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Hardware

Lego robots in volleyball tournament 64

Posted by Hemos from the better-then-a-web-lego-bot-by-a-spike dept.
Mike Knell writes "The Irish Times has an article on a robot volleyball tournament held at the British Association Festival of Science in Sheffield yesterday. Teams from five universities took part in the contest to design and produce volleyball-playing robots from off-the-shelf Lego, with the 'droids developed by Trinity College, Dublin emerging as the victors. "
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Lego robots in volleyball tournament

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  • Foiled again! (Score:3)

    by SirSlud ( 67381 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:55AM (#1683001) Homepage
    I knew I shouldn't have sold all my lego. I really really wanted to become a world player in the volleyball robot field, but who knew lego would be the way to get me there! Arg!

    Are they going to release this series next year? Town lego, space lego, Tecnique Lego, and Robot Volleyball Lego? Heehee.
  • Notice the part about one 'bot wiping the other's memory?

    Sneaky.

    Sort of elegant.

    Innovative.

    The NSA'll be wanting to recruit them!!

  • All it takes is two Lego Mindstorm kits [legomindstorms.com], the Not Quite C [enteract.com] compiler, maybe the optional Lego Midnstorms Extreme Sports expansion pack. Alright, so you don't have a sonar, but it's hundreds of hours of pleasure anyway.

    The article didn't mention whether they used the Mindstorms kit...

    "There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."

  • Now *here's* a robot contest I can get into! My husband and I are avid Lego collectors, though we haven't had the cash to break down and get any of the Mindstorms bits yet. But I can seriously see this sort of robotic contest being far more widely popular than the Aibo soccer contest. It involves as much in the way of construction as programming, and if you're short on parts, you only need go to your local Toys R Us or Wal*Mart for more! And it's on the low end inexpensive enough for not only Universities but High School/Middle School science groups to get into!

    How can we get the information to organize a league in the US? Then we could have World Series Lego Vollyball and really find out who's better - The Brits or us Colonials.

  • EMP? (Score:1)

    by Oo.et.oO ( 6530 )
    isn't that sort of cheating? the part in the end about 'whiping the other's brain"
    i wonder if it was EMP?
    couldn't find anything about it at that cs dept page....
  • Lego (TM) Voleyball Technology Guru.

    (Sorry, I am slightly brainwashed by /. banners)

  • When I first read about Lego Mindstorms, I said, 'Cool, but what am I going to do after my robot can already run around the house and fetch the paper.'

    Now I've got a lego mindstorms kit at the top of my Christmas wish list... Except in addition to the robot kit, I need several other geek friends to get a kt... that's when we can have real fun!!

    Although of all the robot competitions I've read about, the Destruction derby/mortal Kombat style competitions seem the most fun... They're is a real incentive to win (you have to rebuild your robot if he loses :) Imagine midwiping another robot during a battle....
  • I think maybe robot sports needs its own TV channel. I recently heard about a robot soccer tournament, as well as a robot death battle in Vegas. If not an entire channel, maybe a weekly special or something. Or at least a web site with centralized links. Any volunteers to build it?

    Just some ideas,
    Barleyguy.
  • Sonar - interesting idea. Me and a friend of mine have been toying with various methods of "mapping" an area to determine where the bot is, and other such things. Our idea was to use an infrared "beacon" to determine distance from it, or to start at a known point and work from there based on touch sensors. Obviously sonar has definate advantages over both. I'd be interested in seeing the circuit diagrams and interface for this sonar device.. it sounds intruiguing.

    Any ideas how to interface this with an RCX? It seems incredibly difficult - you would need a specialized i/o port to process that amount of data. Anyway, I'd like to hear from you guys...

    --

  • Is something like the volleyball playing bots, with wireless highspeed networking of a cam on every participating bot to a central server, streaming what the bots see to anyone who wants to see it. In fact it would be interesting to turn loose a bunch of them around Rob just to see what Rob is doing in real time. Of course, it would require some serious bandwidth to support hiqh-quality streaming video, but hey, it's slashdot. Anything's possible...
  • Can't you just see it? Crack LEGO wizards from all over the world competing to design and program the very best LEGObots to compete in a variety of sports.

