Roborama 2019 Pre-registration

 

Pre-registration Time is NOW!

With Roborama 2019 less than a month away (May 11th), it is time to pre-register your robot team. If you tried and ran into problems, those problems are now fixed. Try again. Pre-registered teams get the best pit area placements. This year’s competition has several contests that will test your robot’s skills. Come compete, win, and take home great prizes.

  • Plastic Fastener-only Sumo – a student only event. Pits your robot in a contest of strength and strategy as you attempt to push your opponent from the arena. 
  • Line Following – with contests for beginners through advanced competitors and a special student only contest. Tests if your robot can follow a line around the course.
  • Quick Trip – an open event. Can your robot go straight? Can it make a 180 degree turn? This contest tests a fundamental skill of your robot. Never been in a robot competition? This might be your contest.
  • Four Corners – an open event. So your robot can go straight and turn, can it maneuver a large square and come back to its starting location? How close can it come?
  • Table Top (classic) – an open event. This contest is for the daring. Your robot moves around a table top with nothing to keep it from taking the plunge to the floor as you perform three tasks.
  • Can-Can Soccer – an open event. Race another robot to collect cans while not getting confused or hitting your opponent. 

More information and rules to the contests can be found at:

https://www.dprg.org/roborama-2019-competition/

Fall Indoor Competition Results

DPRG held the club’s Fall Indoor Competition on November 10th at the Dallas Maker Space. The Fall competition is very informal and provides a chance for competitors to check their progress achieving new capabilities without waiting for the bigger Roborama competition held in May. The competition was lively with a good  turnout and nice prizes. Everyone had a good time.

The featured image above shows the competitors in the challenge line following contest. Left to Right: Clay Timmons, Ray Casler, Carl Ott, Ron Grant, James LeRoy. Contest winner was Carl Ott. His robot, Technical Debt, advanced the farthest along the course. Carl’s robot was also able to complete the course’s circuit with three robot assists. The challenge course still has not been completed without assists.

 

Advanced line following competitors, left to right: Ron Grant, Clay Timmons, Doug Paradis, Michael Ivison, James LeRoy, Carl Ott.  The contest winner was Doug Paradis, with Clay Timmons placing 2nd.

Basic line following competitors, left to right: Ajaya Dahal, James LeRoy, Matt Britt. The contest winner was James LeRoy, with Ajaya Dahal placing 2nd.

Six Can competitors, left to right: Doug Paradis, Jack Jones, Scott Gibson, Ray Casler. The contest winner was Scott Gibson, with Doug Paradis placing 2nd and Jack Jones placing 3rd.

Quick Trip competitors, left to right: Scott Gibson, David Anderson, Doug Paradis, James LeRoy. The contest winner was David Anderson, with Scott Gibson placing 2nd and Doug Paradis placing 3rd.

Rules for the contests can be found at rules.

Fall Competitions Schedule and Details

DPRG has several competitions scheduled for this fall. Below is the competition schedule with details.

Added this year is a competition showcase at the Dev Fest Weekend conference. The date is October 13th. The location is the Microsoft campus located off of President George Bush Turnpike in Irvine. For the latest updates, please keep an eye to the DPRG Meetup Group, https://www.meetup.com/Build-More-Robots-with-DPRG/.  That site will include the latest updates, including a registration page if you’d like to compete.

 

RoboRama – 2018 Contests

ARM based Subsumption – Monthly Meeting Topic – August 11th, 2018


DPRG’s monthly meeting for August is on Saturday, the 11th, at the Dallas Maker Space. The meeting starts at Noon.

This month, long time DPRG member David Anderson will review recent upgrades made to his infamous “leaf blower” RCAT robot. Dave has completed a port of the robot’s subsumption architecture and LMX, a light-weight cooperative round-robin multi-tasking executive, to an STM Nucleo F411 board. The result is a dramatic improvement in performance. David will also highlight a custom printed circuit board, a joint effort between Ron Grant and David, that facilitates signal and power breakout for clean wiring layout. David will provide details on how to obtain a copy of the board.

As part of the presentation, Dave will also touch on the subsumption architecture used in this and many of his competition winning robots.

