Moonbots 2012 Results Released

Moonbots 2012 results have been released.

You can find it www.moonbots.org

Congratulations to Grand Prize winner Hungarobots and the runner-ups. There has been a lot of competition and even though we didn't get a prize we are happy to have participated. It was a tough journey and we hoped for a reward but we will try another time.

Currently there are no competitions so we made our own self assigned project. It is making a Robot Missile Launcher. 

• Our robot will find a target which is a bounded horizontal net.
• It will choose an angle and shoot a ball so that it falls into the net.
• The range of the robot depends on the velocity of the ball (experimental)

If you want to know our plans to make this robot, we'll release it this Saturday

Good Luck to all Teams and thanks to Moonbots for this opportunity,, bye.

We are continuing this Blog

Hey guys,

It's been a long time. (My exams are going on)
This post is to inform you that we are continuing this blog after the competition.  Our members like the name and we get great response so Team Atomic Robot shall continue posting it's projects on this site even after the competition.

My next post should be this Saturday ( Exams complete)

Bye

ROBOT DESIGN RELEASED

This post is to inform you that we have released our robot design and pictures in a PDF document under the robots page

TEAM ATOMIC ROBOT COVERED ON HMTV NEWS

This post is to inform you that as a part of our Live outreach we have come live on the HMTV NEWS CHANNEL. We have received amazing response and a lot of questions about the competition.

LIVE OUTREACH IS A PHENOMENAL SUCCESS

This post is to inform you that we have completed uploading the video of our live outreach event. We had a phenomenal success by getting a perfect score and lots of news coverage. Not only that we managed to distribute all our key chains and pamphlets and we still could not give everybody as we performed for about 70 people. We have met many robotic enthusiasts who are going to participate next year. 
We are extremely happy and hopefully we win this competition.

Our news Outreach

We came on a nationwide Newspaper HINDU:

We have also featured on a 

South India Newspaper - Deccan Chronicle 

We also featured in a Local Newspaper EENADU that gave the best coverage of moon bots and our robot.... Its in the local language TELUGU and it is the most famous one. We got a dozen calls regarding this competition and our efforts once this article was released.

Well translating it word to word is tough but the article in the white background describes the competition and the rules while the Yellow and pink background describe what we want to say.

If you can read this and are having problems with just the main word then let me just tell you the tough words meanings....

antharaglayi - the Telugu word for Internet.

We are in the process of releasing a document that explains how we made our robot and our landscape. This article shall always be there in the outreach page.

Good Luck to all the teams that are participating in MOONBOTS.

We've got sponsors

This post is to inform you that we have got sponsors for our participation in the tournament. Something we are very proud of.

Their name is Lead Robotics and it is a recent city based business, that involves children learning the important principles of Physics, Maths and Electronics by playing with different toys. They have even included Lego in parts of their curriculum. 

Their website is THIS. Be sure to check out their gallery if you are interested. 


Why do we need sponsors?

Frankly, I was asking this question myself until yesterday. While we were conducting a test run yesterday, Our robot slipped from the chair, fell down and broke into many pieces. ( Lego Pieces did not break, it just got dismantled). But still we spent lots of time fixing it all up and we learnt a big lesson. So now with the help of our sponsors kit we are planning to make another model of our robot, so that even if our model breaks or the brick malfunctions, we can always use the spare model. Hence we have taken out certain worries from our head.

Overall I think having a sponsor is great and be sure to check out my phase 2 page, Something new has come.

Making The Robot Turn Precisely

I am sure that the biggest problem one faces in programming is turning 90 degrees. We Atomic Robot however have found a solution finally.

IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND THIS METHOD, KNOWLEDGE IN CIRCLE GEOMETRY IS NEEDED

Before we tell you our method, Your robot needs to have the following requirements.

• 2 OR 4 WHEELS MUST BE DRIVEN BY 2 MOTORS. (RACK AND PINION STEERING OR ACKERMANN STEERING MECHANISMS CANNOT USE THIS METHOD.)
• YOUR ROBOT MUST NOT SLIP WHILE IT TURNS.

Finding out whether your robot slips while turning is tough. Usually your eyes don't detect it. 

However we did invent a way to find out whether your robot is slipping or not.

To do that you need to follow a simple experiment. Using Pivot turn method make your robot turn.

The one motor blocks are found in the crossed region. The duration is in degrees and you can keep any random number. I CHOSE 30. 

MOTOR B AND C MUST MOVE IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS. If you tried this program, you will notice that the robot moves in a perfect circles. Such a turn is called a Pivot Turn.

Now put the robot in the landscape and execute the program. Measure the degrees the robot turned.

Again execute the program . Measure the degrees the robot turned again. If the values are approximately equal then your robot is not slipping and you can continue. 

However if the values are not equal then the robot's tires is slipping. In other words the robot's tires is resisting friction and every time the degrees turned by the robot will change.

 AT SUCH A CIRCUMSTANCE YOU WILL HAVE TO CHANGE THE MECHANISM OF THE ROBOT TO A MECHANISM WHICH EXHIBITS LOWER FRICTION OR LESS SLIPPING.

You have already been introduced to the pivot turn as shown above. We will use a pivot turn to make your robot turn exactly 90 DEGREES. First try keeping 90 

degrees in the duration block for each motor. Execute the program.

You may notice that 90 degrees  motor movement does not mean 90 degree rotation of your entire robot. In other words, we need to calculate the number of degrees each motor has to move for the entire robot to move 90 degrees. 

TO DO THIS WE NEED TO KNOW CERTAIN BASIC TERMS.

The diameter of the tire is represented by d.

The distance between the wheels of the robot is represented by b.

The angle you want to turn is represented by Ө

so now Ө = 90 degrees.

The circumference of the tire of the robot is given by the formula= πD 

(Formula for circumference of a circle,π is a constant and is = 22/7)

So the robot in one rotation moves about πD cm. 

B is the diameters of the circle around which the robot moves. so the circumference of the circle is = bπ.  We want to move 90 degrees. So the distance our robot has to move for making a 90 degree turn is 90/360*bπ 

(This is a typical formula to found out the length of quadrants of a circle. It is advised to learn the basics of circle geometry before proceeding.)

IN OTHER WORDS Bπ /4. 

Our robot has to move Bπ /4 length to complete a 90 degree turn. Our robot on the other hand moves Dπ cm for every rotation. So how many rotations will make it move Bπ /4 CM. 

The answer is Bπ /4 DIVIDED BY Dπ 

This will give you the number of rotations. BUT USUALLY THIS VALUE IS TOO SMALL. You may want to convert it to degrees. 

AS 1 rotation= 360 degree, the final formula is

B/4D * 360

The formula for finding the angle of the motors for any degree is 

B/D * Ө

So now we have managed to calculate the number of degrees our motor needs to move for making the robot move any amount of degrees. 

REMEMBER THIS VALUE VARIES FOR EVERY ROBOT AS B AND D ARE DIFFERENT.

To program the robot simply enter this value of degrees in your pivot turn program block. Inverse the direction of each motor for different turning methods.

THIS WEBSITE gives you insight on Programming pivot turn and other turns. Hope it helps. Please refer it if you do not have previous experience in these turns.

The common diameter (D) of NXT wheels is

This wheel has a diameter of 5.65cm

This wheel has a diameter of 7.91 cm

HAPPY PROGRAMMING

THANK YOU