Author Topic: Nephew's Robot Competition  (Read 4960 times)

Offline ibuildstuff4u

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Nephew's Robot Competition
« on: March 24, 2013, 12:15:16 AM »
Today I went to my nephew's robot competition and had a blast.  These guys are in high school and have to design and build robots to compete against each other.  Every year they change the type of event the robots have to do and this year they had to build bots that could shoot frisbees into goals to get points.  They also added an element that they could climb and if they dropped frisbees onto the top of the element they would get extra points.  The robots work under computer control for the first 30 seconds and drive all by them selfs trying to shoot goals.  The next two minutes of the competition the bots are driven by an operator with joysticks, but the frisbees shooter still works via a camera and computer controls so all of the aiming is self adjusting on the fly.  It was amazing to see how accurate these bots could be and shoot frisbees into a goal 25' away while being bumped into by other bots and being driven around!  After a day of fun my nephew's team took second and are going to move on to the national competition next month.

Here are some pictures of the event. 

Dale P.


Offline SwarfnStuff

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Re: Nephew's Robot Competition
« Reply #1 on: March 24, 2013, 02:35:04 AM »
That would have been a really fun day. Great for the Students too. ps. Your Pictures were a tad tooooo big.  :Doh:
Converting good metal into swarf sometimes ending up with something useful. ;-)

Offline Divided he ad

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Re: Nephew's Robot Competition
« Reply #2 on: March 24, 2013, 08:30:38 AM »
WOW  :jaw:

I don't think many UK schools would be able to do this kind of thing?

Those machines have some serious bulk too!



Bet it was a lot of fun  :borg:  :ddb:




Ralph.

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Offline ibuildstuff4u

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Re: Nephew's Robot Competition
« Reply #3 on: March 24, 2013, 09:11:12 AM »
Yes the robots are very heavy and expensive!  Most bots were 80 lbs and up and they have a few thousand stuck into each one.  Thankfully a lot of the parts can be reused every year to save on costs.  This isn't funded by the schools, it's just an after school club that students can join if it's in their area.  The money to run the program comes from sponsors and thankfully we have a lot of good sponsors in our area. 

I have a two year old daughter and I hope she is interested in this program when she is older as I would love to help out.

Dale P.
  P.S. Sorry about the large picts, I down sized them, but apparently not enough.  I have a SLR camera and the file sized tend to be quite large.
 

Offline Divided he ad

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Re: Nephew's Robot Competition
« Reply #4 on: March 24, 2013, 04:42:36 PM »
Ahh, that explains a lot.

Funding is always an issue.... Thought they would have cost quite a bit.


Still, a very worthwhile club.


Quote
I have a two year old daughter and I hope she is interested in this program when she is older as I would love to help out.
:lol:  Dad wants in!  With daughter.... Barbie annihilator special edition?   :borg:  :lol: 


Good luck with your daughters training :thumbup:






Ralph.
I know what I know and need to know more!!!

Offline Brass_Machine

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Re: Nephew's Robot Competition
« Reply #5 on: March 25, 2013, 12:32:13 AM »
Too cool. Trying to steer my 5 year old in that direction.
Science is fun.

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Offline ibuildstuff4u

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Re: Nephew's Robot Competition
« Reply #6 on: March 25, 2013, 06:24:45 AM »
There is a lego league in our area for the younger kids.  They use lego mindstorm kits to build robots that compete against each other.  I think it's called FIRST Lego League.  You should be able to google it and see if they have something like that in your area.

Dale P.

Offline Brass_Machine

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Re: Nephew's Robot Competition
« Reply #7 on: March 25, 2013, 03:24:26 PM »
There is a lego league in our area for the younger kids.  They use lego mindstorm kits to build robots that compete against each other.  I think it's called FIRST Lego League.  You should be able to google it and see if they have something like that in your area.

Dale P.

Hi Dale,

The 4H has a mindstorms club.  My little one is just a bit too young for it. We spent a lot of time at the display at a county fair last year. He is dying to join. Right now he is doing "Lego School". There is a company that uses the Lego educational system for a preschool type of class.

Eric
Science is fun.

We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.