Everywhere except here in the states, Micromouse competitions seem to be big news. The premise is simple: autonomous little mousebots try to find their way to the center of a maze. In practice, this can be a tricky task to do quickly and efficiently. The mouse has to be able to detect walls, make decisions about where and when to turn, and remember where it’s been in the maze. After the mouse finds the center, it’ll try to figure out what the fastest route is, and then run it at top speed, which is startlingly fast for such a little bot (and so many sharp turns). This particular video was taken at Techfest 2008 in Bombay, India:

It’s nifty to see that even when the mouse is searching, it knows when it’s driving along a path it’s been on before, and speeds up perceptibly. One more video (crappier quality but a wicked fast micromouse) after the jump. (Read more…)

Smell that? It’s the scent of oil, fried speed controllers, and battery acid. And it means that RoboGames is now only a month away. The world’s largest open robot competition will be taking place at the Ft. Mason Center in San Francisco from June 13-15 (Friday through Sunday). Did I mention it’s the world’s LARGEST open robot competition? There will be 70 (!) events, including combat robots from 150 grams up to 340 pounds, autonomous combat, soccer, hockey, sumo, navigation, fire fighting… The list goes on.

Tickets are only $20 for adults and $15 for kids, per day, with discounts for all three days (and for the military). If there is any way you can possibly get there, get there. Trust me, it’s gonna be awesome.

[ RoboGames 2008 ]

The ComBots Cup was the main event at Maker Faire for anyone even remotely interested in robots and carnage, and this year’s battles certainly did not disappoint. Armored and weaponized remote controlled bots were unleashed against one another in a giant arena where spectators are protected from flying metal shrapnel by sheets of 1 inch thick lexan, quarter inch I-beams, and steel plates. Each battle lasts 3 minutes or until one robot is immobilized, incapacitated, thrown out of the arena, or completely destroyed. In the event that both robots remain functional, a panel of judges awards points based on damage and aggression. Fortunately, there’s plenty of damage and aggression to go ’round… Here’s some video of four of my favorite battles from over the weekend:

Video really doesn’t do justice to the experience of watching two robots that weigh a couple hundred pounds attack each other with titanium spinners traveling at several thousand RPM. If you can possibly get to an event, go.

So, as you can see from the video, these robots aren’t just blindly pounding away at each other… A substantial portion of the battle involves strategy, movement, and the skill of the driver. After each battle, win or lose, the robots get taken back to the pit area to get checked out, tuned up, have their batteries charged, and in some cases, their weapons switched out depending on what bot they’re fighting next. It’s exciting, and it’s awesome. ‘Nuff said. Some pics of the pit area, after the jump. (Read more…)

Maker Faire was this weekend, and I’ve got tons (TONS) of robot footage, including some wicked awesome video of ComBot battles. It’s kinda 3am, though, so I’ll be posting some of that tomorrow, but I wanted to make sure and put up this little gem from the very end of the ComBots tournament, when Ugobe decided that it might be fun to bring a Pleo along to watch the action. Just a warning: if you have a soft spot for cute and cuddly robots, you may not want to read this entire article.

This is Pleo. You remember Pleo, right?

Pleo is sweet and cuddly.

Pleo likes to snuggle.

Hey, what are you doing…?

Wait, what’s Pleo doing in the middle of the Combots arena? Oh. Oh no. Please don’t, not Pleo!

Video after the jump. It’s pretty graphic. (Read more…)

Since 1994, Carnegie Mellon has been running the Mobot Slalom competition, where home built autonomous robots follow a white line through a sequence of gates as fast as they can. To complicate matters, the lines diverge and converge at several points, requiring the bots to have some sort of built-in reasoning. They also have to deal with uneven terrain, inclement weather, and have to fit through the 18 inch square gates. There’s this rule about the design of the bots:

“Animals (except primates) may be used to assist with vehicle control as long as such use is humane (does not harm the animal in any way) and conforms with applicable University regulations.”

Intriguing… Too bad the website doesn’t elaborate.

[ Mobot Slalom ] VIA [ Communist Robot ]

I don’t watch much American football. Every time I do, there seems to be a whole lot of standing around followed by a bunch of identical looking guys piling on top of one another. And then it happens all over again. Not so with robot American football… Check it out:

Okay, so arguably, this is more like soccer or rugby than American football, but still, it’s blindingly fast and packed with action. I’m a fan.

