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Contest Description


This contest has two major themes. One is to pick up an empty soda can, and while following lit course directions, drop the can in the Recycle Area. Second is (either on the way to the Recycle Area or after) clean the streets of orange golf balls (trash) and dispose of them in the garbage shoot.

For the first part the goal was to pick up an empty soda-can at the entrance to the course and then deposit the can directly under the light 6 inches or so away from the wall in the Recycle Area. We were be able to place out robot in a specific orientation at the entrance. The soda-can was placed anywhere around our robot within 2 tiles of the center of the robot. The robot then foundd and picked up the can and then entered the course. In the course the robot had to first find the center Stationary Light. Above this light was an IR sensor that detected the robot at that light. Once the robot triped that sensor, either the left or right Stationary Light turned on. This indicates which Refuel Station the robot needed to visit. The Refuel Stations also had IR sensors above them. Once the robot triped the correct Refuel Station sensor, the Recycle Area light turned on. This light moved to a new random position each run. The robot then found this light and placed the can underneath the light. The can should be put as close to the light as possible, an error in placement was measured vertically (robot left/right) on the diagram below. Course completion seconds were added for each inch the center of the soda can is away from the light (left/right distance only).



For the second part of the contest, we needed to find orange golf balls and move them to the garbage shoot. The garbage shoot was just a circle area at the entrance to the course. Tape was placed on the floor to indicate its position. The golf balls just needed to be dropped off at the garbage shoot. If they rolled away after being dropped off, that was the garbage shoot workers fault not ours to worry about. There were 5 golf balls placed randomly inside the course. Our task was to move two of them to the shoot. Additional golf balls found and disposed of subtracted seconds from your overall contest time. So we tried to find as many as we could.

The golf balls were to be moved to a certain X,Y position in the course. For this reason color landmarks were located at the far corners to allow the robot to correct its dead reckoned position. Also the front corners of the middle structure were color marked for possible landmark recognition. The robot should be able to recover if an evil instructor picks up the robot and moves it to some other place in the course. A working VB application was also required for the contest. It should be displaying the location of the robot through out the entire course.

The robots were scored by the amount of time it took to recycle the can and bring two golf balls to the Trash Shoot. In addition, seconds were added to our time if we do not place the soda can directly below the light (20 seconds for each inch). Seconds were subtracted from our time if we brought more than two golf balls to the shoot (60 seconds for each additional golf ball). Groups were allowed to try multiple runs to get the lowest score possible, and a tally of scores were displayed recording each group number and group score.









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