Soccer bots score innovation award
See-Ho Tsang, chotsang@gmail.com; Dan Sameoto, dsameoto@sfu.ca
Ash Parameshwaran (engineering professor), 604.291.4971; param@cs.sfu.ca
Marianne Meadahl, PAMR, 604.291.4323
The students are recipients of the Founders Award for Innovative Discovery after participating in the Nanogram category at the 2007 RoboCup in Atlanta, Georgia July 7 and 8.
After months of preparation and late nights spent fine-tuning their entry, called Whirling Dervish, which features a mini robot squad made of plastic, students Dan Sameoto and See-Ho Tsang ran into difficulty on the competition’s first day. An amplifier prodded by U.S. customs officials during a pre-flight search failed to work.
On day two, they used a different design which involved flipping the robots upside down and using their polymer side as a contact point for directing moves.
“Dan worked on making new waveforms and our system with the game pad controller let us adapt our devices extremely quickly,” says Tsang. “The organizers were fairly impressed with our hard work and innovation to get this working in the short time, and our relentless effort paid off.”
The U.S. Department of Commerce National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) hosts the soccer-themed annual competition to foster innovations and advances in artificial intelligence and intelligent robotics.
The competition includes teams from Carnegie Mellon University, the U.S. Naval Academy and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
“Even though we didn’t win (the Swiss took it), we still come back with a terrific award and good recognition,” says Tsang.
The students (colleague Ian Foulds remained at home) return on July 12.
More details of their project can be found at : http://www.sfu.ca/pamr/media_releases/media_releases_archive/media_release07050701.html
Video footage of the microscopic robot:
http://www.sfu.ca/~stsanga/Scratch%20Drive.wmv (more will be available of the robots in ‘attack’ mode when the students return)