Using Helium to reduce your weight!

[Lord Bob]

Re: Using Helium to reduce your weight!

you all have great points. I am not complaining, and i agree if you think you can do something new within the rules then you should, but it does make it hard for newbies like me to compete with brushless magnetized robots with something i made in a few evenings in the garage

[psychostorm]

Re: Using Helium to reduce your weight!

Enter a robot into uk champs made out of ply, windscreen wiper drive motors with wooden wheels with a bit of bike tyre tread screwed to them with servos and micro switches as the controller, bolt a sla in there and probbably hammer a nail through the front as a deadly ramming spike. Thats about as far as you can go with technology without being complained at. Than again the ramming spike might be pushing it abit.

Gary's already complained about machines that sacrifice weaponry for armour.

Well put, Lord Bob.

[xtreme]

Re: Using Helium to reduce your weight!

I understand it makes it harder for new guys but the spobbys got to evolve We cant just stick to the same old same level robots, well not everyone can. If every robot stayed the same it would be very boring and nobody would go to the live events, Its already pretty much dead and in need of a huge push.

[widow_twanky]

Re: Using Helium to reduce your weight!

you all have great points. I am not complaining, and i agree if you think you can do something new within the rules then you should, but it does make it hard for newbies like me to compete with brushless magnetized robots with something i made in a few evenings in the garage

You do have the option of competing (much more regularly) with Robots Live and Roaming Robots without coming up against spinners or machines with magnets etc. In fact I'd always recommend people starting out do that because if your robot wont take major damage driving over it or battleaxe giving it a good few whacks then you need to know before it gets hit by something which hit you with a concentrated impact like a spinner.

Oh and to be honest I do think that the argument applies at the top end as much as at the bottom end (make your own mind up which is the bottom end as tiny toon is uk champ?) that we have a set of rules and people build within them. I for one think an active weapon rule would really kill new entries to the sport. If the spinner guys have a problem with hardox boxes then they should build something which can beat them.............full circle then to the argument about why we should allow magnets, it means we can allow hardox boxes and give spinners a way of attempting to deal with them without realistically reducing the effectiveness of a flipper....

[typhoon_driver]

Re: Using Helium to reduce your weight!

something i made in a few evenings in the garage

Same as what I do. I don't have access to any CNC technology (atm). Boner hasn't used a lathe or mill to make anything. You don't need the fancy tech for a good machine! If you need access to machining for complex items there are many guys that will do it for you here.

You only get brushless spinners etc at robochallenge featherweight events. So if you want to build a featherweight for a an easier level then go along to the roaming robots events. I'm sure Jonno still runs fights for them.

[cliveb]

Re: Using Helium to reduce your weight!

I understand it makes it harder for new guys but the spobbys got to evolve We cant just stick to the same old same level robots, well not everyone can. If every robot stayed the same it would be very boring and nobody would go to the live events, Its already pretty much dead and in need of a huge push.

I think that you might find that Roaming Robots and Robots Live are both getting good numbers of bums on seats at the moment and are doing a great job of getting a paying audience in at their shows to watch us play.Many thanks guys.

[xtreme]

Re: Using Helium to reduce your weight!

Oh ye I agree there doing good, There getting people coming to events but its nowhere near as popular as it was, And without a TV show behind it its never going to be as popular but theres nothing we can do about that so we need new exciting and different robots entering to make it more entertaining aswell as more of a fun competition for us roboteers.

Oh and to be honest I do think that the argument applies at the top end as much as at the bottom end (make your own mind up which is the bottom end as tiny toon is uk champ?) that we have a set of rules and people build within them. I for one think an active weapon rule would really kill new entries to the sport. If the spinner guys have a problem with hardox boxes then they should build something which can beat them.............full circle then to the argument about why we should allow magnets, it means we can allow hardox boxes and give spinners a way of attempting to deal with them without realistically reducing the effectiveness of a flipper....

Tiny toon is no where near bottom end, Its a very good pusher/ram bot and Alex has been able to prove that time and time again. Its fast, powerful and reliable and Alex is very good at driving it. I dont have a problem with Tiny Toon or 540, and the robot im currently building is pretty much identical to 540 but with a lifter.The lifters more for entertainment so it will basically be a pusher/ram bot but it should be a quite exciting one to watch like tiny toon is and 540 will be (it wont be done for the uk champs)

[widow_twanky]

Re: Using Helium to reduce your weight!

The lifters more for entertainment so it will basically be a pusher/ram bot but it should be a quite exciting one to watch like tiny toon is and 540 will be (it wont be done for the uk champs)

I tell you what, if you can make the self righting as impressive as Craigs lifter it'll be really impressive. It does take an age but it's well worth while watching.

[team_orr]

Re: Using Helium to reduce your weight!

I think i know where i stand on this whole magnet debate,
in my opinion the magnets are just a added feature in the robots design that takes advantage of the surroundings, in this case the RC arena floor, it may give the robot some advantage but dont all designs try to do that? you dont try to build a robot with weaknesses, you want to design one thats unique and/or has some feature that makes it a winner, for example wedges low ground clearance means they can get under other robots. so magnets are just another feature that can give your robot the advantage, which is what its all about.
The challenge really comes when we have to design something that can overcome them, thats the way this hobby works, the technology keeps evolving and so does our robots (take a look at the feathers from 10 years or so ago and you will see the major differances) so in my opinion magnets are only really taking the sport to the next level, as Tom said if theres new technology out there then we should take advantage of it
if you have a problem with magnets, then theres plenty of RR and RL events to go too, as they have wooden floors so magnets would be pointless there
Jack

[PJ-27]

Re: Using Helium to reduce your weight!

