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is it time
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chrisjon65
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is it time

Very Happy .this should make for some interesting conversation ......
after seeing the power of some spinning weapons on the weekend ...im becoming a little worried ....i can see the weapon power of 12kg featherweights far exceeding the weight class and is it time to put a limit on the weapon power ..not weapon type or design or function just on the power to weight ratio ..im interested in your thoughts Very Happy
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Post Mon Jul 05, 2004 7:23 pm 
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Glen
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no limitations for me thanks.

i think rising to the engineering challenge of building a machine that will take it and dish it out is why i do this.

and besides, you really only get 1 good hit in before a panel goes flying and the word FORFEIT rings through the air Laughing

the arena being able to take it is another issue, given basilisk went all the way through the 18mm wall. but overall i was impressed by its strength and safety level.

bring forth more power thanks

Post Mon Jul 05, 2004 7:48 pm 
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Timothy Forde
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Joined: 16 Jun 2004
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I have to say no limmitations we just need to lern to build our bots to take hits better. Garys robots though there armor was hit had no major damaged done to them at all and unlike me there not just armored bricks as well
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Post Mon Jul 05, 2004 8:59 pm 
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Spockie-Tech
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thats his "air armour" technique in action.. Wink his bots are so big, you need to chop a long way through the relatively thin armour before you hit anything vital..

Its hard to build big bots and still get them in under the weight limit, but if you can pull it off, theres a lot to be said for having "crumple zones" between the armour and your vitals.. air space doesnt weigh much..

I dont know that a limit on weapon power would be practical to implement.

How would you measure it ? Make people take the spinning bits off, weigh them, and then spin them up and measure the rpm ? You would need someone to stand near them with an optical tacho or something, and thats not a job that many would volunteer for.. calculate the Kilojoules ? what about full body spinners ?

its an interesting thought, but it raises a lot of questions.

I think as long as there are a few good brick-bots out there, then the hi powered spinners wont necessarily have an easy time of it. Power is one thing, reliability is what wins though. Or as I think I said once before.. It doesnt matter how much power you make on the first lap.. its how much you make on the *last* lap that counts.

Post Mon Jul 05, 2004 9:34 pm 
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Ajax
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Joined: 17 Jun 2004
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What's this I here 'Limiting the power of a weapon'.

The Idea is to come up with a bot that can take extreme hits, and lets face it the limitation to the weapon power is the weight class.

If any thing, make sure the bots DO NOT go over the weight limit..
I saw in some details that some of the bots were over the 12Kg. (I'm not sure if this ended up as the case at the event.) but if a bot is heavier than the class weight, this is a clear advantage.

Now, at the moment I have three bots on the drawing board and another in the concept stages. One of these bots I plan on making 3 of them for different weight classes. There called 'Toe Cutter' the baby, 'Ankle Bitter', and the 'Knee Capper' the mother of the family. When I can sort out some of the engineering issues that I have, (Mainly due to cost, but some safety)
These bots are not designed to be gentle, If they work as good as I think they can, they will cause carnage.

Another design that I have started on (calling 'Bug Eyes') if any thing is a little loose; it will shake them off, and throw other bots around. (That is in theory.)

The one that I am concentrating on the most though (Need to sort out a name yet) I am making sure that all expensive parts are well protected. But if something does happen to them well that is part of the sport.

The one I have as a concept, called 'The Wall'. Well, this will not have a weapon. But it will pack a punch, and this thing will take the biggest hits that any other bot can throw at it. It will only compete in certain comps though. (Due to the current concept design.)

Now if there is limitations put in place, where is the challenge? Everyone will end up with bots very simular and the challenge is gone.
The idea is to expand your knowledge think outside of the square, and be creative.

Good competitive, reliable bots don’t have to cost much.

I think that Is enough for now any way.
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Last edited by Ajax on Mon Jul 05, 2004 11:05 pm; edited 1 time in total

Post Mon Jul 05, 2004 10:57 pm 
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Nick
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As Brett says, it would be very hard to come up with a rule that could be acurately applied. eg. my spinning bar only weighs 2 Kg out of 11.06Kg total. That's probably LESS than other weapons like pinscher's or minimower's. None of the spinners had it all their own way - Jeff flipped Basilisk and Annhilation, while all the wedges got under Plan B.

Its all about the balance of weapons and counter-measures; the bots with the right ones had few problems while the bots with the wrong shape, exposed wheels and thin vertical armour got walloped.

