| |
Ever since my brother forced me to watch an episode of Junk Yard Wars last
year, I've been wanting to do something similar as a robot competition.
BricksWest was finally an opportunity to try. I modified the concept
slightly, to allow using LEGO pieces as the construction medium, and
especially to accommodate the tighter time constraints.
BrickHeap Wars: Robot Challenge #1 was held on February 18th, and lasted
three hours. All materials were provided, bricks, sensors, RCXs, computers,
etc. People just had to show up in teams to participate. The actual object
of the competition wasn't revealed until the start of the competition.
To fit a contest like this into three hours (only two and a half of which
were used for building and programming!) one important difference from
JunkYard Wars was that I gave each team an identical pile of Technic and
Mindstorms parts right from the start. They still had to search through
their own piles for parts that they needed, so not all of the fun of
rummaging around an unknown pile of stuff was lost.
What was the challenge?
The specific challenge came as an idea I got from my wife. I asked her what
would be a good thing for robots to do in this competition, and she said,
"They should do something useful. Like pull weeds." Good idea! Though I
wasn't about to let a large portion of my LEGO get dirty. So I decided to
call the small round fruit trees <part:3470> 'weeds' for the purposes of
this competition, and the large cypress trees (Thank you, LEGO Direct!)
'desired plants'. Robots had three minutes to pull the weeds, leaving the
desired plants standing. Uprooted weeds were worth 1 point if left on the
ground, and 5 points if held at the end of the three minutes. Uprooting a
cypress tree cost the team 25 points, though!
What parts were available to the teams?
Each team was provided with nearly 3000 pieces. Mostly these came from
three sets: <set:8480>, the Technic Space Shuttle, <set:8479>, the Barcode
Multiset, and a partial copy of a Mindstorms set. I also included several
additional sensors: touch, light, and rotation, and other miscellaneous, but
useful parts.
So how did this particular 'episode' turn out?
This was an awesome competition! Everyone had a lot of fun, and while there
were a few hitches, pretty much everything worked out. The biggest
complaint was that there wasn't enough time to build and program the robots.
However the winning team finished with twenty minutes to spare, so I'm not
sure I'd lengthen the time much next time. I will, however, insist on the
minimum team sizes.
Three teams participated. Amazingly each team had a totally different
strategy for solving the challenge. After the building was done, most of
the BricksWest attendees watched the robots actually attempt to do their thing.
The teams were:
"Technic Team" (originally "Team Ashley"), consisted of three young girls,
from two families, and some of their parents (Eric, Nancy and Comfrey
McCarthy, along with Steve, Cherise, and Ashley Chuck).
"Team Panic", a team of two, (John Barnes, and my brother, Phil Schilling,
who came to BricksWest solely to participate in this contest).
Finally "Team Lens" - four very ambitious robot designers who all wore
glasses (Tammatha and John Fiala, Bill Ward, and Hao-Yang Wang).
Technic Team won! Yes, that's right, three young girls (well, with a little
help from their parents:-) not only came up with the winning robot, besting
two teams brimming with technical expertise, but they had twenty minutes to
spare! This team had the simplest design, and a program that almost seemed
to go out of its way to avoid the weeds at all cost(!), but simplicity was
definitely the winning ingredient. Their robot just tried to knock down the
weeds, scoring a point for each one, while avoiding the cypress trees.
Team Panic was the smallest team, and had the most original concept. With
an extra team member, or perhaps an extra hour, they would likely have
picked and held a very decent number of 'weeds'. Their idea was to build a
robot that picked the weeds by directing them into a long chute, which would
automatically also hold them off the ground - good for five points each.
This was the only team that actually managed to hold any weeds at all!
Team Lens designed the most complex robot, and perhaps had the most fun.
Certainly the audience had the most fun watching this robot! Their robot
had a gripper that was supposed to pick individual weeds, and load them into
a large hopper in the back. It didn't work too well, but it was a hoot to
watch! One of the members exclaimed, after their robot basically bulldozed
the entire field, cypress trees and 'weeds' both, "Microsoft Weed Puller
Version 1.0 is now shipping!" (They'll fix the bugs in the next release, I
guess.)