[ Robot Football (In Japanese) ] VIA [ Robots-Dreams ]

These little laser-equipped robots may not scare you that much, but this is how it all starts: right now, they’re a foot tall, but give them a couple generations and they’ll be crushing us under their giant metal feet. In the meantime, though, we get to watch these KHR-1HV humaniod remote controlled robots take part in a 4 v 4 game of laser tag:

Gameplay seems to be a lot like a conventional game of retail laser tag: run around and shoot anything that moves on the way to the enemy base, where you mindlessly pound away at the sensor ’cause it’s worth the most points. In this case, hitting another robot causes it to fall over and become incapacitated for five seconds and the team loses a point. Games last five minutes, and the winners (I assume) get to strip the losers for spare parts.

[ Impress (Translated) ] VIA [ Engadget ]

There’s some kind of car race thing going on in Long Beach on April 20… Toyta Grand Prix? Well, whatever, the only car race I know of (or actually care about) is the one run by DARPA, involving totally autonomous cars. Luckily, Toyota is starting to clue in to what’s really exciting, and have added an autonomous race to this year’s lineup. There will be 3 vehicles, each one of which has already proved its mettle at the Urban Challenge, including Boss (the winner from CMU), Junior (the runner up from Stanford), and Ben, the sixth place finisher from UPenn and Lehigh. They’ve only been asked to do one lap of the 1.97-mile, 11-turn circuit (without obstacles, I assume), with the quickest time winning. It may be less challenging than the urban course from last year, but one thing’s for sure: it’ll be a heck of a lot faster.

[ GPLB ] VIA [ Crave ]

Here’s the good news: BattleBots will be returning to ESPN2 and ESPNU this November. This is, of course, awesome for us BotJunkies. I mean, what could possibly be better than robotic goliaths beating the circuitry out of each other in an arena of death? Nothing, of course. But the original BattleBots show had a lot of other, lame stuff going on in the background, including idiotic commentary and (let’s face it) Carmen Electra. Some of that is gone, but at the same time, there’s gotta be some kind of announcer, and whoever they are, they’re going to be carrying a lot of the show. Is it going to be someone who knows about the robots, or someone who has a talent for making snarky remarks?

What I’m most worried about is this quote, from BattleBots CEO Trey Roski: “It’s going to be held like a sports show. We’re going to show the pit, what they really go through. It’s not about the host, or a pretty girl. It’s about the people, what they’re getting out of it.” Wait a sec, isn’t it supposed to be about the ROBOTS? What it sounds like is that it might turn into another horrible pseudo-mechanical reality TV show, like Junkyard Wars or Monster Garage. Those shows had great themes and great creativity and some interesting characters, but I want to see people building stuff, not domestic squabbles. Same with the new BattleBots: I want to see robots being built, fighting each other, and being repaired. I don’t want to see bickering teammates with a dramatic underscore.

Otherwise, some changes are being made for the better. Wedge robots are being essentially outlawed because they “are not going to make a successful TV show.” Yeah, it could have been phrased better (and implemented better), but they did make for some boring competitions. The arena will have new and improved hazards that can actually make a difference in the battle. And there will be a new class of robots, “experimental,” which may include autonomous bots in some form (finally!).

For starters, the competitors will be university teams, and the 150+ registrants have caused the start of the competition to be pushed back from June to November of this year. A professional league will be filmed at the same time and may also be featured on the show. The competitions are supposed to be held in the Bay Area; we’ll keep you updated and you’d better believe we’ll be there when it finally kicks off.

[ BattleBots ] VIA [ Popular Mechanics ]

The 3rd annual Human-Robot Interaction Conference was held in Amsterdam about a week ago. The winner of the Lego Mindstorms Student Design Competition was Phobot, a cute little robot who’s scared of things:

Phobot expresses himself through sounds, postures, movement, simulated heartbeats, and movable eyebrows. He runs a program that emulates a learning process: in the beginning, Phobot is naturally curious, but scared of even small objects. If you hold his hand and assure him that everything is okay (aww!) he’ll get used to an object of a given size, and start to dance a little bit. Using this method, you can accustom him to larger and larger objects until he becomes invincible. Phobot was conceived as a companion to children who are scared of things; the idea is that by helping Phobot to overcome his fears, it will be easier for the child to understand their own.

[ Phobot ] VIA [ Physorg ]