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Thread: Featherweights - Active weapon rule

  1. #11
    Quote 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.
    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

  2. #12
    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 .

  3. #13
    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.

  4. #14
    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.

  5. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by blazerbotics
    Maybe we scrap the competition and just do all whiteboards for the feathers?
    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.

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

  6. #16

  7. #17
    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.

  8. #18
    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

  9. #19
    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?

  10. #20
    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

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