Subject:
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Re: Sample SMART "Maxi-challenges"
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.org.us.smart
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Date:
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Sat, 2 Nov 2002 18:01:25 GMT
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Viewed:
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1278 times
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In lugnet.org.us.smart, Mark Kenworthy writes:
> I'm not sure if the tight rope challenge is possible. The "rope" would need
> to be extremely tight, just like the ones that circus performers use, so
> there is very little deflection.
I think the tight-rope walking challenge WILL be the most difficult one, and
I'm not sure it's possible either. But I *am* sure you'd learn a lot about
building and programming by attempting it. And while a very tight rope might
be best, I think it would be pretty amazing to see one that sways a bit too!
:-)
> The warehouse challenge for the brickheap wars would be a good
> maxi-challenge, IMHO. It would be cool to see a robot do the whole
> sequence, and I think it would take people multiple iterations of
> build/program/test/etc.
I was curious whether people would like to try this again but I didn't know
if it would be as a mini-challenge, or as you propose, a maxi-challenge. We
might need to make it a bit more difficult to use it as a maxi-challenge,
by, for instance, requiring you are allowed to pick only one crate at a
time, or you have to unload the truck in 1 minute, or something else. But
maybe the rules as they stand are good enough. What do other people think?
> The crevise crosser is one I'm hoping we'll do for the next regular meeting
> challenge. Interesting challenge, but not hugely difficult.
It's one that I've been wanting to do for a while as well. But it could be
made into an interesting maxi-challenge as well, because how difficult it is
depends on what the gap lengths are! If we had a 6" gap, a 12" one, and then
an 18" one, but the robots initially had to fit in a 1-foot-cube, I don't
think it'd be that easy to accomplish! But two or three 9" gaps, say,
without robot-size restrictions, *would* be a very nice mini-challenge.
> I had this beginning of an idea of a robotic pipe inspector. I'm thinking
> some sections of 6" PVC with bends, up & down, etc. You could make this a
> maxi-challenge by adding 3 and 4 way joints, like a pipe maze. Also, we
> could put holes in the pipes and require the robot to count all the flaws
> (holes), or maybe even record where the flaws are, although maybe that is
> getting too difficult, particularly if there was a maze of pipes to navigate.
Some time ago I looked into a pipe-maze for robots, and I really like this
idea. But the problem with it is two-fold. First, unless you use clear pipe,
you see the robot disappearing, and then you don't see it again for
potentially a LONG time. Kind of boring to watch. And clear pipe is VERY
expensive, unless you know someone who happens to manufacture it, and can
give us some. The second problem is what to do if a robot gets stuck in a
corner somewhere?! This can be solved by only connecting the maze in a loose
fitting way, but then you get something that might fall apart if it's a few
stories tall. My 'ideal' maze would have been 8-inch clear pipe, layed out
on a 6x8 foot table, with five or six 'stories', and pipes going along any
of the orthogonal directions. Lots and lots of corners, and branches. It
would be pretty cool to see a robot try to solve this, especially if there
were a) loops, and b) some object hidden somewhere in the maze that it had
to retreive.
Your 'flaw mapping' idea is a good one too. Like I said, this would
definitely be a cool idea. The arena makes it tough. Does anyone know
someone who could donate not only that much pipe, but perhaps also enough
extra bits for people to take home so they had something to test on?
> The block stacker sounds interesting, although the competitive aspect of
> having two robots in the arena at the same time doesn't sound too good to me.
No, I don't want to do this one competively. If your interested in a
competitive version, RTL Toronto is doing this again in a week or so.
Perhaps they'll do it again sometime in the future. I noted the RTL-Toronto
site as a place where I got my inspiration from, and perhaps as a way to get
people enthusiastic about trying it. The way I stated the challenge was to
stack ALL the cubes in towers. This would be quite difficult. It would be
impossible, I think, to build a single tower. Since multiple towers are
required, then, you'd have to be careful to not knock over towers you've
already built! Whatever number of towers you build would be okay. I'd like
to see them at least 3 or 4 blocks high, but several huge towers would be
amazing to see as well!
> The maze robot and figure 8 sound interesting.
>
> The wagon push seems extremely difficult, since you are talking about
> pushing a 4 wheel wagon. This is very very difficult to do when you're
> driving, even on a highly maneuverable tractor, and believe me I have a lot
> of experience with this from on the farm. 8^)
The wagon push is probably too simple mechanically, and too difficult
software-wise. But I know it's possible. I've seen robots do something much
more complicated, and there's no reason an RCX couldn't do the same thing.
Still, you'd learn a lot by trying it out, so I put it in as an idea.
Thanks for the comments! And thanks for the additional suggestion of
truck-unloading as a potential maxi-challenge. Does anyone else have ideas
for what would be another good idea for maxi-challenges? Or other comments
on the ones already given? Lets hear them! Post suggestions and comments
before November 14th, so that everyone has a chance to think about, and
discuss them. At the meeting on the 16th we'll vote for one of the ideas
that has been discussed here.
--
David Schilling
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Sample SMART "Maxi-challenges"
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| I'm not sure if the tight rope challenge is possible. The "rope" would need to be extremely tight, just like the ones that circus performers use, so there is very little deflection. The warehouse challenge for the brickheap wars would be a good (...) (22 years ago, 2-Nov-02, to lugnet.org.us.smart)
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