Welcome! As a Beginner Friendly combat robotics group our rules are slightly different from the standard UK Ant weight rules. please read them carefully before spending any money on building a robot!
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Construction - to level the playing field for people who do not have access to tooling and equipment, all robots must be built manually, this means:
- No 3d printed parts**.
- No CNC machined parts**.
- No Lazer Cutting**.
- No Metal, with the exception of hardware* and electronics (obviously!)
- Electronics kits such as our donor kits and the "Rock and Robots" starter kit are allowed, but pre-bought body kits or complete robots are not allowed.
- Loaning of robots is allowed provided that they follow the other rules, however these bots are disqualified from winning the tournament, - competitors should be able to answer questions about the design of their robots and demonstrate a knowledge of the decisions they made.
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Clarifications:
*The distinction between hardware or not is determined by its use case not neccicarily by the object. As a general list: screws, springs, bearings, nuts and bolts are all allowed if used for their intended purpose. However using a screwhead as a blade on a weapon would mean that the screw is no longer defined as hardware, instead as a metallic weapon blade. In a similar vein for example a generic piece of metal rod being used as an axel would be defined as hardware and therefore allowed. Ultimate ruling lies with the TO, and if you are unsure it is highly recommended that you get in contact beforehand!
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**if a product is purchased from a publicly available online shop, and it happens to be manufactured using a banned method, then its use is permitted. To qualify for this, the item must be available as an "off-the-shelf" product, not a file, or manufacture on demand style service. If the shop offers both the downloadable file and the object, then a competitor is allowed to make it at home as long as it is identical to a purchased premade one, an exception may be granted for colour choice but the material must be of the same type. If the TO sees such parts on your robot that they dont recognise as commercially available, they will ask to see where it was procured from. failure to show the stores website/suitable evidence will result in your robot being removed from the tournament.
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The Winner Rule:
- The Winner of the tournament is not allowed to use the same robot in the next tournament, they are allowed (and encouraged) to build and bring a new robot, but it must be functionally different from the last! This is to prevent one dominant bot winning all of the time and to keep the throne open to new roboteers!
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Weight:
- 150g maximum for robots that drive on wheels.
- 300g maximum for robots with alternative locomotion (shuffle drive, brush drive, walkers)
- 225g Maximum for robots driven with alternative wheels (ie. Mechanum wheels, omnidirectional rollers)
- Your "team" may not exceed this weight limit, but this may be spread between multiple robots in a "cluster" (ie. 2x75g wheeled robots or 2x150g shufflers, if the cluster consists of both walkers and wheeled robots then the total weight of all of the walkers is halved and then the team must weigh a sum total less than 150g). Teams are allowed to have more than one driver.
​- There is an optional 5g for decoration. To qualify for this an item must be removable without affecting the operation of the robot (ie. googly eyes, deely boppers or stickers!) and must not provide a physical advantage in the fight!
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Battery Protection:
- Because this is a full contact league, your battery MUST be protected if you with to fight a spinner. This means that it must be completely covered on all sides, in the case of flippers, where the body opens and reveals the battery the battery must be covered from the sides, bottom and directly above even when the flipper is open (there can be a small diagonal path through the robot straight to the battery, but it must be reasonably obscure - this comes down to the TO's Judgement!)
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Size:
- Your robot must fit in a "parking space" 150mm by 150mm. it can be as tall as the builder desires but it must be able to start in the position it fits in the space (ie. if it only fits in the space on its side it must start on it's side), clusterbots are allowed to stack the robots on top of each other in the space, but will not be required to start stacked up.
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Weapons:
- no anti-competitive weapons. This includes: Glitter, water, tazers and other electrical weapons.
- fire or explosives are strictly prohibited.
- no weapons that may shatter such as ceramic saw blades.
- no weapons designed to hurt the other driver such as loud speakers or strobe lights.
- no radiofrequency attacks.
