12.11. Weapons

Although the operator of a Battle-bot must know how to effectively drive the bot, having a few good weapons never hurts. For our Battle-bot, I decided to use two types of weapons: an active swinging-arm weapon used for impaling the opponent, and a passive set of bidirectional spears mounted to the front and rear of the bot used for ramming the opponent at high speeds. The spears act as weapons as long as you have at least 2 motors work, whereas the swinging-arm weapon relies on a separate H-bridge to power its motor.

There are many types of active and passive weapons from wedges, spinning blades, lifting arms, clenching jaws, swinging arms, rams, and over-sized drilling bores–to name a few. Though surprising, sometimes the simplest designs can be the most effective. The ever-popular heavyweight champion BioHazard used a sleek 4-inch tall bot frame with a powerful lifting arm mechanism (much like a forklift) to disable almost anyone in his path.