Weapons - Axes

The axe has been in use for around 30 000 years BC. Early man discovered he could use reeds to tie chipped flint to a stick and it gave him more leverage for killing food. The weight of the head together with the length of the shaft in addition to his arm gave him more force to chop things or hit animals with. By the Bronze age, he had discovered that by mixing 3 parts copper to 1 part tin its possible to produce a metal alloy (bronze, obviously) which could be cast to make axe heads. Once set, bronze was much harder than just copper. Sharpening the blade with stones allowed him to hone a sharp edge which was tough.

Modern axes haven't really changed all that much. The heads are now normally made from steel and either have a single, fan-shaped cutting edge or are double-headed. These are attached to a wooden or metal handled, normally by the handle being inserted through a hole in the head. They have lost out in many areas or industry and war to mechanical devices such as chain-saws and guns. However they remain a versatile tool (log-chopping, breaking hard earth, etc) and are in common use today. There has also been a resurgence of interest in the last few years, due to some mad people called roboteers...

Sources: Britannica.com, The History of Scotland

There are three popular mechanisms for axes in Robot Wars:

The first is the direct drive from a motor, such as the starter motor/flywheel used by Killertron and Frenzy. The picture shows a Killertron style system, although there is no reason why it needs to be direct drive; chains or pulleys would produce less backlash in the system when the axe hits its target. As Newton's law states that every force has an equal and opposite force, it is worth remembering that the hard your axe hits something, the harder that something hits back!

In the example here, the axe is operated simply by energising the motor. This will then turn the flywheel, which in turn will move the axe in one direction or the other. Since Force=mass x acceleration, the mass of the axe head and shaft will be directly proportional to the force with which the axe hits its target. However, the heavier the axe is made, the more energy is required to accelerate it at the same rate. Consequently you get a trade off between the mass and the acceleration. In this type of system, the acceleration is dictated by the gearing between the motor and flywheel and, ultimately, by how powerful the motor is.

The second is the pneumatic or hydraulic ram connected to the shaft of the axe, as used in Shunt, Killerhurtz and Big PAnts. This type of axe works on mostly the same principles, but again we can see variations. Killerhurtz axe has a counter-weight which balances out the forces around the pivot point. This means that the overall force in a given direction is increased and the system is more balanced. Of course the extra weight will also mean reduced acceleration.

The third is motor drive via a cam shaft linkage as used in Morits. This mechanism differs from the first in that it allows automatic repeat blows.