Can a brick be successful?

[mrsam]

A lot of good advice going around, the thing is with spinners is that they are now so powerful it's not enough to have just a complete Hardox brick, it's better to use Hdpe/wood or something similar as a bolted together chassis that you can easily remove and replace a damaged panel from. As tough as Hardwired 2 was a massive hit from 720 basically wrote the chassis off, whereas Loki took a huge amount of punishment and managed to still come 2nd in the annihilator.

To answer your question as well, Hatchet was end tapped with high tensile m6 bolts ( 50mm long if i remember right) and that fought a dangerous spinner in every qualifying fight and took no significant structural damage, the Hdpe got ground away and torn up but the overall chassis is still being used. I used some 3mm aluminium angle brackets around the back corners to reinforce as well, took a huge hit from Drumroll which threw Hatchet a good 2 feet in the air and upside down and the end tapped corner didn't budge.

At this year champs Endeavour had thick wooden blocks on the sides to fight spinners and whilst they got torn up the actual chassis of the machine took no damage that i could see, might be something you could look at.

[mrsam]

Got some pics of the damage to Hatchet after my 2nd fight with Binky, it looks quite bad but that chassis is still being used quite happily.

[Eventorizon]

To answer your question as well, Hatchet was end tapped with high tensile m6 bolts ( 50mm long if i remember right) and that fought a dangerous spinner in every qualifying fight and took no significant structural damage, the Hdpe got ground away and torn up but the overall chassis is still being used. I used some 3mm aluminium angle brackets around the back corners to reinforce as well, took a huge hit from Drumroll which threw Hatchet a good 2 feet in the air and upside down and the end tapped corner didn't budge.

Its not that simple. The machine came out of every fight in one piece. But since I have been the one who is repairing and upgrading its armour I have to say that its not the machine it came to the champs as. None of the machine is square anymore. Every original bulkhead is twisted. The whole machine is on slant from left to right. The chain that once ran straight is now at a slight angle.

I would suggest a core metal structure of welded steel (Box or sheet) with thick HDPE outer armour which is attached by countersunk M8 or M10 bolts and can be easily replaced. So long as the core remains undamaged then you will be good to go for many, many fights.

[daveimi]

OK that's great thanks. Thinking about getting a local machine shop to weld me something up. Going to go and inquire this week about monies lol.

[Garfie489]

As Matt said, Defectors one of the robots built mainly out of HDPE (with an Ali frame).

Defector had 13 fights in total, and fought against a few spinners (Rango, 720, Galactus, Massacre, and LS4). Ill show you how it fared throughout the tournament.

Before Fighting



After 4 fights (including LS4)



After 7 fights (including 720)



After 13 fights (including Rango)



It looks like its in a very bad state now, but the armour itself is in good shape. However the joins was what let it down, and it doesnt have replaceable armour. The welds had got busted by the end, and alot of the threads for the bolts aswell.

However if you make a robot with "Throw away armour" as it where, it would be a very good option as the frame should stay in good condition. You then just place new (and cheap) armour onto where the old got damaged from.

That said, id recommend a metal scoop, purely out of sharpness and its ability to stay sharp through a fight.

Should also state, if id needed to of fought again - Defector was still in a fully working condition.

[mrsam]

Its not that simple. The machine came out of every fight in one piece. But since I have been the one who is repairing and upgrading its armour I have to say that its not the machine it came to the champs as. None of the machine is square anymore. Every original bulkhead is twisted. The whole machine is on slant from left to right. The chain that once ran straight is now at a slight angle.

Oh god really i had no idea it was so bad, having said that i hadn't taken it fully apart since the champs. Whilst it may be the case that the whole chassis is now twisted IMO the chassis could still have been used in that condition, i still think it's a testament to Hdpe to take that amount of damage and still be in one piece albeit a little worse for wear.

[harry hills]

Defector was still in a fully working condition.

Fully working yet still needed to be sent to Belgium for repairs?