- pressurised weapons must be rated to at least 7 bar with no tampering of anything safety critical. and must not be pressured higher than 100psi.
- ALL weapons must fail safe on remote loss, sharp edges must have covers for outside of the arena, and must be secured when not in use.
- Spinning weapons have a maximum tip speed of 600mph - Bristol Bot Builders have a useful calculator on their website for this.
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Power:
- Batteries must not contain liquid
- Batteries must be under 50V
- Competitors must not leave batteries unattended whilst charging
- All robots must have an easily accessible form of power isolation. This can be a power switch but may also take the form of a detatchable "jumper" (when jumper is attatched the robot is on, when removed the robot is off). It must not require tools to switch the robot off.
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Flight:
-As a general rule flying robots are not allowed at the QRFL, this is due to the low arena roof, the inefficacy of their weapons and immunity to arena flippers/the pit making fights a bit broken. However:
- Hovercrafts are allowed
- Jumping robots are allowed
- Other non-grounded robots will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
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The Driving test: ​
- Before their first fight robots will be required to show basic control. This includes driving forwards, backwards, and activating their weapon. This is both for safety reasons and so that it's functionality can be compared to in the event of a draw. it is not required but highly advised to let the TO know if you are entering a fight with something not working correctly, otherwise you might be penalised in a judges decision for a non-functional weapon that was broken before the fight.
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The Arena:
- No Fighting Outside the Arena
- Arena must be closed and secured before fight can begin
- When the arena lighting is red, all movement must cease unless explicitly instructed by the TO.
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----------- The Rules of Combat ---------
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- All fights have a maximum of 3 minutes. After which there will be a decision made by the tournament organiser (TO)
-This decision will be made on the following criteria:
- Remaining Functionality (1Point)
- Agression (1Point)
- Control (1Point)
(if a decision is not made from these criteria then the final victor will be determined by:)
- Superficial Damage (1Point)
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- A fight is considered a KO if:
- A robot touched the pit floor
- A robot cannot show controlled movement for more than 10 seconds - This is considered a knockout at the start of the countdown, so if another robot is knocked out out during a successful count out then it is still considered the winner
- Either robot taps out
- A robot leaves the arena
- Arena Hazards: - these are denoted on the floor with yellow and black lines. ​
- The pit will open at a set time throughout the match, or if activated by a robot. Once it is opened it remains open for the duration of the match. The pit will open sooner on the qualifying matches and later during the knockout rounds. This will be made clear what times they are during the event.
- The Arena Flipper is a floor mounted flipper which will be activated when a robot stays on it for more than a few seconds.
- The Drop Zone is an area denoted on the floor where if a robot stays too long a weighty object will be dropped from the arena ceiling.
- The CPZ (corner patrol zones) are an area where the House Robot can attack you. The House Robot is allowed to give a small amount of chase when exiting the zone. The House Robot does not abide by the build rules.
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- If two robots are grappled together they must release after a total of 20 seconds. if they cannot release the house robot may leave the CPZ and attempt to unstick the group. If it is unable the fight will be paused, the robots separated by a neutral third party and then the fight will continue.
- if a robot leaves the arena and no contact has taken place, then the fight will be restarted. This is to be thought of like a tennis "let" and can only happen once per fight.
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- If both robots fall in the pit or are otherwise knocked out at the same time then the aggressor rule comes into play. This states that the robot that CLEARLY instigated the impact wins. If there is no clear instigator the robots are reset and the fight continues from the time of impact.
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- If a battery becomes exposed during a fight then that robot has lost. - This is due to safety!
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- After a knockout, and providing the loser does not have another fight that night, the house robot is allowed to exit the CPZ and attack the loser. This is not the case if the loser team "taps out", and they may do this after a knockout to prevent any more damage.
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- if a robot attacks the house robot at any time the house robot is allowed to retaliate during that fight.
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---These Rules are subject to change and the TO reserves the right to prevent a robot from fighting or end a fight prematurely for safety reasons---​