Very interesting points about 4WD and magnets and whatnot, it's something I am considering for Hardwired II Evolution now (I'll just call it HardWired II in competition, but just to save confusion in the meantime) - it might mean that I can get that high grip by having all the weight over wheels and all that, and it'll keep the height down overall but I'd worry about being able to keep the thickness of hardox that led me to a 'skillful victory' (fluke) against a couple of spinners and just generally standing up to things. One thing's for certain, it wasn't my atrocious driving...

I think I'm going to go either Hardox brick of ultimate death if it's 2WD, or a Hardox/HDPE hybrid if it's a 4WD, moving towards the latter at the minute, given the benefits to it. Depending on cost/weight, it may have either 2 motors and timing belts for drive, or 4 motors for ultimate scary push box power. There's no reason I'd need 4 motors, but there's no reason that I wouldn't either so if it's cost effective that may be a thing...

In other news, I'm converting HardWired I to a flipper, it'll be an extremely budget setup and rebuild, just my existing TZ85s with some drills up to maybe 120-150mm wheels, so that it's invertible whether the flipper's working or not. Likewise, it'll pivot on those back wheels again like the original did, so it's totally not Maelstrom but kind of is. Well, it's that sort of idea anyway, just without that design of flipper and more like Wheely Big Cheese's. I'll post a picture of what HardWired I looks like at the minute sometime, it's basically that with bigger wheels.

Finally, HardWired III is on the backburner, I've got plenty on my plate with just these two for next year, as much as I'd love to get the spinner done, that's definitely a job for the year after - after I've proven myself a bit with HardWired II! I think I can get another year out of going weaponless, and then I'll get a nasty spinner out and get someone else to drive HardWired II, unless I win (lol) purely for a bit of variety. I like fast rambots, but I'd like to give other weapon types a shot too.
Besides, HWIII will need plenty of designing, and building - it'd be a difficult thing to get done in time with the other machines being sorted out too... I have got a few ideas for design though, I'd quite like to use a few more curved sides (Maddox's new machine, Calliope has inspired me) since I think they could stand up very nicely to spinners and whatnot, possibly even better than just straight angles. Truth be told, I'm not too sure there'll be too much of a difference (it's all just an angle still, right?), but it looks very cool whether it behaves differently or not!

Still, it's all just in the pipeline as of yet, as are my two beetleweights - just till I get Uni over and done with, then I'm going to get loads done over the summer, hopefully. Even more so if I finally manage to get a job to actually fund it all...

Plan is to have everything done at the very latest by January so I've got plenty of time to iron out creases and troubleshoot if anything does end up going wrong... I'll still be doing it at 5AM the morning before but I can dream at least haha!



Oh, and the next 'update' will have actual updates on the machines, I promise!