My phone doesn't like this site too much for some reason, sorry about the late response!

Catastrophe is a very good machine so any pointers I can take from it are good! I am a little concerned about the lack of grip though that could be caused by it, mainly because the vast majority of the weight will be where the weapon is, so a lot less over the wheels. Same reason HardWired 2 was driving on ice this year I think... It's worth a try though, I'll get semi-decent at CAD then I'll see how it goes (or sketch it, that could also work) and go from there! I do think those supporting beams that Demon and Catastrophe both have on their bulkheads may be a useful idea to borrow too...

I think there'd be enough space to use a motor like that, maybe an inrunner may be too long to fit in effectively, perhaps. If it's a huge advantage though I guess there could always be a redesign or something, albeit wouldn't need to be major but I could get it to work hopefully! I still would like to try and get a custom winding on a Scorpion though, I'm not sure how doable it is but I guess a higher KV motor on high voltage with more gear down would give me the best of both worlds, right? I probably need to lern 2 engineer some more haha

Thanks for the explanation too, that clears it up! I think a cutting edge might work nice on the counter weight but even if it is going moderately slow I'm sure it'd still do something, sharp or not - might be something to look into though! I am looking at maybe having a pair of bars at some point, one designed to cut and another designed with blunt teeth to bludgeon or something purely because of those thick HDPE armoured machines, I guess it's potential that a sharp cutting blade could get stuck in the side of one or something... bit more of a side issue that but I suppose it's something to consider!

That sounds ludicrously dangerous too Alex, cheers! If I can keep that bar where it needs to be and spinning at full pelt, there'll be some pretty huge hits at next year's champs... Can start fitting your robots with parachutes now if you want
Do you happen to have that calculation to hand too? That'd be really handy to work out, much as I want to have a 1.21 gigawatt motor it's a lot better to have something balanced... Or even if I do keep a 50-series Scorpion and can get one wound for a higher KV, I could then gear it down to a much more efficient level or something.

One thing I do want is a tiny little bit of slip in the belt (or something along those lines) for when the bar hits, purely to limit any damage to the motor - I know it just happens sometimes but given how much energy is in that bar, the last thing I want is for each hit to write off a motor or something like that!