March 12, 2008
Slug Madness
So, that time of year is upon us, and the Introduction to Mechatronics class public demo is tonight. Ten weeks of tremendous effort have resulted in 11 robots (10 from the class, and the stealth TA entry in 24 hours).
The task this year is basketball, with the Slug Madness being a riff on the NCAA March Madness. Each robot must autonomously start from behind the three point line, and fire ping pong balls into one of three baskets made from milk crates. Baskets are only valid if the IR beacon on top of each backboard is lit, and points are determined by range (the beacon changes to a different basket every 10 seconds).
Note that these are autonomous, no input is allowed other than turning it on. The robots that my students have built range from the beautiful to the rugged, and it should be quite a show tonight. As of 3AM, 6 of the 10 teams had met minimum functionality.
This is the complete project spec, and this is the invitation to tonights event. I'll repost later with hopefully some video and pictures.