Robotics Events

Question

I'll be putting on a robotics competition in a month, and would love to see a list of different sorts of events I might be able to run. What are the types of competitions you are aware of, at all levels of complexity, suitable for the novice LEGO roboticist to the corporate-backed team of pros?

Here are some ideas off the top of my head, from extremely simple to rather advanced:

tug of war
drag racing
line following
mini sumo
maze solving
soccer
robo magellan (navigating waypoints in an outdoor course)
land-mine identification

Please list one idea per answer (perhaps with minor variations), upvote, don't duplicate, provide a brief description of the event, and, if you know of rules or more details, provide a link!

Agreed ... but I can't see the Community Wiki checkbox. http://english.stackexchange.com/privileges/community-wiki — Clinton Blackmore, Jan 13 '11 at 19:01
@vicatcu, @andrejako, @clintonBlackmore, you have to flag a moderator. People were using CW to try to sneak in bad questions often on SO, so now it takes a moderator. Just flag for moderator attention and request CW, and as long as the question is good, we will take care of it. — Kortuk, Jan 13 '11 at 19:16
Here's quite a list of different events: http://robogames.net/events.php — Clinton Blackmore, Jan 13 '11 at 22:04

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 13 '11 at 21:53

Sumo

Two robots face off in a black ring with a white border. Each tries to push the other out. Typically there are three rounds; the first robot to go out loses the round, and, if the robots are stuck together for too long, the round ends in a tie.

There are different weight-classes for robots of different sizes.

Sample rules

Wikipedia article

Sample videos

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 13 '11 at 22:00

3

Micromouse (Maze Solving)

Robots are placed inside a maze and need to navigate through it as quickly as possible.

answered Jan 13 '11 at 22:00

Clinton Blackmore

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score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 13 '11 at 21:47

Line Following

Robots follow a line (typically black electrical tape on a white surface) around a course. Robots try to be quick and accurate. Easy courses have rounded edges; more advanced courses have sharp edges or gaps in the line.

Sample rules

Sample videos

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 16 '11 at 04:02

2

rope climbing -- perhaps tweak the Elevator:2010 competition rules to make it a little easier.

answered Jan 16 '11 at 04:02

davidcary

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score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 17 '11 at 17:49

For more complex competitions, you may be able to draw from various student hardware competitions. An obvious choice would be the FIRST Lego League competitions.

They have complete rule sets available (including field drawings and competition formats) for 2006-2010, all of which were pretty interesting and challenging competitions, as I recall. You may be able to use small portions of the actual competition based on time available.

Another source would be previous IEEE Student Hardware Competitions. I've been doing IEEE SoutheastCon competitions for the past couple years, and there are a few that could be solved using only LEGOs. Once again, field drawings and competition format is available.

Of particular interest would be the 2007: Basketball and 2008: Return to the Moon

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 20 '11 at 04:20

1

Robo-Magellan

GPS-equipped robots navigate outdoor waypoints autonomously.

answered Jan 20 '11 at 04:20

Clinton Blackmore

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score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 20 '11 at 04:46

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Drag Racing

A robot needs to race straight down a track as quickly as possible.

Sample Rules

answered Jan 20 '11 at 04:46

Clinton Blackmore

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score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 19 '11 at 03:38

Obstacle Course

Robots are built to go down a "hallway" over obstacles. The one that goes the farthest wins, or, in the event of a tie, the one that traverses the distance faster wins. When we did it, using wheeled/tracked Lego robots, obstacles included things like:

pencils
candles
books
bins
ramps
chocolate bars
pop bottles

While I don't have any photos handy, I've run the event twice now at it was a big hit!

Clinton Blackmore · Answer 9 · 2011-01-22T20:57:25.300

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Tug Of War

Two robots, each less than 1000g, are tied together with a string, and one must pull the other 30 cm within one minute to win.

edited Jan 22 '11 at 20:57

answered Jan 20 '11 at 04:12

Clinton Blackmore

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Robotics Events

9 Answers9