Thread for silly questions about rules!

Please post all questions and answers in here. This way people can easily see if someone else has the same problem.

Moderators: BeligerAnt, petec, administrator

Post Reply
User avatar
earthwormjim
Posts: 1190
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2010 4:57 pm
Location: Secret Undisclosed Moonbase Location

Thread for silly questions about rules!

Post by earthwormjim »

Question 1 - Can you add or take away parts of a robot between fights.
IE: change panels/armour on a robot depending on what type of robot you are facing in the next round???
Ta!
Image
User avatar
peterwaller
Posts: 3213
Joined: Fri Feb 15, 2002 12:00 am
Location: Aylesbury Bucks
Contact:

Re: Thread for silly questions about rules!

Post by peterwaller »

The answer is yes that is how variant got its name the spinner front end was replaceable with a lifter.
Image
Image
Image
Image
The latest version still has a removable spinner but I just never got round to building any other modules.
User avatar
joey_picus
Posts: 1137
Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2009 1:51 pm
Location: Lancaster, Lancashire
Contact:

Re: Thread for silly questions about rules!

Post by joey_picus »

Obviously all the configurations need to keep the robot under 150g and within the size and weight limits, but it's a really good idea and more robots should be interchangable :) The closest I ever get is adding 'ablative' armour to get shredded by the aforementioned Variant...I think I still have a bit of Waller-signed 2mm circuit board I attached to The Data Fields for one fight which got ripped off pretty much instantly XD
Joey McConnell-Farber - Team Picus Telerobotics - http://picus.org.uk/ - @joey_picus
"These dreams go on when I close my eyes...every second of the night, I live another life"
User avatar
earthwormjim
Posts: 1190
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2010 4:57 pm
Location: Secret Undisclosed Moonbase Location

Re: Thread for silly questions about rules!

Post by earthwormjim »

Thanks gents.
I have 2 scoops for scarab.One .5mm Ti scoop that is light enough for self righting,and the thicker 1mm Ti scoop with side protection for nasty spinny things. :)
Is there a limit to how much of a robot you can change???? :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: ????
Image
User avatar
Shakey
Posts: 1119
Joined: Sat Mar 13, 2010 8:38 pm
Location: Reading

Re: Thread for silly questions about rules!

Post by Shakey »

earthwormjim wrote:Thanks gents.
I have 2 scoops for scarab.One .5mm Ti scoop that is light enough for self righting,and the thicker 1mm Ti scoop with side protection for nasty spinny things. :)
Is there a limit to how much of a robot you can change???? :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: ????
Rulewise I don't think there is but a bit of sportsmanship would come into it.
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!
Remote-Controlled Dave
Posts: 3716
Joined: Sun Apr 03, 2005 5:30 pm
Location: Antrim, Northern Ireland
Contact:

Re: Thread for silly questions about rules!

Post by Remote-Controlled Dave »

I had this discussion with Simon at the last AWS because I was a little worried about it. In these days of 3D printing, it would be possible to build 4 exact clone robots, so that if one gets destroyed or damaged, you could just enter the next one and not bother fixing it (as long as the others weren't entered as their own entry). This lead to a further conversation about entering "groups" of robots as one entry, eg, you could build a spinner ant, a flipper one, etc, and then just put whichever one into battle you felt you had the best chance of beating your opponent with.
This would technically not be against any rules, and me and Simon came to the conclusion that it would be hard to protest it, but, as said, it doesn't really show much sportsmanship!

I'll never forget an AWS I ran where Oliver had Private Iron knocked out and General Mayhem still in. General Mayhem took a fair bit of spinner damage, and he tried to put Private Iron into the next fight instead of fixing General Mayhem. His arguement was that they were "pretty much the same anyway". I rightly made him go and fix GM instead. However, if both robots were entered and declared under one entry (not like a clusterbot, but as an interchangble robot, so one would fight and one would not) it would have been harder to protest.

Like I say, I am really not keen on this idea at all, but it is technically within the rules.
Die Gracefully Robotics
Winner - AWS 39
razerdave
Posts: 1562
Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2006 9:40 pm
Location: Carterton, Oxfordshire
Contact:

Re: Thread for silly questions about rules!

Post by razerdave »

Perhaps it should be written you can change body panels and weapons and parts, but not the chassis. I have had to replace key parts in a machine during events but never the main robot basis.
User avatar
earthwormjim
Posts: 1190
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2010 4:57 pm
Location: Secret Undisclosed Moonbase Location

Re: Thread for silly questions about rules!

Post by earthwormjim »

If needed,maybe a rule stating that only 10/20/30% of the weight of a robot can be interchangable,would set some boundaries??
Image
User avatar
terminaldamage
Posts: 180
Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2010 9:54 pm
Location: Aberdeen, Scotland
Contact:

Re: Thread for silly questions about rules!

Post by terminaldamage »

I'm sure there was a similar discussion about this regarding featherweights a fair few years back. The conclusion (not an official rule, just general consensus) was that you could carry spares of every part of your robot and could effectively replace the entire insides of a robot if it suffered major damage in a battle in order to be ready for the next bout.

But this didn't extend to replacing a damaged chassis with a completely identical one you had made pre-event. I can't remember the specifics of the conversation but I'm sure one of the EOs at the time said that if you were to swap a busted chassis out for a complete new one it would be considered a different robot and wouldn't be allowed to fight under the same name. It's not so much of a issue in featherweights as I don't know any team that has a complete replica chassis on standby but, as you've mentioned Dave, with Shapeways printing, it would be a very easy thing to do in antweights.

Probably not worth creating a rule over it, a gentleman's agreement perhaps? :)
(Not that this would affect me really)
Jamie McHarg
RogueTwo Robots
www.rogue-two-robots.vze.com

With great power, comes great reliability.
Remote-Controlled Dave
Posts: 3716
Joined: Sun Apr 03, 2005 5:30 pm
Location: Antrim, Northern Ireland
Contact:

Re: Thread for silly questions about rules!

Post by Remote-Controlled Dave »

I think it would be hard to police it if there was an official rule. One done by a weight percentage could be particularly irksome to enforce.

I seem to be quite good at taking these discussions to their most extreme conclusions, which I believe is a good way to test the underlining principals of rules (though I know some find my musings wearisome). If the most extreme variant(s) of the discussion still seem pretty ok, then the rule is sound. If it has the ability to "get silly", then maybe there needs to be some kind of limit, even if it just like a "gentleman's agreement".
Die Gracefully Robotics
Winner - AWS 39
Post Reply