How scary are ant spinners?

[Shakey]

Okay so this damage was done by Spyro and Randar (vertical spinners) as was the wheel damage I showed earlier:




And this is damage caused by using PICaxe as a quick test for my undercutting spinner (see my build diary for that guy):


The motor is in a random place as I took the wheel off and they are actually the part that holds the motor in place!

[Rapidrory]

That's what happens when you get Nuts as your team mate

[Hogi]

i think in antweights especially the damage a robot will take from a spinner depends on numerous factors. some of the main ones are...

armour material. titanium will be far more effective as armour than 3D printed plastic.

the spinner you are fighting. a lot of them will spin themselves/your robot out the arena on the first hit and obviously some will be better at causing damage than others.

your driving ability. if you can avoid hitting the blade or disc of the spinner and still find a way to defeat the spinner you can win without taking much/any damage. ( this almost never happens when i'm driving )

roboteer bravery! some people will stay in and fight a spinner until their robot has been completely shredded, others will drive out surrender when major damage is sustained.

[Shakey]

roboteer bravery! some people will stay in and fight a spinner until their robot has been completely shredded, others will drive out surrender when major damage is sustained.

On this last note I generally try to go till my robot is completely unable to move or something important (ESC or LiPo) is too exposed. But remember you can call cease at any time as a roboteer. I've run my robot into the blade with my chassis bent in half and my flipper torn off with a single wheel left before (Might be a contributing factor as to why accelerant no longer runs XD DAMNIT INERTIA!)

[EpicentrE]

armour material. titanium will be far more effective as armour than 3D printed plastic.

It's worth noting that it doesn't matter what you use as armour if it's not properly attached. A badly secured piece of titanium will come off just as easily as a badly secured piece of thin plastic.

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

What counts as "badly secured"? The bits I duct tape on tend to not come off, whereas bolted on bits do!

[EpicentrE]

Duct tape is not as bad as you might think, as it covers a wide surface area, is very sticky, and is stretchy, so it's more likely to flex and bend than just detach. But of course the comparison also depends on what bolts you're using; if you're using plastic bolts, they won't withstand much punishment. I don't think I've ever had a steel bolt fail.

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

I only use steel ones. But I just wanted to make a distinction. To an outsider to the sport, the phrase "mounting things properly" sounds like nuts and bolts and things rather than bodged techniques like tape or sticky pads, and its not always the best way for us. A good mount can be achieved or not achieved with any technique.

[EpicentrE]

I agree, although I would say that some methods are inherently more likely to be stronger than others. Double-sided sticky pads, for example, never seem to have much adhesion (unless I've only seen rubbish ones). Similarly, plastic bolts are quite weak, and I only ever use them if weight is an issue.

Of course, the material and how it's connected are only two parts of a much larger equation. But it was a mistake that I made when I was new to robotics, and so it's worth presenting just to ensure that it isn't overlooked.

As with all these things, it's best for the new roboteer to experiment and find what works for them, so I was more ensuring that he was aware that the connection and construction method was something he should experiment with, not that one is necessarily superior to the others.

[daveimi]

Yeah I've been digesting everything you've all been saying, it's one of the reasons I like this weight category as opposed to others etc.. There's a much more nurturing culture to this thing than with the feather spinners and so on. Basically, my lad and I wanted to build for the Fw Champs and also compete regular on the FW Circuit. I've been watching the video's and each year people seem to need a few more tons of energy from there ram, a few more joules from their spinners. And at the other end of it, there's me here trying to nurture an interest that my Autistic son has. He's obsessed with robot combat, but it would destroy him to see something he'd spent hours on be ripped to shreds. The featherweight champs I understand are the pinacle of the weight class and as such people need somewhere to build their blood thirsty machines. But then at the same time, there are some brutal machines in the regular RobotWars matches, axes and so on. There isn't really a tap-out, and no real mercy given.

It would be nice if we could build him a cheap feather and get pushed about a bit, rolled over, ditched in the pit and so on. And then when he grabs it and brings it back to the pits we can straighten it, charge it up, tighten everything up and stuff. And he can learn from it, learn about maintaining it, which bits of his design worked and didn't work, what he wants to change for next time and so on with a bit of help and support. Erm, but it won't, it'll be thrown 40feet through the air and hammered on by a CO2 powered axe of some sort. And it reaches a point where we're rebuilding each time with him in tears in the back of the car.

So moving to the ant stuff, it will be really nice for him to come and see some like-minded people and can tap out if he's nervous. He can generally just enjoy driving his ant weight and pushing people around and all the rest of it. I get that this is robot combat lol, but it'd be good if some of the feather stuff was as forgiving as the ants seem to be.