Roborama 2018 Results

On May 12th, student and non-student roboticists tested their robots in a variety of contests at the 23th annual Roborama held by DPRG. Located at the Dallas Maker Space, the competition provided experiences covering the spectrum of thrilling surprise victories to the disappointment of mechanical failures. All contests at Roborama require that competing robots run autonomously.

     
The prize table                                                                                    Eric Gibson, the chief judge


Will Kuhnle looks at prizes while Brandon Flores
of Mouser hands out swag.

In the student contests, Plastic Fastener Sumo and Student Line Following, competition was strong with competitors from four schools competing. The winning  robot in the Plastic Fasteners Sumo was  “Grizzly”. Grizzly’s owner received a complete VEX Robotics IQ Starter Kit as a prize for his accomplishment. This impressive kit was provided by VEX Robotics. Competitors from Grand Saline Middle School overwhelmed all competition in student contests. In Student Line Following, the winning robot “Thunder” traveled the 19.4 foot course twice in 54.6 seconds for a robot speed of 8.5 inches per second. Thunder’s owner choose a Leap Motion gesture motion control donated by private donor.  The 2nd and 3rd place winners in the student contests happily received great prizes from Pololu, Tanners Electronics, and other sponsors. There was much joy.

     
Competitors prepare for Can-Can  Soccer                                           Clubby the robot


Steve Edwards starts Quick Trip run

In the open contests, Scott Gibson continued to dominate. He won basic line following with “quicky” achieving a robot speed of 10.8 inches per second. He also won Wall Following, Four Corners, and Can-Can Soccer.  Scott achieved a start to finish distance of 0.428 inches in Four Corners. The student team, TechoKids, placed 2nd in Four Corners with a start to finish distance of 2.875 inches, a great achievement. Quick Trip was won by Doug Paradis with his robot “Clubbie”, which uses the DPRG club robot (v2016) design. Clubbie made some impressive runs in Can-Can Soccer. However, the robot’s success was limited due to an intermittent bad connection, later found to be a bad ground wire.

     
KISS the robot                                                                         David Ackley, a happy prize winner

Several members vowed to come back next time stronger and better than ever to give Scott a true run for his money.

Complete contest results are available in the DPRG Hall of Fame. For privacy reasons the name of student winners are limited to their first name.

The featured image at the top of this post is TechnoKids in the pit area working on their robot. All images were provided by either Mary Mathias or Doug Paradis.

 

 

 

Roborama 2018

Roborama 2018 is this Saturday, May 12th, at the Dallas Maker Space! The event starts at 10:00 AM and lasts until ~4:00 PM.  There will be prizes and trophies for the winners! Have a robot? Come join the fun and compete, or just come and watch. All are welcome.  Robot check-in starts at 10:00 AM.

The Dallas Maker Space is at:
1825 Monetary Lane
Suite 104
Carrollton, TX 75006 (Map).

The competition contests are:

  • Plastic Fasteners-only Sumo (students only)
  • Line Following (Beginning with both student and adult divisions, Advanced and Challenge levels (open to everyone)
  • 10 cm Sumo (open to anyone)
  • Four Corners (open to anyone)
  • Quick Trip (open to anyone)
  • Wall Following (open to anyone)
  • Can-Can Soccer (open to anyone)

Start times for student events:
Plastic Fasteners-only Sumo will start at 11:00 AM, followed by Beginner (student division) Line Following. Student events should be completed by 2:00 PM. The Sumo rings and arenas are open for practice between 10:00 AM and 11:00 AM.

Registration:
Free for students of any grade level
Free for DPRG Members
$10 for non-DPRG Members (per team for access to all events)
Pre-registration – https://dprgblog.wordpress.com/pre-registration/
Competition Rules – https://dprgblog.wordpress.com/rules/
Pre-registering helps the events run more smoothly and makes sure you are aware of any important news about the events. Pre-registered teams are given priority.

 

Monthly Meeting – March 10th (Competition and IMUs)

DPRG’s monthly meeting for March is on Saturday, the 10th,  at the Dallas Maker Space. The meeting starts at Noon.

The meeting will begin with a graduation competition for those who attended the “Make More Robots!” tutorial series. Participants will use the robot that they constructed in the class to compete in Quick Trip and Line Following contests.

