Clusterbots

I've got a few ideas coming up for machines I'm wanting to build in the future, and a pretty prominent one has been that of a clusterbot - are these still legal in most arenas, for both Feathers and Heavies?

Whilst I know there's nothing in the rules that say otherwise, I'm just thinking from the perspective of how powerful some of these flippers are now - I'd hate to build a set of 50kg/6.3kg robots (or even lower?) and end up being flipped literally out of the arena and causing a pretty major safety concern... I know the roofs aren't that low, but I don't know how half-weight robots would react to that kind of flip

Course, I am aware of the drawbacks to having a clusterbot, this is just speaking from a health and safety 'is it allowed in the first place' point of view!

Thanks in advance

I don't think they are banned in either but you wouldn't want to run a cluster heavy as they would get some serious air. I expect most heavy event organisers would say no as they could escape the arena. Feathers on the other hand should be fine in the Robochallange arena, just watch out for the floor flipper in a heavyweight arena, but I will let the EO's confirm.

Tricky one. Featherweights, I don't see an issue, heavyweights there probably will be. We've already had heavies nearly touching the roof on "double flips", a 50kg machine I think would get thrown out from anywhere in the arena. I personally wouldn't allow one in our arena with one of the big flippers, which is going to restrict what fights you can enter.

This is good to know as me and Connor are in the process of building a feather cluster.

In the Robo Challenge arena there would be no issues with a featherweight clusterbot.

I thought not with heavies... the particular fight I remember seeing was Manta vs Eruption in the European Championships, and that ended up having plenty of lift for a double flip, and that was 100 kilos, with half the weight I could probably see there being a lot of an issue.

Glad to hear it's alright for the Robochallenge arena though, may pursue that route with a featherweight clusterbot somewhere down the line!

Would it be the polycarbonate roof (of the sort that'd be needed to make an arena spinner-friendly) that would be needed for a heavy clusterbot to be usable, or is it just generally the height of the arenas that'd prevent them being used, even if there were a solid roof on there?

There is a minimum weight for heavys now, 55kg, so you can't build a hw cluster without it being 10kg overweight.

Nope Jarvis . The rules say a cluster has to be seen as 1 machine. In theory you could enter the arena with a cluster of 800 125gram ants.

And the problem here isn't the robot being not allowed in the rules, but arena's not good enough and EO being safety concious.

We have seen V3 in the Dutch series. And it was fun...

what about if a team built walking 200kg clusterbots. they would each way 100kg with both clusterbots totalling up to the 200kg walker bot & you need to worry bout 50kg robots flying out of the safety screens.

I have a fw cluster from a few years ago called double trouble. It wasnt competitive really but it was great fun and could take a spinner hit well. I remember kennys flipper he built making one half bounce off the roof of robochallenge arena!

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Originally Posted by Jackpietrzak1

what about if a team built walking 200kg clusterbots. they would each way 100kg with both clusterbots totalling up to the 200kg walker bot & you need to worry bout 50kg robots flying out of the safety screens.

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I would applaud a team doing that effort. And pity them for the lifting they have to do.

I restate my point, an arena according the FRA rules should be able to contain the machines used in it.
A Class 2 heavy arena should shrug off a 50 kg machine double whammied* into the screens.
Jonno's arena can do that with 2 heavies, as demonstrated a few times.
If an EO feels that the arena ain't up to that task, the classification should reflect that.

* 2 flippers acting together to get more airtime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffuE1vXaRFs

Im just curious, where could i find the arena classifications?

http://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/docu...ent-safety.pdf

The issue isn't the impact on the screening, we've had 100kg hit a lot harder (and higher) than that, the issue is a 50kg going over the screening.

Roaming Robots and Robits Live arena's are almost identical other than some extra bracing in the RL outer arena - however as Alan said, they still have a net roof which could potentially allow a 50kg machine to go through if thrown high enough.