Heavy Weight Spinners 2011 !!

[robotwars]

Its July, it€™s the time of year where I€™m normally fully booked with educational projects, and 2010 is no different.

It€™s a time of year where I sit back and look at the events from the year so far, what€™s worked, what hasn€™t, and try and come up with new ideas to improve things.

Ok, prepare to be shocked€¦ its one of my ideas, so its going to be shocking.

One of the things which has been lacking of the RR show for a while is €œ destruction €œ. I€™ve known this for quite a while, hear it from the audience, and some of you might have seen the robot I built for Guildford which was supposed to blow up and fall apart.

Unfortunately I underestimated the strength of polycarb and it never fell apart ! Blew up nicely though !

Chatting away to a roboteer the other day we were discussing how we can bring some destruction back for 2011.
One option was to try and encourage roboteers to add sacrificial parts to their robots, but then quite quickly we realised that unless Thor, or Terrorhurtz was in every fight it was a bit pointless.

So here€™s the plan€¦.

Bring back heavyweight spinners.
What I€™m proposing is the concept of allowing spinners to run in the RR Arena, however a whole new set of rules to cover this.

I€™m thinking something along the following guidelines€¦

Limit the use of motor to 1 x bosch 750w only on 24v.
Limit the gear ratio to limit the speed.
Limit the diameter of the disc.
Limit the construction and material of the disc.

Yes the RR arena would need a few upgrades, however I€™m not talking about taking to a Class 2, I€™m proposing a slightly thicker net, and a few other tweaks. A compromise.

Now€¦ what we don€™t want is some Hardox covered boxes with a spinner fitted€¦ what we do want is destruction, a new challenge€¦. Maybe limit the body material of these new robots to Wood, so we have destruction. Ok maybe stick some Hardox on the inside to protect your insides, but the outside something which can be damaged.

And I€™m not saying Iron Awe will ever get to play with these€¦ its about entertainment.. and I€™m sure there€™s enough of us which do it to entertain. But we need to do it in a safe way !! For events to carry on I feel we need some destruction.

I remember when the feather weight BatterBot was formed€¦ it was WOOD taking on Little Spinner and we all loved it when it got smashed up. I want to bring back the destruction and we can do it together if we try.

2011 RR events need something new, and spinners could be the answer.


Discuss €¦.

[widow_twanky]

Limit, limit, limit....................

An opportunity for middleweights by any chance??

Got some wheel chair motors in the shed a sheet of hardox, some angle iron and some thin ali for a nice hardox box which could take some nasty visible damage on a sacrificial skin and still run once a month because it's built like a brick underneath.

Agree to some degree as Hydra was well photgraphed at Guildford because of the damage to it (shouldn't happen now though cos I fixed it ). Not sure if spinners were back in full force that we'd make as many events due cost of repairing the damage.

Andy

[Marien]

Yes, limit the ammount of energy in the disc: rpm, diameter, mass.
Also: only horizontal discs; vertical discs are much more destructive.

[RogueTwoRobots]

Some destruction has been lacking, it's definitely a key aspect of robot combat, but as ever you are on the ball Jonno with what the events need to keep them exciting.
I think it's sensible to limit the main factors. As you've said, it saves you from having to completely overhaul your arena and it allows a degree of destruction without posing as large a risk to the public as full-on spinners would.
Marien's suggestion of restricting verticals could be a good decision too, as you're likely to get a lot less vertical flying shrapnel from horizontals and most of it will be hitting the polycarb instead of the netting.

Limit the construction and material of the disc

Maybe better to not limit this aspect? Dunno, just thinking that if the disc is made from as high a quality as possible, you're less likely to get, say, teeth shearing on it compared to a disc built from less suitable materials?

Quick question as well if this was to go ahead: what would the situation be with the FW spinners? Obviously they're a lot smaller and the chunks that could be torn off them are likely to be a lot smaller and lighter, but we all know the power some of the FW spinners can pack. Would they be allowed to fight freely or would there be restrictions on their motors/disc size/speed etc too?

[Marien]

Marien's suggestion of restricting verticals could be a good decision too, as you're likely to get a lot less vertical flying shrapnel from horizontals and most of it will be hitting the polycarb instead of the netting.

Vertical spinners are supported by the floor and can hit a lot harder then horizontal spinners, that are not supported other then by the robots weight. So the power of a horizontal spinner is limited by the weight of that robot, not the strength of the arena.
Shrapnel will go anywhere, either way.

By the way: even without the Hardox, all robots get built better and better, stronger, with higher reliability. This says that all roboteers are getting more experience, and better at the game. This is good, because it keeps the costs of repairing down, and the fights last longer.
As an organiser I want as much movement en noise (of weapons) as possible. Maybe we can influence this by giving difficult designs a weight advantage over simple designs. Something like:
Hammers: 100% of the max weight - Flippers: 90% - Discs: 85% - Wedges: 70% - Boxes: 60%.

For peoples health, it would be good to go to middleweights, or 80 kg heavyweights. But I fear that this would damage the nummer of now active robots.

[gravity]

Sure, why not, sounds like a nice concept for some destruction.
No competetive element then ? And can we throw flippers in with them ?

By the way Jonno, can you please give us some final info for RIAT ? We still know nothing

[robotwars]

Yes more for entertainment rather than full on competition, however it could develop into a good full combat class.

Yes we'd have to limit it to horizontal, and not verticle, but it is the way forward for the RR events to survive.

What we need is a few teams who are willing to put something together and lets test them.
Or any ideas... for example I suggested wood as the body material, even if its over the top of a Hardoz chassis.

Wood is great, it absorbs the impacts yet will give us destruction, and I dont think would be too dangerous.

John

[Marien]

Plastic discs would have roughly the same weight and impact as wood, but are stronger. Wood will tear easier along the fibers. So I would go for HDPE (tough) discs or maybe Polycarb (strong) or PMMA (Perspex, brittle).

[psycho_fling]

I think some people might be getting confused on jonnos concept

i believe he would/might limit the disc material to certain metals and the wood concept comes in for the armour

so all the entrants have metal discs of certain restrictions and are outside at least covered in wood to add the destruction element

alex

[widow_twanky]

Hmmm!

Still got SMIDSY's old disc and mounting and the 1mm stainless steel body armour. Not too averse to putting it forward for a trial as I've built around stuff to make sure the spinner can just pop back in.

As we wont be using it for competitions (Too susceptable to axes, hammers, full pressure flippers, low pressure flippers and just about anything else!! ) it might just be a good place to start on looking at this. Ready built available robot. Battery packs and speedos are in the way at the moment but can be easily moved.

It's built like a tank at the moment but a sacrificial skin can be added pretty easily.

Anyone fancy chewing the fat at RIAT on how best to do things??

Andy