Robot Wars returning to BBC2!

[this_is_gav]

How do you test something like that?

Angela or the self destructing bot?

Hit some walls with it. It's not like it was an attack from the other robot, it just bounced off it.

They're going to need to increase the height of the walls for the audience. It's not the first time they've had the outer wall destroyed by debris. That thing didn't look far off clearing the other wall where the judges were, and if that hit someone then they'd be dead.

 

[NewGamer11]

How do you test something like that?

Take it somewhere suitable (private land, dis-used warehouse), run it around a bit, have it smash up an old washing machine you bought off gumtree - stuff like that.

@EVH - Good idea for Terrorhurtz. It was actually a lot better last night than previous series. It's ground clearance is way too high as well.

I was thinking last night you could run a robot with some kind of 'bumper' or frame around the outside to make flippers less effective but then not sure what sort of weapon you could use yourself.

 

[bledd]

How do you test something like that?

Take it for a spin around Swansea, it will probably improve the place

 

[MikeTheNative]

Am I the only one who doesn’t understand why Terrohurtz doesn’t use a spike, instead of a blunt axe? It’s clearly got force behind the blow, so why not add some piercing element and inflict more damage??

Most of the decent robots have hardox or some other kind of hardened steel which would be almost impossible to pierce with a spike. This is the reason why the good axe bots have moved towards blunt force attack over trying to pierce robots armour. Terrorhurtz struggled the previous two series due to it being so cold in the area their axe mechanism didn't work properly.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Take it for a spin around Swansea, it will probably improve the place

Oi!

As to the why it happened.. it seemed like the blade hadn't been properly balanced and it just resonated itself to bits.

Most of the decent robots have hardox or some other kind of hardened steel which would be almost impossible to pierce with a spike. This is the reason why the good axe bots have moved towards blunt force attack over trying to pierce robots armour. Terrorhurtz struggled the previous two series due to it being so cold in the area their axe mechanism didn't work properly.

True, but you'd still have the blunt force impact.. but with the added possibility of piercing the weaker bots. More force per sq. cm should mean more damage ultimately?

 

[Glaucus]

but far more chance of getting stuck if it does penetrate.
although why anywould build one of those rather than a flipper or spinner.
a flip is far more effective, 100+kg falling from several meters is far more likely to rattle something apart and of course can be flipped out.
and a spike/hammer/axe does far less damage than a spinner.

 

[Shocky-FM]

The flippers ruin this show, they should be banned to force them to come up with more creative solutions.

 

[Dup]

Flippers have their place, but the ability to get bots out the arena is what kills it now. It was a novelty back in the Chaos 2 days but it's too easy now. Either make the sides taller and make it a challenge or don't have moat around the arena at all. At least then the others have a fair chance to right themselves.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

but far more chance of getting stuck if it does penetrate.
although why anywould build one of those rather than a flipper or spinner.
a flip is far more effective, 100+kg falling from several meters is far more likely to rattle something apart and of course can be flipped out.
and a spike/hammer/axe does far less damage than a spinner.

It was getting stuck when it was blunt , at least if it's piercing then it'll have more chance of causing internal damage than a dull knife-edge.

Totally agree on the flippers, but then I thought the same about the wedge robots.

 

[PinkFloyd]

Was hilarious watching that spinner robot explode, great to see Terrohurtz do half decently and interesting to see a really expensive robot and sit hoping it fails miserably... Although it didn't in this case.

Rapid did seem underwhelming despite the overall win. It's not very fast, didn't flip *that* high and seemed to take a huge amount of time for the flipper to drop back down again. That latter point is going to be a huge issue when they fight a competent flipper/spinner.

 

[Btone]

should they add a upper limited to the cost of the robot, seems to me we a few rich people with massive budges who just want to "pay to win"

 

[Alibaba99]

Budget limits are always difficult. The cost for Rapid would have been worked out including the time and machining costs which would have been effectively free for them. Bit different though for someone subbing out to a local machine shop, fabricator unless they can get some foreigners in at a local engineering firm.

 

[GhostWKD]

LOL. What a load of rubbish that self destructing bot was. Did they not test it? The body was too small for the weapon. Didn’t look securely attached either.

As others have said not many places to test it, even live events ban spinners for safety reasons iirc.

Looked like the fault was the locking collar on the top was simply unwound, should've had a reverse thread or something.

That said, Thz's blows may have upset the balance of the shaft.

Didn't really warm to rapid, too clinical and their flips didn't look all that strong to me (although given they didn't need much power it may have just been turned right down)

 

[MikeTheNative]

I saw on reddit that in the Apex and Thz fight, Thz rammed Apex into the wall after 5 seconds which broke the arena again. Producers decided out of interest in continuity they wouldn't show this and just restarted the fight and pretended it never happened. Obviously there is no way to confirm but there's a chance this could have damaged Apex which made them have the rather spectacular 'malfunction'.

 

[Gerard]

The apex bot was amusing, all the talk about how the spinner bar was the biggest yet, in its first fight it spun for about 5 seconds before being disabled. Then the bot just seemed to commit hari kari and self destruct. It was like the robot equivalent of an easter island statue, massive head (spinner bar) and hilariously undersized body supporting it. Did they even get to use the bigger spinner bar? I think the one they had on it was the slightly smaller one of the two they showed in the pits earlier. Made for some funny viewing though, wobbling all over the show before decapitating itself.

 

[MikeTheNative]

Carbide doesn't have the most powerful spinner out there. It does however get up to speed in about 3 seconds and it's so well built it can take multiple hits and keep on going.

 

[nicktay2605]

I think spinner bars when done well are still the best type of robot imo. Flippers are fine and all, but unless you have incredibly thick armour or a very strong gas flipper it's quite likely you'll do little damage and get smashed apart by something like carbide. Tombstone was the last champion on battlebots and carbide is the current robot wars champ, both very destructive spinner bots. I wasn't overly impressed with rapid, particularly if what they said about it being the most expensive robot in the series is true. The flipper seemed under-powered compared to something like Apollo or eruption. I guess we'll see how good the armour is when it comes up against carbide, but until then I'm not convinced it's that great. My feeling is that it was lucky it was placed in a heat with quite weak opponents.

 

[Alibaba99]

Carbide has a massive custom mount for the motor, and a slip clutch that disengages the bar on impact. This minimises the impact on the robot and prevents it from destroying itself.

 

[MikeTheNative]

Carbide has a massive custom mount for the motor, and a slip clutch that disengages the bar on impact. This minimises the impact on the robot and prevents it from destroying itself.

To add to this, the Carbide guys also have their own engineering company but they don't bang on about it all the time unlike Rapid.

 

[Alibaba99]

One works for Cadburys and the other for Rolls-Royce aero engines in Derby. Any engineering company that they have is only going to be part time. RPD are rather larger than that with two offices and multiple manufacturing sites.