ROBOTS DREAMS - Robot news and robot hacks from a true robot geek

UK Micromouse 2009 Results Online

The results of the UK Micromouse 2009 competition, held last weekend in at the Technology Innovation Centre in Birmingham, are online now.

UK Robot Competition This Weekend

Tony wrote in to remind us that:

“UK Micromouse 2009 is being held this Saturday, 27th June in the ThinkTank Theatre. Entrance is free, lots of events/demonstrations including:
 
Maze Solvers
Wall Followers
Line Followers
Drag Race
Time Trials
Bipeds
Antweight Robot Wars
Scalextric4Schools
 
Lots of fun for all ages - everyone welcome!”

Micromouse Robot Design Presentations at Minos 2009

If you’re interested in building a micromouse robot, or if you’re already a micromouse builder but are looking for advanced discussions of the technology involved, you’ll definitely want to check out the micromouse robot design presentations made by leading experts like David Otten at the Minos 2009 competition in the UK. The topics covered included inertial navigation, timing systems, maze solving, adaptive control, flooding algorithms, and even vision guided mouse. Some of the presentation material also includes video clips.

Robot Sightings: Willis Tackles Robots, Humongous Humanoid List, Free Online Robot Soccer, and more...

What's going on today in my crazy robot world?

• 21:10 2009 is just around the corner, so we're excited about the "Surrogates" flick starring Bruce Willis tinyurl.com/bruce-willis-robot
• 07:06 Virginia Tech students won the 2008 International Capstone Design Grand Prize with climbing robots (tinyurl.com/climbing-robots)
• 07:10 Remote medical consultation using robots is being rolled out by the military (tinyurl.com/military-doctor-robots)
• 07:16 Luis put together a long, long, long, and growing link list of humanoid robots (tinyurl.com/long-list-humanoids).
• 11:17 RobotServicesGroup is offering free, online, robot soccer games (tinyurl.com/online-robot-soccer) with head-to-head i-SOBOT robots.
• 11:25 Code and compete with a virtual micromouse robot simulated in Microsoft Robotics Studio (tinyurl.com/virtual-micromouse-robot)
• 11:32 Funny video clip with two cute characters controlling a 'robot' tinyurl.com/robot-remote-control
• 11:43 More on the Japan 2008 Robot of the Year awards (tinyurl.com/robot-of-the-year) from Pink Tentacle.

Robotically posted for Lem by LoudTwitter

Robot Sightings: Dr. Robot tutorial, Sugiura is an Indian God, Jonas and the Stupid Robot, and more...

What's going on today in my crazy robot world?

• 20:16 Tsukumo Robot Kingdom is open for business again after a breif shutdown. tinyurl.com/6pd6gd
• 20:31 Indian robot builders join ROBO-ONE 14 & learn from Sugiura-san (Dynamizer): blog.acyut.com/?p=73. They call him "legendary" & "GOD".
• 20:37 Dr. Robot teaches us how to build a sumo robot from hell: tinyurl.com/6zqggt Definitely got to buy him a new shirt.
• 20:59 We love Star Wars, but isn't making R2D2 into a toilet paper holder going too far? tinyurl.com/54wjlu
• 21:10 With only 256 MB this robot USB memory stick is impractical. tinyurl.com/6y9j39 So, why do I want one?
• 21:22 Jonas challenges the BakaRobo (Stupid Robot) contest, and gets slapped in the process. tinyurl.com/5m44wc
• 21:29 Basquash! Yet another robot movie I'll be putting on my "must-see" list. tinyurl.com/5l72xc
• 21:45 ATR is mapping human brain patterns into visual images: tinyurl.com/5nlmbt
• 21:48 Sangatsu Usagi's great report on the 29th Micromouse Competition: tinyurl.com/6xzhfn
• 23:37 With auto companies in trouble, and Honda dropping F-1, will other research, like Honda's robot legs, survive? htinyurl.com/69ngeb
• 08:51 John published a good, though troubling, study on robot hobby trends (tinyurl.com/robothobbytrends). Let's hope it's only temporary.
• 09:05 The Vex robot system has taken off like wildfire (tinyurl.com/vex-robot-competitions). What makes it so popular with schools?
• 09:15 For robot fans that don't want to build from scratch, PicONE released a cool micromouse robot kit. tinyurl.com/54pw94
• 10:20 Thanks to a reminder from Martin, here's one of the best robot resources around www.robot.org.uk/ even if it doesn't have a RD link.
• 10:25 Robert's next RoboDance version will be out next Spring and will even control the kitchen sink! tinyurl.com/robodance-specs
• 12:12 The Kyosho MANOI robots aren't drawing much attention overseas, but here in Japan they are still hot stuff! tinyurl.com/kyosho-manoi
• 12:26 RT Corp has an under-1 kg. humanoid robot competition scheduled for January 18th starting at 2:00 pm. www.rt-shop.jp/blog/?p=126
• 12:49 140 year old head for a smoking robot automaton (tinyurl.com/smoking-robot-head). Pretty spooky - looks very "Stephen King" style.
• 13:20 Daniel Ruben Rojas sent us a video of this blazingly fast line-follower robot: tinyurl.com/blazing-line-follower-robot running at 80%