[Garfie489]

Fully working yet still needed to be sent to Belgium for repairs?

You will find alot of robots which get that far in competition either need upgrades or general repairs, as doing that many fights in the competition can really take it out of them.

Defector was still fully mobile at the end of its last fight. All that happened was a bolt came out and it got stuck on it, once freed it worked perfectly still. Infact, by the end of its last fight it could still do Figure of 8's or whatever was required to prove mobility, yet its opponent had lost steering. All i needed to do to fight again would be to bolt the base back on and charge the batteries.

It got sent to Belgium to have some of the welds redone (which i can not do), and also primarily to be redesigned for next years competition, with a new flipper and new tires (for which i have undamaged orgionals).

So yeh - Fully working

[Revsmin]

In answer to can a brick be successful... from experience? No. Not without a wedge. I've run Ricochet without a wedge and despite having a 2mm clearance as soon as it hit something slanted it would ride up and be useless. With the wedge however, it made the top 18 this year. HDPE sides are 30mm thick and completely unbreakable. Lid is only 8mm and suffered greatly at the hand of LH3, but even with the total over the top 6 motors and 2kg of Hardox at each end it was 12.9kg at the champs. If the clearance were increased I could easily fit a 10mm lid in weight. What you really want is strong construction and HDPE to take the shock and dissipate some of it before it reaches the rest of the robot, lowering the overall impact. Hardened steels such as Hardox are no longer safe against some of the spinners, and are incredibly difficult to bend back.

[SamO]

Joining the convo a bit late in the day, but anyway, going Back to:

Also, never use screws in a robot. They are far to thin and they can easily be snapped. Use bolts. Either thread the plastic or use brass inserts.

Errrr no, I think Endeavour can be shown as a testimony to that. Yes, if you use something like 2 screws to hold armour on then you are definitely going to run into problems. In Endeavour though, we used somewhere between 100-125 (possibly more) M4 screws to hold the whole thing together. I think its something like 26 screws alone to hold one motor down. At the champs last year (2013) we took 2 major hits on the side armour and all we got was a bit of a graze, no "panel ripping off" which is what you seem to be describing. Screws are definitely strong if used properly...

Wood would be another useful material in this case. Easy to repair and a nightmare for spinners to get through or damage in the thicknesses you could put on a robot (think 2 inch all around the outside)

Would definitely agree with this, especially if the wood is used like spinner food! If you use really thick wood on top of HDPE or hardox etc, the spinner is unlikely to get through all the wood and even if it does you still have your "proper" armour to protect yourself anyway. Also the fact the wood splinters means that you are unlikely to get the "hit and flip" action that many verticals try to achieve.

Overall, yes bricks can definitely be successful, particularly in events like the Annihilator and the newly founded Gladiator Cup. It doesn't matter if you have the most destructive bot on the planet, if it doesn't run reliably, your never going to get anywhere

[daveimi]

Defector is seriously impressive, as is Richochet (fought against you at Doncaster and got battered). I understand now about the need for replacement bodywork. My main thought was that to get through the rounds you simply need to keep getting back in the arena with a running machine half the time.

[daveimi]

Does anyone have any thoughts on using blades to deflect spinners? Could this be a viable way to overcome them?

[mrsam]

Not really sure what you mean by blades but the best way to deflect spinner IMO is to angle your body like Matt did with Hardwired, if you watch his fight with NST you'll see how effective the design was at deflecting NST's bar.

[Eventorizon]

Oh god really i had no idea it was so bad, having said that i hadn't taken it fully apart since the champs. Whilst it may be the case that the whole chassis is now twisted IMO the chassis could still have been used in that condition, i still think it's a testament to Hdpe to take that amount of damage and still be in one piece albeit a little worse for wear.

We are using it anyway. Its still fine. Just not straight. hehe

[plargen]

the sloped scruffy 2 did quite well at deflecting spinners probably would have done better if it was lower to the ground