Colorado Robotics Challenge Year 6 Saturday April 7th, 2012

Location: Great Sand Dunes National Park 2

Goals Develop small autonomous robots capable of traversing harsh terrain as they move towards a central beacon. Providing students with exceptional training in a growing technological discipline. Develop electronics and mechanical skills specifically Low entry barriers 3

The Challenge Provide increasingly challenging courses to challenge all ability levels Provide divisions for friendly recognition of engineering achievement Start with simple “go home” then build to more advanced autonomy including avoidance, mapping, etc. 4

Basic Rules Mass: 1.5 kg goal Hard limit 2.5 kg Cheap: < $500 for final unit Don’t hurt the environment No flying entries All robots will have a receiver for homing. The “is it about a cat” rule 5

Overview of the Event We will have four courses. 6

Course 1 Course 1 will be fairly smooth and lacking major obstacles. The purpose of this course is to illustrate the robot’s ability to find the homing beacon (433 MHz). 7

Course 2 Course 2 will be essentially level, but will contain obstacles, natural or artificial. On this course, the robot will demonstrate its ability to detect and avoid obstacles while still homing to the beacon. The obstacles will be sizable. 8

Course 3 Course 3 will involve uneven terrain. This course will demonstrate the robot’s ability to make decisions regarding a safe route. 9

CSU’s Robot

Overview of the Event Course 4 will be a nightmare, combination of all the course only at a harder level. 11

Basic Systems Your robot will have at least these basic systems: 1) Motion 2) Sensory 3) Direction Determination If your robot can send/receive a 433 MHz signal (and decode it!), we will help solve the Direction Determination system. The other two systems are within the capacity of students. 12

DANGER! DANGER! Sand Trap 13

Where Should Your Students Start? They should design a platform – the unit responsible for movement and start on the logic!! 14

Your team needs traction I’m there 15

Typical Timeline Start teamsDec 2011 Receive COSGC Beacon UnitJan 1 Receive COSGC Beacon SimulatorJan 1 Design, Drawings and PrototypingFeb 1 Electronics and MicrocontrollerFeb 28 Base mechanical unitFeb 28 Robotics Challenge Tag-upMarch 9 IntegrationMarch 15 TestingMarch 30 Testing and TestingApril 1 Event DayApril 7 16