though with all spinners banned & most featherweights hiding beneath the arena barrier, Exactly what can be done to make featherweights
more interesting?

We can't all tape inflated sheep to the top. :proud:

Speaking of this actuated weapon stuff, if everybody wants active weapons why was the last commercial weapon kit the zeobot actuator?

I think full body hammers should be allowed, because they actuly cause damage, un like the drill powered robots (I admit Bruiser is a boring drill powered robot, but I have been Planning to up grade him to a lot better drive fo quiet a while now...) and I think rammers are more interesting in the robo chalange arena, because it's smaller, so there not over welmed...

I think Alan's point is purely centred around the public entertainment point of view.
I would not think for one moment Alan would suggest anyone's robot is not good enough. It may be from the 8 year old girl in the audience point of view a bit boring!
In fact some of the most interesting robots can be the ones designed to fall apart when hit, or catch fire like one of jonno's robots dose.

when making your drill powered robot think about how the audience is going to view it, if it's a plastic (or in Tron's case a metal) box with a wheel at each corner the public see A boring robot, even if it is your pride and joy! A Horizontal twackbot is not hard to make and would be more fun to drive. :D

I fully understand Alan's point of view, at the end of the day it is an Entertainment business that is also a platform for people to get into the sport.

Not meaning to stir the s*&t too much but I do have one point:

The limitation of the robots wepaons isn't the problem, it's the EO's arenas. There are lots of truly spectacular FW's that can't run at RL or RR because of the lack of Full Combat arena and as a result RR and RL have become the place for beginners to take their robots.
Now I think this is a good thing, the FW spinners are ballistic and the fact that Bitza got through in one piece is some sort of fluke, but to most people this would be a massive turn off, beacuse when starting teh sport you simply cant make something to the same level, and don't want your learning curve to be the reason all your hard work gets destroyed instantly.

A few other points are:
It's not necessarily the weapons that make the robots interesting. Lifters for instance have an active weapon, but are boring to watch compared to rambots smacking into each other. Seraph isn't particularily destructive either but is grear fun to watch.
Most forms of 'decent' active weaponary is also very expensive, in the RR and RL arenas we are limited to Flippers and Axes which to be effective have to be FP or LP, both of which are beyond my grasp.
My final point is this means Bitza 2 can't run. We've put a nasty spinny thing on the front which will be awesome to watch but can't run at RL and RR which leaves it as a Rambot (if we don't spin the blades), whether it is an effective rambot is yet to be known. If it isn't effective it can't run :(

I'm not just full of criticism though, I do have a suggestion. I was going to start a new thread to discuss this, but I'll open it here.

The main problem seems to be the lack of action or destruction. Now the first is being address here but how could we up the destruction?
Most people will (and rightly so) complain if there robots get destroyed unfairly (floor flipper, or house robot weight 10 times their robot) so this needs to come under action, not destruction. Turn down the floor flipper so 13.6kgs doesn't clear the arena, and turn down the axe on the house robot so it looks good, but doesn't wreck out ESC's so we can't run anymore.

My criticism is that with space age materials we end up with (and this is true of the HW's) several ¼ber boxes knocking into each other for 3 minutes. Powerful flippers and axes liven this up a bit, but this isn't an option for everyone.

My suggestion is what about we start a class that limits the use of certain materials. If all robots are forced to use wood? The destructibility goes up, but what with it wood being quite cheap and easy to work with, the cost is little - but the view spectacular.
Expensive components can be kept in a metal box, but everything else must be wood. This also takes advantage of the lack of spinning weponary since that would just obliterate any wooden body shell.

So you get the action, with limited cost and damage to the roboteers.

Thoughs?

PJ has a very good point, if we cant the audience to enjoy it more, we need to make an effot to bring spinners to Rl events, or even lower powered ones but so damage can be caused and the audience get the 'wow' factor

Alan....I got to be honest with you mate and please dont be offended too much.

Me and Jason had a good conversation on the way home and our conclusion was that your worthing show was pretty poor on a whole from a crowds point of view. The roboteers (ALL OF US) build these robots and bring them to your show. you need roboteers and roboteers need you. The featherweights are what they are and your show is what it is. put them together and its a no brainer whats going to happen. There were points in that show where all i could hear was the slight clash of a featherweight now and then above the scilence. There was no excitment during the feather fights. The heavys were as good as usual but still was lacking razamataz. Skelly is always good a crowd pleaser for sure. boxers are boring for roboteers watching but only because we see them all the time....crowds like them i am sure. Instead of pointing the finger at boring box's up your game and make them interesting. we spend our time and money to help you so you should spend your time and money to help us.

Boring box's are the very start of some roboteers that go on to build heavys. Dont cull them or you will kill your future.

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up your game and make them interesting. we spend our time and money to help you so you should spend your time and money to help us.

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We have, we built Battleaxe for this very purpose, we use the arena flipper, pit etc. I don't see what more we can do.

