NXTasy.org Challenge No. 2 -
“Move the Ball!”
RULES:
1. Robot should be built from a SINGLE RETAIL NXT SET parts. If you’re unsure what this means look here: http://www.peeron.com/inv/sets/8527-1. You can, however, use the LEGO Lithium Ion battery to power your robot.
2. A plastic ball (red or blue) should be placed on a mount (a starting point can be the mount in the TriBot building instructions, but anything else is ok as long as its part are from the same NXT set as the robot itself AND is less then 15 studs in each direction) and located ANYWHERE inside the oval circle of the NXT Test Pad. The position must NOT be defined a priori to the program! See #7 for more information on ball positions.
3. The robot should start anywhere OUTSIDE the oval circle (i.e. looking from the above no part of it should be in or above the line). The starting position CAN be defined a priori if you like. The robot must ALLWAYS start from the same position and orientation in all runs, regardless of the ball position.
4. About 10 seconds after the user starts the program, the robot should initiate a timer and begin it’s mission. When the mission is complete it should beep and display the timer value on the screen. A picture showing clearly this result should accompany the video record of the whole operation. The 10 seconds delay is ment for the user to get away, start the camera etc. The robot should do NOTHING during this time!
5. When the robot starts it should seek and find the ball, catch it (in whatever way you like!), move outside of the oval circle, make two full turns around the oval following the black line (using line-following, not dead-reckoning! Using encoders IS allowed in this stage), then put the ball back on it’s mount and get out of the oval circle. The mount itself should NOT be moved (but up to several “studs” displacement is ok).
6. Inside the oval you must not put or draw anything except for the ball and the mount. Furthermore, you should not direct the robot to the ball in any way - it must find it by its own sensors. Outside the oval you can put/built/draw anything you like, as long as it is not part of the robot. For these “supporting” structures you can use anything you like, including non-LEGO parts and active stuff (lamps, lasers or whatever your wild imagination takes you!). The “START” area is considered as INSIDE the oval for this rule!
7. A video and a picture of the timer result (time elapsed in miliseconds) should be emailed to guy@nxtasy.org as well as any question/comment etc. The video file/files should include 3 runs - placing the ball in each of the 3 marked squares on the mat. The robot should start from the same point in all three positions. The AVERAGE run time of these three will be the official entry record.
8. The robots will compete in two group - NXT-G in one group and all other programming environments like Robotlab/NBC/NXC/RobotC/Lua in the other. Submitters of the best four robots of each group will be asked to send the codes for review. If the program does not meet the above criteria, the entry will be rejected. If you use custom NXT-G blocks written in LabView (e.g. Steve’s line following block) - this puts you in the second group. The mini-blocks are considered official NXT-G blocks for this rule.
PRIZES: This challenge is sponsored by www.mindsensors.com. Prizes will be given in two categories - NXT-G and other languages.
1st prize in each category - $60 credit towards purchase at mindsensors.com
2nd prize in each category - $35 credit towards purchase at mindsensors.com
DEADLINE is June 1st 2007 (postponded)
A topic dedicated for discussion regarding this challenge is here.
Good Luck!
