Prototype Robot

The first robot, Ziggy the Garden-Path-Follower, was a prototype built specifically for the assignments. Ziggy was named for its ability to zig-zag to a specific location on the map. A 125:1 gear ratio on two differential drove Ziggy, staying aloft with a single caster. Ziggy also made use of a bump sensor on its nose and eventually some rudimentary phototransistors were used to detect light and dark areas underneath the robot. No photos exist.

Competition Robot

The O'Neill was used for the competition. Two 45:1 differential drives with two motors each, aided by a caster, were used to drive the O'Neill. Both drives used shaft-encoders high up in the gear train to allow the O'Neill to move in a straight line. A servo controlled gate on the front of the robot allowed balls to be caught and kept in the middle of the robot. Six IR phototransistors, four on the corners and two along the front, were used for inital calibration, location detection and line following.

Strategy

The O'Neill was designed to use its gate to capture balls and place them on scoring areas. RF data containing both robot's locations, shaft encoders and IR phototransistor data were all used for navigation. After a certain amount of time for scoring points, the O'Neill would go and interfere with the opponent's robot, attempting the keep the other robot from either scoring or voting.

Results

In round one we lost 0-18 to a very good robot (18 was the highest score in the first two rounds). We initially scored two points, but the other robot swept these balls off of our scoring area.

We won our round two match 2 to 0. We placed two points on our initial scoring area, and placed two balls worth -1 point on our opponent's scoring area for the victory.

We lost our final round 11-6. Our robot again placed some balls worth negative points on the opponent's scoring area, but it wasn't enough to overcome the large number of positive balls they placed on their own area.