Full Body Flipper? (and other wacky ideas)

[almost_there]

I was wondering if this has ever been done? I don't recall any during televised Robot Wars (though I'm out of the loop on the robot events - plan to rectify that).

I suppose Wheely Big Cheese was the closest, but I'm thinking more of something equivalent to a full body spinner. The whole outer shell spins (save for a small top area with the aerial), so the flipper equivalent would shoot its entire outer shell upwards...

Okay, so that's completely ridiculous, exposing your electronics, batteries, and motors for your opponent to drive in and smash!

Here's how you make it work: instead of doing that, imagine you had a four sided wedge with a low clearance blade around the edge. That blade then has four arms going up each wedge to the center area where the ram is. This means that the edge of the flipper and the four flipping bars will always flip stuff that's on them, without exposing the innards.

So, if not a full body flipper, an all sided flipping bar system, or perhaps an umbrella flipper if the bars or arms were back hinged to the ram and not attached to the surrounding plate. Actually, scratch all that nonsense I just typed! A double shelled robot should allow you a true full body flipper.

Whichever way, the beauty of this is that much like the full body spinners allowed during RW, the robot gets full coverage of attack with flippers. Can someone come and tell me the downside to this?

[Ellis]

Self righting could be hard. If the whole thing flips equally you're going to go pretty much straight up, and you won't right yourself, I'd have thought.

[almost_there]

True. That's why you make sure that the top isn't flat. Either a pole comes out of the center of the flipper to offset the directionality when its on its roof, or the top of the robot must naturally fall one way or the other due to the angle of the four (or whatever) wedges meeting directly.

[typhoon_driver]

I'm sure it was done back in the first season or two of robot wars and like all weapons back then, it was terrible.

You're main problem is going to be getting a shell that is strong enough to put up with attacks. The edge has to be as low to the ground as possible and preferably a sharp point. Something difficult to do and to keep working well in battle. As mentioned any self righting will be a pain.

I hate to say it but if you look at the machines that win competitions, they always adopt the KISS principle.

[Leonardomayo]

I'm sure it was done back in the first season or two of robot wars and like all weapons back then, it was terrible.

The Mule?
That was just just 3 seperate lifters. One of 3 of its sides. Not a full body flipper per se.

[typhoon_driver]

5 minutes 20 elvis

[joey_picus]

I'm not convinced the flipping aspect of Elvis was the main point of it (it seemed to be more a case of adjustable ground clearance - although it was fairly low anyway)