no harm sam it was merely the best example i could readily think of at the time i didnt want to bring up any of the other spinner matches as one side really didnt do well in each of them
Limpet has wiped the floor with my big spinner, Newton, twice in a row. It's a well built 6WD rambot with a tough wedge and great driving behind it. The weapon wasn't spinning up properly below but I am certain it would have played out the same even if it were at 100% - John's an awesome driver.
Point is, it's all about the design. A good wedge coupled with good driving = ultimate anti-spinner combo. Your machines tend to have flat fronts; building in some angles will help an awful lot.
Limpet is an awesome set-up and have seen it beat all sorts, have also seen it have the wheels and motors chewed out of most of one side.
Sam highlights my point about your options of fending off a spinner are thick angled metal or to snag the blade. Getting thick angled metal within the beetle limits is proving incredibly difficult given that even a 0.5kg blade will go through 15mm hdpe and 3mm steel. Obv the spinner builders are not going to like blade snagging.
A half combat beetle class is probably the way forward. Probably need to get stu to read this thread and see what he says, since most of us that enter regular are into the beetle thing at the mo. Tbh I'm hugely sucked in, but the spinner thing is making it unsustainable.
I should stress that although Lynx did get through 3mm steel, it wasn't by much. Just a small hole on the underside. That's not to belittle Lynx's achievements but just so you're not writing off 3mm steel as armour. It will still stand up against a lot of what is out there.
I also don't think you need an overkill wedge/box to beat a spinner. My beetle Flatulence is the one with the aforementioned 3mm steel. It's all done at an angle due to it being part of a flipper blade and is a great source of protection while also having offensive capabilities. At the Scotland Iron Games event, it took a bit of a beating from Eggbeater in the final but once I was able to keep the front end pointed at his weapon, I was able to take the hits, stop the beater from rotating and then take control of the fight. In a match against Spin Cycle, the flipper blade took an impact but the force caused more damage to Spin Cycle and Flatulence went on to win the fight. So it is possible to defend against, and cause damage to, them with something other than a brick. Flatulence isn't even that expensive but has been through about fifteen battles at various events and only needs a bit of cosmetic TLC to get it ready for November.
As for entangling spinners, an idea came to me today. At work we have protective kevlar sleeves we can wear as part of our PPE. You can put them on your arms and run a brand new stanley knife blade down it and it doesn't cut it or get through to your skin. If you get hold of something like that, you could put it between a pair of arms or claws and drive that into spinners. Not saying that discs won't tear it up, but if it survives the impacts, it would take a lot of energy out of the hit, allowing you to snag up the spinning blade and let you dictate the fight. The benefit of it being attached to your robot is that it won't (or shouldn't) get tangled up, letting you back away and reuse it as an attack while not violating the entanglement rules
Oh yeah i didn't mean to give the impression that 3mm steel is useless as beetle armour, it will take the hits. Heck i'm using it on the front of my new beetle, angled to help with deflection.
It's all about being clever with your design rather than trying to "Brick" everything, Limpets front has been bent every which way, John just bends it back again and it's good to go.
Well if you want a bit of advice on beetle spinners, Lynx and Spin Cycle got through 12 HDPE on the front of Fhqwhgads... It's not so much the material you use, rather how you use it.
HardWired 2 isn't strong because it's two layers of either 3.2 or 4mm hardox in most places, it's because all of the sides are angled to redirect some of the energy
Also, just because spinners cause damage it doesn't mean they're massively successful - I don't recall that any spinners have won any Kinematic Events, and it's not often they win the feather events either. In fact, I think NST's been the first spinner in about a decade to take the title... so there you go. None in the top 4 at the world champs either...
Last edited by Flag Captured; 4th September 2015 at 18:10.
To be fair you could always pull a "Tornado" and stick a "roll cage" style section around your robot that you can attach and remove between fights. Spinners do have a history of "Spazzing out" when they come in contact with another machine with dancing/flying around the arena etc, but if you can put a frame around your machine, you essentially nullify the the first couple of hits and give you a window to fight back. Against vertical spinners you are safe-ish, depending on how tough the frame is. horizontal spinners... I don't know, would have to see an actual fight where this was employed I think.
(Ps: Not trying to shame tornado, simply using it as an example because it is one of the most well known examples of active adaptation to counter weaponry between bouts)
My first robot 'PullverizeR' (mis-spelled by mistake) indeed had a 'cable catcher'. It is not so hard to do I think, just make sure anything that it catches keeps rotating with the blade or disc and does not get stuck on the axle or drive system.
In the dutch series 2 a disc got stuck on a wire (fight starts at 7.55);
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks