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I'm only considering building a robot at the moment as I currently have other commitments, but i wondered what everyone's opinion on spinners? I was indifferent about them until Carbide came along, but they upped the game so much, and are so destructive that they discourage me from even bothering building a robot. Opinions?
Spinners, in of themselves, are quite destructive but there are two things which may help here:
1. In the UK Live Events scene, the maximum speed a spinner can get up to is 125mph in either the HW or MW categories since the only arena that can hold them (Extreme Robots) is considered a Class 2 arena. The arena you may have seen in the reboot of Robot Wars (series 8 - 10) was a Class 1.
That doesn't mean spinners can't cause damage of course, the speed limit is for safety reasons. A well thought out design and suitable armour material will help but damage, when facing any robot (not just a spinner) is largely inevitable.
2. As alluded to above, Extreme Robots is the only arena that can handle spinners in any weight category at all. Robots Live! is a Class 3 arena and thus, spinners aren't permitted so you won't necesserially see them at each event you go to.
Whilst browsing the forum recently I read someone saying that at events now, you could decide whether you wanted to fight spinner 'bots or not. Is that true? Because it could change the design process for any 'bot.
That is true. You can elect not to fight a spinner at Extreme Robots.
so obviously they are considered a problem if there is special dispensation? Or do you forfeit your round? Please bear in mind that I know nothing about the formula other than watching old episodes of Robot Wars!
Depends on the match. Some fights are exhibiton fights, others are competiton fights where if you do pull out, you do forfeit that round - best speaking to the event organisers about it if you are concerned. It is also worth noting that we are normally quite a friendly bunch and if you ask the roboteer (who remember will probably have invested similar amounts of time and money into their machines as you) nicely, holding back is a thing.
I do get your concern. I wouldn't want my £1000 MW or even my £300 FW being smashed up within 3 minutes of being in an arena but ultimately, that is the nature of the sport, damage happens. My last MW got turned over and then the bottom panel smashed by a spinner in the Middleweight Championships of 2019, nearly nuking the batteries in the process. I taped the entire thing back together and it went back out into the arena within an hour or so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U186wSYR6V0
The rebuild of the MW involved signifcantly more armour and better durabilty so it will be less likely to happen. In reality, it wasn't spinners that did the most damage to Jibril 1.x, it was flippers where landing on its back often twisted the axe gearshaft. It was only when I upgraded to Titanium that it became less of an issue and I doubled the thickness for the 2.0 version to prevent that happening agan.
I was in the same boat when I started, having only Robot Wars and Battlebots to go off of (having previously applied for Series III and IV of RW). This is why you'll typically see people recommend newcomers to the sport try in the Featherweight oe Beetleweight categories where, arguably, spinners are more potent but the cost of repairing them is that much less. The amount of investment needed drops significantly but still be in the same sort of field as Heavies and Middles (for Feathers, Beetles tend to be in their own events).
If you go to an event like RoboDojo, they have their own Sportsman class as well which Spinners aren't permitted in either which, along with Robots Live!, make a good entrance into the sport.
It's not that spinners are a 'problem', they are simply part of the sport. But that for frequent live events keeping a robot running through the damage can get expensive which isn't wholly sustainable for a live circuit for every team.Quote:
Originally Posted by I'll Play One Day
While you can forfeit matches ahead if you don't want to fight a spinner I would discourage this. It's only going to make things difficult for the EO trying to run the show. Instead I suggest you only compete your robot at a level you feel comfortable in rather than at every level and pick and choose your fights.
So enter non spinner exhibition matches or tournaments. But don't go entering spinner tournaments if you intend on forfeiting if you draw one.
Also your robot is still going to get damaged, it's going to happen. This is a destructive hobby by nature and is half the fun on it. It is something you have to accept will happen, even if spinners aren't involved.
As to the poll because I can't vote in it for some reason, banning spinners full stop from the sport is a bit of a ridiculous notion. They're one of the big aspects of it and if you want to compete away from them there are avenues for that without fully removing them.
Damage is one thing and not unexpected, but the spinners have got so powerful nowadays that they can and do completely destroy a robot.
I seem to recall a spinner completely destroying robots back around 1999-2000. It's always been there and there has always been an arms race of a kind between damage output and armour/construction techniques.
Hypno-Disc I presume you are referring to?Quote:
I seem to recall a spinner completely destroying robots back around 1999-2000.
As previously mentioned, there are events where spinners aren't permitted if you really did not want to face one at all. However, spinners are part of the sport and again, as I said, the person at the controls of the spinner will have invested similar amounts of money into their machine as yours. As soon as you are immobile, chances are they'll hold back.Quote:
Damage is one thing and not unexpected, but the spinners have got so powerful nowadays that they can and do completely destroy a robot.
I've had a Featherweight totally gutted by *several* spinners in an Extreme Robots event in Manchester 2018 in a melee fight of about 20+ robots. The peeps who were are the controls of the spinners were quite apologetic and even offered to help rebuild the thing. About two hours later, with help, the robot went back into the arena. That sort of community spirit isn't shown on the TV show very well but I can assure you, it does exist.
The point I am trying to make is that rather than outright avoid spinners (which as discussed have been limited in their top speed), embrace it as part of the sport and that is the risk you take with whatever you put in the arena. If an axe robot were to get a lucky hit and puncture your batteries causing an internal fire, would you want to not face axe robots again?
One thing worth mentioning is that spinners can also get destroyed or beat/destroy themselves too. Reliability plays a huge part and a good few spinners can only dish out one or two big hits before either breaking down or breaking themselves. With sturdy build techniques, you'd be surprised how many hits you can take to be deemed destroyed, or until your opponent breaks. It's also very rare to be completely destroyed; as with Lucy's example, it was absolutely *mangled* in that melee fight (I was one of the guilty party) but the robot was rebuilt and back in the arena for the next round. Another example is that my robot got wrecked in the first melee of a four-day event. I thought that was me out and had a wasted weekend ahead, but I spoke to a few people and we were able to effect a repair for day 2 that allowed me to carry on.
Fighting a spinner isn't an instant death knell for your robot (unless you're fighting Carbide with a robot held together by duct tape, and even then, you could fluke a win) and spinners are inherently part and parcel of combat robotics. Many see taking on spinners as a rite of passage, with a sense of euphoria and pride in your robot if you come out on top too. Many, like me, also take a sadistic pleasure in having their robot wrecked by a spinner, partly for the gratuitous violence, and partly because it shows us what worked and what didn't, and that allows us to make incremental improvements to our robots to become better.
At the end of the day, you will always have options to avoid spinners at almost all events you attend, but the community would never get behind banning them outright just because they've become incredibly powerful. It just makes us all more determined to take them on and come out victorious. And failing that? Embrace the destruction :proud:
I have been mostly building Antweights, but spinners are very much part of the game, I think. I've had some robots quite badly damaged by spinners. But on other occasions I've beaten quite competent looking spinners with little damage.
BUT there are a lot of spinners in the field (especially Ants) which are "glass cannon" or "one hit wonder" robots - if you can survive one hit, they probably won't be able to hit you again, if they can even still drive.
Newton's turd law - every hit comes back to hit you.