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Garrows



Joined: 16 Apr 2010
Posts: 10
Location: Crestmead, Brisbane


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hello

Hey guys,

Thought I would introduce myself as my first post.

I am more interested in developing autonomous robots and assistance robots rather than combat robots but I thought I would join as this forum is full of useful info and talented people. Don't get me wrong though. I would be coming to this years robowars if it didnt clash with my wedding.

I've been working with a bunch of yanks on http://www.cellbots.com for the past few months and even though we have been progressing well, I fear that a lack of challenges will be our short coming.

So, I ask this forum, apart from combat competitions and competitions for children, what is there in Australia?

Post Thu May 06, 2010 1:20 pm 
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Nick
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Joined: 16 Jun 2004
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Location: Sydney, NSW


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Welcome aboard!

Universities and TAFE seem to be quite active, but its mostly a closed competition. Your best bet is Google for finding local developers.

Post Thu May 06, 2010 2:25 pm 
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Garrows



Joined: 16 Apr 2010
Posts: 10
Location: Crestmead, Brisbane


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Yeah I have been Googling lots without much luck. Best I could find (apart from here) was Queensland Robotics Sports Club. They are involved with robowars and also run a childrens class.

Post Thu May 06, 2010 2:43 pm 
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seanet1310



Joined: 08 Nov 2006
Posts: 1265
Location: Adelaide


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Queensland Robotics Sports Club are more active here then on there own website.

There are a few people floating around with interest in Autonomous stuff eg marto and myself but atm i know of no public open autonomous robotic comps in Australia.

If you do find a compatition in Aus post about it on the forum could be interesting

Closest thing here is the idea marto is working on and posted about here http://www.robowars.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36

EDIT:

Forgot the welcome part sorry about that.
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Last edited by seanet1310 on Thu May 06, 2010 4:16 pm; edited 1 time in total

Post Thu May 06, 2010 3:38 pm 
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Jaemus
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Joined: 01 Apr 2009
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Location: NSW


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welcome mate

Post Thu May 06, 2010 3:56 pm 
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Garrows



Joined: 16 Apr 2010
Posts: 10
Location: Crestmead, Brisbane


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Thank you all for the welcomes.

I like starfish_mod's ideas on the other thread. Perhaps not in a destructive competition though Razz Perhaps a friendly game of soccer?

Who on here has an android or nokia N series phone? Adding the phone to the robot as a brain for autonomous robotics is probably the easiest and near the chapest option since they have camera, accellerometers, gps, wifi and 3G.

Would anyone be interested in such a competition?

Post Thu May 06, 2010 4:36 pm 
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dyrodium
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Joined: 24 Aug 2004
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Location: Sydney


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I know for one my uni (UTS) has a team that did a talk for us with all their robots, they compete in the soccer cup using those sony dogs and demo'd a couple of diy bots too (none worked.)
Saw a vid on your site, that's a nice biiig workshop you have to play with. Laughing
EDIT: Damn, I assume that's the yank's workshop...

Always was interested in autonomous robots, but am useless at programming and maths, so settled for industrial design instead. Smile
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Post Thu May 06, 2010 5:25 pm 
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Garrows



Joined: 16 Apr 2010
Posts: 10
Location: Crestmead, Brisbane


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Yeah, Griffith Uni in Brisbane had a sony dog soccer team too but they disbanded after after the sony dogs were taken out of the league and replaced with the humanoids.

I wish that was my workshop. I dont do any of the blogging on cellbots. Thats all up to Ryan (one of the yanks). I recorded the video in this post though.
http://www.cellbots.com/android/glens-wheelchairbot-adds-2-way-communications/

Post Thu May 06, 2010 5:40 pm 
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seanet1310



Joined: 08 Nov 2006
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I know they have a fair few advantages but not a big fan of phone for 'brains' of computer idea.

EDIT. ur website is linked on that link. Some interesting stuff on there
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Post Thu May 06, 2010 6:32 pm 
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marto
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Hey hows it going.

As far as I know there is 0 regular autonomous robot competitions within Australia. I am still looking at doing something at QUT but I think it would also be limited to students. There is a UAV comp which QUT/arcaa runs which could be counted as robotics but I think the minimum budget would be $10k.

I would agree with sean about the phone I am not a particularly big fan, cool if you are already on an android phone but if you were going to go out and buy the hardware its probably easier just to get an embedded PC. Has anyone actually managed to do any image processing onboard? I guess with wifi you can move a lot of processing offboard but you are looking at a fairly high end phone.

As for autonomous combat robots or large robots playing soccer I really don't think you are going to see people spending much money on onboard automation as it is expensive and will probably get destroyed. Hence why my focus in the other thread is on external tracking and control via a PC. Total cost probably $40 ($20 remote hack and $20 for elcheapo webcam) and it can be used to automate any combat robot.

If you have any ideas for comps let me know. Might be able to set something up.

Cheers

Steve
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Post Thu May 06, 2010 8:31 pm 
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Nick
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Joined: 16 Jun 2004
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A UAV competition starting at $10K Shocked

Something like the Sparkfun UAV competition looks like a great technical challenge and the investment looks like well under $1K from the photos. I would really like to do a Magellan navigation bot, but lack all the programming skills...

