Brand new and rare

[Team-101]

Well that just proves that the interpretation of the rules is incorrect!
WALK
verb

gerund or present participle: walking

1.move at a regular pace by lifting and setting down each foot in turn, never having both feet off the ground at once.

The walking mechanism was sufficient to please the Guinness book of records, when they presented Scuttle with the world record for "fastest walking Robot" 2001!

As above the rules are there to stop the use of DrillZilla type systems that are nothing like that of Anarchy or Pilgrim!

[Danny B]

I have to say I agree with Mike on this one, if it really is Mike. I looked back over the rules and nowhere was it specified that the up/down and forward/backward movement of the legs had to be independently controlled. If that is the case, I struggle to think of any competitor in UK robot wars history that would qualify today.

[Team-101]

Well its not Mike Troll

[Ellis]

If from this we can get a rule change to make "walkers" a less silly task, that would be great. That or fill in the grey for other forms of walker. I think a 25% or 33% weight advantage for shufflers is perfectly reasonable and does nothing but encourage diversity. Wiping them out completely is extreme. It's not like everyone has the ability to design and build a shuffle mechanism that can match wheels, and if they can, then well bloody done.

[Flag Captured]

I can see the flaws in having a full 100% weight allowance for shufflers - you could probably attach a couple of legs to some wheels and then give yourself a shell spinner heavier than most robots are, whilst I do agree it encourages diversity in order to get that reward of extra weight, I think it'd be silly to give shufflers the same weight allowance as true walkers (the latter being as far as I'm aware significantly tougher to implement...) - As Ellis says, about 1/3rd would allow a featherweight shuffler to be about 18kg, and about 130kg for heavies which is enough to get some benefit through bigger weapons or whatever, but not so much that it's balance-breaking. Would still be cool as a demonstration though, even if it wasn't tournament legal, under the current rules... of course, you'd have to check with EOs first but still.

[craig_colliass]

Technically Pilgrim is under the current set of rules a shuffle bot, I had tried for a long time to get a better definition of walker for combat applications but there are a number of people who wanted such guarantees that people would not get around any definition and make a robot that would disturb the status-quo. And suddenly everyone would loose to the insidious walkers! Like the first bit of War of the Worlds.

I have now given up on this. I hope you have better luck than I did.

[Danny B]

I do think there's something to be said here. because the whole point of these events is to encourage participation from all levels of experience and expertise. But making the rules on walkers so restrictive means that only a professional could possibly have a chance at making one that would qualify for the extra weight allowance. Personally I think the extra allowance should depend upon the type of walking mechanism and it's complexity. I don't think it would be unreasonable to allow the following:
- Shufflebots and hoppers (e.g. Drillzilla, Clawed Hopper, RT-81) 25% extra
- Simple legged bots (e.g. Anarchy, Eleven, Black Widow, Pilgrim) 50% extra
- Fully independent walkers (e.g. Mechadon, Jim Struts) 100% extra

[Team-101]

Anarchy weighed in at around 185Kg, I would not have got it a lot lighter. The problem is that wheels are very light and leave you with spare weight for armour and weapons. Anything else like legs or tracks just eats into your weapons budget. The other problem is given the work in building the legs and drive mechanism you need quite a lot of armour to protect the investment in time and money! I am still confident that the leg mechanism on Anarchy complies with the rules as written!


BTW Anarchy with the upgraded 2.7Kw motors (from Bosch 750w) was a lot faster than 5mph more like 15mph. The main reason Anarchy lost to Tornado was one of the of batteries stopped producing 12v, plus some very bad weapons control by me!

[Anttazz]

I think the issue is that not only would you need to be a professional to build one, but that the rules aren't immediately clear what qualifies as a walker. It does seem strange that Pilgrim using a Jansen walker linkage and Spiderbot using a Klaan walker linkage are classed as walkers everywhere except in combat robotics. Unless we want to continue with having events where all the robots look the same and have the same weaponry (which maybe some people do) we need to encourage builders to do something different and the likelihood is that that would need to come from changing the rules somehow, because the arenas are unlikely to change, and I would say that its best they don't. Particularly with the HWs it seems as if an optimum design has been achieved and now it's just a case of copying and changing the paint colour.

[Danny B]

I know this is only a small group of people talking about this, but what would it take to try and get the rules changed? It sounds as though there's a pretty solid argument here that could really do with attending to.