Following on from the Robocup Junior Western Australian State Competition 2020 article I wanted to share with you some videos of the robots I have been working on.
As an adult I cannot compete in the Robocup Junior competition, but there is nothing stopping me enjoying working/playing with Lego Mindstorms robots and coding something that has a presence in the physical world. Continue reading
As you may know I am on the Western Australian Committee for Robocup Junior Australia. This year the WA State Competition, along with most of the other state competitions and the national competition, were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As Western Australia was in a good position with no community transmission, it was decided to hold a delayed WA State Competition in November instead of the usual August.
OK, I admit it…. I am a geek. I love gadgets and technology especially when they are fun to play with. I always have, even before I played with my neighbour’s Sinclair ZX-80 computer when I still lived in the UK. I think the first real gadgets for me were Lego.
I would say it started back in 1977 (4 years before my family moved to Perth, Australia) when I bought one of the first Technical Lego sets ever released, the Lego 850 Fork Lift Truck. I still have this set and the associated Lego 870 Power Pack which could be used to add a motor.
So how did a lifetime love of Lego get me into Robotics?
Just when I thought I had finished the series of articles explaining the techniques need to complete the Robocup Junior Australia Line Rescue Challenge, I realised that there were some additional considerations and advice that will help take your robots to the next level.
The idea of this article is not to provide solutions, but to make teams aware of issues and problems they make encounter, so they can make their hardware and software more robust and capable.
Good Luck.
The previous article in this series covered how to find the victim in the rescue zone for the Robocup Junior Australia Line Rescue challenge:
This article covers the steps needed to complete the rescue depending on the division you are competing in; Primary, Secondary or Open.
This is almost the final article explaining the techniques to handle the challenges your robot will face during the line rescue division of Robocup Junior Australia competition.
Your robot should now be able to navigate all the way through the course following the line and handling intersections and obstacles in its path. The final part of the challenge is the rescue and this article discusses the first part of the rescue process…. finding the victim.
Keeping the momentum going, here is the next article in this series to help you prepare of the Robocup Junior Australia competition.
Your robot should now be able to line follow and navigate intersection markers successfully, so the next task is to make sure it can handle obstacles (previously known as the water tower) that might be placed in front of it. This challenge can be a little tricky as the robot will need to leave the line and then find the line again to continue line following.
The Robocup Junior WA State Competition for 2019 is just around the corner, so I thought I would get back to writing some more of the blogs in this series.
So far we have concentrated on building and programming of a Line Following Robot, but we have not discussed the handling of intersections or shortcuts. These are the green squares which indicate the direction a robot should turn when it reaches an intersection.
It has been a while since I wrote an article for my robotics portal, so I thought I would write about a topic I have been mentoring a student recently.
This concept for this article is how to create a line following robot that is self calibrating. When a robot is self calibrating, the requirement for taking light readings and updating the code when changing venues or light conditions change is avoided.
On the 15th March 2018, the Robocup Junior WA Committee ran a Rescue Line Workshop at All Saints’ College.
The workshop was a great success with a large turnout who enjoyed the session and learnt the basics of building a robot (both hardware and software) for the Robocup Junior Australia Rescue Line challenge.
[Edit] While the video was recorded in 2018, all the materials in the shared folders linked to are being kept up to date.
Great news today, Reinhard Grafl has released EV3 Basic 1.2.
This update adds some new functionality and also fixes some known issues. It also brings the numbering in line with the Small Basic versions.
Continuing my series about robotics and using non Lego devices with EV3 Basic, here is an article which demonstrates how to use a camera and heat sensor.
The Robocup Junior Australia competition has introduced a new Rescue division this year (2017) for a Maze rescue. The Maze rescue challenge is much closer to a real life example of a how a rescue robot can save lives.
Maze rescue does not involve any line following, as real buildings don’t have lines on the ground marking paths to follow. The robot must navigate a building, represented by a maze, by identifying walls and working its way around the maze. It needs to explore every corridor and room to locate victims wearing Hi-Vis vests (represented by bright colours on the walls) and identify whether a victim is alive or dead (by looking for a heat source).
This seventh article covers using the Mindsensors IR Temperature Sensor for EV3 or NXT and Charmed Labs PixyCam (CMUcam5) for Lego with the EV3 Basic extensions for Microsoft Small Basic.
As discussed before, I am continuing to mentor for the All Saints’ College Robotics club, even though both my sons are now at university. I am also the Rescue Advisor on the Robocup Junior West Australian Committee for 2017.
Having a hobby that allows me to play with Lego and write software that actually does something physical in the real world is awesome. I would recommend purchasing a Lego Mindstorms EV3 set for any boy or girl that wants to learn to code while having lots of fun.
This sixth article covers using the Mindsensors Multiplexer for NXT/EV3 Motors with the EV3 Basic extensions for Microsoft Small Basic.
Previously on this blog, I have mentioned that I mentor for the All Saints’ College Robotics club and volunteer on the Robocup Junior West Australian Committee.
Combining my childhood love of Lego with my career as a software developer has provided me with an exciting, fun filled hobby. Using my knowledge to mentor primary and secondary school students and help them find a love of robotics and software development is extremely fulfilling and a driving force behind why I do what I do.
This fifth article covers using the Mindsensors EV3 Sensor Multiplexer with the EV3 Basic extensions for Microsoft Small Basic.
This fourth article covers a really cool trick for working with the EV3 colour sensor. It resolves a couple of issues that I discovered when I first started working with Lego Mindstorms EV3.
The Robocup Junior Australia Rescue competition uses tiles to create the line following course. The starting point for the tiles is the Robocup Junior Rescue Field mat from Modern Teaching Aids which can be used whole or cut into 15 tiles.
This is my third article in a series on robot design and programming techniques. In this article I will be discussing how to design a line following robot including the positioning of the sensors.
Disclaimer: This article will use Robocup Junior Australia‘s Rescue (Line) Challenge with a Lego Mindstorms based robot as an example.
Here is my second article in a series on robot design and programming techniques. In this article I will be discussing how to make a robot follow a line with two sensors. I will be discussing some of the different methods and explain the pros and cons of each.
Disclaimer: This article will use Robocup Junior Australia‘s Rescue (Line) Challenge with a Lego Mindstorms based robot as an example.
Welcome to my first article in a series on robot design and programming techniques. I thought I would start with an article discussing how to make a robot follow a line with a single sensor. I will be discussing some of the different methods and explain the pros and cons of each.
Disclaimer: This article will use Robocup Junior Australia‘s Rescue (Line) Challenge with a Lego Mindstorms based robot as an example.
I am pleased to announce the creation of the Robotics Portal on the Winthrop Development Consultants blog site.
As I publish more articles related to robotics and development using the EV3 Basic extensions to Microsoft Small Basic, I thought it would be useful to gather everything together into a portal.
The third and final reason for the slow down in blog articles over the last couple of months has been my volunteer work for Robotics.
You might remember that when my two son’s were still at school, I started mentoring for the All Saints’ College Robotics Club which runs as an extracurricular activity on Friday afternoons.
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