Best Weight Classification for a Newbie?

[RogueTwoRobots]

To be honest, even if you enter the UK Champs, there's only a miniscule likelihood of your robot being destroyed. You may receive damage, yes, but considering how many spinners are out there and the power of them, there are actually very few machines that come out in several pieces.

I'd say I've probably received more damage in Robots Live/Robot Wars whiteboards than I've ever done at a UK champs. What with the floor flipper, house robots and overall a faster paced battle, repairs are usually always on the cards. It's never really obvious damage, just things like motors, gearboxes, bits of bent chassis etc, but still a lot more than you think you'd get for 'friendly' fights.

[Garfie489]

ill stand corrected

[mrsam]

To be honest, even if you enter the UK Champs, there's only a miniscule likelihood of your robot being destroyed.

I'm sure No Toy would disagree eh Jamie

[Ellis]

Both years we have been we've come away with fairly serious damage but I have always put that down to not building the robots right, and my stupid driving. :P

There is no faster way to learn how to make a solid robot than to enter the champs. It'll be 2 years since we entered our first robot come April and I feel if we had shied away from the spinner events the latest builds would be very different.

[Fatfrank69]

Sorry, I probably should have worded my question better, I'm not so worried about being destroyed, more worried about not being competitive. I briefly tried radio control car racing as a teenager at a local club. I thought they would split the races into different classes so there would be one for stock standard Tamiya's, but there wasn't so my car was incredibly slow compared to everybody else's with their super fast motors etc, which was really frustrating and frankly boring.

So I don't want to build a robot and get to a competition only to find that it's vastly inferior and I don't stand a chance. I know I'm not going to be winning any time soon but having a good scrap is what I'm looking for, so I was just wondering am I likely to be any more competitive in the beetleweight than the featherweight, or does it not really matter?

[mattsdragons]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8aE1iJEiLM

Proof that you can build a robot out of little more than scrap and not only be competitive but win

[Fatfrank69]

What's Blitza built out of? Can I see aluminium tubing forming the chassis?

[Flag Captured]

Well, because the beetleweight category over here as far as I'm aware is still in its infancy, I don't think people have quite perfected things yet so I guess there'd be more of a chance of being competitive there if you happen to get a setup that works well, but on the other hand people know what works with featherweights and you'll be able to borrow ideas from established machines and make a decent go of it right from the start and know you'll be relatively competitive from the off

Really, it doesn't matter too much I'd say. Go with whichever you'd prefer!

[maddox10]

I prefer the featherweights. Big enough to work on without being a surgeon, small and light enough to carry alone with ease.

On the other hand, the 6 kg Raptor class is fun in its own right.

[psychostorm]

From scratch? Neither category would be advantageous.

Robot Combat is a bit like rock paper scissors. One design betters another but worse with a third. With that in mind, how high tech the opposing machine can be largely irrelevant to the result.

[Ellis]

You'll learn bucketloads per robot regardless of class and design, but the number of events you can attend (there are rumble style non-spinner events almost biweekly these days) with a feather vastly outnumbers the number of events for beetles. That said it would be really great to see the beetle class grow.

As for not being competitive, I'm not sure it really works like that. In combat, as shown by the video above, you can have a beautifully made powerhouse built by a team with years and years of experience lose a fight to a newcomer, and that isn't a rare thing at all. Anything can happen, making it quite a level playing field, just in this case some players have more titanium than others. If your bot can move and take a few knocks (if you document your build the forum will help in terms of making the best of what tool/material access you have) then it can win fights.

I think most will agree, though, rush-fixing a robot after a hard fight is just as great, or better, than winning. Saying that I have yet to do much winning so who knows! :P