Roko.ca

I spent the second half of last week scrambling to get my mini sumo robot, 1.21 Gw into a working condition for the robot games. I populated the circuit boards mentioned in an earlier post but as I grew low on time I decided to put those aside for this year. Instead of trying to teach myself a new architecture (LPC2138), I decided to concentrate on programming the robot using a board I was familiar with, my HC12 based motor controller design. (This was the prototype motor controller for my Quadruped walker, so I had some base code already written for it, which went a long way towards getting my sumo robot programmed in a little over a day)

I made the decision to forgo edge sensors for this competition, and instead chose to make the robot as aggressive as possible, the theory being that if I push the  opposing robot off the edge before my robot gets to the edge, I won’t need edge sensors. In the end, I managed to get a working robot, measuring 98mm wide by 97mm  long, and weighing in at only 331 grams!.After I finish the actual controller board I intend to use on this robot, I’ll have to make some weights to bring it closer to the 500 gram limit.

In the end, I placed first in the advanced mini sumo category, though I had some good competition! For more videos, check out the WCRS website. I will try to post my own pictures and videos when I get a chance.