Did I really chop thru the arena? Given that my weapon is fairly blunt and has less power behind it than Arron's, surely Annhilation would have chopped thru easier?
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Post Mon Jul 05, 2004 11:02 pm 
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Nexus
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Get real people, Cant believe so much fear is developing. Damage was on the agenda from the start. And the fact that 4 evs were damaged and NIcks spinner could not continue the comps says it all. So what if he puts on a bigger bearing and has theoretically 4 times the power, That also means that the right bot could throw his bot 4 times harder into the air, so do as the some of the battlebots do and design something to take care of spinners, its been done b4. Thats the nature of this sport, to overcoming things like this. The damage factor is what made this event so cool, and it was very cool. I would be embarrased to show anyone the vids if there wasnt any damage done. I dont want to race cars like the twits in hobby stores, this is robot combat and as long as the rules apply to everyone then decide if you want a rock, paper or scissors to play with and good luck on your draw. Awesome weekend, had a blast and we will all be better bot builders for the damage we recieved so be grateful you where there in the first place and try not to have any nightmares tonite Very Happy
Was proud to be part of it all so well done everyone and it was good to meet builders in person. I think we took a major step forward in progressing the sport in Oz. Dont forget that damage excites people and would be a big factor in drawing an audience
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Post Mon Jul 05, 2004 11:30 pm 
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DumHed
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yep, apart from the spectators' safety, I think the more power the better.

The engineering challenge is to pack the most power and the most strength into the allowed weight, and keep it reliable.

There were a few bots well over the 12kg weight class on the weekend, but in the end it's the strong reliable ones that made it through.
The over weight ones really just didn't have the development done to build the functionality into the weight limit.

I didn't have a problem with the over limit bots being allowed in the competition on the weekend, but I think that sticking to the rules is a big part of the challenge - so in future should be taken a bit more seriously.

If course it's disappointing to see one's robot smashed to bits as soon as someone's high powered weapons scores a hit, but really whichever one wins is the better designed / built bot.

So what I mean is:
If it gets destroyed, it wasn't strong enough.
If it doesn't do any damage, it wasn't powerful enough.
If it's too heavy then it's just lazy designing / building Smile


I knew my saw wasn't up to scratch power wise, but didn't have the time to change it, so I wasn't expecting to do any real damage with it. I did expect that I'd take some hard hits though, so I made sure none of the things I wanted to keep were too easy to destroy Smile
Given some time I could have added much more power with some mods to the saw motor's timing and internal current limiting - and I had a couple of kg left to add more batteries.

next time gadget, next time! Razz
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Post Mon Jul 05, 2004 11:52 pm 
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Nexus
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@Nick, howdy. You mentioned your spinning bar was 2 kgs. What would the complete weapon system weigh including the ev, mounts and bearings. Pinschers weapon is 3.5 kgs. That includes jaws, actuator, gear head, motors, mounts, nuts and bolts, leads, plugs, paint and muzzle, thats absolutely everthing that makes up the system. The jaws themselves probably would be under 2 kgs by themselves actually.
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Post Tue Jul 06, 2004 12:06 am 
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Nick
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OK, that's much lighter than it looked! I added up all the spinner parts and they come to 3.981 Kg. The chassis is 2.6 Kg and the rest is batteries and drivetrain
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Post Tue Jul 06, 2004 12:32 am 
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chrisjon65
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well some good points .... Very Happy we will see down the track how it all pans out i just dont want to see a spinner hit a bot ,destroy itself and destroy the opponents bot in just 1 hit , 2 bots are out for the day and no ones a winner doesnt make for good competition . it will be intersting to see if how all us builders , after seeing high powered spinners in action actually design bots and still stay at 12kg.................after seeing the weigh in at the event its very very clear its not as easy as folks say it is ,so buy all means increase the power BUT stay at 12kg ...i heard a lot more spinners are now going to be built this will get very interesting .
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Post Tue Jul 06, 2004 6:55 pm 
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Ajax
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I have the perfect fix for a spinner Laughing

But it's a secret Rolling Eyes
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Post Wed Jul 07, 2004 1:17 am 
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3Faze



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Containment is the major issue. Over here a feather was orderred by the safety crew to turn it down. (EV warrior geared up 2:1 Shocked).

Doing the sums and working out the kinetic energy of some modern spinners can give some very worrying figures, bots such as Pimp2, Storm Vortex and my omicron are now producing figures in the region of Series 3/4 heavyweights such as Hypnodisc and Mazakari Confused

Post Wed Jul 07, 2004 9:11 am 
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andrew



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r u serious, geared up 2:1. Thats insane power. Nicks bot basilisk had his at 1:1 because of direct drive and it was gastly at 12 volts. HIs getting bearing support and 24 volts behind it now which is a hge worry.

Boy am i glad i am moving away from spinners.
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Post Wed Jul 07, 2004 9:23 am 
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3Faze



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Put it this way, you can sweep the floor with the breeze it kicks up Shocked

Post Wed Jul 07, 2004 9:28 am 
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