After the competitions, DPRG member Ron Grant will present a short talk on low-cost Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs). The presentation will include a demonstration of  the MPU-6050 sensor using a low-cost and easy to obtain hardware module. This gyro and accelerator sensor chip has available orientation sensor code that can be executed on an Arduino or other suitable micro-controller.

November Competition Results – 2017

The big winner of this year’s DPRG November competitions, both indoor and outdoor, was Scott Gibson.

Both of Scott’s robots, CanMan and B.U.R.P., sported major improvements since their last appearance.  CanMan struggled in last May’s Can Can Soccer competition, taking third in the event.  However, at this November’s 6 Can event, the robot collected all 6 cans in 147 seconds.  Scott attributed the improvement to better software. B.U.R.P., Scott’s impressive outdoor rover also received major improvements. In Scott’s own words “B.U.R.P. has new wheels, drive motors, and custom designed H bridges, along with a new tail wheel assembly. I also completely revamped the sonar sensor unit with a new CPU and enclosure, and made more SW upgrades in all the CPUs than I can recall.”. B.U.R.P. achieved a perfect score of 9 in RoboColumbus Plus by stopping and touching all 3 of the course’s traffic cones.

        

                               CanMan Robot                                                                          B.U.R.P. Robot

In the 6 Can competition 2nd place was taken by VexNavigator, the robot that won Can Can Soccer last May. No major improvements were made to this robot which uses a Pixy CMUCam5 interfaced to a VEX Robotics IQ controller.  Third place was taken by ClubBot,  a robot using the DPRG club robot 2016 design. This is the first time a robot of the DPRG club robot 2016 design has competed in a contest. ClubBot collected all 6 cans in 232 seconds during the competition. However after the competition, ClubBot made a demonstration run with better tuned speed values and achieved a time of 165 seconds, which would have taken 2nd place. One of the features of the club robot design is how easily the robot can be reconfigured. The competing robot had a modified front end and sported 3 sensors (ultrasonic, IR gate sensor, and Pixy CMUCAM5). The owner, Doug Paradis, says that the competition spawned several ideas for improving the robot and he is anxious to start upgrading.

                                   6 Can contest winners

 

 

Roborama 2017 Results

On the morning of May 13th, the Dallas Makerspace bustled with the excitement of competitors in the 22th annual Roborama. Activities started with a tour of the makerspace. Many of the competitors and their guests had never seen a makerspace and the creative possibilities displayed by the work of various makers was a real eye opener.

Each competitor or team was assigned a table area in the pit room where they fussed with final robot adjustments while checking in. At check in, robots were measured, weighted, and inspected to insure that they passed competition rules. By the time check in was finished, everyone was very excited.

In the Plastic Fastener Sumo contest, the quality of the robots was good. The impact of the learning from the Sumo/Line Following workshop, held a week before Roborama, was clearly evident. The competitors that had attended the workshop had taken to heart the best practices they had learned. As always the competition was fierce with several of the matches not decided until a final push by the winner.

The Line Following contest, the second part of the student portion of the of the competition, also showed improvement over past contests, with the winning robots achieving higher speeds. The contest doesn’t require the robots to be made from plastic fasteners, however all student competitors used them.

After the student portion of Roborama concluded, prizes were rewarded to the winners of the student portion of the competition. Each winner received a DPRG trophy and choice of a complete robot kit or a gift certificate provided by our sponsors. Kits and certificates were provided by Pololu, Parallax, REV Robotics, Tanners Electronics, RoboRealm. and Richard Neveau.

                          

                                            Trophies                                                                      Prizes
Winners

The unrestricted participation part of Roborama consisted of the contests Big Table Top 2 and Can Can Soccer. In Big Table Top 2, a robot must complete 4 tasks. The tasks are: return a can to the starting zone, knock a can off the table, place a can into an overhanging box on the side of the table, and use the two remaining cans to form a line with the can in the starting zone that a yard stick can lay over (cans must be at least 8 inches apart). The top prize for Big Table Top 2 was won by a visitor to Roborama from Vancouver Canada, Markus Lampert.  His robot, Freddie, achieved a perfect score with a hitchless performance on the 1st attempt. Freddie has a hand crafted frame made of jig sawed plywood, a very tight design that incorporates several IR sensors, and a unique fin style grabber using flexible 3d printed claws. Markus is a member of the Vancouver Robotics Club (www. vancouverroboticsclub.org). Second place was taken by Doug Paradis with his robot, Little Andy.

