Lego mindstorm ev3 robot sumo
Was it our robot-building skills? We lego mindstorm ev3 robot sumo mindstorm stuff maybe hours per YEAR. Was it our coding skills? We do have experience coding. Was it because we the adults work at Lego? A clear goal, a bit of research, and lots of integration testing! First we set a goal. Nevertheless, I convinced them to start in small steps. We knew nothing about these kind of lego mindstorm ev3 robot sumo so we started by looking at some youtube clips to see what kind of designs and strategies people were using.
That gave us some ideas. We had our candidate! Time to train him up. The original SmartBot was gradually stripped of sensors and stuff and became DummyBot — our training dummy. Not just once, but repeatedly. So we went through a bunch of cycles of integration testing and tweaking the hardware and software. We kept failing over and over often in funny waysbut every iteration we lego mindstorm ev3 robot sumo a bit closer to winning. One interesting thing happened along the way. We noticed on the youtube clips that many robots tried to lift and topple their enemies.
So Dave built a pretty elaborate construction for that, and I helped write lego mindstorm ev3 robot sumo code to control the lifter. In theory it was awesome, in practice it was useless. We wanted to keep Robit simple and focused on one thing — putting up a proper fight! We figured that would help us get under the wheels and push or topple the opponent. Nothing unique, most robots have something like that in the front.
However it was hard to get the right angle of attack. So the software needed some work. A simple algorithm that turned lego mindstorm ev3 robot sumo to generate a pretty advanced behaviour! We were four people in the team — Dave and Jenny, me, and Lars. As for my role, well, it was mostly coaching.
I did end up writing most of the code, but that was in tight collaboration with the kids. The big learning for me is how incredibly important and powerful it is to iterate fast! And to do end-to-end integration testing early and often. The usual agile stuff in other words. So when Robit entered the arena he was already an experienced battle-scarred combatant!
Initially I was hesitant to give it away, since we might compete again. Woooow, soooooo fun to read about this. It must be times more fun to do this with your own kids and get some of their energy. I remember mentoring 4th year engineering teams building robots that would navigate a maze and put out a candle. The simplest algorithm and approaches generally won; the more complicated approaches generally broke down fairly quickly.
Wow Lego mindstorm ev3 robot sumo had no idea it was this new and this involved — Jenny and David were awesome and I just assumed they had been doing it for years! Your email address will not be published. Crisp's Blog from the Crisp Consultants.
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Robot sumo is a sport in which two robots attempt to push each other out of a circle in a lego mindstorm ev3 robot sumo fashion to the sport of sumo. The robots used in this competition are called sumobots. Sumobots come in various classes, from heavy weight robots weighing as much as an adult to femto-sumo with tiny robots the size of a sugar cube.
This page is about the not so ancient sport of Mindstorms robot sumo; how to design, build and program LEGO Mindstorms sumobots, how to program them and how to play the game. A match consists of three games of up to three minutes each. The first sumobot winning two out of the three games is the winner of the match. What is robot sumo? Sumobot specifications A sumobot must be made entirely out of LEGO parts, with the only exceptions being the flag.
The number of motors and sensors used are only limited by how many the brick support. NXT bricks support 3 motors and EV3 bricks support 4 motors. Both type of bricks support 4 sensors.
The robot must fit inside a 10" x 10" square box no height limit when it is in it's starting configuration. The robot must be designed to wait five seconds, after the contestant presses a start button, before it moves.
All actions must be pre-programmed. The use of any form of remote control is prohibited. The robot must not include any part that fixes the robot to the playing field surface. Competition A match consists of three games of up to three minutes each.
Beginning of the Game Before the game, the contestants greet each other outside the playing field following the chief referee's instructions, lego mindstorm ev3 robot sumo then enter the playing field.
The contestants can place their robot anywhere behind their starting line. No part of the robot can be in front of the starting line before the match begins. The contestants must exit the playing field during this 5 second period. Prior to the start of a match, the entire robot must fit inside a square box as defined for the weight class.
At any time after the start of the match, the robot can expand outside these dimensions. End of the Game The game ends when the referee calls the winner.
Both contestants should lego mindstorm ev3 robot sumo each other for a fair and competitive match after removing their robots. A game will be stopped and a rematch will be started under the following conditions: The robots are locked together in lego mindstorm ev3 robot sumo a way that no more action appears to be possible, i.
Both robots touch the exterior of the playing field at the same time. A robot breaks during the game. Any other conditions under which the referee judges that no winner can lego mindstorm ev3 robot sumo decided. In case of a rematch, maintenance of competing robots is prohibited, and the robots must be immediately placed in the designated starting position. The only exception to this rule is if the cause of the rematch is a robot breaking.
If neither of the competing robots win, or lose, after a rematch, the referee may reposition both robots to a specified location and restart. If that does not yield a winner, the match may continue at any location decided by the referee, until the time limit is reached.
All decisions by the referee are final. Violations A contestant or a team who takes any of the lego mindstorm ev3 robot sumo actions will be disqualified from the game: Competing with a robot that has not passed an inspection by the referee. A contestant does not attend the appointed playing field when called at the beginning of the game.
A contestant entering or remains in the restricted zone around the sumo ring during the game. A contestant ruins the game, such as by intentionally breaking, damaging, or defacing the playing field or a lego mindstorm ev3 robot sumo.
A contestant's robot does not meet the robot specifications. A contestant displays unsportsmanlike behaviour this includes swearing or uttering profanities. A contestant failing to follow the referees instructions.