Team Name Weeds Weeds Trees Score
(1) Held(5) (-25)
Technic Team
first attempt 7 1 -18
second attempt 16 16
Team Panic
first attempt 6 6
second attempt 4 1 9
Team Lens
first attempt 1 1 -24
second attempt 7 3 -68
I'll post my own video as soon as I find a way to convert it to a digital
form. In the mean time, these two folders have lots of pictures from
BrickHeap Wars - and a few videos too!
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=12738
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=12228
Thanks to Matthew Gerber for letting BricksWest be a guinea pig for this
untried concept, and for brainstorming with me to get a great name for the
contest. Thanks to Mark Rideout who on the spur of the moment took the job
of being announcer, and mildly pestered the teams with questions about their
strategies, and how things were going. Thanks to John Barnes for providing
two notebook computers at the last minute when the ones that were supposed
to be in the computer lab had to leave early, and also especially thanks for
providing wonderful prizes to the winning team: each player received a
custom made infrared proximity detector, and a special LED brick. Check out
http://www.hitechnicstuff.com/ for details about these, and other wonderful
custom sensors for LEGO Mindstorms. (Note: the winning team also received
copies of the book "Building Robots with LEGO Mindstorms" by Mario Ferrari,
Giulio Ferrari, and Ralph Hempel, courtesy of Syngress Publishing Inc.)
Finally, thanks to LEGO Direct for providing the large number of gray
baseplates for the arena that the robots ran in.
--
David Schilling
Rules used for BrickHeap Wars: Robot challenge #1
Teams:
Each team may consist of 3 to 6 participants. There will be a maximum of 4
teams.
Objective:
Each team is to build a robot that wanders around the 'yard', pulling weeds,
but not desired plants. Your robot should not wander out of the yard.
Scoring:
Each weed pulled and 'held' is worth 5 points. Each weed pulled but left on
the ground is worth 1 point. Each desired plant which is uprooted will be
worth –25 points!
Definition of Terms:
For the purposes of this competition, the 'yard' is a set of connected,
large gray baseplates. The weeds are the small round trees, and the desired
plants are the large cypress trees. Weeds will be planted on 2x2 tiles, and
large trees will be planted on a pair of 2x4 bricks. These 'planting spots'
are there so that each team will have the weeds and trees at the same spots.
There may be a fence on one or more sides of the yard. Then again, there
might not.
Building Rules:
Each team is to build a single robot that will be at most 15"x15" (the size
of one of the large gray baseplates). The team may only use the LEGO pieces
they are provided in the 'heaps'. Teams may not trade or share their
pieces. Pieces may not be modified in any way. No other pieces, and no
outside materials may be used. Robots should not damage pieces;
participants should not take pieces home. (These come out of my personal
collection, thank you.)
Programming Rules:
A computer is provided for each team. LEGO Mindstorms 2.0 software, as well
as NQC and BricX Command Center are available for programming your robots.
No other software will be available.
Time Limits:
You will have until 4:30 to build and program your robots. This means you
have approximately 2 1/2 hours. There will be no extensions. All teams
must stop building at the signal or risk being disqualified.
Each team will then be given a chance to run their robot. Their robot will
have three minutes to perform the task.
Running Rules:
Your robot will be placed on one of the baseplates at the edge of the yard.
At the signal, one team member will be allowed to press the "Run" button. A
robot will have three minutes to pull and collect as many weeds as possible.
No other interaction will be allowed with the robot until the end of the
allotted time. If at any time a robot completely leaves the yard, the run
will be terminated at that point, and a score computed.
Second Chance:
BEFORE the time limit is up, if the entire team agrees (this must be
unanimous) that they wish to give their robot a second chance, they may
inform the lead judge by calling "Restart". The current run will be
aborted, and not counted at all. They will be given two minutes to fix
their robot if needed. Then they will be given their second chance. There
will be no third chances. Whatever happens on the second chance is the
final result.
|
|
Message has 1 Reply:
2 Messages in This Thread:
  
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
