Cpt. Hook Doesn't Do Very Well
Okay, so Saturday was the initial rounds of the main tournament. You can view the tournament bracket here. Captain Hook ended up going 1-2 in the tournament, fighting 3 robots without active weapons. I can't complain too much as Cpt Hook's weapon wasn't exactly "effective." The end result was 3 matches without even scratching the paint, and I was out of the tournament. It was a pretty disappointing result, and I'm definitely going to make sure I have a bit more of an active weapon next year. You can see the fights from Saturday here.
Design Conclusions
The judging process used is a 3 point system, one point each for Aggression, Control, and Damage. Of the fights I watched, I would say only matches in the first 3 rounds of the tournament regularly ended in knock-out. After the first time builders had their bot's dismantled, the competitive bots just didn't die inside the matches. If you want to make it near the end of the competition you need to play the scoring system and win over the judges. Judging seems highly biased towards mobility and driver skill, good wedge robots are able to win on judges decision by just driving around their opponents. I've already talked about how Cpt. Hook was too high-speed and low-torque to be effective, but this was even more true than I expected at the competition. He was also too responsive on turning, and not controllable enough in straight line. I could/should have resolved this by simply moving the wheels further out from the center of the robot.
Armor vs. Structure is a big deal for most robots. Cpt. Hook was the only "mono-body" robot I saw at the event. By mono-body I mean that the armor and the structure of the robot were the same component. Instead almost all bots featured a core chassis with attached armor panels. Chassis were often plastic at the beetle weight, and armor was typically titanium. UHMW (ultra high molecular weight polyethylene) was featured on a huge number of robots, and seems the plastic of choice. I would have expected to see more Delrin or Poly-carbonate, but UHMW was everywhere. I still haven't come to a strong conclusion about which design is fundamentally better; I suspect that the mono-body tends to fail catastrophically whereas conventional designs tend to be salvageable after damage. Certainly Cpt. Hook's aluminum armor appears to be too soft, and that spinning weapons will be able to bite deeply into it. Titanium and hardened steel armor appears to be able to repulse the S7 Tool steel teeth that most robot use on their weapons.
Armor vs. Structure is a big deal for most robots. Cpt. Hook was the only "mono-body" robot I saw at the event. By mono-body I mean that the armor and the structure of the robot were the same component. Instead almost all bots featured a core chassis with attached armor panels. Chassis were often plastic at the beetle weight, and armor was typically titanium. UHMW (ultra high molecular weight polyethylene) was featured on a huge number of robots, and seems the plastic of choice. I would have expected to see more Delrin or Poly-carbonate, but UHMW was everywhere. I still haven't come to a strong conclusion about which design is fundamentally better; I suspect that the mono-body tends to fail catastrophically whereas conventional designs tend to be salvageable after damage. Certainly Cpt. Hook's aluminum armor appears to be too soft, and that spinning weapons will be able to bite deeply into it. Titanium and hardened steel armor appears to be able to repulse the S7 Tool steel teeth that most robot use on their weapons.