Competition Schedule
Here are snippets of the competition for a feel of it.
Round 1 - Pebble vs Gray
Team Copper completes 2 hacks
3rd/4th placing - Team Blue vs Team Copper
1st/2nd placing - Team Gold vs Team Brown
Team Brown's thank you speech
Here are the IDC Robocon 2011 results:
- 1st: Brown team (Hei Kern's team)
- 2nd: Gold team (Jin Kai's team)
- 3rd: Copper team (Yong Cheng's team)
- Creativity Award: Gray team (Edward's team)
1st place - Brown Team
2nd place - Gold Team
HEI KERN:
There is little more I can ask for in this trip. Our team’s robot has performed exceptionally reliably today and as a result, we got ourselves the top medal. We were lucky in a few of the matches too though. Whenever there is a beginning, there will be an end. The end of IDC Robocon 2011 is drawing near. I really don’t want it to end as I have enjoyed it so much this year!!
However, I miss my family and friends who are back home and I have the responsibility to go back and finish that exam that I got to take soon. So, as much as I hate to leave this awesome place, I will leave with satisfaction. All the friends I have made, all the experience I have gotten. I couldn’t have asked for more! Boston, this will not be the last time you see me!
GUAN XUN:
Today was the final day of Robocon 2011. What a blast it has been, both with its ups and down. But mostly ups. A quick briefing session in the morning followed by an hour of preparation, and we were into the heat of battle. It was extremely interesting to see the teams battle each other for points and how things changed on the day of the competition as compared to how the teams imagined their robots should work. Problems that weren't considered before occurred and the teams had to settle for fewer points.
The only team that was truly consistent throughout the whole competition, managing to get their robots to work as intended was the Brown team (Hei Kern's team). Earlier on in the competition, it seemed to me that their team was taking a softer approach towards getting as many points as possible when I found out that they were only tackling 2 out of the 4 possible missions that score points. For the record, most teams went for 3 missions, some teams even managed to attempt all of them. So, I guess factually speaking we can say that with a time resource of 2 weeks and the Robocon mission in mind, the best approach to winning would be to do least of the objectives as possible but do them very well. That was also what Richard from my team, stressed from the start.
Unfortunately, we only managed to get the robots to work once. They broke down during our second game against Blue team, which was really a pity because we could have beaten them if we had remembered to do some things. Some things include turning on the switch on one of the robots (yes, we actually forgot that), properly positioning the light sensor to receive light from the starting indicator (we didn't really consider that in our design and thus received inconsistent results). These two items were just a few of the 21 items we had prepared on our team checklist before we operate the robots. But what we needed to and didn't do was to assign each team member to check for certain items, and that would ensure that all bases were covered.
Factual stuff aside, I'm really happy with my team, even though we could have done better than placing top 8 (of 16, it was a knockout style competition). At least we managed to win one game and have fun during the whole process. Yes, and since it was a knockout format, that meant that 8 other teams were knocked out of the competition just after losing one single game, kinda like stamping a poor exam grade on their two weeks' worth of work in the labs.
So after we had a nice dinner with everyone involved in Robocon, performances were presented showcasing the different cultures of each country and contact information was exchanged. I managed to take many photos with my teammates too, just not using my camera! :p
To conclude: I really had fun during Robocon, I learnt a lot during Robocon and I will miss my teammates and the beautiful weather here in Boston (though I don't really want to go through their winters). Now, back to the head/heartache of packing.
YONG CHENG:
Finally the day of the contest... And it was really really fun! We were all excited to try our robots in the field with our opponents, especially because we also had a bother-bot. So Copper team was up against Lime team which was one of the powerhouses in the competition. They had really a good combination of robots that were quite consistent and we were really afraid that we would not be able to win against them.
Getting ready for the competition...
However, when the match started, the robots on both sides did not start moving. Apparently, the Lime team’s moving robot was stuck in its balloon pumping structure and that structure could not be switched on. For our side, nothing was moving for the first 20 seconds for autonomous moving. We had to use the flash of a camera to jumpstart it (because it had a light sensor). So only the bother-bot was moving while our scoring robot could not be switched on due to a wire fault. Luckily, when the opponent’s scoring robot had the possession of the car, our team’s bother-bot (which I was controlling) managed to block it from moving towards the dome. In the end, both teams got a score of 0, and the winner had to be determined by the weight of the robots using the Scale of Justice.
Guess what? Our robots were lighter than the opponent’s even though we had added a lot of weights to our robots. Phew… What a relief. We were really lucky because we ‘defeated’ the Lime team with a score of 0.
Following that, we had a match against the Aqua Team where we scored 35 points through the dropping of the balls and positioning of the police car on the dome. The bother-bot again did its job against the opponent’s robot, preventing it from moving the police car to the dome. In the end, we had a higher score and we advanced into the semi-finals.
For the semi-finals, we were up against the Gold Team (which Jin Kai was in) that had a bother-bot too. So it was the battle of bottle-bots. It was supposed to but I made a mistake when the bother bots clashed at the middle of the playing arena. My bother bot was already blocking the opponent’s one, but I made the wrong decision to go to the opponent’s main scoring robot and block them. The other bother bot successfully hindered my scoring robot from scoring while I was unsuccessful in blocking the opponent’s robot. We lost by a few points and we were up against the Blue immediately for the 3rd/4th placing. It was an easy fight for us as our bother-bot managed to successfully slip through to the opponent’s cannon puller to block it and prevent it from getting any multiplier. We got 3rd in the end, which was really a good result for that.
Yuan Nan and I looking intently at the competition...
Competition between Gray and Pebble Teams
The Gold Team focused on trying to beat the Brown Team in the finals...
Our Bother Bot
Overall, I believed that the hard work and effort of our team paid off. We spent so many hours trying to build these robots and that process really helped bonded our whole team together. The result didn’t really matter; it was my team-mates who were the most awesome. I really enjoyed working with them together and have really made good friends with them. I will definitely keep in touch with them.
The contest itself is a really interesting way to fuse design and technology together. Design as in the way you want your robot to look like such that they are okay within the dimensions, size and space parameters. Technology as in the electrical circuits and mechanical joints. There are just so many points we have to consider and I started with almost zero knowledge on this. Now, I really know a bit more through learning from my teammates and the instructors. I really enjoyed going through all the hard work together with them.
As the contest comes to a close, I want to thank all the people who have made IDC Robocon a success. Without them, I don’t think I would have been able to enjoy such a wonderful time with people from different backgrounds and countries. IDC Robocon has indeed opened my eyes and I look forward to working with people from different countries again.
Note: Do check back again as there might be more updates!