Boppo: Design, Build, and Failure Report
A little over a year ago, I had an idea: Why aren't there more stabbing-based combat robots? The meta is currently dominated by vertical and horizontal spinners, with some hammers, lifters, and flippers, but almost no stabbers. After asking some folks with more practical experience and historical knowledge than myself, it turns out there in fact had been a few rare stabbers. The vast majority were/are pneumatic designs, holding a reservoir on board that is then dumped into a cylinder with a weapon attached. However, especially at lower weight classes, designs like these face problems due to the additional weight and bulk of the reservoir, as well as the time to reset the weapon, making them not very competitive against spinners. There have also been a few designs based on used a large spring and an electric motor to wind up the spring, with similar issues. But as far as I could tell, no one had tried using a large solenoid.
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