Inspiration/innovation in weaponry

[R9000]

While we're on weaponry, I was watching this video earlier and thinking how useful the information would be for combat robots - and then I saw the end card and was rather surprised. It's about medieval axes and weaponry more than anything else, but it still applies to pretty much any axe.
https://youtu.be/fpYIPlVx4Rs

[Runsler]

a "battering ram" would have three big problems:
1. the reason axes/hammers are swung in that big circle is mostly to give them range, and more energy (due to longer way to accelerate). Your Fist would be somewhat low-ranged and need an incredible acceleration if you don't want to put it on a rather long shaft, with the need of your bot also being rather long. specially vs. the strong spinners nowadays, range is something you shouldn't forget. And together with the gyroscopic effect maybe the main reason we see anything else than drum spinners.
2. if you miss, all that energy is transferred into YOUR bot. with axes/hammers etc. always having the option to just fly themselves when they miss, you would basically hit the back of your front armor (or anywhere inside your bot, depends on mounting). So... if it is strong enough to do dmg to another bot, you'd have to take really care not to kill your own one.
3.as you already stated, actio = reactio. flippers can transfer extreme energy into the other bot, but that's to one part for your own bot being pressed against the ground. and that's the reason why some hammerbots like beta and chomp experiment with magnets and such to keep them to the ground. in your case, you'd punch the enemy, but also kick yourself backward. would need extreme timing and a lot of grip to counter that with your drive system.

So... while i'd like to see it done, i doubt it would be effective.

[daveimi]

I think a big power pneumatic punch would be good but you'd need a way to hold the other guy still to transfer most of the shock. For instance something like a pincer of big nipper or can opener with a big ram either side running full pressure. Get hold of them and then punch from both sides. Or some sort of design like razor or tiberius where they come up onto the robot only to be repeatedly punched by a jigger pick type weapon on the end of the arm. The fact you have hold of them would hopefully rattle them about a bit.

[Tim The Plumber]

I'm going to share my secret. I'm sure it would be effective from a practical viewpoint, so I think the main question is if anyone has done it or not.

I noticed the amount of damage flippers do just via transmission of shock, but lots of that energy is lost to kinetic energy when the other robots go flying. Instead of building a rotary system around pneumatics to throw a robot, I've envisioned a large "fist" of sorts, coming down say 30 degrees below the horizontal, to impart the energy straight into the other robot. Going by the 2016 flippers, that much energy should smash any exposed wheels, and have a great potential to knock out the electronics. Think Cassius Chrome, but not rubbish, just one massive pneumatic battering ram. Newton's third law is possibly the main thing to contend with. I'll draw a picture if it's a bit unclear.

How would you stop the shock of the hammer stopping suddenly at the end of it's reach damaging either it or the rest of your own robot when the weapon missed?

[Tim The Plumber]

and that's the reason why some hammerbots like beta and chomp experiment with magnets and such to keep them to the ground.

Is the floor steel? Always? If so then my design just changed... one day I'll build it...

[adamclark]

IMG_3618.JPGFirst autonomous lamprey. Ignore the nicad as it now runs on lipo. Scans for objects. If something changes distance then moves towards it. Also looking at these laser camera sensors that have mass detection built in with 2m range. Would be interesting to see just how many could be deployed in HW class. Fitted with wifi and looking at IMU for summoning based on collision detection. Could you disable a HW with wedgelets and retain 50% mobility ? Perhaps allow the audience to logon and control one as well?

[Eventorizon]

Is the floor steel? Always? If so then my design just changed... one day I'll build it...

In full combat, the floor is now steel. We can't way always but it would be crazy if it didn't.

As for spikes... they just don't work. Doesn't matter if its electric or pneumatic, you can't put enough energy behind them to make an impact. This comes up repeatedly, but just look at how spikes were abandoned from the first series through to the last. No one ever used them.

You will impart far more energy into an opponent with a spinner. But you loose ~50% in a horizontal due to Newton's Third Law, and I'd guess you loose 20% in a vertical as your opponent flies away from you (though that matters less).

It's annoying but there is a reason why the weapons have narrowed down to a select few. I don't think the weapons will change, but how you use them might. Bombshell's adjustable horizontal is a perfect example, taking out Cobalt (Basically Carbide) with almost no damage at all.

This doesn't mean you can't innovate, but I'd suggest trying to innovate the way robots are built, so they can take and dish our more punishment rather than trying to come up with new weapons. Or honing the current weapons, to match your opponent: For example, never fight a bar spinner with a disc.

