Richard, as an experienced roboteer it is clear you know what you are talking about, but it is almost impossible to implement a system based on your rant. Kev and I are not inexperienced know nothings, and have spoken about everything you mentioned, but it is impractical to factor in everything or we would be there most of the morning deciding if a spinner can run.

This is not an attack on you, as personally Ive a great deal of respect toward you, but we must make assumptions or we wont be able to run anything, as I said earlier, the system can evolve once in place.

In responce to your points,

1) we MUST simplify the design and obtain an approx MOI, or we will be there all day.

2) By measureing the shaft speed, we iliminate most of the problem you mentions, as we are in effect measuring the unloaded speed plus friction.

3) we are not bringing tooth design in as this is a point of contention with many people sure their differing solutions ore more efficient. It also depends on what materials we are hitting and the weight of them. In practice, best assume the teeth are 100% efficient and impart the full energy without loss.

4)we dont know.... until testing is done, we have no way of knowing what energy levels apply to what arenas, I have personally run a 5kJ spinner in my arena, but the opinion on that is divied, and I think that is going to be a major problem we will face as diffenet groups argue what they can run.

Until a basic system is in place, we cant really obtain the amount of data wed like, you can only do so much controller testing, the real figures come out in real fights.

If you have any suggestions I would be very keen to hear them, as I this is not an easy task, for me anyway.

Cheers
James