I see no limitation on the amount of rotational kinetic energy that can be stored in a flywheel that is not used as a weapon in the FRA rules.
Anyone care to comment on this?
Thanks!
Mack
Yes, as some people are researching the potential of magneticaly in vacume suspened flywheels for energystorage this seems a potential energysource for a fighting robot.Just crank up the RPM to store more enegery without increasing the weight.
But all experiments up to now are on a too small scale or/and cant handle any mechanical shocks.
So, if you can build a flywheel energystorage, that can power a robot, any weightclass, with satisfying result, we have a new rich man in RW.As that would be a moneymaker.
Now, I had, years ago now, an idea to use a small disks that runs at very high RPM counterclockwise to the weapondisk, to counter the disadvantage of a horizontal disk, the trouble with steering.
It was meant to be an 25 cm diameter 2 kg disk, that would be running at 25000 rpm to counter the 1000 rpm rotating disk.
But after starting to build the basic parts of the robot I noticed that the building of a heavy was so timeconsumong that it wouldnt be fun to see my machine splattered all over the arena.And it goes against my first liferule -dont do anything to anyone what I dont want to happen to me- so I started to look into the non smaching robot technology of flippers.
Greetings Mack,
Welcome to the FRA forum, always glad to see our friends from across the pond here!
You are quite right, there is no limit to the KE that can be stored in a flywheel, used as a weapon or not. (rule 11.2 & 11.3 applies) What kind of application for a flywheel do you have in mind? If I knew this, maybe I may be able to offer you some more detailed advice.
Regards,
Geoff.
Well, my comment is: Test it to destruction in a nice, safe, deep hole in the ground.
whilst there is no limit, you need a dam well balanced disc to spin at high speeds, jst remember that! and make sure that anything supporting it is as strong as u can possibly make it
Do you think you would be allowed to spin up a flywheel before entering the arena? Obviously you cant do so with an exposed flywheel - it would be worth checking with the powers that be about encased flywheels before spending too much time on a design.
I see several rules regarding spinning weapons, but nothing other than two fail-safe rules for rotational kinetic energy storage devices (flywheels). I like to demonstrate my point by going to ends of the spectrum, so in this case, consider a flywheel running at 100000rad/s with 1GJ of kinetic energy that has a failsafe that causes it to spin down within 60 seconds to meet the safety rule; is that safe?!
My guess is that there is or *should be* some additional rules governing flywheels. If there is, I want to know what they are. If there arent, then I urge the safety folks to consider adding some.
Mario - Id be more likely to consider existing ball bearings rather than frictionless magnetic/vacuum-packed bearings; theyre alot cheaper! I think that the energy losses in conventional bearings would be tolerable. As for the problem with gyroscopic effects in spinning disks, there shouldnt be any problem with a horizontal disk (here, I mean a vertical disc axis). The problems arise when you have a horizontal disc axis/shaft but vertical disc (maybe thats what you were talking about). Id mount my flywheel with a vertical shaft. I have to disagree with your first liferule - I *want* my bot to beat the other bot, but I *dont want* my opponent to beat me :-). However, I have to agree that I dont want them to dessimate my bot.
Geoff - Thanks for the welcome! I have no specific design in mind yet, only possibilities. Im just trying to find out which of my ideas are good *and* legal.
Do any of you guys know of any bots-of-the-past that used flywheels to power their weapons (not spinners where the flywheel *is* the weapon)? If so, how did they do?
Regards,
Mack
Theres always Tip-Top (dont have the URL though).
Tip Top has a spinning disc, but its a weapon. Im talking about a bot that uses rotational kinetic energy to power a *different* weapon. Know of any like that?
Thanks,
Mack
Yes, but that weapon also powers the robot itself.
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