Robot competition rootness!
I (finally) got my balancing fire-fighting robot working. It was pretty shaky and very slow, but did manage to stay upright long enough to get through about half of the maze looking for the candle, and if it did find the candle it was able to put it out.
I finally got it to this point about 7:30pm on Saturday. I had until 10pm on Saturday to do a qualification run, so that I would be eligible to run in the contest on Sunday. I also had to drive to Hartford (about 1.5 hrs).
I got to the contest about 9pm, just in time to recalibrate my robot and get one try at the qualification. Unfortunately, the candle was past the point that my robot could successfully navigate, and it fell over before it got there.
I showed my robot off to a few people, including Jake Mendelssohn who runs the contest. He was very impressed, and even said 'He built the robot I wanted to build!' :-)
On Sunday, the day of the contest, I was literally mobbed with people asking me questions about the robot and wanting to see it go. Everyone really enjoyed how when it blew out the candle, it blew itself backward and then recovered. At one point, I sat down to watch the other robots run with Trish and some friends of mine that came down, and about 15 minutes later someone comes by and asks me to demonstrate the robot for some more people. I kindly asked him to wait for the demo I was asked to do during the awards ceremony, but then Trish pointed out to me that there was about a dozen people standing around my table looking at my robot. So I went back and demoed it for the rest of the afternoon.
I ended up with two awards - Most Unique Drive System and Spirit of an Inventor. The official contest results are here:
http://www.trincoll.edu/events/robot/Awards03.htm
It's funny, while working on it I thought to myself that I was doing it mainly for the intrinsic challenge and geekiness of doing it. However, once everyone started to admire what I'd done, I realized that a big reason for me doing it was to impress people and be looked up to.
I finally got it to this point about 7:30pm on Saturday. I had until 10pm on Saturday to do a qualification run, so that I would be eligible to run in the contest on Sunday. I also had to drive to Hartford (about 1.5 hrs).
I got to the contest about 9pm, just in time to recalibrate my robot and get one try at the qualification. Unfortunately, the candle was past the point that my robot could successfully navigate, and it fell over before it got there.
I showed my robot off to a few people, including Jake Mendelssohn who runs the contest. He was very impressed, and even said 'He built the robot I wanted to build!' :-)
On Sunday, the day of the contest, I was literally mobbed with people asking me questions about the robot and wanting to see it go. Everyone really enjoyed how when it blew out the candle, it blew itself backward and then recovered. At one point, I sat down to watch the other robots run with Trish and some friends of mine that came down, and about 15 minutes later someone comes by and asks me to demonstrate the robot for some more people. I kindly asked him to wait for the demo I was asked to do during the awards ceremony, but then Trish pointed out to me that there was about a dozen people standing around my table looking at my robot. So I went back and demoed it for the rest of the afternoon.
I ended up with two awards - Most Unique Drive System and Spirit of an Inventor. The official contest results are here:
http://www.trincoll.edu/events/robot/Awards03.htm
It's funny, while working on it I thought to myself that I was doing it mainly for the intrinsic challenge and geekiness of doing it. However, once everyone started to admire what I'd done, I realized that a big reason for me doing it was to impress people and be looked up to.