Inspiration/innovation in weaponry

[Black-Tie Knife Fight]

Hi y'all,

As clearly indicated by my currently singular post count, I'm new to the forum. So hello and all of that.

I am currently working on a robot with a feature that I believe to be unique, if certainly challenging to make reliable and workable. But if all goes to plan it will (hopefully) add an interesting facet to attack and defense. It's under wraps for the time being but it doesn't involve any loophole exploitation or anything like that. I'm really excited to share it once the system is up and running!

Sooooo, my question is: Does anyone else have plans to incorporate unique weaponry/features or is it generally a case of if not being worth the risk given the established paradigm of immovable objects vs irresistible forces?

I'd love to discuss ideas tried, tested, failed and dreamed of. Oh, and of course any successes you've had too!

[Liftoff]

Give us at least the concept if you want us to discuss, obviously not the details for now...you'lll be amazed to know what has already been tried before and you could save your self a lot of energy if a concept was proved not to be effective before.

[Black-Tie Knife Fight]

Essentially it's a robot with a leaping function + weapon to target and disable the wheels of invertible robots. As it stands at the moment it "sort of" works. I'm having trouble with keeping everything stable (I'm no engineer) and I'd like a variable leap height in an ideal world. But early signs are promising.

I'm sure something like this has been attempted before but it feels like my current approach could be of some merit or at least backfire hilariously.

[typhoon_driver]

And what if it comes up against a machine without exposed wheels on the top?

[Black-Tie Knife Fight]

Its weapon is still functional on ground level. Facing a machine with covered wheels just removes the option of a well placed blow to the wheel. There has always got to be a plan B (and preferably a plan C!).

Hopefully once further testing is underway it can be shown to be effective in a number of scenarios.

It'll be far from perfect against all comers but with a bit of luck it'll be useful against a range of opponents and provide me with some lessons to take to the next experiment!

[maddox10]

A ram-jumping machine, using CO2 as "turbo-boost".
In 2001 there was a team working on it, but the idea fell trough the fact you can't get the force to the floor in any decent way.

[Black-Tie Knife Fight]

I figured it had been tried, but I do have a system that is very promising at the moment - I hope to be able to demonstrate it at some point.

Has anyone else tried/wanted to try something entirely daft? Or will I be finding myself labelled as a crackpot in the future?

[R9000]

I figured it had been tried, but I do have a system that is very promising at the moment - I hope to be able to demonstrate it at some point.

Has anyone else tried/wanted to try something entirely daft? Or will I be finding myself labelled as a crackpot in the future?

I've had the thought of rapidly welding/soldering the other machine together before, though I'm sure that's not legal, just a stupid idea. For something more sensible, how about a hydraulic spreader? You could have backward-facing barbs with the aim of wedging yourself inside another robot, and expanding it from the inside, sort of like an anti-razer. Obviously you risk facing robots with nothing to get a foothold in, I suppose you'd need another weapon to cover your back for that.

[daveimi]

My experience, and I felt sad about admitting it to myself, was that anything complex and elaborate using new and quirky ideas, dies quick when given a good belt by a 10k drum.

[Black-Tie Knife Fight]

I like that idea of splitting up the machine, I feel like it would be hard to implement but pretty spectacular if someone made it work. If it were durable or the machine is quick enough enough you could have a pop at the space between a horizontal spinner and its owner.

[Black-Tie Knife Fight]

My experience, and I felt sad about admitting it to myself, was that anything complex and elaborate using new and quirky ideas, dies quick when given a good belt by a 10k drum.

That's definitely my fear, but I feel if I have 10 ideas and 1 of them ends up giving people something to think about or even just a laugh then it feels like time well spent, after picking up the remains of my contraption from the arena floor of course.

[R9000]

I like that idea of splitting up the machine, I feel like it would be hard to implement but pretty spectacular if someone made it work. If it were durable or the machine is quick enough enough you could have a pop at the space between a horizontal spinner and its owner.

Thanks, yeah that was what I was thinking about. The idea being that most robots are built to withstand pressure and impacts from the outside inwards, but not from the inside outwards.

[Tim The Plumber]

As a fully qualified armchair expert....

The jumping idea will definately work very well if you can use the full mass of your machine and get on top of those nasty spinning things and just pound away on them.

You might have trouble when you come up against a sloping pyramid thing though.....

[craig_colliass]

When It comes to new weapons everyone would be pleased to see it. the rules restricting weapons are for the safety of the Roboteers or audience, or they are to make sure the weapon does not stop the fight early entanglement weapons radio interference etc.
What I would say about new weapons is they take several years to perfect and development costs a lot!
Many people in this game are professionals in science and engineering. If it's going to be effective and reliable they would have thought about it or something similar, please develop it but be aware you may find there is a good reason it hasn't been put into practice before.

[Black-Tie Knife Fight]

Absolutely Craig, what we're finding with our experiments at the moment is getting a form of reliability and predictability with our unit is proving to be more than a little tricky.

Sometimes and I say this as a scientist as well, though certainly not as an engineer, we can be a tad conservative when it comes to exploring new avenues with a tendency to favour improvements on the established and proven.

But hey, even a failed experiment is a form of progress!