I had a blast at Robothon 2001, here's the pics I grabbed and a little bit of info to go along with them.
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Mini-Sumo was a crowd favourite, it's funny to see us still cheering on gladiators, no different than during the roman era :-) On the left is 'Remmy' and 'Pete's Folley' I believe. On the right we have 'Goliath' and '******'.
Of course, SONY had the newest AIBO in attendance, the kids just loved these. At one point, I saw a young girl come running up to the reps with her dad's credit card in hand. She wanted to take one home with her :-(
Here's a collection of robots brought by *******. Top left is his fire-fighting bot, top middle, is his grand maze entry, bottom middle is 'Cherry Blossom' for Mini-Sumo, far right looks to be an unfinished Mini-Sumo. Bottom left is the sound device he uses to start his bot's runs.
These two robots are the creation of ******. He's a senior in high-school! The dog (in front) won him last year's competition. He won a nice and expensive vision system which he's incorporated into his new robot, 'Stampy' the elephant in the back. The second pic was when he demonstrated 'Stampy' during the Floor Exercise. I think this guy's gonna go far in the field of Robotics. I'd love to see him get into Carnegie Mellon or something.
here's a collection of robots, I'm not sure about the left one, but the one on the right did a great job of collecting empty pop cans and returning to a given spot even when there were obstacles in the way.
Someone brought a sample "Micro-Mouse' maze along, this looks like a lot of fun. This is the size of robot I love, Mini-Sumo too. It takes a lot to get a robot these sizes that can do stuff.
There aren't words or pictures good enough to explain the craftsmanship of this next robot. I didn't get to talk with the creator Ken Maxon personally, but believe me, the detail that went into machining each of these individual parts shows. I'm not even sure when the finished product will be, but each "wheel" has independant steering, and the arm appears to be fully controllable. This machine is still early on in construction, and I can't wait to see the finished product.
The Line-Maze was a fun competition to watch, some of the bots were accurate like clockwork, others wandered a bit. If I recall correctly, the winner was a father/son team with 33 seconds!
I was planning on entering the Grand-Maze competition, but SUPRAbot-I wasn't finished before I left for Seattle. Unfortunately, this contest changed from previous year(s) and the bot count was low, only three competed. I didn't see a single entrant complete the maze, whereas last year, with the taller walls and less complication, the contest was more attended. Don't get me wrong, I love this size robot, and maze solving is kewl, I just wish there had been a few more in the competition.
Someone brought along a 'Robo-Mow' for the floor exercise, it was much quieter than I had though it would be. They're out of production now, but rumors were around that they plan to bring out a new version next year...
Back to the Mini-Sumo, finals this time. Again, the crowd really got into this, most people equate robots with the TV shows out there, so this is as close to a robot blood sport we've got :-) The last two are from the mini Melee which took place on the 3kg ring.
Here's the 3kg Sumo class. The last picture was the grand Melee when they all competed at the same time.
I honestly don't know anything about this guy, just saw him as I was getting ready to leave.
This was cool, there was an area where kids could play with some tethered robots. This is absolutely the best way to introduce kids to this hobby. They can watch all the shows on TV and get excited, but when they actually get to control one, there's no replacing the look on their faces.
Here's Titan Robotics FIRST robot.
Again, the demonstration area dubbed the "Playground" was a neat section. Lots of little demos going on.
This was really kewl! This robot takes a mixed up rubik's cube, spins it as to get pictures of each side. Then it computes all the necessary moves and solves the cube. Total time, about 2 minutes! That beats me by about 20 years...