Post Thu May 06, 2010 8:48 pm 
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marto
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Ah you have to search a 1 nautical mile area. So takes a fairly large plane to do that probably not $10k if you have several years to do the research but off the self autopilots are pretty expensive. Google "outback challenge" if you want to look for more info.

I don't really think you could be competitive with a budget much less than that.

Steve
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Post Thu May 06, 2010 9:42 pm 
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Spockie-Tech
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Welcome to the Robowars forum.. always nice to see another tech-head join Smile

Although as youve already found, it seems autonomous bots are pretty thin on the ground down under..

The place Jason Cowley (the builder of the IBC's) works at (Vision Systems - a pretty big corporate BioMedTronics place) has an occasional in-house Autonomous Sumo Robot competition down here in Melbourne. I think it happens about every 6 months IIRC..

I went along to watch one of them and it was sadly, relatively boring to watch..

Even myself being a person who understands microcontrollers, programming, ultrasonic/IR sensors and the all tech-details, spending two hours watching two very small un-menacing, unrobotic-looking wheeled boxes blunder blindly around the arena, seeming to actually engage the other robot more often than not by chance rather than intent didnt exactly have me hanging on the edge of my seat..

Actually, it left me wondering if the majority of entrants had written very simple programs that went something like "drive randomly about, if <edge-of-arena-sensor> active, then reverse direction now, elseif <contact-with-other-robot-sensor> active, then keep driving in current direction, loop" and left it at that.

There seemed to be very little "intelligent" behaviour by 90% of the robots - There was *1* very serious team that had suction on the wheels and was demonstrated driving along the wall such was its ground-holding power. it won about 3/4 of its "fights" and exhibited moderately intelligent seek-and-push behaviour.

There was another team that looked like they had made a fair go of it, but their robot occasionally did something stupid like drive itself straight out of the arena without any pushing by the other bot.. which left me wondering, if you cant even get the arena-edge-sensor right, how hard have you really tried ?

The rest of the robots (about 8 or 10 out of about 12 in total) looked like they had been hacked together with hot glue and cardboard and had the above-mentioned lack of programming sophistication. And this is from a large company with an electronic R&D Dept, and a boatload of electronic "engineer" employees.

If thats the average australian autonomous robot competition excitement level, then to the average joe who doesnt know an ultrasonic-range-sensor from an if-then statement, they looked about as interesting as watching paint dry.

I've seen some fairly impressive sumo/mecha/autonomous competition videos from overseas, but unless there are other comps going on that I havent seen, it looks like the Aussies are a long way behind the rest of the world in the Autonomous area.

In Robot Combat by comparison, quite a few of our builders/teams (from what Ive seen from videos, I havent actually visited in person) would be right up there with the best of the worlds combat bots.

I think what is needed is something like a standardised "beginners pack" controller/sensor/program suite that offers some reasonably competitive "intelligence" so that inexperienced programmers can focus on building their chassis/motors/batteries/combo, and *then* start getting clever with the code once they have that working..

because while the autonomous bots show about the intelligence level of your average ameoba, they're not likely to gain much traction interest wise in my opinion.

regardless of my opinion though, its nice to see you here ! Wink
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Post Thu May 06, 2010 11:16 pm 
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seanet1310



Joined: 08 Nov 2006
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Location: Adelaide


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There are better sumo comps out there then the one you described. The one at uni use to have quite a few decent competitors and its share of crap. Then again being the major project of the unit and required to pass may be a bit of a motivator.

Problem is too many people got too good at sumos and not enough people where failing so the event was modified.

There does not seem to be much interest in Autonomous robots in Aus for non research or any robots for that matter.

Garrows have you looked at the ausbot? (someone older will know who i mean and correct me) They where into Autonomous stuff from memory do not know what they are up to if they still exist however
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Post Fri May 07, 2010 9:26 am 
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Garrows



Joined: 16 Apr 2010
Posts: 10
Location: Crestmead, Brisbane


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Thanks everyone for the info and complements.

The UAV challenge, www.uavoutbackchallenge.com.au seems very interesting. And with a $50k prise up for grabs, its well worth the effort and money.

I understand in a destructive competition, a robot with an on board phone isnt a good idea since it will get destroyed. But in a non destructive competition, it has significant advantages. Where else can you get a microcontroller with accellerometers, gps, wifi, bluetooth, and a camera for under $200? Plus for those of you who still prefer using a remote control, a bluetooth phone to a $20 serial bluetooth adapter to a $30 arduino chip? you got yourself a very cheap and very powerful robot there.

It seems that as far as hobby autonomous robots go, sumo is the competition of choice so I might run with that.

I like the idea of going with a beginners pack. Perhaps even a standard robot to encourage competition on the software side rather than the hardware side which everyone here seems to be into. Dont get me wrong here, I'm not saying that focusing on hardware is bad, its just that not everyone is interested in that side.

What are peoples thoughts on a autonomous league using a standard cheap robot (under $70) plus a phone (android or nokia N series will do)?

Post Fri May 07, 2010 2:08 pm 
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