3 Propeller powered robots heading to Robocup Jr. Nationals- wish us luck!
Hanno
Posts: 1,130
Howdy!
For the last 7 weeks I've been mentoring 13 kids aged 6 to 14. We've been programming 5 TBot's to dance to music and solve a rescue maze challenge. The kids did very well at Regionals 3 weeks ago. Tomorrow, they'll compete at the National level. The kids started by learning how to program in Scratch and then used 12Blocks to:
- solve complex problems with state machines, functions and variables
- wirelessly load and debug their programs
- control the TBot's geared/encoder motors
- manipulate additional servos and led's connected via an expansion port
- react to the environment with TBot's 5 line sensors, microphone and 6 proximity sensors
We've shown the TBot's at all 3 Propeller conferences and are getting good feedback from our beta testers- we hope to start shipping them soon. More information is here:
http://onerobot.org
I'll be at the event all day tomorrow- I'll post photos and videos after I recover...
Hanno
For the last 7 weeks I've been mentoring 13 kids aged 6 to 14. We've been programming 5 TBot's to dance to music and solve a rescue maze challenge. The kids did very well at Regionals 3 weeks ago. Tomorrow, they'll compete at the National level. The kids started by learning how to program in Scratch and then used 12Blocks to:
- solve complex problems with state machines, functions and variables
- wirelessly load and debug their programs
- control the TBot's geared/encoder motors
- manipulate additional servos and led's connected via an expansion port
- react to the environment with TBot's 5 line sensors, microphone and 6 proximity sensors
We've shown the TBot's at all 3 Propeller conferences and are getting good feedback from our beta testers- we hope to start shipping them soon. More information is here:
http://onerobot.org
I'll be at the event all day tomorrow- I'll post photos and videos after I recover...
Hanno
Comments
Nice work, Hanno. Shows how exposure can bring amazing results. Now that I know onrobot.org is on-line I'll check back frequently.
From Parallax and all of our friends we hope all is well in Christchurch, NZ after this morning's earthquake. - Ken
Interesting effort with those robots.
I wish you safe conditions with news of a quake in the New Zealand area. And your family and home is safe and sound.
The earthquake was very strong and lasted for a long time. We've had something like 50 strong aftershocks now. Very comparable to the Loma Prieta earthquake I experienced as a kid in California. Thankfully it looks like there aren't any fatalities but it's still early days. My family is safe and no damage to our house. (Was very worried for the house during the quake- it's basically on 6m tall stilts and I added a lower story by myself- from doing the engineering to pouring the concrete to drywalling the rooms. Luckily everything held up well)
Electricity came back a while ago, internet is still intermittent. Robocup Nationals has been postponed- oh well- gives us more time to perfect the robots. Kids are very resilient- scared this morning but now we're headed to the beach
Hanno
I wish you and your team all the best in the Robocup when it is rescheduled. Your effort in this area is fantastic!
The Robocup challenges look very simple- but are very challenging when you actually do them.
In the "Dance" challenge, one or more robots has to dance within a 1.8x1.8m area. Our "Moa" team is using 2 robots- both with servos and led's that complement the music. Both kids and robots are dressed up and act/dance out a 2-3 minute number to music. Hardest part was making good use of the dance floor- while staying inside- even on different surfaces/demo conditions....
In the "Rescue" challenge, the robot must first line follow through a challenging course. Green square markers indicated which way to turn at an upcoming intersection. At the end of the "line" there's an oil spill area with a can that needs to be pushed out of the area. State machines make this challenge much easier- although making sure the sensors can reliably detect the different colors under different lights is hard too. We found out that the qti sensor which uses infrared light sees no difference between white and green surfaces! A Parallax photodiode works very well...
Hanno
Your robots sound exciting. Wishing you luck in the Nationals.
Still no date for the Nationals- we're still getting very strong aftershocks- some with epicentres less than a mile from my house...
Hanno
"TBOT" I did some googling with keyword TBot. Google found different things
but I guess none of the google-hits where the one-robot TBot.
So where can I find some pictures of YOUR TBot?
best regards
Stefan