In Retrospect

Let us look back at ROBOTIX 2011 from the point of view of a robotics aficionado with a fetish for out – of – the – box solutions to even the minimum of robot tasks. As we dug into our archives, we found a treasure trove of  interesting robots that featured in this year’s edition of the fest. Without a lengthy preamble, lets head straight into technical glory!

RoboCop was designed to be an event that tested a bot’s ability to identify criminals from civilians . A bot actually shot marbles using a hydraulic mechanism based on air pressure at the “criminals”.  In Pirate Bay, some robots had multiple arms for digging through sand and pebble. One even used a sweeping mechanism to traverse through sand!  A stunning bot used multiple underwater propellers with Blue LEDs as illumination in R.A.F.T. Yet another used air propellers instead of water propellers.

The event “The Fugitives” broke new ground with teams of no less than two bots collaborating to corner stationary “fugitives” placed in a 10X10 grid. Wireless communication was used by several participating teams to run the team of bots. Ballista needed bots to detect a moving light source and shoot balls at it which was done with perfection by several teams.

Here are a few of the extraordinary designs which caught our (very observant) eye.

R.A.F.T. : A Revisit

RAFT was one of the most successful mechanical events in Robotix 2011. Receiving participation from robot lovers all over the country, this event was one of a kind. Based on a practical and industry derived problem statement, the simplicity yet the unique nature of the event received wide acceptance.
First years from IIT Kharagpur also showed deep interest in the event right from the start when Team Robotix conducted the first fresher workshop, submitting hundreds of mechanical designs for the event.

Trivia : The name RAFT was decided and then its full form (Robot Aided Flood Transportation) was concieved.

In brief the event comprised of 3 rounds:
Round one: Navigation of a raft on water through a pre-defined course. The raft was provided to the participants making the entire more practical and flexible.
Round two: Retrieve people (in our case, cubes) from flood affected areas (platforms) and bring them to safety (Victory zone).
Round three was left to be disclosed at the time of the event.

To read more about the event click here

To view pictures from the event click here

NEGOTIATORS: Backwards, Codewise

Negotiators the online coding event of Robotix 2011 was an original design which went on to be largely successful. The participant’s program was pitched against that of two others in order to negotiate a pattern on a grid with blocks.

Trivia: Some participants submitted multiple entries hoping that their dummy entries would be pitted against their main ones. The attempt at hoodwinking was detected pretty early though and dummy entries ignored.

Maintaining a long standing record, students from IIT Kharagpur won all three prizes in this one.

To read more about the event click here

BALLISTA: Blast into the Past

Ballista, an autonomous events of Robotix 2011 was a night event with a rotating light source. This event enjoyed its status as belonging to the action-adventure genre in terms of robots. The problem statement was derived from robot snipers on enemy territory . Robots were to detect walls and shoot at the light source from behind the walls. Lightly put, a James Bond interpretation of Wall-E.
Trivia: Several rounds of prototyping were needed to develop the exact light source with a sliver of white light that would be intense enough for effective detection.
The winning team had a perfect run on the arena, thus proving that if you are like a determined Ballista you’ll hit your targets spot on.
Detecting a light source, a wall and then caliberating the angle and force to shoot is not an easy task. But they did it! Robotix challenges you to the limit indeed.

The event had 2 rounds:
Round 1: Detect a wall on a chartered path and shoot at the revolving light source.
Round 2: Detect any 3 walls and shoot.

To read more about the event click here
To view pictures from the event click here

ROBOCOP: Back to the Future

Robocop, the Image Processing (IP) category event of Robotix 2011 was the first of its kind ever. The robots were required to be the judges of colour coded character, marked to be good (green)and bad (red). It required intricate programming and some teams even used stereovision camera feeds.

Trivia: One of the participating ‘robocops’ was so accurate that it detected the red colour in the spectators’ clothing and shot marbles at them. Digital cameras with red lights had to be removed from the arena because the robot also took shots at them.

Mechanisms ranging from scissor extensions to air pressurised marble guns were used to topple the red cylinders (criminals).
Rounds: Traverse 4 rooms while toppling red cylinders in a time constraint.

To read more about the event click here
To view pictures from the event click here

FUGITIVES: Recapturing Moments

Fugitives the autonomous event that looked simple but turned out to be the hardest nut to crack. Robotix 2011 saw some mind-boggling alorithms to corner the fixed fugitives which emitted infrared radiations. The problem statements were based on artificial intelligence used for guarding prisoners.

     Trivia: Fugitives was initially titled ‘Chicken Run’ as the idea was to have an event, analogous to catching chickens autonomously, meaning the fugitives were to be moving instead of static. But that would be taking the difficulty level overboard so the solution to the initial problem statement is being thought of as a project by our technical team.

     Teams used different kinds of sensors and mechanisms to tackle this problem statement from Bluetooth to simply bump sensor circuitry.

  The event consisted of 3 rounds:

Round 1:   Corner 2 fugitives kept anywhere on a 10×10 grid

Round 2 & 3:  Corner multiple fugitives which are kept randomly on the grid.

To read more about the event click here
To view pictures from the event click here

PIRATE BAY: Digging Back In Time

Pirate Bay was one of the eye-catching mechanical events of Robotix 2011. Introducing the one-of-its-kind concept of digging through rough terrain to extract hidden treasures , it was widely appreciated and a unique spectacle. It, like RAFT and the other events was based on a practical industry related problem statement.

    Trivia:  Pirate Bay was initially titled ‘Treasure Island’ which was to include a multi-terrain arena and a two stepped pyramid at the centre of the second round arena which was later reconsidered because of size constraints on the arena.   

   A variety of out-of-the-box ideas were seen implemented in the robots which included dual robots and innovative digging mechanisms.

   The event was conducted in 3 rounds:

Round 1 :  Excavating colour coded coins from a sand terrain.

Round 2 :  Retrieve articles from a rocky terrain and take them to a treasure chest up an incline.

Round 3 :  A one-on-one battle to gather the most booty in a most eccentric arena.

To read more about the event click here
To view pictures from the event click here