What about if 360 (well it's builders) were to cut reversed aerilons into the spinning disk that create down force. Think how a car's spoiler works, except with the reserved principles of a helicopter's blades. I bet that thing spins fast enough to have an effect, you would just have to cut the aerilons very well.

It would create a huge amount of down force, increase the effective weight and keep the robot's wheels on the ground!

[psychostorm]

Re: Using Helium to reduce your weight!

I mentioned something similar about air flow - mainly for cooling purposes though.

The answer I got was that it would be impossible ( improbable), never mind expensive to CNC a perfect aerofoil. Which would demolish a down force example - but I never did understand for a fan.

Besides wouldn't that cause twisting on the spinning blade?

[grant_ploughbot]

Re: Using Helium to reduce your weight!

I have to agree with most of the points here, brushless motor's, lithium batteries and magnets are all new to the robot scene and requires people to experiment by pushing the boundry of what can be done.
Brushless motors and Lipo's are becoming very cheap now, and make more sense in cost than most DC motors. It always costs the first people much more to test and experiment by both the products costing more, but mainly from getting things wrong and blowing them up!
Its once these new technologies have been tested and found ways to make them work well that the masses can do the same thing cheaply - which is most certainly needed in this hobby!

The same relates to magnets for extra downforce. Magnets don't go without their issues, the main one being that you are fighting in a combat arena, thats usually got plenty of bolts rolling around on the floor to get stuck on your magnets and grounding your robot. There's a few ways to help get around that but its certainly a big factor of risking the extra downforce. It also causes issues with higher Amp draw in your drive, meaning more likely to burn out motor's, speed controllers and your batteries wont last so long.
Magnets in combat still havnt proven an advantage yet!

As an event organiser, it is in our interests to keep the sport and the inginuity of the sport going strong - so we are constantly looking at what rulescould be changed or how our arena could be altered to suit the new designs.

Our arena walls are low to encourage the use of active weapons such as flippers and lifter's. We dont like arena Hazards, but we keep the pit to encourage the use of some rambots. Our Hardox floor makes like better for rambots aswell due to the floor not having big lumps sticking out after the spinners have torn it up.

We know that pushers are the easiest robots to build to win with if you stick to a reliable drive system and a good driver ( due to extra armour and no weak points where weapons would be), and we are always thinking of ways to try and make this a little different (maybe a 10-12kg cap on non active weapons?) but thats a debate for another time.
A reliable simple flipper also has the advantage over the wedges, as has been shown by beauty 2 winning most of our events!
Its all about reliability, and a good driver rather than the technology in the machines at the moment.


I would like to pick up on a point about this new technology and people pushing the limits might be putting off new comer's , or making it more dificult for them to get into the sport.

Robo Challenge events are designed purely around full combat. We hold between 1 and 2 events a year for roboteers to look forward to. These are usually the UK Championships, and as such people are competing to be the best. If your worried about taking damage, or still in testing stages of your robot's and dont want to compete against the most powerfull of machines, then there are many many events held by both Robots Live and Roaming Robots through out the year. They are great events for testing and getting your robots working well for combat.

[grant_ploughbot]

Re: Using Helium to reduce your weight!

I mentioned something similar about air flow - mainly for cooling purposes though.

The answer I got was that it would be impossible ( improbable), never mind expensive to CNC a perfect aerofoil. Which would demolish a down force example - but I never did understand for a fan.

Besides wouldn't that cause twisting on the spinning blade?

It would actually be very easy to do it. The problem is that a smooth spinning disc could pull along the lines of 40A constantly at say 2000rpm, but if you then turn it into a bar, it could be pulling closer to 100A!!
Aerofoiling the bar reduces this massivly by reducing air resistance/friction, but if your adjust the angle of attack on the blade to produce lift or downforce you will be creating huge amounts of drag leading to burnt out motors and batteries. 360 is already at the limit of burnign out its speed controllers all the time as it is.

[PJ-27]

Re: Using Helium to reduce your weight!

We know that pushers are the easiest robots to build to win with if you stick to a reliable drive system and a good driver ( due to extra armour and no weak points where weapons would be), and we are always thinking of ways to try and make this a little different (maybe a 10-12kg cap on non active weapons?) but thats a debate for another time.

A Rambot has been a great starting point for me and I would imagine for other new roboteers, reducing the weight limit would only make our lives more difficult! We lack funds, resources, knowledge, experience and many other things without having an even more constricting set of factors.
Plus, as I have discovered and noticed, building a really effective rambot can still be a challenge. Although I don't know if your mentioning introducing a weight cap to discourage people making rambots, or to even them up because you feel they are advantagous?

but thats a debate for another time.

Couldn't resist!

[grant_ploughbot]

Re: Using Helium to reduce your weight!

A ram bot is easy to make in under 8kg to take on some of the best spinners. Ploughbot runs about the most powerfull drive in a featherweight, 4wd, enough battery power to run for about 4 or so fights, has an active weapon with a 1kg scoop attatched to the end, and full hardox armour. And it weighs 11kg without much effort.
I think reducing the weight limit for box's would act as an encouragement to build active weapons whilst not putting much of a dissadvantage apart from lack of weight if you get flipped.