Here Come the Underdogs of the Robot Olympics

[Jeff Haas]

Wired magazine has a good article on a recent DARPA (US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) challenge - robots autonomously finding their way in the dark. It features the scrappy underdog team of one really smart guy!

Here Come the Underdogs of the Robot Olympics

Can a scrappy team of robotics undergrads play to win against the best-funded labs in the world? At the Darpa Challenge, it’s anyone’s game.

www.wired.com

 

[erco]

Perfect timing, regarding robot olympics: I just learned that my video won the open division of a Winter-Olympics themed "Edison" robot contest. Edison robot is a simple little Aussie educational robot. It was a very open-ended, "impress us with your creativity" contest, just the kind of challenge I like. Since I had one of these robots already and 2 hours to kill... https://meetedison.com/2022-edison-robot-design-contest/

The target audience was young students, but it was open to all and the "open division" was for teachers & adults. First video is the student winner, second is another student entry, last is mine. They haven't yet disclosed all the other videos, which should be interesting to watch.

 

[lbenson]

Too cute. Great job.

 

[Eng460]

Excellent Erco. Looks like a lot of fun.

It did well to find the line at the bottom of the slope!

Eng460

 

[erco]

Excellent Erco. Looks like a lot of fun.

It did well to find the line at the bottom of the slope!

Eng460

Thanks, a bit of trial & error involved there. Edison a very basic robot, not even a true line follower, but an edge follower. It has one light sensor on the bottom (also used for programming it) which controls one wheel at a time to turn right when it sees white, left when it sees black.

 

[erco]

@Jeff: Sorry for hijacking, your original article is amazing. Knoedler sounds like... you and me!