Maze

[sthmck]

Just felt like posting what I have been up to for the past few days. Hasn't really been a robot, but more for a robot. Tuesday a friend of mine an I started working on a maze/house so that we can practice for the trinity fire fighting competition.While this might not have been totally necessary it wasn't that hard and can be used for other projects as well. Of course the construction of the maze does mean that I will be making a robot for the competition too. I will post my progress of the robot build when I come up with anything worth mentioning. Here are some pics of the maze so far.
http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://s36.photobucket.com/albums/e26/SURC/?action=view&current=DSC03756.jpg%22%20target=%22_blank%22%3E%3 Cimg%20src=%22http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e26/SURC/DSC03756.jpg%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22Photobuc ket%22%3E%3C/a%3E
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e26/SURC/DSC03756.jpg
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http://%3Ca%20href=%22http://s36.photobucket.com/albums/e26/SURC/?action=view&current=DSC03763.jpg%22%20target=%22_blank%22%3E%3 Cimg%20src=%22http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e26/SURC/DSC03763.jpg%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22Photobuc ket%22%3E%3C/a%3Ehttp://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e26/SURC/DSC03762.jpg

http://%3Ca%20href=%22http://s36.photobucket.com/albums/e26/SURC/?action=view&current=DSC03765.jpg%22%20target=%22_blank%22%3E%3 Cimg%20src=%22http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e26/SURC/DSC03765.jpg%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22Photobuc ket%22%3E%3C/a%3E
http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://s36.photobucket.com/albums/e26/SURC/?action=view&current=DSC03761.jpg%22%20target=%22_blank%22%3E%3 Cimg%20src=%22http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e26/SURC/DSC03761.jpg%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22Photobuc ket%22%3E%3C/a%3E

http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://s36.photobucket.com/albums/e26/SURC/?action=view&current=DSC03765.jpg%22%20target=%22_blank%22%3E%3 Cimg%20src=%22http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e26/SURC/DSC03765.jpg%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22Photobuc ket%22%3E%3C/a%3Ehttp://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e26/SURC/DSC03765.jpg

It still needs to be painted, but most of the work is finished. We also have the screw the walls together, but we are going to move it out of the garage before we do that. It is actually pretty portable, the bottom breaks down into two 4x8 sections, and the sides pull off.

[sam]

Wow. Looks nice.

I like it when people show these kinds of things. I made my mini sumo 2 rings for him to practice on. It was hell bringing a 4 by 8 back home in my hands! Sometimes I wish I had a car:rolleyes:

[LinuxGuy]

Just felt like posting what I have been up to for the past few days. Hasn't really been a robot, but more for a robot. Tuesday a friend of mine an I started working on a maze/house so that we can practice for the trinity fire fighting competition.While this might not have been totally necessary it wasn't that hard and can be used for other projects as well. Of course the construction of the maze does mean that I will be making a robot for the competition too. I will post my progress of the robot build when I come up with anything worth mentioning. Here are some pics of the maze so far.
Very nice work! How wide are the "tracks" for the robot to go through? I got to see one of the new Pololu 3pi robots at the last PARTS meeting. It does excellent at line following! Now I want to have a small robot to experiment with line following and maze solving. I think W.A.L.T.E.R. is a bit large, at 11 1/2" diameter and nearly 10" tall, for that. I also want to work on mapping and learning behaviors, and maze solving would be an excellent start for that. Now that I actually have all the hardware parts for W.A.L.T.E.R. I am getting very excited about working on the new software for him. :happy::veryhappy:

8-Dale

[sthmck]

Thanks to both of you. Well the competition website has a floor plan that say the hall ways are 46 cm, so about 18 inches. We have a semi functioning robot, but since this is a school project and there isn't any school in the summer we don't get to meet to work on it to often. Oh yeah I forgot to mention this is a school project.

[LinuxGuy]

Thanks to both of you. Well the competition website has a floor plan that say the hall ways are 46 cm, so about 18 inches.
Oh, wow, that's wider tracks than I had thought. W.A.L.T.E.R. could actually navigate through that, but I would want something much smaller so I could easily keep it in my apartment, which would require a smaller robot, perhaps one of the RSRs I have been designing or something the size of the new Pololu 3pi (which can also qualify as an RSR). I'd want something I could stand against one of my walls when it isn't being used for robot testing, perhaps with 6" or so wide tracks for robots.

Hmmm, this could be something that could qualify as a group project - designing an expandable and easily reconfigurable robot maze to be used for learning, mapping, and just general maze solving.

This could be the basis for new competition classes also. :veryhappy: The same setup could be reconfigured for different events.

8-Dale

[sthmck]

Yeah fortunately we have a lot of floor space to put this thing. I can see where something this big could be a problem. Right now we are trying to figure out a way to make reconfigurable walls. That way we can change the rooms around for more layouts.

We have an idea for when we get done with the firefighter. (its name is Vulcan btw) We are going to make a couple smaller robots and have them play autonomous laser tag. It was just an little idea we had and not very far along in the development stage. Right now the main focus is on Vulcan.

Fortunately I don't have to do all the work on it which is a good thing. I am also building a mech and doing a research project that involves air muscles. So I have a pretty busy schedule on top of school. The cool thing is that if we do well a trinity we possibly get a free trip to robogames payed for by my university.

[LinuxGuy]

Yeah fortunately we have a lot of floor space to put this thing. I can see where something this big could be a problem. Right now we are trying to figure out a way to make reconfigurable walls. That way we can change the rooms around for more layouts.
Have pegs added to the walls that would fit holes in the floor of the maze. This would provide for easy reconfiguration and where there are no walls would not impede robot motion at all. The unused holes could even have small plugs inserted to make it even easier for low floor robots if necessary. :veryhappy:

We have an idea for when we get done with the firefighter. (its name is Vulcan btw) We are going to make a couple smaller robots and have them play autonomous laser tag. It was just an little idea we had and not very far along in the development stage. Right now the main focus is on Vulcan.
Oh, cool! Here is a new competition idea! :veryhappy: This would be a great way to allow smaller robots (or larger ones) to compete that is very different from sumo and would still remain very competitive between robots and teams.

Robot Laser Tag in a Maze! Robots start at opposite ends of the maze and first have to hunt each other down, and then tag them for each point. There is so much potential for this sort of thing, and it's exactly the kind of thing that gets me more interested in competition because it is actually a problem solving event.

Other than RoboMagellan, I am not really interested in competitions, but possibilities such as this really get me thinking about ways to accomplish it and solve the unique problems it presents (finding robots, tagging them, etc.).

8-Dale