Previous Meeting: ParcMeeting20100627

Next Meeting: ParcMeeting20100725

Schedule 

July 11th, 2010 -- 3PM to 5PM

Prerequisites 

For anyone that wants to, create a good mobile base (chassis) -- a robot that can move around, and ideally also has a light sensor facing down.  See the description of the ring below, or use a ring like the white practice pad, but note that the contrast of the actual ring will be much less.  You can use additional motors and sensors as desired (up to the 3 motor, 4 sensor limit).

Agenda 

The primary agenda will be...  "Battle Bots -- Sumo Style".  Robots will face off inside a "ring" (blue masking tape... most likely squarish) and the first robot to go completely outside the ring loses.  People will have a small practice ring to teach their robots how to move around and augment as needed.  And then anyone can challenge the current champion or other robots in one of probably two main rings.  Fail and try again with a new design.

Details -- Battle Bots -- Sumo Style 

• Break into pairs or triplets
• Take an existing robot or new base robot
• Name it with an awesome combat name [required to enter the ring]
• Augment your robot to work inside a blue-tape circle (can either look for blue or look for dark)
• Augment your robot to be able to beat other robots

Resources

• [Check] Meeting Location -- Mark's house [location by email]
• Kids -- How many to attend [Maya, ...]
• Computers -- How many that are NXT-G setup [Mark = 2, ...]
• NXT Robots -- How many [Mark = 2]
• Cameras [Mark = 1+, ...] 
• [Check] Floor space for running courses
• [Check] Projector
• Food, Drinks, Utensils -- fruit treats, vegetables munchies, and water will be provided.  Please email if any allergies or preferences.

Battle Bots

• SwampTiger (ST) -- Driver: Mark -- Based on the Antipodes TOR robot
• The Bulldozer (TB) -- Driver: Daniel -- Tank plus big front scoop [teeth on ground] plus nasty spikey thing (using a touch sensor)
• ChopperCopper (CC) -- Driver: Max -- Long 'chopper' like vehicle with a wacker on the front
• Claws (CL) -- Driver: Maya -- Castorbot + front 'wall' + lots of claws + [later] side shooter 
• Silicon Smasher (SS) -- Driver: Kiron -- Tank + front scoop
• Something (SO) -- Driver: Raffi and Waves -- Three-motor [!], six-wheeled [!!], ultrasound triggered plower (long / wide wall) 

Early Run Results

• STvTB => TB; TBvCL => CL; STvCL =>ST; SSvCL => CL; SSvTB => TB
• TBvCL => TB; SSvTB => SS; SSvST => ST; CLvCC => CC; TBvCC => TB
• STvTB => ST
• CLvSSvTBvCC => CL

There were a number of other results too when Something came into the brawl, but that wasn't recorded, mostly because bouts tended to be multi-party by that point.  On the whole:

• Something (with its 3 motors and 6 wheels of traction) was able to push anything out of the ring, and was quite hard to push out alone.  It came in late, so it wasn't fully vetted but appeared to be the best Sumo-er of the group
• Bulldozer and Swamp Tiger could push most anything else out of the ring, and traded success and failures with each other
• Claws was next most effective and cleanly won the first group melee (along with others but group melees are pandemonium)
• Silicon Smasher had one nice run again the Bulldozer and sometimes won group melees 
• ChopperCopper had issues with line sensing and being sturdy enough to win, but had a really nice win agains Claws where it lifted Claws out of the ring

A Movie

There were a lot of runs, which would have been fun to tape... But there was a bit too much activity (last-minute-programming) and chaos (lots of multi-bot mayhem) to get more than the one video run.  The video does show all five kid-created robots in action though (with Silicon Smasher sneaking in at the end :-)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiwacFpVIi8

The Arenas