Today we held the official, final Mini Sumo autonomous fighting robot competition tournament. It was done in a round robin style with two bots per match with best out of three rounds winning the match. Each robot got a point for winning a match. We gave a Raspberry Pi 3 starter kit to the first place winner and an Arduino starter kit to the second place winner. Everyone had a great time as could be heard by all the cheering and yelling during the matches as the bots came really close to the edge or came back and won after going out of the ring on their own during the first round of a match. We took plenty of pictures and video for you to see how much work went into the robots and how much fun was had pitting the robots against each other. Since the robots do not have remote controls, it was both how the robot was built with its various sensors and motors and the software code that gives the robot its behavior that determines the winner – not just those that can drive their robot a little better. So it’s this fact that makes it really different from most other types of battle robot competitions. They also don’t try to destroy the other robot but just push them out of the ring so it’s one of the more affordable robotics competitions. We were able to pick out parts, laser cut body parts, and 3D print wheels to bring the total kit cost down to $26!
One of the changes suggested for the next kit is a simple push button that would let us turn the robot on then push the button to start the 5 second countdown. This countdown is required to have the players step away from the arena so that the robots do not detect the legs and feet of the people as if it were the other robot.
At the end of the day the prizes were awarded and everyone agreed that we need to have this same class again in just a few months. Contact us if you would like to attend such a class or if you just have ideas to make the class or robot kit better / cheaper / more awesome.
Here’s the full album with pictures and video starting from the very first build day up to the final tournament:
https://goo.gl/photos/BgtxV5UeJVjKgS946