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show was pretty poor on a whole from a crowds point of view

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What makes you say that? We speak to many of the guests as they leave and hear nothing but positive comments.

I don't want to ban anyone, pushers would be still welcome to run in whiteboards. I'm just looking at a way of making fights more interesting, so if anybody has any other ideas, im all ears.

Wooden Robots!

Stop arguing I've got the solution.

New featherweight house robot, Thor :shock:

I think that will make things a bit more interesting :lol:

If your idea of interesting is having every robot chopped in half!

Put a caravan in the arena and let everyone destroy it. The crowd (and Jeremy Clarkson) would love that. :D

You can do that right?

I agree with Swanny on the boring boxes, these guys will build the heavies in the future, but not if they don't get a chance to play in the arena.

Make feather fights interesting by sticking as many as you can get in there at any time, the boxes will get to play and test out their designs and the experienced bot builders will have the fun of playing with them. Was not at Worthing but in the past the feather finals are made up from the top 3 or 4 from the qualifiers, leaving say 8 machines for the final. The size of the RL arena means that they are lost. Make the final 20 machines and there will be a focus for the crowd somewhere in the mass. Judging would be a nightmare, but you want entertainment Alan, who cares who the ultimate winner is? It is not like there is a couple of grand or a championship at stake. Let the audience decide.

Alienating the new-comers by preventing their first attempts will ultimately lead to them not building better machines in the future.

Maybe it is time for new arena hazards - make the pit mechanism powerful enough to eject the feathers into the air when you have say 8 bots in there, but not enough to OOTA them - maybe we can get more suggestions going here?


Trev

Ideas for FW arena hazards
1/ A pit sweeper :mrgreen: It's just a steel blade that follows an arch if you don't get out of the way you get swept in the pit! easy to operate either with an electric motor or pneumatics.
2/ Dukes of hazard speed ramp see how far these fast robots can jump :proud:
3/ chuck in a big ball and some goal posts :uhoh:
4/ Poop-ah scoop-a, A lifting device that if a robot gets pushed on to it will gently scoop them out of the arena and on to a mat
All with lots of lights and sirens :idea: :idea: :idea:

saying as someone with a featherweight with an active weapon (who did end up getting put on the floor flipper , but that was my own stuipid fault) i would be more than happy to cobble together a rubishy little thing to get its self wrecked against some more powerfull robot if it made it a better display

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Originally Posted by craig_colliass

Ideas for FW arena hazards
1/ A pit sweeper :mrgreen: It's just a steel blade that follows an arch if you don't get out of the way you get swept in the pit! easy to operate either with an electric motor or pneumatics.
2/ Dukes of hazard speed ramp see how far these fast robots can jump :proud:
3/ chuck in a big ball and some goal posts :uhoh:
4/ Poop-ah scoop-a, A lifting device that if a robot gets pushed on to it will gently scoop them out of the arena and on to a mat
All with lots of lights and sirens :idea: :idea: :idea:

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Heavy metal ball of rolling around randomly - draw angry face - name it Ball breaker.

car wash style rotating brush - red & yellow?

a rubber door mat - preferably with Welcome engraved in as sarcasm.

floor raising by air bag in a hill - Jolt hill using corner air bags - send nearest to centre through.

a bowls style pushing contest - put moving hammer ball in arena - nearest wins.

How about a pit that opens at the start, 20 seconds later the pit goes up and another pit placed somewhere else in the
arena goes down.

If you are making FW's have active weapons for comps, then it looks like my Ming 2 clone will have the front flipper on it
:)

There's no problem with the featherweights. The crowd enjoy the flippers doing somersaults in the air! There are also some very good boxes that are entertaining, as well as the flippers and hammers. There are also some very boring boxes, but they are the starting point. I know very few featherweight roboteers that didn't start out with one.

Worthing was an exception, where in the final show all that was left were the boxes. Both Explosion and Whirlwind were damaged by the floor flipper, which do add much entertainment to the fights. As a result of this we had to forfeit our place in the final. I do understand the reason of the floor flipper being so powerful from entertainment point of veiws, but consider that people have expensive parts in their robots (or discontinued motors in the case of Explosion).

PJ
Your idea is great!! If i ever get my feather finished i will actually do that. I also think Craig's idea would be awesome too. None of the stuff would have to do much damage, but from the audience's perspective it would look pretty cool. Also it would add even more skill to driving the thinngs

I've only just started the hobby and the way things are at the moment, banning rambots (or boxes) will basically destroy the featherweight class. I have designed a FW spinner but I'm not going to spend £500+ on something i can use once or twice a year. The majority of the competitions can't run the really destructive weapons which i think a lot of us would like to do. People have invested a lot of money in these things, even if they are powered by drill motors etc, so if anything, the show needs changing rather than the robots.

