December 16, 2002
Students go head-to-head in end-of-the-quarter robot tournament
WHO:
Undergraduate students in the Department of Electrical Engineering’s principles of mobile robotics class, and their autonomous mechanical creations.
WHAT:
A robotic “golf” tournament, pitting 14 teams and their robots against one another in a double-elimination contest.
WHEN:
Tuesday, Dec. 17, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
WHERE:
Room 200abc, Husky Union Building (HUB) on the University of Washington campus.
DETAILS:
Fourteen teams of undergraduate students will vie for mechanical mastery to see whose robot can sink the most golf balls in a series of one-on-one matches between the competitors. The students have spent fall quarter studing the basics of robotics and solving a series of software and hardware engineering problems, leading to their final project: the design, construction and programming of Lego-based robots capable of competing. The 9-by-9 inch robots, each a unique design, are fully autonomous, which means that once the match starts, the robots must operate, strategize and adapt without any outside help. The matches will be played on a 4-foot-by-9-foot course, with one hole in which to sink the golf balls. That means the robots must be able to see their own golf balls, find the hole, keep track of where they are on the course and cope with collisions and other unexpected events.
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For more information, contact Linda Bushnell, affiliate electrical engineering professor and instructor of the class, at (206) 221-6717 or bushnell@ee.washington.edu