    I suppose the medals would be made of LEGOs too... yellow (gold) white (silver) and red (bronze).

    And no drug-test scandals! Except maybe for the designers (too much caffeine?) I suppose the bots might have to be searched for illegal EMP devices too, since that sure ain't good sportsbotship.

    And why stop with the Olympics? What American city could stand to be without a national LEGO league team? Team colors would be limited to the standard LEGO color scheme, but so what? LEGO cheerleaders! LEGO halftime shows! Monday night LEGOball here I come!

    Think the networks/ESPN will be interested? They should be!
  • Does anybody know if mirrors can be used to reflect the bi-directional infra-red signal? One of the biggest design problems i've had with the lego mindstorms is building things that don't obscure the IR port... maybe if mattell made some reflective lego pieces to make this easier? :)
  • Yeah - my space Legos have had EMP capabilities since as long as I can remember - I just didn't have the power! My lego army is preparing to take over the world... one square centimeter at a time...

    >The NSA'll be wanting to recruit them!!
    NSA Legos - No Such Android...
  • I'd like to know what style of "volleyball" was played. From the description in the article, it doesn't seem that the volleyball was actually airborne as in human volleyball. My take was that the ball rolled or slid across the court. In that case, how do you score a point? By getting the ball past all the oponents?

    I would like to see pictures of the competition.

  • Did anyone else notice that this article was short on details? You know, simple things like:

    * What were the rules of the game?
    * What was the scope of the game?
    * When the event was held?

    I'd also like to see pictures.
  • ha! Count me in too, Ive been digging the idea of that lego kit and now I know I need one. Luckily my birthday is in 12 days, I know what to tell the wife to get me. But I hope she doesnt kick my butt, heh, I have more toys then our children now.



    *******
  • Sounds to me like it was more like they had to get the ball, and dump it over the net. I WOULD like to, however, see the 'official' page on it..

  • Here are some pictures, and the full rules (Score:5)

    by jcupitt65 ( 68879 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @02:37AM (#1683018)
    The BBC has a page up about it here [bbc.co.uk].

    There are some pics of the robots, and a little summary of the rules. They also link to mindstorms and the official volleyball page.
  • Sonar-equipped Mindstorms controlled by my Palm V.. Damn, and I just bought a pair of Polaroid cameras for their acoustic rangefinders. Muhaha. I just love the escalation of technology! Now I need some of those compact gas-turbines, and an iPic.
    Why? World domination! I'll sit outside the MS campus while the Mindstorms droid does a seek-and-destroy on ol' Billy.. And the integrated iPicBeowulf will allow the rest of the world to watch!
  • He's one of the guys at Trinity College who worked on this thing. His page is here [cs.tcd.ie]. He mentions Lego Robotics at the bottom, but he has no link to anything. Maybe something will appear there eventually.
  • Then we could have World Series Lego Vollyball and really find out who's better - The Brits or us Colonials.

    Ohh!
    I thought you only had world series with US and maybe Canada. Silly me:)
  • Honestly. Go down to the local pawn shop and buy a few autorange Polaroid cameras (They made a few models. They're the only ones that take AA batteries.) The acoustic rangefinders return a voltage corresponding to the distance (exponential curve, I think.)

  • !! (Score:1)

    by Decesaris ( 66586 )


    Go TCD!!

  • Yes (Score:2)

    by Fastolfe ( 1470 )
    Yes, mirrors reflect IR light. White -> Red blocks also reflect a great deal of IR light, whereas Black -> Green blocks tend to absorb it.
  • What they fail to mention is that the irish robots won by blowing up the english robots with car bombs. The english robots responded with tinny transistor renditions of "croppies lie down," but this only made the irish robots more ferocious. They also failed to mention that the irish robots were powered by alcohol buring motors.
    --Shoeboy
  • There's another article at http://news1.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/sp ecials/sheffield_99/newsid_446000/446106 .stm [bbc.co.uk] which confirms that they did indeed use mindstorm kit.
  • >I thought you only had world series with US and
    >maybe Canada. Silly me:)

    The "World" in "World Series" does not imply "global champion." World was the name of the newpapaer that sponsored the series between the champions of the two leagues (American & National) in order to sell more papers, and slapped it's name on the series. The paper is long gone, but the name remains.

