Monday, Feb 23, 2004
9:00am-4:30pm, Thwing Ballroom
Please direct any questions to Ana R. Badillo at arb14@case.edu.
9:00 a.m. High School Lego Robotics Challenge participants
meet in Thwing Ballroom
9:30 a.m. Welcome to Case
9:45 a.m. Overview of the competition
10:00 a.m. Seeding round begins
11:00 p.m. First round of head to head competition begins
1:00 p.m. Second round of head to head competition (32 entrants)
begins
4:30 p.m. High School Competition Ends and Award presentation
(Box Lunches and snacks provided by The Case School of Engineering)
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The tournament will consist of two portions: a seeding round
and a “head to head” single elimination competition.
The purpose of the seeding round is twofold: (1) to determine
the group of teams to receive a “bye” in the first
round of the single elimination competition and (2) to determine
the seeding in the second round of the “head to head”
competition. The purpose of this structure is to insure that
there will be exactly 32 robots competing at the beginning
at the second round of the “head to head” competition.
In the first portion of the tournament, the time that a
robot takes to reach the target area of an illuminated bulb
will be used to determine its seeding for the first round
and (if needed) for the second round of the “head to
head” single elimination competition.
The robots that receive the highest rankings in the seeding
runs will receive a “bye” for the first round
of the single elimination tournament. The remaining robots
will then need to compete in a single round “head to
head” competition with each other. The winners of this
round will advance to the “head to head” single
elimination competition against the robots who received a
“bye” in the first round. The pairing of robots
in the first and second rounds will be based on seeding, e.g.,
a lowest vs. highest seeding will compete with one other,
the next lowest will compete with the next highest, etc.
An example may help clarify the structure of the competition.
If 40 teams are participating in the tournament, then the
seeding round is used to assign to each robot a ranking from
1 to 40 (with 1 being the highest ranking). The robots having
the highest 24 rankings from this round will advance automatically
to the second round of the single-elimination competition.
The first round of the single-elimination competition will
be a “head to head” contest among the robots having
the lowest 16 rankings (ranging from 25 to 40). The 8 winners
of this “head to head” competition will then advance
to the second round of the single-elimination portion of the
tournament (thus having 24 + 8 = 32 competing teams).
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The competition will begin with a one minute individual round
for all teams in order to determine seeding. In this round,
each team will be timed on how quickly they can travel from
a fixed starting location and orientation to the target area
surrounding a light, randomly chosen, in the arena. Each robot
will be permitted to begin movement only after receiving an
IR signal of “102” from an RCX Brick facing it.
It should then move to the target area surrounding the only
illuminated bulb as quickly as possible. The shorter the time
that is taken to reach the target area, the higher the ranking
will be. The teams will then be ranked and this ranking will
determine their seeding in the next two rounds of a single
elimination tournament. In this round the bulbs will all be
60 Watts and there will be no obstacles in the arena. Note
that NO robot will be eliminated based on the performance
during the seeding competition.
In the tournament, two robots will go head to head in the
competition arena. Both should be able to sense light and
race as quickly as possible to reach the randomly lit bulb.
The first to reach the target area surrounding the lit bulb
will score a point. At the conclusion of each head to head
battle, the winning robot will move on to the next level.
As the rounds progress, the task will be made increasingly
difficult. In some rounds two light bulbs will be lit and
the robot will have to race to the brightest one. In higher
rounds there will be cylindrical obstacles scattered about
the arena around which the robot will have to maneuver.
Head to head battles will last for three to five minutes,
depending on how far the tournament has progressed. In the
case of a tie, a sudden death overtime will occur. If neither
team had scored a point during regular play, the arena will
be simplified to make play easier.
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The competition arena consists of a hexagonal area approximately
five feet to a side, with a polished hardwood floor. Each
wall will have a light bulb placed in its center that will
be randomly lighted by a control board. Each bulb is 8.25"
from the floor surface and will have a target area of one
square foot surrounding it that will be marked by masking
tape.
In the preliminary and subsequent rounds of the tournament,
1 to 5 obstacles will be randomly placed in the arena as an
added challenge. These obstacles will consist of standard
gallon-sized paint cans that have been reduced in height so
as to interfere with the movement of the robots through the
arena, but not interfere with the transmission of light in
and around the arena. The obstacles will be heavy enough that
they will not be able to be moved by the robots.
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All robots must be programmed using the NQC programming language
developed by Dave Baum. The current release (2.5) should be
used and this compiler can be downloaded from Dave Baum’s
official website:
http://www.baumfamily.org/nqc/
This site also contains important documentation of the compiler,
an NQC FAQ, and links to IDE (Integrated Design Environments)
for both Windows based PCs and the Mac. The use of an IDE
such as BricxCC or MacNQC is highly recommended, though it
is not necessary for your program development.
For the Windows IDE:
Bricx Command Center (BricxCC) is a Windows (95, 98, ME,
NT, W2K, XP) program commonly known as an integrated development
environment (IDE) for programming the RCX (all versions),
Scout, Cybermaster, and Spybot programmable bricks using
Dave Baum's Not Quite C (NQC) language. It also supports
programming the Scout, RCX2, and Spybot using The LEGO Company's
MindScript(tm) and LASM(tm) languages via the Mindstorms
2.5 SDK. It supports programming RCX bricks in C, C++, Pascal,
Forth, and Java using the brickOS, pbForth, and leJOS alternate
firmwares. Version 3.3 of BricxCC is an enhanced revision
to Mark Overmars' original program. See his web page for
an overview of the basic functionality upon which this release
was built.
Bricx CC website: http://members.aol.com/johnbinder/bricxcc.htm
For the Mac IDE:
The main window of the program is an editor for the NQC
language. The editor color-codes the syntax of the language.
Multiple files can be edited at the same time. From the
editor you can call the compiler and download the code to
the robot. There are many other functions, like windows
to watch what is going on in the robot, to control the robot
directly, to control the robot with a joystick, diagnostics,
to let the RCX make music, and tools for downloading firmware,
etc. Online documentation is also available for both MacNQC
and the NQC language.
MacNQC website: http://homepage.mac.com/rbate/MacNQC/
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You should note that several robot design parameters should
be considered. Below are some basic robot attributes that
you should try to balance. Please be aware that this list
is not all-encompassing. Spend some time thinking about the
robot design before you dive into its programming and construction.
Realizing that there are two robots in the arena at any given
time, it is important that you build a robust robot. If they
bump into one another, it is possible that parts of a robot
may break off and impede its movement. At the very least you
will need to make sure that your robots are easily repairable.
As your robots will need to sense the brighter light source
and move toward it, you should try to program an algorithm
that will zero in on the light very quickly.
The faster the robot moves the better, though you will need
to be careful of balancing robot robustness and agility, two
contrary design parameters.
Remain aware of the parts available to you. You should think
about several gearing designs and methods of gaining traction
on a glossy floor. Transferring power from your motor for
locomotion is not a trivial matter, especially when it comes
to developing the fastest robot you can. You are required
to use only the parts available form one (1) Lego “Team
Challenge” Robotics Kit. Do not include any extra parts
from other kits you may purchase. All robots are subject to
inspection to insure that this requirement is met. The use
of any parts not included in the standard kit will result
in immediate disqualification. Please also note that inside
the kit there is a block that comes with a small bulb. There
is an extra funnel shape metal piece that can attach to the
small bulb (making it a flashlight). This bulb cannot be used
on your robot, as it may interfere with competitors' light
sensing strategies.
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The
Arena