What the heck Weapon should i choose?!

Redemption taught me many solid facts that are currently holding true in the battlebot world.

One of them is that a 5.125 Diameter, 4-5 lbs eggbeater, with standard square (not sharped like SNS or Hummy) teeth spinning at 8-9000rpm can send a 15bot well into the 9ft arena ceiling, thus cracking the lexan (i think we did, it sure left a mark)

It was a DEADLY weapon...against most opponents.

I knew that if we ever did do well enough to go against Aftershock (and possibly Still In Shock) we would lose.

Why? Weapon to Weapon contest. At the MRL nationals Redemption did piss poor. Electronics were the flaw that killed us. If i would have stuck with what we had in Ohio and at Century III we would have did much much better. But i wanted more speed to be able to take on the Shocks. I take sole blame for that. I was greedy.

Am i correct in assuming that the faster weapon wins? Provided they are close to the same size, and weight...

We went against Humdinger2 in a grudge match. And we won weapon to weapon (if our electronics were properly seating and padded was another story.. ) but lost of course due to our retardation in electronics.

There was no doubting that fact of our win weap to weap. He was doing about 5k and our beast was up to a bout 9-10k (faster motor didnt work for our 15k rpm goal) We were both practically the same weight, and diameter (with ours taking the lead slightly in both of those though)

The question is simple as above is a faster weapon (possibly lighter) going to win more than a slower heavier one in a W2W contest?

For my personal bot Icarus, i was thinking about a easy way to remedy this conflict. Make 2 weapons one for each type of opponent. A faster drum (offset teeth most likely) for drum and eggbeaters, and a heavy slower Eggbeater for everything else. A Modular design so to speak; but would this design which focuses on a low drag, offset tooth, and very very fast drum be the best to take on said opponent? Would it be worth it?

I would love to hear some thoughts on this.

There was a debate about the next direction of weapons design on this forum that for the moment seems set on high-speed, large-diameter weapons. The key to this was realizing ways to prevent 'chattering,' where the weapon is moving too fast to make a good contact. This seems to happen on standard-design drums and beaters at speeds over 10K rpm. The solution to this problem so far is reducing the actual or apparent number of teeth on the drum, doubling the time between 'bites.'

Here is the best example (IMO) so far of high-speed single-tooth-effect drums:
https://battlebots.forumotion.com/technical-help-f26/is-40k-rpm-s-too-fast-for-a-drumbot-t236.htm

I do get that point. The faster you go, harder to bite. Both of my new weapons will be a offset design that allows only 1 tooth to hit. i.e acts like a single tooth weapon.

But i want to know if a faster weapon will always win, when going against another eggbeater/drum/vertical spinning mass.

To shorten what i already said. Redemption was great against alot of bots, but i never got to see what it would do against a faster eggbeater/drum when going weapon to weapon.

There are of course ways to get around this, implementing better driving control to avoid a weapon to weapon event, among other things to avoid that event. But it seems easier to just make your weapon go faster and hope you win...

EDIT: Would also like to add, if your forward speed would help in winning those weap2weap matches? Basically pushing your drumbeater into their brumdeater faster then they are advancing towards you. Would that possibly help you catch them better?

Josh,

Your thoughts are all correct with the speed of driving vs drum speed. Take a look at Rio Botz Tutorial and give it a good read. They explain the bite conditions and the drum to drum conditions extremely well. You guys did have a good bot last year but as with any build that is made by students and not advisors there were small flaws in either assembly or design. I think if you guys make a few small changes you will be there with the bot. We were in the same situation last year with spin up speed, materials used and driving. Just a few small corrections to material usage and driveability we will have a better bot.. BUT, it all comes down to once again the assembly and small design changes; are they going to be better or the same effect!

Tell your teacher to take a look at the bot hockey competitions, We are planning on going in that direction for some tournaments and will be having a tournament with combat and hockey at West Mifflin on Memorial Day Saturday this year.

Tell him to give me a call or email!

Frisco

I cant say that id agree that a faster or even bigger weapon will always win, there are so many factors that come into it that its very hard to tell. Its all just going to come down the driving i think.

Hey Mr. Frisco! Great to see you joined. It nice to see other people I know, hopefully some of your kids and others from IQ PA will join.

I might do a really wierd hybrid of a eggbeater and drum (I shall call it, Eggum or Dreater) What i have on paper looks.....nifty. Gets the extreme momentum of a heavy beater, with the better aerodynamics of a drum.

But cody i was thinking that aswell. I know that Grim Reaper won weap2weap against Still in Shock at one point. And i KNOW Still in Shock is a helluva lot faster than Grim.

but during the Prelims Aftershock kept beating Excuter weap2weap EVERY time. Executer is doing a good 15k, so its safe to assume Aftershock is well above that???


I do remember when Humdinger 2 fought Aftershock he never got weapon to weapon (dunno if that was intentional or not.) when he did he lost. But he was playing the better driving, better built bot card instead of holy-balls-fast weapon... And he won those matches...

Matt is an awesome down, I'd have to say hands down the best I've seen. When we fought HumdingerII we were running a different motor and batteries ie slower lol even with our improvements i dont think we could beat Matt honestly.
I think because of how similar SNS and Grims weapons were is why it was a give or take on the weapon, maybe the design of our beater hurt us there idk.
Aftershock is around the same rpm as Executer.
Have you ever seen Kyles (koolaid64) version of a beater on his beetle fangus

SNS and Grims weapons were FAR from similar. Grim was a Ti beater with sharped jagged top teeth, holes gallore and no weight on the outside. SNS was thick Tool Steel (improperly hardened ), with a grabbing toothed design.

