What would be an ideal RPM for a 12V (spinner) battle bot motor?

Question

We are trying to make the robot have more speed than torque as far as the wheels go. The total bot weight will be 12 lbs. The actual spinning weapon/armor will not exceed 8lbs. Would it be better if we have more speed than torque, to destroy the other robots? How much RPM do we need on the motor which will run on 12 V?

Answer 1

Instantaneous torque at the moment of contact is not the damaging mechanism for a spinning battle-bot wheel-weapon, angular momentum is. Now, that doesn't mean you don't need torque but what you need torque for is to get the wheel spinning in the first place and how fast you want to get it up to speed (that is, how fast can you hit your opponent again, and again).

So, there is a tradeoff between a super fast RPM that will be doing the "hurting" to the opponent, and how long you have to wait until your motor gets up to speed (more torque = quicker response).

For this light-weight application, I would go for the speed (at least 1000 RPM), and the minimum torque to get your weapon wheel up to speed in about 20 seconds (realistically that gives you about 6 possible 'hits').

.