The thread to help make my bots realistic

[dogbot4000]

can I have help with making my robots more realistic

[andrewj]

Yes, which robot do you want help with first?

[dogbot4000]

flippy my best bot

[andrewj]

Are these the stats then?

flippy
team name: team cutie
shape: ramp
colour: black and yellow
weight: 100kg
dimensions: 100*132*43
speed: 3mph
turning circle: 0
ground clearence: 0 everywhere
armour: titanium everywhere
wheels: 2 wheels
power: 2 lem 130s @50volts
notes: a big flipper like wbcs at the front and 2 general carnage 1 style claws
srimech: flipper
strengths: big flipper can self right from nearly every side cant get tossed out of the arena wall
weaknesses: cant self right on sides speed

[dogbot4000]

yeah they are

[andrewj]

OK, here a few things to start you off then:

shape: ramp

Really you need a bit more detail than this, talk more of whether it is a wedge/box wedge and even give examples of robots it looks like. A brief Paint picture also helps to understand things better for writers.

speed: 3mph

One of the biggest problems with your robots are they go way too slow. Most robots in the vapourbots world go in the range of 10-30mph. Any less than 10 is going a bit too slow for a roller but anything bigger than 25mph usually means you start to lose some control. I tend to go around 15mph for most of my vapourbots.

ground clearence: 0 everywhere

Every robot must have ground clearance to simply move. 5mm and above is preferred but 10mm is a lot more sensible if you don€™t want to get stuck on other wedges or debris. You can however have 0mm at the front of you wedge. Skirts can be added to the side and back to cover the ground clearance and make it zero but skirts reduce manoeuvrability.

armour: titanium everywhere

First things first you must always state the thickness of your armour. Secondly but not as important is some writers prefer to know what grade of metal it is too. So you could say, €œ3mm thick Grade 5 Titanium€ for example.

wheels: 2 wheels

I could go really fussy here and ask what type of tread the tyres are made of, but I won€™t. It also helps sometimes to say the diameter of the wheels so the techies can work out gear ratios and stuff.

power: 2 lem 130s @50volts

Good, you have either researched some motors or looked at other people€™s stats to see what other vapourbots use. One problem is that I€™m not sure that LEM130€™s can handle 50v (correct me if I€™m wrong) and also by FRA rules I don€™t think 50v is permitted. However some tournaments allow up to around 60v so you might be okay with that one. Also try to state what type of battery you are using (NiCad, NiMH, SLA etc.)

notes: a big flipper like wbcs at the front and 2 general carnage 1 style claws

First things first you must give details on what powers the weapons. And also where are the General Carnage style claws and are they powered?
For the flipper you must give details on the type of gas used and ram sizes at least to give some sort of idea of the power (pressure is also a must have). For the claws I don€™t know where they are or what they are meant to do. If they are powered it is probably best to use Linear Actuators than hydraulics/pneumatics. But even then I don€™t know what they would be used for and I think they would put it overweight.

Hope that helps you out. I know other people can give you a lot more helpful information but thats what I can see at the moment. Basically just go into more detail. Im doing this for a few reasons:

a) Because we need some new blood around here and you seem interested enough to compete in a few tournaments.
b) Because I know how much a new guy can benefit from people helping out with improving the quality and stats of a vapourbot. The ammount of help I got back on the Robot Wars forum was increadible and Im still learning new stuff up to today. Ive won tournaments and consider some of my vapourbots to be really good and thats all down to people helping me out. In short, you could be the next PTT/VFT/FAR/NSBFL/whatever champion if you get the right people helping you.

[mrdaves]

Ok, Andy, that is just plain overkill with everything going into far to much detail like the grade of titanium, batteries etc (hence why there hasnt been a sticking newbie for over 2 years)

He wont be the next FAR champion because there wont be another FAR championship.

[steven_mcg]

This from the man whose stats are about 4 times as long as his fights...

Those generally seem like good newbie guidelines for you, Tim. Just dont get too worried about being super specific on motors, batteries, gears etc. Ive been here about 3 to 4 years and I still get confused by it all Just keep things basic to begin with and your knowledge will build up over time. You can also look to real robots or other vapours for examples of what can be deemed as realistic.