Robot Learning and Experimentation
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Building your First Robot
This week, we will be using the Lego NXT Mindstorm Robotics kits. We will build a basic robot to learn about consturction, sensors, motors and programming. We will then start modifying our robots for the competitiona at the end of the week. The Robot Sumo Wrestling Competition will be held on Friday July 9th!
Follow this link for instructions on how to build your first basic robot. This is a very quick robot to build, but has no sensors on it. You can add those yourself later.
Sal and Aragon will wonder around the classroom and help with the construction and programming. When you have your robot built, look at the next section about some simple exercises to get it up and running.
Some ideas to exercise your Robot
Now that you have your robot build, you need to learn how to make it move and discover it's surroundings.
Actuators: Your robot is equipped with 3 motors (typcially two can be used for driving and one for a movable arm (to bash the other robots with?)
Sensors: You have some REALLY cool sensors with these kits: microphone, light sensor, ultrasonic range sensor (looks like the Wall-E robot eyes), and a bump sensor (a push button). You can read more about your sensors at the Lego NXT site here.
1. Plug in one of the sensors to the robot (into ports 1-4) and explore it's readings by using the "View" menu on your robot (no programming required).
2. Can you make your robot drive forwards and then backwards?
3. Make your robot drive to a wall and stop before hitting it?
4. Can you make your robot move around on one of the library tables without falling off? What kind of sensors might you use for this?
5. Put a book upright on your table and program your robot to find the book and knock it over - don't cheat by pointing your robot towards the book!
6. Find another team for this exercise: with two robots on a table, can you program yours to find the other robot and move to it?
Sumo Wrestling Robot
History
Sumo wrestling is the traditional national sport of Japan. The two combatants meet in a ring about 4 meters across. The goal is to push your opponent out of the ring or make any part of his body (except the soles of his feet) touch the playing surface. You can read more about the history here.
Robot Sumo Wrestling
We will design and build our own Sumo Robots to compete in a classwide competition on the last day of the mental boot camp. Working in teams, each day you will have about an hour to work on your robots and the software to be the ultimate Robot Sumo Wrestler.
See a short video of two robot sumo wrestlers here.
Rules:
The arena: To make things interesting for the robots and the teams, the playing ring (dohyo) will consist of a library table. If your robot gets pushed off the table, it will fall several feet onto the floor and break into pieccces - this makes for a more dramatic competition with a clear winner each time.
Running time: each competition will last one minute or until the first robot falls off the edge of the table. The remaining robot will be declared the winner of that round.
Parts and things: You may only use mindstorm parts for the competition. Please don't bring any extras from home as it would be an unfair advantage.
During the wrestling: Please don't touch the table or the robots during the competition.
How you Win and Lose:
1) The first robot to fall off the table loses the match
2) The first robot to tip over (not necessarily fall off the table) loses the match
3) If any parts of your robot fall off, you lose the match (this rule is up for discussion)
4) Sometime, the robots get stuck to each other and there is no clear winner. If this happens, the match is stopped, robots separated and the match restarted
Competition Suggestions:
1) Be careful not to drive off the table by yourself - your opponent will be declared the winner! So, with this in mind, you need to be able to detect when you are approaching the edge of the table.
2) Make sure your robot is charged up each night, so you have lots of power for the next day
3) Four days is not a lot of time to get a robot designed and working. Keep it simple.
4) To save time, you can assign someone build and another to write the software. Test your robot each day as you develop it - don't wait until the last day!