Far from similar in my opinion. Their weapon had to have been half of what yours was, maybe less.

And i have no seen said beater beetle fungus.

Improperly hardened? yours broke! lol
Supposidly it weighed around 3ls? idk its not worth me trying to figure out haha but i meant in diameter


edit: I lied its an ant not a beetle but look up an ant what or two post in the show off section he has another post with his new similar beater

Cody Harris wrote:

Improperly hardened? yours broke! lol
Supposidly it weighed around 3ls? idk its not worth me trying to figure out haha but i meant in diameter


edit: I lied its an ant not a beetle but look up an ant what or two post in the show off section he has another post with his new similar beater

No ours was not thick enough in that crucial stress point, nothing to do with temper. Yours chipped on the opposite end of the hit. Thats too bloody hard rockwell. I talked to alex and he said 58RC! Thats asking for chips.

But notice the at the end, not meaning seriousness.

Alex is full of poo one was 53 one was 55, 55 maybe pushing it haha

Well regardless... <3?



I checked out that ant beater, and it gave me some neat ideas! Thanks for mentioning it cody.


Was gonna install Solidworks today and get to work, but i may just wait till i get my new system sometime this week.... idk..

Did you see his new one he modified for the brushless to go inside? Sorta like corona/attrition def cool

Definately saves up on space. Just has to be a extra hassle if his brushless goes bad...

I am hoping that some of the kids take it a little more serious this year than what they have in the past...... Last Year they were serious but did not have a lot of the know how and willingness to search for the answers.... We had a good design (Doomsday) but ran out of money when it came to the weapon and shafting. (It bent every time we had a good impact). This year we are hoping that we can complete 5 bots and have at least 3 that are top runners...??? Titanium and Aert are on the order list!!!!!

We are also going to start competing in the Bot Hockey tournaments..... We are going to start building those as soon as the IQ Bots are done....

Frisco

Do you still have Seth and Jake on your team? With the knowledge the two of them seemed to have you guys will be really succesful and its good to see you guys also taking advantage of the resources out there.
Are you still gonna compete in hobbyweights at motorama?

Seth and Jake are off at college but are trying to still be involved.... Ya we are going to compete at 12 # again this year.... Hopefully we make 7 different competitions with the builds.. 3 new bots and 2 rebuilds all at 12 #.... You guys should plan on coming out to Moto with us this year!

Gah i wish i had money for Icarus.

I would love to compete at Moto.

Alex built a little wedge not sure if its a 1lb or 3. Im trying to convince hime to play with aftershock and get down the weight but he doesnt want to. Hopefully i can make it to watch at the least. That'd be awesome for that many competitions! Have you heard anything about a 15lb class at motorama? I havent been on the NERC forum in awhile. They had one for Franklin Institute but no one registered and I think they could actually get a turn out at motorama. Some of the florida kids used to go maybe they could even make it cough fluffy cough

I know that they will not be having a 15 lb class but maybe I could convince someone to throw it out there and see if they bite on it. We are planning on just building them to the 12 lb class and then adding the magnets and a few guards to uppedy up to 15lb class. If you guys dont want to compete then hop in and come watch. It's always good learning to talk to some of the guys in the pro ranks and see what is up on all fronts of the weight classes and competitions. We made several friends out there last year and wish we had enough time to implement the ideas in to our designs from last year. But once again, it all comes down to the money issue.

Hey,, I am also looking for a cheap place for titanium.... any recommendations or contacts?

Frisco

Give a shout to TSI, and tell them that Josh Raichel and Jeff Mori from EWCTC referred you to them. You might get a discount on some bar stock and other stuff they have.

Good contact.... Thanks Josh!

This will be our first time using the strong stuff ( except for our weapon teeth)as well as some Aert for some shafts so maybe we will be a little more reliable to keep going with the weapons.. The Bot we built for my son was like a tank it took some of the biggest hits and kept running but the weapon design just wasnt up to par... I guess we put more design time into keeping it running for him!

I think Jake and Seth are going out to Moto with us!

Here is a list of competitions we are heading to: (competing in all but 1)

Competition List:

1)FEB 19-20 NERC,
2)FEB 26-27 Our local Bots IQ qualifier,
3)MAR 20 Robot Rumble,
4)MAR 27 Ohio Bots IQ (DTMA)
5)APR 16-17 Our Bots IQ Finals
6)MAY 8 HORD
7)MAY 15 MRL (Bots IQ Finals)
8)Memorial Day Weekend 2010 Our tournament!

I will see you at those BotsIQ/NRL/whatever events in PA, and possibly the Ohio one aswell. Nice to see others going there to compete, we had a blast. Might try for motorama but we'll see.

Look for the one with the Redemption shirt.

Thats quite a list! What class are you competing in at HORD?

Hord..... we are just going to watch and talk to the organizer.... It's a short drive (2hrs) and we are hoping the he can help us out with our event! The date for that is not set in stone yet so we will see... We are hoping that the Bots Hockey event that Chuck (NC Robotics) is putting on will help that competition grow a little bit and maybe get a few more competitions to hold them toward the end of the year.

We should get together and have a BS SHowdown between the 3 of us and have a little driving match between the schools before the qualifiers. (NO WEAPONS JUST DRIVING SKILL CHALLENGE or something like that)??????

Then maybe we could do a tag team match or something stupid like that!

OR.....

Have a little challenge between the areas of the nation.... PA vs. FL. vs. TX vs. CA vs. MN ??????????

HA........HAHAHA

Getting a little carried away now BUT....

I know where my money is going!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Frisco