Robot Results, the Segway, and the Planetarium

The robotics competition was fun this weekend. Between cheering and the cold/flu that is going around, I pretty much lost my voice.

The QC Elite robot had some issues - the arm got bent up and blew a couple motors during very physical competition. Seemed like it was being frantically fixed or tweaked after every match (as seen in the 2nd photo). Our drivetrain was pretty awesome, though, and in this video, you can see the robot zipping around the track (The QC Elite robot is the one that shows up a couple seconds into the video, knocking a blue ball out of the playing field).

QC Elite went all the way to the semifinals before being eliminated by the alliance that won it all. And ours was the only alliance that took them to three matches in best-of-three eliminations. Very exciting!

The judges were very impressed with the design of the robot's arm controller, and awarded QC Elite the Xerox Creativity Award for the creative use of "human-robot interface." That interface is an arm brace which a team member wears, so that when he moves his arm and wrist, the robot moves its arm and wrist. If you haven't seen the video showing the arm-controller at physics club, you can see it here (click on the .mov file).

The team is working to make the robot even better before the next regional competition (3/20 - 3/22) in Michigan. Should be fun.

So, if you think I spelled something wrong in my title, think again. The Segway is a two-wheeled, self-balancing scooter that was invented by Dean Kamen, a founder of the FIRST robotics competition. They had a display at the competition, so I took a test-drive. It was pretty sweet. At first you feel sure you are going to tip over - only two wheels, after all - but the computers and gyroscopes keep it balanced. And you definitely get the feeling you will tip over as you try to speed up, slow down, or turn, because you accelerate by leaning the direction you want to accelerate - forward to speed up, backward to slow down, right to turn right, etc. The guy who was teaching me to ride it walked right in front of me, keeping me from going very fast. Just about the time I was getting the hang of it and started thinking, "Get out of my way, so I can go faster," my test drive was over.

Another cool thing about the trip was that they closed the Adler Planetarium on Friday evening for an exclusive event for the robotics competition participants. We got two Planetarium shows, a talk on robots in space, and time to tour the Planetarium on our own. Then again, most of he time we had on our own was spent creating a 50-person conga line, but what can you expect from a bunch of nerdy high-schoolers (and their nerdy parents and mentors :-)?