Spring Project November 14, 2001

Course Overview Project will be formalized in “request for proposals” (RFP) Your group of 3-4 will work on a prototype and a proposal in an attempt to win the contract Will give two (private) progress reports to your project manager (me) Will give final (public) presentation to customers (me & other faculty)

What is the Project? Modeled after the Trinity College Robotics Firefighting Competition Philosophy: Detect and extinguish a warehouse fire –Though they call it a house fire Will generally follow the rules and specs of the competition –Subject to change

Robot Specs Chassis will be made out of LEGOs, controller out of Handy Board –Deviation from rules (they allowed non-LEGOs) Robot must be completely autonomous No bigger than 31 cm in any dimension Will extinguish fire with DC fan only (no CO2, halon)

Robot Specs (cont’d) Recommended sensors: –Thermal, IR (for obstacle avoidance), contact, anything else you deem necessary –Beware of changing ambient light, camera lights, etc., which can cause all sorts of difficulties Will definitely be different than your practice runs in room 18 –Be able to calibrate your robot

Arena Known floor plan (on web) 4 rooms Walls 33cm high, doors & halls 46cm wide White walls, black floor, door entry marked with 2.5cm white line May be seams in floor & connectors sticking out of walls Bottom of flame 15-20cm above floor

Arena (cont’d) Furniture (steel cylinders) will be in rooms Robot may touch, but not push furniture Furniture might block view of candle from door There will be a sufficiently wide path through furniture to candle

Arena (cont’d) May have “pictures” on walls May add ramps to foil dead reckoning

Competition Rules Your robot will start in a designated (“home”) area, flame will be at a random spot in a random room –May have a marker available at home spot for orientation –Room for robot to get 33cm inside room before reaching candle You will press your robot's start button (no smoke alarm)

Competition Rules (cont’d) Will get at most 5 (10?) minutes to find & put out fire Then get 2 mins. to return home –Can take any route back, but must not enter any other room on the way –Time only includes time to extinguish fire, not return time Final score is sum of times for 2 or 3 runs –DEVIATION: scoring based only on time; no “operating mode”

Competition Rules (cont’d) Penalty for touching a wall or candle Cannot mark or leave things for navigation Cannot “accidentally” put out candle Penalty for knocking over candle after extinguishing –Knock over before => disqualified Some part of robot must be within 30cm of candle before extinguishing

Schedule Preliminary competition in late Feb. or early March –Get to see how yours measures up –Winner will get higher seed in final competition Finals during E-week Open House (Friday before dead week) Winner gets... –... no cash, but gets bragging rights & media exposure

What Now? Over break, check out Martin book, Trinity College rules, and other miscellaneous links