  • Most optical mirrors (normal mirrors) also reflect IR, although ones with IR-absorbing plastic on them would be a problem. Polished copper also reflects IR well.
  • Slightly OT, but...

    For those who wondered how they could build a sonar for the Lego Mindstorm kit... Some of you don't know it, but there's already one included in the basic kit!

    It's simple. The Brick communicates via the infrared port. Which means it sends communications via infrared.

    Now take a look at the light sensor. Wouldn't it be fantastic if it could read in IR? Well; it does! And very well at that. The thing is flooded when you emit directly into the light sensor.

    So you can use a light sensor and the PBrick to act as a sonar, by constantly emitting IR light (via messages to other bricks) and see how it registers on the light sensor.

    "There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."

  • The link in this comment [slashdot.org] mentions that the problem was actually IR interference. No mention whether it was intentional.
  • Polaroid OEM [polaroid-oem.com] also sells the sonar rangefinder modules because they have a number of uses. See the Robotics Sonar FAQ [bu.edu]. I also found a page which describes robotic sonar uses [umd.edu], and another ultrasonic robotics page [rdrop.com].

    There are also other devices which could be used for position sensing, such as wireless joysticks or electronic whiteboard devices.

  • (Sorry, I am slightly brainwashed by /. banners)

    Man, this is kinda offtopic, but has anyone else noticed that 9 of every 10 /. banners these days seem to be the ones the previous poster's alluding to? Sun musta put some serious $$ in Rob's coffers lately. You go, Wesle^H^H^H^H^HRob!

    ----
    We all take pink lemonade for granted.

  • That's called a "proximity sensor" (Score:3)

    by SEWilco ( 27983 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @03:46AM (#1683033) Journal
    That is called a "proximity sensor". Sonar uses sound. Coarsely detecting that something is nearby is a proximity sensor. Using light to measure distances is rangefinding. Using your own light beam to measure distance and direction is lidar. Using light from another source is photography.
  • The comment in the BBC article that implies one of the robots suffered physical damage made me wonder if anybody tried throwing the ball at the other robots as a tactic to intentionally damage them. Might be some problems powering a mechnism to throw a softball if the robots had to be that small. I'm imagining one robot that goes and gathers up the ball (the real problem, anyway), and the other is a catapult.

    And I suppose there were size limits on the robots, too, or else a simple non-moving ramp that covers the entire playing area would pretty much be unbeatable, since they were just having to roll the ball back into the opponents' territory. (Unbeatable without violent tactics, anyway. :-)

  • With the comments about maintaining optical contact for IR communications, it occurs to me that if MindStorms machines could pick up stuff from AirPort, a lot of possibilities open up. Hmmm... radio-control of a home-built LEGO robot via an iBook.... yummy.

  • Sure this is cool now when robots are playing volleyball but just wait until the great mechanical revolution of Y3K when all of mankind are enslaved and made to run on treadmills hooked to generators to produce energy for these evil things they call robots.
  • I participated in the first robot competition at the University of Maryland, College Park [umd.edu]. Our robots were made of Lego and run by a controller board from MIT (the name escapes me at the moment). Our 'bot was working perfectly in the lab. But come the day of the competition - which (important plot point!) was televised on the campus's cable channel - it went into total failure mode.

