Rise of Machines I

An important area of robotics research is to enable the robot to cope with its environment whether this be on land, underwater, in the air, underground, or in space. An autonomous robot is a robot that performs behaviors or tasks with a high degree of autonomy, which is particularly desirable in fields such as space exploration, cleaning floors, mowing lawns, waste water treatment and delivering goods and services. With every passing year, researchers have raised the bar for autonomy in robots to a level that could not be imagined 60 years ago when the idea of the first mobile robot was under inception. From landing on comets to performing surgery under no supervision, autonomous robots have proliferated and touched the human society in almost every walk of life. This competition aims to bring together a group of students at Iowa State University to compete and demonstrate their capability to lead this field in the future.

Time: December 10th, Wednesday, 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Location: Applied Science Complex 1, Room 232

Groups

Bo the BotAndrew Patience
Steven Lindner

Optimus PrimeKeith Lensing
Nicholas Orlowsky

hoiBORGJohn Deutsch
Dustin Monat

MinotaurKathleen Kennedy
Augusto Souza

MOLIKathryn Hinkle
Dillon Wirth

Timeline
• 6:50 - 7:00 pm: Bo the Bot
• 7:05 - 7:15 pm: Optimus Prime
• 7:20 - 7:30 pm: hoiBORG
• 7:35 - 7:45 pm: Minotaur
• 7:50 - 8:00 pm: MOLI

Rules

Red point: Starting and terminal point
Green point: Turnaround point

The robot should start at the red point, navigate through the maze to reach the green point, turn around, and navigate back to the red point.
When the robot enters or exits a tunnel, the piezo speaker should buzz as an indication.

Grading Rubrics
Each group has 10 min with unlimited attempts (one attempt means to start from the starting point). Modifying and re-uploading codes indicates a new attempt from the starting point.

• Maze navigation (80 pts) - Navigate through the maze successfully without human help (no restart, break, etc.) in any attempt

- Navigate along a wall - 20 pts
- Turn left around a corner - 10 pts
- Turn right around a corner - 10 pts
- Navigate successfully without human help in one attempt - 20 pts
- Competition - 20 pts (1st Place: 20 pts; 2nd Place: 16 pts; 3rd Place: 12 pts; 4th Place: 8 pts; 5th Place: 4 pts)

• Tunnel detection (20 pts) - Successful indication of every tunnel entrance and exit

- Detection of entrance - 10 pts
- Detection of exit - 10 pts

Note

• It is mandatory for all teams to compete in the competition. Failing to participate in the competition will result in 0 project points.
• Only if the team could not successfully complete the task on the competition day, would they get the chance to complete it in the finals week. However, their time will not be counted, and they will get at most 80 points for completion.The TA will not be present for this run. The team should take a video with their robot completing the task, and send it to the TA to get their final score. The video must be submitted by December 20th to get a grade.
• Please bring the robots together with all the parts that have been handed out to you to the competition. They will be collected once the team completes the task.
• All robots and parts must be returned by Dec. 19th. Failing to do so will result in an F grade for both team members for the course.