Antweights On A Snooker Table

[joey_picus]

Welcome, one and all, to the tournament with the single most descriptive name of the post-Fight Against Robots era!

I have been struggling a little with exam revision these last few weeks, and have had to couple this with a couple of nostalgia trips increasing my desire to write battles again - however, just in case my battle writing urge turns out to be a flash in the pan, I didn't want to tie myself to any major serious commitment unless I could be sure that I'd finish it. There's enough unfinished tournaments on these boards involving me after all, hehe

So, if you combine that with a week spent watching the Masters snooker tournament and tinkering with antweight parts, you arrive at an entirely illogical conclusion such as this one! This will be an annihilator style tournament - this allows me to have an unlimited number of competitors - and I require as many people as want to be involved to enter one (1) antweight robot each. I STRONGLY encourage people to enter vapourbot antweights, since it's far more fun that way and this is a fun tournament but I will accept entries of real ants if you can't think of vapour ones (and of course if you've built them yourself!)

The arena is an almost standard 12 foot by 6 foot (or in proper units, 365cm long and 180cm wide) snooker table, baize floored (so watch those wedges and axles) with the finest rubber bumpers and only two real differences from the norm; the pockets have been enlarged to 120mm diameter, to serve as pits, and 5mm polycarbonate walls and roof around the edges of the table that keeps the drivers and audience safe, and means the only way to dispose of your opponent is to immobilize or pit them.

Other rules:

- Antweights must conform to the latest Antweight World Series build rules; these can be found at http://www.antweight.co.uk/rules.htm . The usual FRA fanfic standards apply (and do feel free to ask for advice ^^)

- The snooker balls will remain on the table with the ants; these provide a little extra dimension and fun to proceedings since being able to roll a 130g spherical object towards your opponent might prove quite a useful tactic

- Each round will last either until a robot is eliminated or for a maximum of five minutes - which in my experience is plenty for antweights - and any fight that goes the distance will be judged on damage, aggression, control, style, and possibly number of balls potted, with the robot whose score is lowest being eliminated.

- Should a robot become stuck on another robot or on part of the arena, like the bumpers or the cloth, they will not be considered immobilised but they will be left where they are and being stuck will both make them an easy target and likely count against them heavily should a fight go the distance.

I do believe that covers most angles...signups are open as of now and will close, ans I shall start the tournament on, the 21st of January 2011 (although me being me, there is no guarantee the first round will be up then :P) and there's not a lot else that can be said really. If you think you have an antweight Ding Junhui on your hands then get entering!

[steven_mcg]

It's like Snakes on a Plane, but it's ants on a snooker table!

Save me a spot, sir! I think it's time for something new.

[shadowflare]

Oh, I'm definatly in.

Skeith for the in, please. Skeith is over here.

[kodster]

Flamberge wants to take part in this!!!

[death robotics]

Im in.

Though i need help i cant do antweights to save my life, can anyone help?

Wait a sec. You said realies allowed. Then i pick Anticide

[joey_picus]

Lian: You've seen antweights in real life surely? ;P

It's not massively different from doing other vapourbots - just using antweight components like 30:1/50:1/75:1/50:1 HP micro Sanyo-type gearmotors and 120 to 200mah 7.4v/11.1v LiPo batteries rather than LEMs and NiCad packs. Weapons are generally powered by servos and the armour tends towards lighter materials such as polycarbonate or titanium - Hardox is virtually never used as armour.

The entries so far:

Tracy 'Hurricane' Farber - Skeith
Kody 'The Grinder' Kunz - Flamberge
Lian 'Whirlwind' Walsh - Anticide (?)
Steve 'Interesting' McGregor - reserved spot
'Rocket' Andrew Jackson - reserved spot

As I've said before, this can go up to as many entries as there are people who want to enter, so get entering if you haven't already and thanks to those who have.

[death robotics]

Yep i have seen them (Due to the fact you let me drive Jigsaw IV which im very proud of :P )

It was just i was confused about batterys and shape etc

[joey_picus]

I presume you mean Drumblebee? :P looks good, although there are a couple of problems with it that I can see:

1) If it's got 100mm wheels surely it'd be 100mm long and high?

2) I think the weapon is too heavy - since it weighs 80g on its own, you're leaving yourself with 60g to fit four gearmotors (at around 9g each), wheels, controllers, batteries for the four motors, a chassis of some sort...I'd either reduce the weapon weight a lot, or reduce the weapon weight a bit and look into using a single brushless motor rather than two gearmotors to drive the weapon, which would save a bit more weight and also make it more powerful.