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Spockie-Tech
Site Admin
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 3160
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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There's something to be said for that as well... I *was* being a bit grumpy when I ranted against them.. Its not so much the safety aspect that bothers me, although that is a part of it..
I think my personal main beef with them is that I dont like what I think of as "hand grenade" robots.. any machine that does a lot of damage in its early rounds, but is fairly unlikely to be able to survive an entire event before falling apart from its own backlash.
They introduce too much "randomness" into a competition in my opinion.
Since the first round is a random draw, I feel its a bit unfair for a machine that is a well-engineered balance of speed, power, offense, defense and survivability to have to go up against a bot that is pure-offense and will likely deal out a lot of damage in its early fights, then retire or lose before it makes it through to the finals because its weapon is no longer working after a few big hits.
I know that some will think "thats just part of the game" and I agree that a certain amount of randomness is to be expected, but its kind of like "player killing" in multi-player games. It spoils the fun for those who prefer a bit more to a game of chess than someone lobbing a hand grenade into the room and eveyone losing.
Perhaps we should consider "rigging" the first round draw, and putting all the nasty spinners up against each other, and all the brick-bots etc, then only at the "finals" end, would the "best of the spinners" go up against the "best of the bricks" and so on, and only after having to fight their way through their own type rather than relying on the randomness of the draw to get an easy to chew-up opponent.
(dont take that comment too seriously, just a thought.. )
If people wanted ICE motors to power hydraulic pumps to make a cool walking robot, or to do something creatively interesting that an electric motor couldnt achieve the power density for then I'd probably be more inclined to overlook their shortcomings.
Or, if people used them to build an well-engineered spinner that could reasonably be expected to survive a competition (say something like Hazard) then I would probably respect them more since they would be a "serious" competitor rather than a fool with a hand grenade.
But there are only a few people in the country that I think have learnt enough about engineering hi-power spinners to manage that - do you know how many people tried to copy designs like Hazard and found out its a lot harder than they expected to keep them running ? Thats why there were lots of hazard-clones in the starting rounds of BattleBots, but *none* of the clones made it through to the TV rounds before falling apart. Tony and Dan deserve a lot of respect just for managing to keep such a self-destructive design together on a reliable basis every event..
How many spinners fail to win a competition because of lack of hitting power and need more power to do better ? Not many I'll bet. Reliability is what they need to win.
For inexperienced spinner builders, it would just up the power level at the cost of even more decreased reliability and that (only in my opinion of course) is a bad thing. _________________ Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people
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Fri Aug 05, 2005 10:17 am |
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original_carnage
Experienced Roboteer
Joined: 12 Jul 2004
Posts: 326
Location: Toowoomba(ish), travel to Brisbane
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On fuels.....
Common knowledge - get heat source/flame near petrol = fire.
Fuel fact I've proved heaps of times myself - drop a lit match in a bowl full of methanol-hobby fuel = 1 extinguished match. No fire.
Which is why I'd prefer methanol engines over petrol.
I'm getting 2 extinguishers for fuel fires and 2 for electrical fires. One of each stays in the arena shed, the others will be kept in the pit shed - right beside a work room I'm putting in.
The work room is where any grinding, welding, bot testing, refueling, regassing, etc, etc. can be done... behind the protection of what we currently use as the internal arena walls.
The arena is being upgraded early next year. More viewing area, steel step plate for low wall reinforcing, more area to fight in and full sized polycarb screens.
Besides this being an activity I've wanted to do for ages, the arena is at my home. Safety is vital. All who build and compete do so at their own risk... but there ARE innocent children here.
Edit : small, hobby ICE engines to power a hydraulic system was my main thinking too. _________________ There is no such thing as excessive carnage.
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Fri Aug 05, 2005 3:49 pm |
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