Build Your Own Combat Robot

Strategy
Chapter 10: Weapons Systems for Your Robot 231
with a hydraulic drive will require a powerful motor and expensive, high flow-rate
valves and tubing.
Some builders have experimented with using a large spring to power the hammer
and a high-torque motor or linear actuator to crank the hammer back and latch it
after firing. While this can give a powerful hammer action, the increased reload
time makes the concept questionable. A hammer that takes more than 5 seconds
between shots may never manage to hit its opponent more than once or twice in an
entire match.
For optimum results, increase the hammer velocity as much as possible. Remember
that your hammer may strike its opponent only partway through its
stroke, so design for it to do most of its acceleration at the beginning of its travel.
Even the strongest hammer bots have trouble consistently disabling opponents
with their hammers. A hammer bot’s best opponent is one with weak top armor or
a fragile frame. Barring that scenario, a hammer bot should try to strike as many
blows on the opponent as possible while avoiding being disabled. A hammer
stands a good chance against a thwack bot, wedge, ram, or saw-wielding robot,
because those designs won’t be able to disable the hammer quickly and the hammer
can get a lot of good hits in. Against a crusher, a hammer bot will have a hard
time; the hammer may need to strike many blows to affect the crusher, but the
crusher needs to get lucky only once.
Any good hammer bot should be able to self-right quickly with its weapon,
which reduces the threat from lifters and launchers. Fighting a spinner with a
hammer is often disastrous for the hammer, because the spinner’s weapon will be
nearly impossible for the hammer arm to avoid, and striking the active spinner
with the hammer arm will likely result in a bent or even torn-off weapon!
Crusher Bots
The crusher was first used on Munch (Robot Wars, 1996). Some examples of
crusher bots include World Peace, Razer, Jaws of Death, and Fang. Crushers feature
a large, heavily reinforced claw, usually hydraulically powered and capable of
closing with several tons of force to crush or pierce the opposing robot.
Crusher Design
Mechanically the most challenging concept to build, crushers use powerful claws
to pierce and crush the opponent. Most crusher designs use hydraulics to achieve
the incredibly high forces needed to pierce armor, although ball-screw linear actuator
designs have also been used.