First robot build - Trident (FW) Need help plz

[mrsam]

Welcome to the Forum!

I agree completely with Alex, have a good read through the build threads before you start anything and familiarize yourself with the do's and don'ts and see how other builders have done it.

Most newcomers tend to go for basic pushy bricks so kudos for deciding on an active weapon, not entirely sure from you description what you mean so i'll be interested to see how it works.

In terms of the actual robot, will it be for full combat? i.e spinners, or is it just for the non spinner events. The reason i ask is this will dramatically change how you need to construct the robot and how well to armour it. If it's the latter you can get away with 10-15mm hdpe with barrel nuts and it will last as long as you need it to providing you build it well, for full combat you really want to aim for 15mm minimum, my robot this year was all 20mm hdpe and although it now looks a bit torn up it hasn't taken any damage that would mean i have to rebuild it. You'll notice that me an Alex both suggested barrel nuts, they are the best way IMO of joining plastics together and make a very strong join that will survive most spinner impacts.

Have a look around, ask as many questions as you can and i look forward to seeing what you come up with.

[Doodle2411]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, and if you were wondering Mrsam, this what I have in mind for the weapon so there are 3 spikes as I have mentioned, as I activate the weapon 2 of the spikes go up and the other goes down, this would be effective on most robots such as Wedges, axes and flippers as it does both damage and aggression to the robot on the receiving end. If the Robot is flipped, then the robot is invertible, meaning we wouldn't have to waste Co2 to self right, instead the weapon would be opposite, so 1goes up whereas 2 go down, this particular way would be most effective against spinners with flywheels, as it could get underneath it. The 2 biggest concerns for us is if the armour would be strong enough to withstand the force of the impact, particularly at the front if a robot gets wedged in between the spikes, and 2 would be Drum robots, as they do a lot of damage very quickly and are almost impossible to flip and out maneuver, plus can break weapons, armour and electrics quickly, so what we want is to have 3 strong spikes and armour that can take repeating hits whilst still being light.

As for how the weapon would work watch this videohttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ISrRSv0tfrM
More specifically, watch from 18:48 to the end of the battle (maelstrom the one with 2 flippers)

Thanks for the support
Many thanks
Doodle