Build Your Own Combat Robot

224 Build Your Own Combat Robot
Strategy
Saw blades, other than the emergency type, have not proven to be effective.
Abrasive disks are nearly useless against soft materials like plastics, wood, or composites,
and they easily shatter on impact. Toothed wood-cutting blades cut softer
material nicely, but they stall on metals. Milling saws are heavy, can shatter on
hard impacts, and usually knock the opponent away rather than cutting into it.
Damage from a saw does not come in the form of one or two big hits, but from
many small gashes and cuts. The saw motor should have enough torque to keep the
saw from stalling, and it should have speed of a few thousand RPM. More mass in
the saw blades will help optimize damage on initial contact, keeping the weapon
from stalling instantly. The best saw weapons act more like spinners than saws,
storing up a lot of inertia in the weapon to deliver on contact with the opponent.
The saw, by itself, is not an effective means of disabling an opponent. Unless already
disabled, your target will not stand still and give your bot the time to cut into it, so
the most a saw is likely to do is leave scratches and shallow cuts while throwing
sparks and dust. Still, while rarely fatal to the opponent, a powerful saw and the
cosmetic damage it leaves can impress the audience and judges enough to give you
the win in a close match.
Saws are best combined with an attack strategy that gives you the dominance over
the opponent’s mobility—a powerful wedge, ram, or even a lifter or clamp bot
can prevent the opponent from dominating the match and give the saw weapon time
to score points by inflicting visible damage. Against a spinner, a saw may be useless,
however, as the exposed saw blade is usually the first thing to break when struck
by a serious weapon.
Vertical Spinner
This type of bot was first used on Nightmare (BattleBots, 1999). Other spinner
bots include Backlash, Nightmare, Greenspan, and Garm. Vertical spinner bots
include a heavy disk or bar that spins vertically in front of the robot, usually spinning
such that the front of the spinner is moving upward, so that on contact the
opponent not only receives a massive blow but is lifted into the air from the impact.
Vertical Spinner Design
The vertical spinner takes the basic spinner concept and turns it on its side. Instead
of having a spinning blade or shell on top of the robot, the vertical spinner sets the
mass spinning about a horizontal axis, almost always with the exposed front of
the spinner moving upward. When it strikes an opponent, the impact force pushes
the opposing robot upward, often flipping it over or subjecting it to a hard impact
with the floor when it lands. The recoil force on the vertical spinner merely pushes