[Runsler]

Is the floor steel? Always? If so then my design just changed... one day I'll build it...

As far as i am aware at least on battlebots the floor was steel, with a thin layer of rubber-ish stuff on it. that's why beta and chomp still jumped when they hammered, magnets didn't work.
Rumors say at least for beta a vacuum pump instead of magnets is in planning/testing... but i have no idea if that is true, would wonder if the weight used for it is worth it.

anyway, with magnets you always have to make sure they are used according to the rules, so no damage to the other bot through them.

[killercarrot]

like mobile mines? or those stinger things that get used in "Police Camera Action" type shows...

what would be fantastic is if it they had a pop up inflatable on top, like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7wIkkJNTUQ

A visual treat

[Eventorizon]

As far as i am aware at least on battlebots the floor was steel, with a thin layer of rubber-ish stuff on it. that's why beta and chomp still jumped when they hammered, magnets didn't work.
Rumors say at least for beta a vacuum pump instead of magnets is in planning/testing... but i have no idea if that is true, would wonder if the weight used for it is worth it.

anyway, with magnets you always have to make sure they are used according to the rules, so no damage to the other bot through them.

BB had painted the surface with a thick layer of grippy paint, about 1/8in thick. That was reason 1 why the magnets didn't work. Reason 2 is the competitors were told the floor was 3/8in steel. Actually it was 3 layers of 1/8in. Big difference. The layers just separated when the magnets pulled on then, weakening field and rendering them useless.

Beta's vacuum pump has been and gone. It drew so much power that they couldn't even run the weapon if they had the fan spinning (to much air resistance in the gears or something).

Magnets are they way to do it. I believe the UK arena's floor is 6mm steel. Its not as thick as BB's but it is one uniform layer. Its also backed by 1in thick ply so it won't deform. As for the no damage to other robots, some fairly small magnets on the bottom of a robot won't be an issue. They would take offence if it was a massive magnet on the end of a spike to go in and mess up their electronics.

[adamclark]

Now heavily into a 1kg unit that has 6 radial sonars driven by an arduino, compass, gyro and accelerometer, all feeding into a wifi raspberry pi with I2C on a lipo pack. Driving two 25mm motors with the ubiquitous Chinese eBay controller on 70mm skateboard wheels. 1kg to spare for spikey bodywork and should have the first autonomous hunter ready. Target is 2kg for a deploy and first units looking like a dinner plate spikey mine. Oh and they have fricking lasers as well.

Remote vision and recognition with the pi cam and openccv is well documented as an option.

Thinking here is that with 3 robotic judges and an educational remit from the Beeb, would I get a a selection for the next series. As a TV producer would I pick a big fat hardox remote control box driven by a nerd, or a complex autonomous machine overseen by a debonair swashbuckling raconteur controller of a fleet of mad robots

[Giles]

What is your plan for pit detection and tracking other bots? I did a bit of thinking about this not so long ago and was leaning towards something like RANSAC with lidar, using outliers in the data to determine where other bots are while building up a 2D map of the arena. That would probably be quick enough, considering finding the outliers is a direct by-product of running ransac to detect walls/corners. Sonar is also quite short range and has a broad angle of detection, have you considered how this might effect the bot?

[Pinski1]

If you can crack using SLAM to build up very high update rate pictures of your surroundings I think there is a couple of million/billion dollars in it for you. Check out the robotics DARPA grand challenges to get an idea of the difficulties.

[TechAUmNu]

The fact there are two house robots will also throw it off big time. How is it supposed to work out which robot to attack? Unless your lidar is high up and really expensive it will never see the pit, so the only way to get round that would be to know the layout of the arena and just figure out where you are so you never go near it. Maybe when we have small solid state lidar it will be more feasible. Something like this but much smaller http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/sensors/quanergy-solid-state-lidar

I think the most that autonomy can do at the moment is either automatic turning like Chomp from BB or avoidance of robots ramming into you, it would only work if you have something like Omni wheels so can get out of the way without turning. Which could be reasonably effective against spinners.

[adamclark]

Well AFAIK the pit is always in the same position, as are the walls. Starting positions are also fixed. So once you know where the wall is and roughly where your starting square is then you are pretty much set. House robots will tend to be in areas that are also generally known so they can be downgraded areas to enter. In terms of tracking other robots, if they are not emitting ultrasonic (which i'm working out how to listen instead of ping in between scans) and are within 2m then advance,otherwise just scoot about. Lidar modules seem a bit too expensive, although there is a cheap laser/webcam parallax unit. However the sonar units are only £1 each, so cost trade off is a big benefit