Another New Antweight..

All things antweight

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Shakey
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Re: Another New Antweight..

Post by Shakey »

I don't see the need for a debate, flail whale is designed as a spinning KE weapon using chain/wire to extend the diameter. It isn't entangling, it isn't meant to do that, the chain shouldn't stop spinning on contact or catch the opponent.

It might entangle sure! In which case they'll be seperated as normal in unseperable immobile situations. But plenty of weapons can entangle that aren't meant to, really anything with a flexible wire/chain/band like component could, I just don't see it as an issue worth debate, common sense should distinguish which robots are entangling and which merely might as opposed to their primary purpose.
Nuts And Bots - For all your components and ready built antweights!

Alex Shakespeare - Team Shakey / Nuts And Bots / Team Nuts:
AWS 44, 45, 49, 51 & 55 Winner - Far too many robots!
Rapidrory
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Re: Another New Antweight..

Post by Rapidrory »

The only thing that's likely to happen is Nuts'll tangle itself up... And there's no rule against self entanglement :P
peterwaller wrote:
2f) The flame thrower is an easier call.
Mr Burns is built purely for entertainment purposes. I never had any plans for it to compete .

I feel it's always good to sometimes come up with something crazy that hasn't been done before.. Sure, it might not be allowed to compete, but as long as it's done safely and with common sense, it's a lot of fun and you'll inevitably learn from it :)
Rory Mangles - Team Nuts

Robots: Nuts 2 and many more...

NanoTwo Motor Controllers: https://nutsandbots.co.uk/product/nanotwodualesc
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peterwaller
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Re: Another New Antweight..

Post by peterwaller »

I suppose if there is an obvious function for a particular part of a robot other than entanglement then it is OK.
I certainly want to see your robots in action and accidental entanglements is just something else we can try design against.
As for the flame thrower a demo would be great even if it has to be in the carpark on health and safety grounds.
Did I just quote health and saftey I must be getting old. :oops:
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BeligerAnt
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Re: Another New Antweight..

Post by BeligerAnt »

I did not intend to imply that Nuts featured an entanglement weapon, much less open a debate on the subject :roll:

I was thinking more of the (inevitable?) entanglement especially if Nuts should come up against a spinner. In fact there aren't any rules specifically relating to robots getting tangled up. The closest I could find was:
4c) When any robot is immobile or lacks controlled motion then a judge will call cease and the driver will have ten seconds to demonstrate that control has been restored, otherwise the robot will have lost.

4e) Robots may hold or pin each other for a maximum of 20 seconds. The judge will give a verbal warning at 15 seconds into any holding or pinning, for the contestants to disengage. Should they not do so within final 5 seconds then the battle will be paused and the robots returned to their respective corners. The battle will then recommence immediately.
It's down to the judges to decide when the robots have reached a stalemate and need to be separated, just glad I won't be judging :)
Gary, Team BeligerAnt
Rapidrory
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Re: Another New Antweight..

Post by Rapidrory »

This is what happens when Nuts meets spinners :P https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUege5_UOzs
Rory Mangles - Team Nuts

Robots: Nuts 2 and many more...

NanoTwo Motor Controllers: https://nutsandbots.co.uk/product/nanotwodualesc
Rapidrory
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Re: Another New Antweight..

Post by Rapidrory »

Another great AWS; I had a lot of fun, despite my mediocre performance. Even my brother enjoyed himself :L

My robots got 7 wins to 14 losses in total:

Nuts/ Evil Nuts cluster: 0 wins, 4 losses
Chocolate Bot + Smidge: 0 wins, 2 losses
Flail Whale: 1 win, 2 losses
Tinny (driven by my brother): 1 win, 2 losses
Bully Dozer: 2 wins, 2 losses
Lionel: 3 wins, 2 losses

I've learnt a lot from this AWS:

My 4 inch cube is rather small; all my robots had acres of room in the tech check cube despite only just fitting in mine..
1mm polycarbonate is fine as armour; I was worried it wasn't gonna stand up very well, but Lionel got a lot of hard hits with little damage.
I am still a poor driver :P

As such I have made various plans:

Probably going to swap Chocolate Bot for Tinny, seeing as Tinny's a surprisingly good robot; when my brother and I were testing Tinny after the AWS, it beat Bully Dozer about 3 out of 4 times regardless of which of us was driving.. I'll be fair though and let Chocolate bot and Tinny fight it out for their place in the team!

Flail Whale was much more destructive than I had expected, despite it living up to it's name in spectacular form! I'm planning to enlarge the chassis to fit it with 4 wheel drive, which hopefully should stop it flailing around so much. Also need to improve the drive motor mounts as one of the motors came off in the epic fight against Robototron Mk2 (which I still feel bad about destroying; I'm not heartless enough to own a spinner yet :P)

I'm planning to replace the steel scoop on Bully Dozer with a lighter polycarbonate one, and use the weight on the chassis. Since the scoop just rests on the floor most of the time, it means that none of that weight is over the wheels so it loses grip.

Nuts and Lionel are remaining as is; Nuts because it's hilarious, and Lionel because there's not much left to update on it unless I rebuilt it from scratch. Seeing as it's a pretty good robot I'll probably leave it for the time being.

Seeing as my brother is actually pretty good at driving robots, I can hopefully get in a good bit of practice against him before the next AWS; my driving is still letting me down, especially on my newer robots. My aim for the next AWS is to try and get at least one of my robots into the final 16.

On the plus side though, I've sold enough ESCs now to cover the cost of parts for all my robots, with some spare for a few new parts. I'm thinking of building yet more rule exercising robots; maybe one with a tethered projectile next? :L
Rory Mangles - Team Nuts

Robots: Nuts 2 and many more...

NanoTwo Motor Controllers: https://nutsandbots.co.uk/product/nanotwodualesc
Rapidrory
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Re: Another New Antweight..

Post by Rapidrory »

Meet 'Flail Whale MK2' aka 'Smash Gordon' :)

Image

Now doubles as a 4WD pusher if all else fails. :P
Rory Mangles - Team Nuts

Robots: Nuts 2 and many more...

NanoTwo Motor Controllers: https://nutsandbots.co.uk/product/nanotwodualesc
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Shakey
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Re: Another New Antweight..

Post by Shakey »

*sheds a single joyful tear*

It's so beautiful!
Nuts And Bots - For all your components and ready built antweights!

Alex Shakespeare - Team Shakey / Nuts And Bots / Team Nuts:
AWS 44, 45, 49, 51 & 55 Winner - Far too many robots!
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peterwaller
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Re: Another New Antweight..

Post by peterwaller »

All you need now is a fan on the motor and you have covered every eventuallity.
I can see we are going to have even more trouble with these Reading Uni students than we have had in the past
Rapidrory
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Joined: Sun Nov 24, 2013 9:54 pm

Re: Another New Antweight..

Post by Rapidrory »

Definitely considering a fan as it still flails around a lot after half throttle on the spinner due to lack of grip :L Wouldn't produce any useful thrust without it being a pretty big fan though as it's not spinning hugely fast..

I wouldn't worry about my bots yet, they've still got a way to go before they're anything more than an annoyance to other robots...

...Shakey's on the other hand... :P
Rory Mangles - Team Nuts

Robots: Nuts 2 and many more...

NanoTwo Motor Controllers: https://nutsandbots.co.uk/product/nanotwodualesc
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