Robitics Competition Bundle

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SockThief
 
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Apr 13, 2012 7:01 am

Robitics Competition Bundle

Post by SockThief »

Hi!

I've come to crowdsource some advice from the general masses.

I'm planning a lunchtime BotWars competition here at work, to foster some healthy inter-office rivalry. Our competitors are a mix of skill levels, but it's fairly safe to assume that they are mostly coders with little to no electronics experience. With this in mind I am looking for a decent robot kit with little soldering required. Essentially I am looking for a robot kit that meets the following criteria:

1. At most $200
2. Should be able to be constructed and ready to run in no more than a few hours. Though, having said this, Im not looking for anything that is snapping together some lego blocks, a bit of a challenge should be required here! Also, a bonus would be allowing the constructor to make changes to the construction and add their own ideas, such that each bot that lines up to start the competition is a little bit diferent. But construct, and load a simple hello world type robotics program and be up and running.
3. Programming in C (for the novices) and Assembly (for the serious) preferred
4. A good selection of sample code is helpful, I'm assuming that for most challenges I set the competitors, a solution will probably exist somewhere, even in official texts, but im thinking of adding in a judging criteria based on coding ability, to allow those that optimize code to be rewarded, yet those with little experience will still be able to compete
5. Sensors! Id like to include (inside the $200 limit) as many sensors and actuators as possible, ultrasonic, IR, flame, grippers, tilt sensors, and if possible some sort of 'soft weapon' (IR canon, nerf turret etc)
6. As flexible as possible, such that adding more sensor capability or a new micro is sufficient to upgrade for more complex tasks

My current plan is to set a series of challenges, for instance, round 1 would be a simple drag race, this will make sure everyone has a working bot, then round 2 might be line following, round 3 a raised path such that you can't go outside the course, round 4 collision detection, round 4 object detection, round 5 a walled maze, round 6 move through a maze and pick up a plain egg from a line up of colored eggs, and finally, for some fun, sumo bot and/or 'soft robot wars' (using non-destructive BANNED)

So with that design brief in mind, I have been researching various kits, and one that has caught my eye is the BOE Bot (http://adafruit.com/products/749), which looks to tick most of the criteria, at $119 that leaves me, around $70 or so for sensors (factoring in some shipping costs). From what I've seen, getting a good array of sensors for $70 to achieve the more complex challenges might be a tough ask.

So with that in mind, what does the crowd think? What sensors would be the most appropriate? Should I start with a good base and get through the simple challenges (line following, mazes, objects and battle bots) and then pick up some more sensors later to move on to the more advanced games? The BOE Bot looks like it would be upgradable in the future for those that want to continue. Finally, does anyone have any experience with 'soft BANNED'? Any advice on implenting a system?

cheers!
SockThief

ennbr
 
Posts: 26
Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2012 12:17 pm

Re: Robitics Competition Bundle

Post by ennbr »

Keep in mind the $119 cost does not include the Arduino board. Parallax does have a model for $159 but uses Pbasic as the programming language.

SockThief
 
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Apr 13, 2012 7:01 am

Re: Robitics Competition Bundle

Post by SockThief »

Oh that's a good point, I forgot about that!

That actually means I have to add at least $25 for the Arduino Leonardo or $49.50 if I go for the Budget Pack for Arduino (http://www.adafruit.com/products/193).

As it turns out since I made the last post, most people have come up to me and said they would love to be a part, but don't know anything about electronics... it's quickly becoming an introductory course for electronics! Taking that into account, probably the Budget Pack for Arduino is the most useful path, leaving $21.50 for some sensors.... The Adafruit Sensor Pack is $35 (http://www.adafruit.com/products/176)... though I would probably be lacking in the range-finding department for collision avoidance... so I'm not sure that package is ideal...

SockThief
 
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Apr 13, 2012 7:01 am

Re: Robitics Competition Bundle

Post by SockThief »

Just playing around and surfing the shop, trying different options - have come up with this as a starting-point shopping list:

Parallax BOEBot Robot for Arduino Kit $119.00
Arduino Uno R3 (Atmega328 - assembled) $26.96
Sensor pack 900 $31.50
IR distance sensor includes cable (20cm-150cm) $14.36
Half-size breadboard $4.50
Breadboarding wire bundle $5.40

Total: $201.72 (prices are based on buying 10 packs)

Any thoughts? Feedback? This will probably get us off to a good start, and give us plenty of challenges to attempt. As it is now becoming an introduction to robotics and electronics the more advanced color recognition, gripper tasks will wait. But with the IR sensors, a simple line follower can be done, and quite a few others.

ennbr
 
Posts: 26
Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2012 12:17 pm

Re: Robitics Competition Bundle

Post by ennbr »

Checkout the http://learn.parallax.com/node/299 the bow-bot comes with IR, wire, and breadboard as part of the kit.

SockThief
 
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Apr 13, 2012 7:01 am

Re: Robitics Competition Bundle

Post by SockThief »

cheers! I hadn't seen the full list of parts - makes it a little easier/Cheaper..!

does anyone know if there is a PDF version of the Arduino documentation for the BOE-Bot, rather than just the web tutorials, the only PDF doc I've found is for the BASIC Stamp version. Ive seen the book is called "Robotics with the Board of Education Shield for Arduino" by Andy Lindsay, but can't seem to find an eBook version. Even if I have to pay for it, thats ok, as I would like to use it to plan in advance and prefer PDFs to web tutorials for some reason. Strange they make the BASIC stamp version a free PDF, but not the Arduino version, though I might not have found it yet..!

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