I understand why you have the torch go straight down to try and get inside a robot, but have you ever considered having the torch point forward at about a 45-60 degree angle? When you light charcoal with a propane torch, it works far better if you have the torch go across the charcoal, rather than pointed straight at it. By doing that, you heat up a much larger area and don't disrupt the flame as much. So the flame actually burns better and would be less likely to go out. I'm sure you have chunks of old plastic you can test this on. (Outdoors of course.) I could see several advantages to this setup. 1. Less top heavy. KIWF is clearly a top heavy bot. Getting the weight of the torch lower down even a little bit will help your tipping over/self righting issues. 2. Greater forward reach with the flame. You may be able to shorten the arm a bit, Improving rigidity and saving weight. Or have greater reach against bots that use forks to try and keep you away. 3. Easier for you to adjust where the flame is hitting. In the Impakt fight, your flame was either getting all the way into the slots or doing very little on the top plate. An angled flame would have a greater chance of getting inside. Also less likely to go out. 4. Higher chance of getting a sustained burn. You got Impakt burning a few times, but not enough to keep burning. Flame over a wider area might have gotten a more sustained burn going. This would clearly require testing, but it would be tests that are easy to do. Just tape the lighter to a stick and hold it over pieces of old robot plastic and observe the effect of a flame at 0 degrees , 45 degrees, 60 degrees, etc. See what does the most damage. I could be completely wrong and the 0 degree flame is the best. Let us know what you think and what happens if you decide to test the idea of different torch angles. Great video. Thank you for posting.
Yeah haha. I definitely need to start coming up with a better way to deal with egg beaters in the future. Usually my forks do fine against most verts but those two were just on a whole other level.
I know nothing about robot building so this is armchair design speculation at absolute best, but have you considered a fixed arm for the burner? It seems, from the footage, like being able to move the arm 1) puts the burner closer to opponent's weapons than is safe for such a bulky, delicate piece and 2) there appeared to be times when it got so close that it snuffed the flame, actually weakening its potential. I do see the value in terms of self righting, but I wonder if there isn't another option that would keep the weapon safer? Just curious what your thoughts are as the designer on that matter.
This is a great question. Going over your first point, about putting the lighter in the path of the opponent’s weapon, I feel like that’s less a problem of the arm being movable and more a problem of me just not being careful enough in choosing when to bring the arm down. In fact, I think the arm not being fixed would be beneficial in avoiding contact with the opponent’s weapon since theoretically, I could always move it out of the way and wait until it’s not in danger to bring it down (once again, I just didn’t do that at this event for some reason). As for your second point, you’re right that the lighter had the potential to get too close to a bot. That’s why the arm initially had a nail on it to contact the opponent first and keep the lighter at the perfect distance (it’s pictured here at 0:48). However, that nail got ripped off in the first fight against IMPAKT and for some reason I never bothered to replace it. Thank you very much for your input.
What if you switched up the rolls of the minibot a bit and gave the minibot the torch, it's got one job, and the main bot just focused on control, possibly with cam lifters. Main bot maybe a shuffle drive too for generous weight bonus.
i hope the wheeling will be fixed in the future (there are many ways to do this) but i feel like that was the thing that messed up the impact fight the most also why not have the weapon go farther back?