                          

                          Freddie dropping can over edge                       Freddie placing cans in a line

Can Can Soccer, where two robots go head to head in an non-aggressive test to collect cans, becomes more competitive and exciting with each repetition of the contest. The winner this year was Doug Paradis and his robot VEX Navigator. Vex Navigator is built with the VEX IQ system. It incorporates a CMUCAM5 Pixy to identify cans. The Pixy is connected via a TI MSP430 LaunchPad  board, using the techniques published by James Pearson, in his documentation of the VEX IQ Sensor Reference. Second and third places were won by Ray Casler and Scott Gibson. Ray’s robot, Rainman, sported several new modifications. The modifications included a beacon system to allow determination of location after a collusion event. Scott’s robot, Can Man, usually a truly strong contender, suffered from a flurry of undetermined problems that hampered performance. Markus Lampert’s robot, Freddie, also participated. Fredde made a good show, but did not place. The final bout pitted VEX Navigator versus Rainman. In the ending moments of the bout, Rainman and VEX Navigator targeted the same can. Time ended with Rainman trying to catch VEX Navigator as Navigator snatched the can and placed the winning can into the goal.

                         

                               Big Table Top 2 Winners                                   Can Can Soccer Winners

Trophies and prizes were handed out by DPRG President Steve Edwards.

Judges

Steve Edwards, David Ackley, and Richard Neveau were the judges for the event.

 

RoboColumbus Plus 2016 Results

Avondale Park in Denton, TX provided an excellent venue for RoboColumbus Plus 2016 held on November 19th. The weather was a brisk clear Autumn day. Contestants and spectators all had a great time watching the robots make their attempts at the course. This year’s course was the most challenging course in RoboColumbus history.

robocolumbus_nov_2016_home_to_1st_cone_x
Image of home cone showing first target cone in the distance

RoboColumbus is an outdoor robot competition that was patterned after the RoboMagellan competition run by Seattle Robotics Society. RoboColumbus was always meant to be a training ground for DPRG members to improve their outdoor rover knowledge and be simpler than RoboMagellan. It started out as a course with one cone that was positioned about 50 feet from the starting line in a clear path. Participating robots drove autonomously from the starting line to the cone. The robots received points if they touched the cone and stopped.

In 2014, the distance between the starting cone and the target cone was increased to 100 yards. The path between the starting line and the target cone continued to have no obstacles. However, the course could have high grass, holes, and other terrain irregularities. The robots could score points for: coming close to the cone and not stopping (1 pt), being close to the cone and stopping (1 pt), touching the cone and stopping (1 pt).  A perfect score was 3 points.

In 2015 the name was changed to RoboColumbus Plus and  the course was expanded by an extra cone that had no clear path from the first target or home cones. The distance between each of the 3 cones (target 1- clear path, target 2 – obstacles in path, and home cone – obstacles in path) was kept at 100 yards. Scoring was similar to what was done in 2014. A prefect score was 9 points. Time of run determined winners when multiple robots achieved 9 points. This new contest and scoring method has worked well for both beginning and seasoned contestants. It allows beginners to see progress, yet challenges seasoned roboticists.

This year three roboticists participated. Two robots, jBot and B.U.R.P., scored perfect scores of 9 points. The remaining robot, Rover 3, came close to all three cones to score 3 points. B.U.R.P, which participated in the 2015 RoboColumbus Plus sported major improvements this year. Besides major software enhancements, it had a completely new obstacle avoidance sensor array with motorized pitch adjustment, new encoders, new IMU, and also added a camera and GPS. The winning robot, jBot, has achieved perfect scores for 2 years running.

robocolubus_nov_2016_winnersDoug Paradis (rover3 – 3rd),   David Anderson (jBot – 1st),   Scott Gibson (B.U.R.P. – 2nd)

 

The robot runs can be seen on youTube at RoboColumbus Plus 2016