Walking Mechanisms Rules

[Eventorizon]

In the FRA rules it says that any walker's legs must have at least two axis of motion. In the ant weight class though lots of machines that are said to be walkers are actually shuffle bots.

If someone were to build a walker for the featherweights would people insist on the 2 axis rule or would people not mind a shufflebot?

I am actually thinking of making it in wood first to test everything out. It would be far to expensive to do it in metal straight off! Perfect for the new wooden class :-)

[PJ-27]

Re: Walking Mechanisms Rules

I think shuffle bots are allowed, you just don't get the same weight advantage.

[typhoon_driver]

Re: Walking Mechanisms Rules

well if you were just building a machine for fun fights at heavy events then i can't see anyone minding however I would have an issue if someone built a shuffle bot with the full walker weight advantage and entered it in the featherweight champs.

[Eventorizon]

Re: Walking Mechanisms Rules

Eventually I would want to enter it into the championships at the full 27.2Kg but as long as it can get used in whiteboards and non-competition events I don't mind.

The idea is to base it in Anarchy's walking mechanism (Or Scuttle) to take in both axis of movement, but it would be a ling time before it ever got built in metal!

[ewan]

Re: Walking Mechanisms Rules

It would be very wrong to give a 100% weight advantage for a shuffle mechanism, maybe around 25% or something like I think some American competitions do

[leorcc]

Re: Walking Mechanisms Rules

For a competition I would be dead against giving robots a weight advantage because it uses wonky wheels.

[Eventorizon]

Re: Walking Mechanisms Rules

Like this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwHoKfWUmFw

[Bodge Job]

Re: Walking Mechanisms Rules

I think that that should be allowed the full weight advantage. You would need it to make it effective. I think as long as the foot doesn't spin 360 degrees like a wheel (or an off centred one) i think shufflers are only shufflers if they rest on some static feet (or the base of the robot) during some point in the walking gate. I would have thought that even if you put a foot that is kept vertical (ish) and then is moved in a circular motion by a crank should be alowed. As long as it has enough of them so it doesn't rest on its base. What do other people think? Because I think there should be more unique designs.

[maddox10]

Re: Walking Mechanisms Rules

Is this a shufflebot?

It's based on this.

[Eventorizon]

Re: Walking Mechanisms Rules

I would class that as a shuffle machine as it places the main body on the ground to make a step. A walkers legs, by the FRA rules, must have 2 axis or more of motion, that only has 1. Same with clawed hopper. the way they got round it was my not having 2 independant walking mechanisms on each side relying on the turntable to steer the robot.

http://robotwars.wikia.com/wiki/Drillzilla

This american bot runs on the same shuffle system as Clawed Hopper but as it uses 6 shuffling feet on each side so its more like a tracked vehicle than a walker. And again it only has one axis of motion = shufflebot. The same goes for the original Son Of Whyachi with its shuffling pads.

[Bodge Job]

Re: Walking Mechanisms Rules

I think that the drillzilla shuffling mechanism should still be alowed some extra weight alowence (like 50% extra, if not more), because you would need that extra weight to make it effective? If there was the extra weight alowence I would be interested in making one, but with our some extra weight it would be to flimsy and slow to be effective (or interesting to the audience!)

[leorcc]

Re: Walking Mechanisms Rules

I think that the drillzilla shuffling mechanism should still be alowed some extra weight alowence (like 50% extra, if not more), because you would need that extra weight to make it effective?

By that token I want a 50% extra weight allowance because I need that to make my axe more effective.

I still see no value in giving a bonus of any kind just to make a more elaborate drive mechanism that is more prone to failure. So if you can give a reason as to why shufflebots would be given dispensation from the 100kg rule I am all ears.

[mattsdragons]

Re: Walking Mechanisms Rules

Because walkers are dam cool?

If they are done right thhen they are awesome, would love to build one but unsure how to get an effective drive system. looked at the anarchy video so much and still cant work it out

[Eventorizon]

Re: Walking Mechanisms Rules

Anarchy walks on 8 legs which are driven by a system of gears.

Each leg has 2 points of contact with the gears. The top of the leg is pinned to the gear to give you the up and down motion. The second is positioned about half way down the leg but the pin can slide freely up and down. It is the lower wheel that moves the leg back and forth creating the step.

You could do a walk on this system with just 4 legs but to smooth out the motion Anarchy has 8 with 4 legs on the ground at any one time so it doesn't rock about (to much...)

I hope that is vaguely helpful

EDIT: Lower down the page you can see a small image of Scuttles leg set up... it is the predecessor to Anarchy, only much much smaller. There was a Flash animation but its gone

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/robots/tec ... case.shtml