Dominance of pushers at AWS46

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

Times have changed since those "much deliberated" rules were, er, deliberated though. It used to be illegal for any public transport not to carry a bale of hay and a tub of water, but that's not so much in step since we don't use many horses anymore.

I do agree with the triangle pits though, they can create a grey area, especially if they're not deep enough (though I'm sure they would be). Is there any room for a square pit in each corner, but with one side completely open and one side with a small wall (with the other two sides forming the battlebox walls)? The low wall side could be set so that no two pits are quite the same, and it should still leave enough space for fighting.

One thing I will add is that I think we've become rather frightened of testing out arenas/concepts/ideas at AWS events. Its become so that smaller events have to be put on to do testing, whilst AWSs stick to rigid, official formulas. Whilst I agree with this in many ways, it doesn't mean I'd necessarily be against a more experimental AWS. Maybe it'll lead to unexpected winners, or the old reliables succeeding anyway, but it doesn't mean it cant be a fun event with an official result. I remember there was one AWS where Peter tested out an arena and found a lot of robots couldn't go down the drop off because of an oversight with his curved roof. This was then addressed and fixed by the next competition but the event wasn't a failure in its own right.

Maybe we should embrace a 'wacky' AWS with a new arena design to play in, whether it has faults or not? Things can always go back to how they were if it isn't as well received.

Just a thought.

[Rapidrory]

I'll run any arena people like at my AWS as long as it doesn't make the day needlessly long

[peterwaller]

I take your point about a triangular pit but I was assuming that in most cases robots would be being pushed along the wall so it wouldn't be so much of a problem just a little further to push. That would change dramatically if we add small angled walls.
Here is a sketch of the corner with tringular, quarter round and square pit shape.
The robot positions that tipping should roughly occur for a 100x130mm robot are shown for each shape in the same colour.

[EpicentrE]

That diagram confused the hell out of me until I realise that the corner of the arena was in the top left.

I think, as Dave has said, we should be willing to try new things at an AWS and see what happens. It's not like once you've built the arena it can never be modified; things like adding or removing small walls, or changing the sizes of the pits, shouldn't be too difficult to do if we agree that there are problems with whatever initial configuration you decide on.

[Hogi]

let's try it.

[peterwaller]

One other question I ment to ask is about Polycarb thickness.
In the rules it states that 4mm is the minimum reocommended but I am not covinced that is necessary for all parts.
Obviously a curved lid is easier in thinner material if all parts of the curved part of the cover upto say 20cm high have a second layer of say 2mm polycarb could I get away with 3 or even 2 mm material.

[Shakey]

I don't think thinner is a good idea. Some of the spinners are gouging very deeply into polycarbonate and there's not a tiny chance of one hitting the roof either.

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

Yeah, only takes a spinner to launch another spinner roofwards.

[peterwaller]

I wasn't suggesting that a spinner couldn't hit the roof but it can't really stay there gradually cutting through as it can at arena level.
Also thinner material tends to give more and can therfore absorb some of the impact that way.
I am just not sure how easy it will be to bend 4mm around the curve and keep it there under tension.
My old curved top arena was only 2mm but spinners have moved on quite a bit since then.
I could use two sheets of 2mm but I am not sure how slight variations of contact between the sheets might effect the visibility.

[Shakey]

That's the thing, a spinner like Test (HSODs blade in it) doesn't need to cut gradually, it does the gouge in a single hit and is quite good at getting a bite out of anything even flimsy stuff.



The force it was using to bite the cans with is far less than if a spinner got booted into the roof.