Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!sgiblab!spool.mu.edu!agate!tcsi.tcs.com!iat.holonet.net!bsmall
From: bsmall@iat.holonet.net (Brad Smallridge)
Subject: San Francisco Competition Results
Message-ID: <CDn13A.EyB@iat.holonet.net>
Organization: HoloNet National Internet Access System: 510-704-1058/modem
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 05:40:20 GMT
Lines: 115

Before I ramble into my own thoughts about the 1993 San
Francisco Robot Competition and Exhibition, let me annouce
the robot winners and their creators:

The Maze Event 
First Place   - Louie     -  Mike Saari
Second Place  - Ody       -  Gerry Labonville
Third Place   - Superhero -  Daniel Lehrbaum and Marc Cuevas

Rope Climbing
First Place   - Topper    -  Gerry Labonville
Second Place  - Harold    -  Mark Medonis
Third Place   - no entrant

Potato Peeling
First Place   - Spud      -  Gerry Labonville
Second Place  - Roberta   -  Deb Shaw
Third Place   - Spaz      -  Mark Medonis

Best Song and Dance - Superhero - Daniel Lehrbaum and Mark Cuevas
Youngest Entrant - Daniel Lehrbaum and Mark Cuevas

There they are. It seems this year that the prizes and trophies
were divided among a fewer, but fiercer, number of competitors.

The fiercest must have been Gerry. His helium balloon rope climber
definetely pushed the judges leniency, however, balloons were not
disqualified in the rules, and the balloon rose to the occasion. Not only
did it go up, but, cleverly the balloon was leaking helium all the way
up and after a few seconds at the top, would leak enough to come down.
Ballons will be out next year, Gerry, what will you come up with next?

The more traditional approach was taken by Mark Medonis who made a
friction type rope climber out of lego parts. There was a switch and 
a small circuit to reverse direction of the motor drive when the device 
reached the red disk at the top. Using sand paper to increase the friction
was one of his techniques.

Jerry Burton, president of the Robotics Society of Southern California,
stated to me how he felt that rope climbing had no practical application 
to home robotics. I agree. But most robotics clubs are overwhelmed by 
computer experts, and I thought the rope climbing event would bring 
mechanically oriented people into the competition. It's an easy event to
set up and if you have a high ceiling or an outdoor event, it makes a
spectacular show.

Now, on to the potato peeling event. Gerry built an impressive lathe type
device with an electric drill. A rope around the drill bit somehow moved
the peeler blade. It was a big mess. But he successfully deskined more than
half the spud. Deb Shaw's Roberta was an Armatron that assaulted the 
defensless potato speared again by an electric drill. And Mark Madonis
produced a microscopic peel with an improvised hand-over-hand rope climiber.
Hopefully, potato peeling will produce some more sophisticated arms in the
upcoming years.

The bigger maze proved to be a challenge. Mike Saari's Louie succesfully
navigated the maze autonomously and the scoring was set up so that the
autonomous machines were scored high. This was an impressive showing 
given the more than double complexity of the maze this year.
Not to say that manual machines were excluded. On the contrary, Gerry's
Ody whipped through the maze in less than 10 seconds.

A little confussion was created as Daniel Lehrbaum and Marc Cuevas machine
Superhero navigated by sonar but had a map of pre-programmed turns. Is this
a dead-reckoner or autonomous machine? On the one hand it has pre-programmed 
knowledge of the course like a dead-reckoner and on the other hand it was
sensing the end of the straight paths with sonar like an autonomous machine.
The judges decided to score it half way between autonomous and dead-reckoner.

For those of you that were not there, the maze was a 4 by 4 cells with
alleys appoximately three feet wide. Extra points were earned by pushing 
a soda can out of the maze and by  plugging into the wall outlet.
The layout was like this:

      IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
      I                             I        I
      I                             I        I
      I                             I        I
      I         IIIIIIIIIII         IIIIIIIIII  
      I         I         I         I         
      I         I         I         I           exit
      I         I         I         I         
      I         IIIIIIIIIII         I         
      I         I                            I
      I         I                            I
      I         I                            I
      I         I                            I
      I         I                   IIIIIIIIII
      I  start  I            can    I        I
      I         I                   I-plug   I
      I         I                   I        I
      IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII


The maze proved too difficult for Don Golding's Whiskers. Operating on
its instinct level alone, the machine would be nearly out the door, 
when it would make a wrong turn back toward the center of the maze.
The little guy repeated the same wrong turn over and over again with
amazing accuracy until its time ran out. According to Don, a higher 
level behavior program could have corrected the problem.

All in all the competition was smaller but more interesting.
Radio talk show host Dr. Moira Gunn enlightened the crowds by
interviewing the contestants just before competing. Norman Maxwell, 
Mike Saari, Daniel Lehrbaum, Mark Cuevas, and our score keeper, Rodger
Liles made stellar sound bites to the CNN camera crew which aired for 
about 1 minute on Sunday night as part of a review of the Exploratorium's
Tinkerers Weekend. Enthusiasm was high and I've had several request to do 
another event sooner than next year. We'll see.

Brad Smallridge
Director SFRSA
Phone 415-550-0588
Email bsmall@holonet.net

