Subject:
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Penn State FF robots
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics.handyboard
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Date:
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Wed, 14 May 1997 19:58:37 GMT
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Original-From:
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Bob Avanzato <rla5@psuSPAMLESS.edu>
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Viewed:
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1662 times
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Hi All,
The Penn State Abington College (Abington, PA) entered 12 robots in the
Trinity College Fire-fighting robot contest this April. The students were
freshman and sophomore engineers involved in my mobile robotics course --
the contest was essentially their final exam! I am happy to report that
Penn State Abington teams placed 1st, 3rd, and 5th. We also brought several
teams from local Philadelphia, PA high schools that learn to build robots
during a Saturday workshop at our campus.
Our equipment consists of some 6270 boards, Handy Boards, LEGO blocks,
and modified R/C cars. This year 3 of our teams modified the Tyco "Zig-Zag"
R/C car.
The winning team ("RTFM") was a LEGO robot controlled by a Handy Board
running 2 servos and shaft encoders. One servo panned the $.99
phototransistor from Radio Shack (shielded with a film cannister) used to
detect the candle, and the other servo raised and lowered a drive mechanism
that permitted motion in x and y direction only. A fan connected to a LEGO
motor extinguished the flame. RTFM managed to extinguish the candle in all
3 attempts at Trinity and return to the home position.
Many of our robots are pictured in Fred's collection of shots that he has
made available on the web
http://lcs.www.media.mit.edu/people/fredm/projects/tcrobot/.
RTFM, created by Jason Chan and Marisa DeMeglio is pictured in 25.jpg and
88.jpg on disk 1. Third place robot, "Big Blue" (designed by Will Colon and
Dan Golden) is pictured in 84.jpg on disk 1 and on 21.jpg on disk 2 (good
shots). Fifth place "Swampy" is shown in 20.jpg on disk 1.
The modified R/C cars (which have tank treads and a retractable wheel set
for transverse motion) we submitted are shown in 19.jpg and 73.jpg on disk 1.
Many thanks to Jake Mendelssohn for the competition, and Fred Martin for
the photos.
-Bob
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