Cha0sFerret's robots and stuff
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 1:29 am
Looks like I'm one of the few people who hasn't made some sort of showcase thread here yet. Here it is.
I'm a bit of a mad scientist when it comes to robot designs. Nearly everything I make will probably be unconventional, and half of it might not work as intended. I'm gonna post it regardless. Feel free to criticize, ask questions, give advice, beat the crap out of me for my dumb designs, etc.
Limiting myself to 2 bots per update because I have a huge backlog of ideas and I'd rather not flood the thread with all of them at once. Let's get started.
First, a fairly recent experimental design I currently have filed under the name Broken Record. HW 4WD ring spinner... with a twist. The name will probably change. I don't like it much.
At first glance it looks like an overbuilt ring spinner. Because, well... it is exactly that. The ring is spun using a friction system like IRL bot Swirlee used. The spinning weapon is unique in that its primary purpose is as armor. So, let's say this thing ends up fighting a horizontal bar spinner. By not spinning up, the arms coming out of the ring should be able to take a hit from the spinning bar and spin freely, gaining speed while the spinning bar loses speed from the impact. The speed the ring picks up from taking hits can then be turned against the spinning bar bot. Because the armor is able to spin around the robot ("roll with the punches" as one might say), the knockback and damage received from the hit should be minimized. The ability to spin up the armor/weapon manually is for damaging weaponless bots and/or using the top post to (unreliably) self-right.
Proposed stats:
-Speed: 5
-Traction: 5
-Torque: 1
-Weapon: 9
-Armor: 10
Yes, I'm aware the weapon stat is low considering what this thing is, but the "weapon" is going to be taking a lot of hits for the bot so I feel like I have to prioritize armor. I'm considering allocating more points to torque, but this bot probably won't be doing a lot of pushing.
Next, a more conventional design I just finished a few hours ago: Blackfoot. MW tracked rear-hinged flipper, sturdy and nasty and stuff. Named for the black-footed ferret for no particular reason.
About the mess on the front: so, I know I'm one of the new guys so I'm not expected to know about some of the older bots around here. I took care of that and read through the ARC Hall of Fame and every sign-up thread I could find. I couldn't help but notice a bot called Underall getting a lot of attention for, well... getting under everyone else. After some digging to find the reason it was so good at this, I came to the conclusion that it had something to do with the segmented design of the front wedge. I went ahead and put the thin hinged wedges on the front of Blackfoot and forked the flipping arm to try to replicate this.
The picture doesn't show it well, but the bottom front corners are flared out a bit so the sides aren't perfectly flat.
Proposed stats:
-Speed: 6
-Traction: 7
-Torque: 2
-Weapon: 6
-Armor: 9
Since I would ideally be under my opponents, I don't feel like torque is particularly important for this bot. All the points I would have put into torque went to armor instead to allow Blackfoot to take some hits. Everything else is around average.
Thoughts? Questions? Sudden urges to beat me over the head for how weird Broken Record is?
I'm a bit of a mad scientist when it comes to robot designs. Nearly everything I make will probably be unconventional, and half of it might not work as intended. I'm gonna post it regardless. Feel free to criticize, ask questions, give advice, beat the crap out of me for my dumb designs, etc.
Limiting myself to 2 bots per update because I have a huge backlog of ideas and I'd rather not flood the thread with all of them at once. Let's get started.
First, a fairly recent experimental design I currently have filed under the name Broken Record. HW 4WD ring spinner... with a twist. The name will probably change. I don't like it much.
At first glance it looks like an overbuilt ring spinner. Because, well... it is exactly that. The ring is spun using a friction system like IRL bot Swirlee used. The spinning weapon is unique in that its primary purpose is as armor. So, let's say this thing ends up fighting a horizontal bar spinner. By not spinning up, the arms coming out of the ring should be able to take a hit from the spinning bar and spin freely, gaining speed while the spinning bar loses speed from the impact. The speed the ring picks up from taking hits can then be turned against the spinning bar bot. Because the armor is able to spin around the robot ("roll with the punches" as one might say), the knockback and damage received from the hit should be minimized. The ability to spin up the armor/weapon manually is for damaging weaponless bots and/or using the top post to (unreliably) self-right.
Proposed stats:
-Speed: 5
-Traction: 5
-Torque: 1
-Weapon: 9
-Armor: 10
Yes, I'm aware the weapon stat is low considering what this thing is, but the "weapon" is going to be taking a lot of hits for the bot so I feel like I have to prioritize armor. I'm considering allocating more points to torque, but this bot probably won't be doing a lot of pushing.
Next, a more conventional design I just finished a few hours ago: Blackfoot. MW tracked rear-hinged flipper, sturdy and nasty and stuff. Named for the black-footed ferret for no particular reason.
About the mess on the front: so, I know I'm one of the new guys so I'm not expected to know about some of the older bots around here. I took care of that and read through the ARC Hall of Fame and every sign-up thread I could find. I couldn't help but notice a bot called Underall getting a lot of attention for, well... getting under everyone else. After some digging to find the reason it was so good at this, I came to the conclusion that it had something to do with the segmented design of the front wedge. I went ahead and put the thin hinged wedges on the front of Blackfoot and forked the flipping arm to try to replicate this.
The picture doesn't show it well, but the bottom front corners are flared out a bit so the sides aren't perfectly flat.
Proposed stats:
-Speed: 6
-Traction: 7
-Torque: 2
-Weapon: 6
-Armor: 9
Since I would ideally be under my opponents, I don't feel like torque is particularly important for this bot. All the points I would have put into torque went to armor instead to allow Blackfoot to take some hits. Everything else is around average.
Thoughts? Questions? Sudden urges to beat me over the head for how weird Broken Record is?