Featherweights - Active weapon rule

[death robotics]

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

[Team Invade]

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).

[Lord Bob]

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

[Danjr1]

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 ). 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?

[cliveb]

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.

[robotwars]

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

[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!

[Danjr1]

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!

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

[cliveb]

Sounds good to me

[Shakey]

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.