    We were using a toothed gear wheel on an axle to break an IR beam to measure the distance we moved. Turned out that the lighting for the TV broadcast was blinding the sensor! Didn't figure it out until afterwards, though. B-(

  • Now my plan for world domination can be put into effect! It all hinges on the Y2k Lego Robot volleyball tournament and a HERF gun made entirely of Legos!!! First Lego volleyball, tomorrow LEGO SOCCER (maniacal laughter)!!!!!
  • Paranoia ?
    In 3000, I'm dead so I'don't really care, but what I do care about is that robots can make life easier.
    For example, take that little dog from SONY.
    It just rocks, it is the same as a dog except you don't have to feed it and it does not leave "unwanted things" in your rooms :)
    Go to the SONY website [sony.com]for this cute dog :)


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    http://belgium.hyperbanner.net
  • If you want to find out about all this, just go along to: http://lugnet.com/news/groups/, lots of stuff there. Anyway, to answer two questions I saw:
    • IR reflects off most walls/ceilings apparently, so just point it up and it should bounce around, allowing a "broadcast" effect. I haven't tested this myself so YMMV.
    • You can "kill" a lego bot by sending an "erase firmware" instruction; this is a legitamate op used when downloading new operating systems, eg legOS: http://www.noga.de/legOS/
    I must really go play with mine .....
  • I want to see the pictures!
  • We use Lego Mindstorms here in the school of engineering at Northern Arizona University. They are used to help teach design processes to sophmores. LegoLand comes out as the customer and gives us a project to work on. This semester it is a basketball game with 3 robots. Tim
  • I'm guessing (from my reasonably extensive lego experience) that what happened was that one (or both) of the robots was attempting to communicate with a base PC. If this occured during a download by the other robot, one signal could corrupt the other. In the worst case, this could happen while a new set of instructions (as opposed to an individual instruction) was being dl'd to the bot. This would cause a substantial bit of corruption, and could cause all kinds of fun stuff- like an unintended victory dance (read: spastic and uncontrolled rolling around.)
    ~luge
  • Gee, and I thought I was a baseball fan. Live and learn, I guess... of course, both the NBA and NFL champs call themselves the world champs, even if the game isn't called that...
    ~luge
  • Hmmm... Smart robots made out of legos... I wonder if they programmed them on CRAYs instead of Win98 boxes like the regular kits suggest you do.
  • Every January, we run a similar contest here at MIT - teams of three are given legos and electronics, and have the month to build a robot. It's all really fun, but (as a result) incredibly time-consuming. There are plenty of pictures and the course notes [mit.edu] avaliable on the web for your enjoyment.

    800 people cheering your robot on when it does something violent, intelligent, and completely unplanned makes the work worth it...

  • Greetings from Andrew! The rules page over at TCD is: http://www.cs.tcd.ie/research_groups/cvrg/lego/com p.html No photos on the page as of yet, but it seems a bit early for them to have published such.
  • I have to say I AM a paranoid person but I'm not THAT paranoid....just my failed attempt at humor hehe
  • Sorry but it DON'T find this funny. Terrorist violence is not something to joke about. It gives off the wrong image of Eire.

    Gnubie,
    Dublin,
    Republic of Ireland.

  • Personally, as someone who grew up in Northern Ireland, has seen a car bomb go off, got the crap beaten out of him for living in Chester with an Irish accent when Warrington happened, I still found it funny.

    Different strokes for different folks.

  • "Funny"?
    I'd mark it as flamebait.

    This poster seems to have confused the two parts
    of Ireland, too.
  • Its been a while since I played with Mindstorms (and assuming that is what they used) then there is a shutdown command that is supposed to be sent from the controlling PC. it is possible (again from my feeble analougue memory) for the robot to generate the same signal as well, effectivly shutting down any competition who sees it.

  • Is the pre-cursor to ESPN creating e-games a subdivision to the x-games?
  • Now you hav posted twice, I'm sure Big Brother will track you down and kill you ... :)
    PS : I don't believe in robots taking over the world (I'd like that, hehe) but a little volleyball match is really cool :)

    What do you guys think about that little dog from SONY ? Aiko ? Or how was his name ???


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    http://belgium.hyperbanner.net
  • Take it up !!!


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  • Lamers, they killed a robot :(


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