If an active weapon rule did come into force, you would have to grand-father the old boxes where we would all be allowed to compete in future but no new boxes would be allowed. But in my opinion, if this did happen, you would have to promote the beetleweight class as the new beginner (and therefore, the other class to heavyweights) class and phase out featherweights as most beginners won't be able to afford a good active weapon (and why should anyone spend money on a poor weapon just to compete?)

And I'm sorry but i don't agree with the whole drill powered term and its insinuations. Im currently using the argos gearboxes hooked up to 18v drill motors, which are running at 22.2v (hopefully anyway :proud: ). I can't see how these would be considered sub standard.

I always thought featherweights we're just meant to be a filler event when the heavyweights are there?

OR make it a rule that every competitor at the competition has to run a featherweight? but I'm pretty sure most heavyweight teams already have this?

When I served on the FRA Governing Body I was always opposed to there being a ban on machines without an active weapon,nothing has yet persuaded me to change my mind.Rambots/Pushers/Boring Boxes call them whatever you want are the easiest and cheapest way into the spobby for everybody, not just junior roboteers,I can think of at least 3 adult roboteers that run only Rambot Featherweights, and to alienate all of these members of our community would be akin to committing suicide for our future.
At Worthing 2 of the 3 FP Flipper Featherweights were taken out by the arena flipper,leaving only the boxes to contest the final hardly their fault! I have had Stagefright totally wrecked by a House Robot, but the boxes were always there,and continuing to put on a show for the EO's. I remember the first time Alex won a trophy with Tiny Toon (RL at Burgess Hill),the look on his face when he got his trophy and how it inspired him and drove him on.We only had 1 Robot back then but now have 1 Heavy, 5 Feathers ( 3 with a weapon) and 2 Ants. If he had not been able to compete on a level playing field would we have this commitment?

If a ban was brought in for Rambots, effectively driving out the younger guys, and only leaving the more technically advanced active weapon machines I might have a decision to make whether I would even take the Featherweights to that event.

For me speaking on behalf of RR.

I agree with Alan, there have been occasions in the past where the feather weights have been a bit boring, but we generally cut the fight short if thats the case. Havent had that issue for a while though !!

The RR arena flipper is fitted with a fw and hw button since the last upgrade as we managed to flip a HW out of the arena at Guildford.... lucky shot though !!

If the RL arena broke so many robots, I think I read earlier that at least 4 top robots couldn't take part then theres the problem really !!

We have moved away from holding the normal competition with the fws where we end up with a final 6, and decided to treat them all as white board fights and have a trophy for the Feather Weight of the day which takes into consideration all of the fights.
This means you can still have 20 robots in at a time so its still entertaining. Plus we have Matilda.... and MD and Fluffy to add to the mix !

I have always disliked boxes, especially in the FW champs with robo challenge because anyone can build one !! However it is the way to get started and shouldnt be banned !!

John

So heres the plan... We'll scrap the usual competition, and run every fight as a whiteboard (everybody in), the top 3 from each fight will be recorded and at the end of the event the robot with the most wins/high places will get the trophy. This means there's still a prize, and it encourages everybody to go in each fight.

Regards arena flipper, as said before, i have thought about putting a LP mode, so i will look into that, might take a few events to get it right (unless theres any volunteers!). Can't do much with Battleaxe, the pneumatics are already turned down as far as i can go, the claws have very little crushing power and the hammer only just has enough power to fire itself, and it cant be made much lighter without become weak (its only 2-3mm wall hollow) we did try another head with a bigger area on it, but the slight increase in weight meant it didn't have the power to fire. Did look at a sprung head on it that would absorb some of the impact, but we have to make sure it doesn't look 'soft' to the audience.

Keep the ideas coming...

At least we have abit of a debate going, this forum hasn't seen one of them in a while!

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Originally Posted by blazerbotics

So heres the plan... We'll scrap the usual competition, and run every fight as a whiteboard (everybody in), the top 3 from each fight will be recorded and at the end of the event the robot with the most wins/high places will get the trophy. This means there's still a prize, and it encourages everybody to go in each fight.

Regards arena flipper, as said before, i have thought about putting a LP mode, so i will look into that, might take a few events to get it right (unless theres any volunteers!). Can't do much with Battleaxe, the pneumatics are already turned down as far as i can go, the claws have very little crushing power and the hammer only just has enough power to fire itself, and it cant be made much lighter without become weak (its only 2-3mm wall hollow) we did try another head with a bigger area on it, but the slight increase in weight meant it didn't have the power to fire. Did look at a sprung head on it that would absorb some of the impact, but we have to make sure it doesn't look 'soft' to the audience.

Keep the ideas coming...

At least we have abit of a debate going, this forum hasn't seen one of them in a while!

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make the hammer interchangeable for a timmy-mallett version when its in with the feathers lol

Sounds good to me :)

Surely you could hide the spring?

Sort of like a small tube in a slightly larger tube so from what the audience see it is a solid block but roboteers know it is a sprung head. Same sounds but happy feathers.