We've held our first Raspbuggy Robotics programming competition at the CERN IdeaSquare innovation space, with great success and invaluable support from the IdeaSquare team and the CERN Micro Club.
What do you get when you gather fifteen enthusiastic engineers and physicists and give them a very fun Robotics challenge to complete ?
The three teams (15 participants in total) were handed :
- a LegoMindstorm NXT robot (complete with proximity sensor, reflectivity sensor and a motorised non-permanent marker)
- a Raspberry Pi pre-loaded with the Raspbuggy environment
- and a USB battery pack.
Their task ? Reproduce a given black and white 8 x 8 pattern on a piece of paper, then successfully exit a maze in the shortest amount of time possible. Under ten minutes, and with only two attempts at their disposal to score the highest.
How did they fare ? Hum, as you can tell from the following videos, with mixed results, with certain very interesting strategies (we're grateful we used non-permanent markers, because that floor got stabbed quite a few times).
The Raspbuggy platform fulfilled its duties quite well, without any bugs reported and only one incident involving a NXT Mindstorm block entering a furious loop during one of the test trials (cause still undetermined, but most likely the Raspberry Pi's USB power bank running out of juice, leaving the Mindstorm NXT block hanging).
From here on, we need to consolidate the hardware platform sans Lego Mindstorms and organise... well.. another competition at CERN !
James explaining the challenge.
A maze to be navigated.
Some hard logic at play...
The NXT Raspbuggy in action.
Our winning entry !
Thanks to everyone for your participation in the challenge, and we hope to see you again at the CERN Webfest end of July !