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Robothon 2004
RoboGames 2005
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> Events -> RoboGames 2005
ROBOMAGELLAN
Competitors:
 Marvin |
 Robby |
 MLB
Navigator |
 Rusty |
 GPSbot |
 A2 |
 Xporadora |
 Odyssey |
The 2005 RoboGames in San Francisco (formerly the Robolympics)
held a RoboMagellan competition. Above, are photos of all the entrants
that competed. I think I was able to get photos of them all. If I
left your robot out, please email me a photo and I will add it to the lineup.
If you are unfamiliar with the RoboMagellan competition, the
official rules are
here.
It was an exciting competition, and the course was very
difficult. We participated in the 2004 Robomagellan at the
SRS Robothon, and I felt the course which
was selected was more even more difficult than the Seattle course. Don't
get me wrong, the Seattle course wasn't easy either. The end result was
similar to the 2004 Seattle result....nobody touched a cone, and the winners
were selected by a judges decision of who drove the furthest to the destination.
The Course:
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Starting Point - The starting point
was up on a concrete patio, near the main entrance to the San Francisco
State University bookstore. There were only two ways off the
patio, one was a narrow pathway, and the other was a slightly wider
walkway. There were many obstacles at the starting point, the
worst to run into was that staircase in the background. Thankfully
nobody tried to drive down it. Once you got off the patio, you had to
head towards the destination which was behind the grove of trees in the
background of this photo. The only way to get to the grove, is by
making a 120 degree turn, after going down the ramp to head you in the
right direction. Only about 1/2 of the robots made it down the
starting ramp, and successfully made the initial turn.
Just like Seattle, there was virtually no GPS reception at the
starting point, which wrecked havoc on all those robots which needed GPS
to get started. |
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First bonus waypoint - In the
grove of trees which you would have to traverse to get to the
destination there was this bonus cone. Notice, it is sitting in a
ditch with a drain vent below the cone. The winner of the event
A2, got within 30 feet of this cone. A2 got hung up on the other
side of the bushes in the background of this photo. |
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The second bonus waypoint was
located in another grove of trees on the way to the destination.
It was out in the open, however, looks can be deceiving. There was
virtually no GPS reception underneath those trees. Good luck
getting close to it at all. |
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Looking back toward the starting
point, from the destination. You can see the first bonus waypoint
in the foreground. The starting point is not visible from here,
however, it is on the other side of those trees, and up the infamous
ramp to the bookstore. Unlike Seattle, there was no direct line
from the starting point to the destination. The course was more of
a dog-leg to get to the destination. |
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Destination Cone. The
destination was located at the top of a flight of stairs, which you
could circumnavigate by going up a sloping lawn on either side.
Both previous photos were taken from the perspective of the
destination cone.
None of the robots got even close. All of them never made it
past the grove of trees at the 1/2 way mark of the course. |
Competition Video:
Here are all the video clips I took of various runs of competitors.
Since I was competing as well, I wasn't able to capture video of every run of
every robot. Some of the longer runs were edited to cut down their
size so they could be downloadable. The biggest video is 7 meg in size, so
beware before downloading. They are all in Windows Media player format.
You will need Windows media 9.0 or greater in order to view these videos.
 | GPS Bot - First Run |
| Marvin - First Run |
| Marvin - Third Run |
| Odyssey - Third Run - The Silver medal
winning run. |
| A2 - Third Run - The Gold Medal winning
run. |
| Xploradora - Third run - There
is video of the run beyond the point at which it's official run ended after
running into a garbage can. It went pretty far once the can was moved.
I did not capture it's Bronze medal winning run on video. |
| Rusty - Third Run |
The Results:
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Gold Medal - A2 Silver Medal -
Odyssey
Bronze Medal - Xploradora
Overall it was a fun event, and well organized. I felt it went
well enough, and there was enough interest that it will probably be an
event that will be continued every year at the Robogames. Hats off
to David Caulkins for organizing the Robogames, and throwing a great
Robomagellan competition. I know all the competitors are looking
forward to coming to Seattle for the Robothon in September 2005. |
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