March 25, 2010 at Hampton University
(Part of the ARTSI Student Research Conference)
Theme: localization and navigation. Latest updates:
3/23/2010: added pictures of one of the mazes at Hampton
3/22/2010: clarification: the line betwen the two color bands on the marker should be 7 inches above the ground
3/02/2010: new code from Erik Akers to use the AVR Butterfly to control sonar sensors on the Create
2/23/2010: extended the maze diagram to show marker placement
2/16/2010: clarification of maze dimensions (walls are 20-24 inches high.)
2/04/2010: added link to CreateWallFollow demo. The task for this year's robotics competition is to get a robot to localize itself within a maze, navigate efficiently between locations, observe objects in the maze, and report on what it has seen. Points will be awarded for visiting each part of the maze, correctly announcing each of several designated locations, recognizing objects, delivering the report at the correct location, and overall speed of the run.
Team makeup and registration: Teams may contain up to four members, at most one of whom can be a graduate student. All teams must register with the competition organizer, Professor
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, by March 15, 2010. Please supply the following information: school name, team name, names and years of all team members (up to four persons). Schools may have more than one team. Platform: This competition uses Create/ASUS robots. Modifications, such as adding sonar sensors or a separate camera are permitted. (Eric Akers has contributed a Player/Stage driver for sonar sensors.) Any software framework may be used for robot control, including Tekkotsu, Player/Stage, or ROS. Robots must be completely autonomous with no input from a human operator during the run.
Environment: The maze is shaped like the letter E: a long corridor with three alcoves branching off from it. A series of bicolor markers will be distributed around the maze to allow the robot to determine its location. Objects placed in the alcoves will be red, blue, or green balls, one per alcove.
Maze dimensions: The maze is 96 inches long by 78 inches wide. The alcoves are 46 inches deep and 30 inches wide; the central corridor is 32 inches wide. The walls are 20-24 inches high. There is a bicolor marker at each end of each alcove or corridor, for a total of 8 markers, designated, NE, N, NW, W, SW, S, SE, and E. 
Maze construction: See the articles at wiki.Tekkotsu.org about how to build a maze and landmarks from Plasticor posterboard. Markers should be affixed to the maze wall with velcro at a height of 7 inches above the floor. Construction tip: to make the two 46-inch interior walls, start with an 8 foot (96 inch) sheet of Plasticor. Make a deep cut at 46 inches and another deep cut at 49 inches, then bend the cuts at right angles to form a wall section. Cut off the excess 1 inch at the end, and attach the interior wall to the east wall of the maze using velcro.
Markers: there are eight unique planar markers in the maze, as shown in the table below. Markers are 4.25 inch squares with top and bottom color strips 4 inches wide and 2 inches high, and a 1/4 inch gap between them. Marker
Location | Top
Color
| Bottom
Color
| | N | blue | green
| | S | green | blue | E
| green | orange | W
| orange | green
| | NE | blue
| orange
| SE
| orange
| blue
| NW
| pink | orange
| SW
| orange
| pink
|
Software to get started: Tekkotsu includes the following demos that may be useful in the competition. Each is documented with a page on the Tekkotsu wiki.
Start and duration of the run: Each robot will be deposited at a random location and orientation in the main corridor. Once the run starts, there may be no operator contact with the robot. The run ends when the robot has reported its results, or when 5 minutes have passed.
Scoring:
- Alcove entry: 10 points for each alcove visited. (A "visit" means proceeding at least 2/3 of the way down the alcove.) Multiple visits to the same alcove incur a 5 point penalty.
- Object announcement: 10 points for correctly announcing the object and the robot's location, e.g., "blue ball in north alcove". Robots should use both speech (if available) and a printed console message to make their announcements. If only the location or only the object color is correct, 5 points are awarded.
- Final report: when all alcoves have been visited the robot must end up in the central corridor next to the West marker, and announce the sequence of three ball colors in order from north to south. 10 points for stopping within 2 feet of the West marker to report. 5 points for making a correct report.
- Speed: in the event that two teams earn equal scores, the team with the shortest run time will be declared the winner. Thus, fast solutions are important, but being correct is more important.
For technical questions about the competition or about Tekkotsu, contact
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. For questions about Player/Stage, contact
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