| Are consumables counted when a robot is weighed |
| Yes, the tanks must be full |
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70% |
[ 14 ] |
| No, the tanks can be empty |
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30% |
[ 6 ] |
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| Total Votes : 20 |
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Rotwang
Experienced Roboteer
Joined: 15 Jun 2004
Posts: 1589
Location: Vic
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1.1. 7.15. Please note that some pneumatic systems with very low pressures (below 100 total PSI on board), small volumes (12-16g CO2 cartridges), single firing applications, or pneumatics used for internal actuation (as opposed to external weaponry) may not need to comply with all the rules above. You are required to contact this event if you would like an exception.
Stretching this rule out a bit to cover soda stream based flipper systems seams to be a possibility to me.
To quantify things and keep things in context you need to remember that the original Robot Wars and BattleBot rules were written primarily with 80 & 100 KG size bots in mind.
There is a big difference in trying to throw a heavyweight out of the arena or fire a heavy weight weapon repeatedly than making a featherweight weapon that is content to just roll his opponent over.
Safety is extremely important with pressurized systems, at the drags one day long ago an acquaintance of mine almost lost an eye as he carelessly tinkered with his air shifted system on his motorcycle.
The costs associated with the high pressure closed systems associated with Launchers do not bother me as they are a good disincentive as far as inexperienced young builders getting into tinkering with them.
This is one of the reasons I argued against relaxing the rules regarding closed systems.
The only reason I am happy to back the Soda stream type systems is that they are intrinsically safe, not idiot proof but as long as the ram is parked in the extended position any malfunction can only result in some vented gas.
The gas will have had time to expand if its coming out the holes in the ram so even getting a cold burn is extremely unlikely.
I can’t remember how old I was when I use to gas up a soda siphon, not very as it took all my strength to screw in the bulb, it fizzed and got cold but I didn’t blow myself up, at primary school we made rockets with CO2 bulbs and fired them across the play ground on fishing line and that was part of a class activity.
So yes we doubtless need some sensible procedures to guide people but we also need to keep things flexible so builders can innovate.
Going by Stealth’s gas consumption a small armored flipper bot with 1or 2 of those push bike bulbs would be a possibility.
One way of stopping any cheating as far as pressure in the system would be to require rams to work on an almost one to one ratio with the flipper as in stealth or ballistic, and specify a min diameter for the piston.
As the weight of the opponent will normally not exceed 30lb the ram will have no reason for not extending and allowing the gas to vent.
It then becomes pointless to fire more gas than necessary into the ram.
If a 5 to 1 or whatever Marauder used was used in a soda stream system there might be a temptation to up the gas shot which due to the ratio of the lever would up the peak mean effective pressure in the ram pushing it over the 100 PSI.
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Wed Sep 20, 2006 8:33 pm |
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RoboWars Australia Forum Index
-> Rules, Safety, Administration
This provided some very funny moments.
I thought it was a "no spinning weapons" situation.