Robotically posted for Lem by LoudTwitter

Earlier Vacuum Equipped Micromouse Robot

Snow wrote in to remind us that David Otten's MITTE-9 micromouse robot design also utilized a fan to create improved traction. David made a detailed presentation on the overall micromouse design at MINOS in 2003.

More Info on the Micromouse and the Racecar

One of the things we really enjoy about publishing Robots Dreams is that our readers are extremely knowledgeable, passionate, and aren't afraid to tell us that we don't know what we are talking about.

Less than an hour after we wrote about the McLaren F1 race car using the same design approach as Momoco8, the vacuum assisted micromouse robot, Fred took us to task for overlooking the incredible Chaparral 2J:

"You kids don't know nuthin' http://www.chaparralcars.com/ In 1970 Chaparral introduced its most controversial car, the Chaparral 2J. This car had a separate engine to drive two fans that exhausted air from beneath the car to create suction down force." 

Sure enough, Fred was exactly right. For more information on this amazing race car design, and perhaps some ideas on how to adapt it for robot use, check out this detailed article.

The Micromouse and the Race Car

We were so impressed by the vacuum assisted performance of the Momoco8 micromouse robot that we had to check and see if the same design approach had ever been successfully applied to real life size race cars. It turns out that it had!

The McLaren F1, which held the record as the fastest street legal production car in the world from 1994 to 2005, was equipped with fans to decrease pressure under the car and increase down force and traction. From Wikipedia:

"The normal McLaren F1 features no wings to produce downforce, however the design of the underbody of the Mclaren F1 exploits ground effect to improve downforce which is increased through the use of two electric fans to further decrease the pressure under the car. A "high downforce mode" can be turned on and off by the driver." 

All Japan Micromouse Robot Competition 2008: Momoco8 (Video)

The most innovative and interesting micromouse robot design we saw in action last weekend had to be Momoco8, designed by Shinichi Kome. In the video below you'll notice a sound that is very similar to a tiny vacuum cleaner - which is almost exactly what it is. Momoco8 uses a ducted fan to create a vacuum that provides great traction as the robot zips around the maze at high speed.

The video includes the two Momoco8 speed runs that we were able to capture, however, the robot did turn in an even faster run clocked at 7.104 seconds to finish in 6th place for the annual competition.

All Japan Micromouse Robot Competition 2008 - Maze and Results

  Expert Category - Final competition maze and successful paths 

David Otten, probably the most well known and dedicated micromouse competitor in the US, put together a report on the All Japan Micromouse 2008 competition last weekend. From David's report: 87 mice participated in the expert category while 102 mice participated in the separate freshman category.

Unofficial Results of the 2008 All Japan Expert Micromouse Contest*
 

Mouse Name	Designer	Country	Time
MIN5	Ng Beng Kiat	Singapore	6.433
BR8	Yin Shiang Ting	Singapore	6.531
Golden Mouse	Soh Yi Lang	Singapore	6.707
Cool Y v3a	Siew Peng Shorn	Singapore	6.928
Excel-5	William Tan	Singapore	7.060
Momoco08	Shinichi Kome	Japan	7.104

 
* Times are based on David's notes. Official results were not available at the time of posting.