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theteapot·

Are there any competitive ones with legs like the Boston Dynamics spot robot yet? Bored of all the wheels.

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The 2020 variant of Chomp was a walker, and allowed to push 500lbs as a result (the usual limit is 250lbs.)

https://battlebots.fandom.com/wiki/Chomp

The original version of the British form (Robot Wars) used to give an extra weight allowance to robots with legs, for the excitement factor. IIRC, it was abused by robots technically complying with lots of tiny "legs" that you couldn't actually see.

It seems like this would be best solved by creating an arena where legs had an advantage? The whole advantage of legs is that you can traverse areas that aren't unnaturally flat (almost all areas in real life).

Make every single arena a completely flat space where wheels are optimal and then given extra points to sub-optimal builds seems like it would be a poor way to approach things. It would be like giving extra points for creating an aquatic robot, but failing to create an arena with any water in it.

Your arena would have to be very rough for legs to have an advantage over squishy wheels or treads. Legs in a melee robot are just too fragile.

While not battle bots, I went down this rabbit hole pretty deep for a while.

Japanese wrestling robots https://youtu.be/-llRPCwIESQ

LOL. Made my day. Cheers for that.

Mechadon(https://battlebots.fandom.com/wiki/Mechadon) is probably the best you're going to get. The problem with legs is that they're relatively slow, complicated, and difficult to protect when compared to wheels.

You may also find Snake interesting(https://battlebots.fandom.com/wiki/Snake).

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