Robots passing a ball between them to advance towards a moving target
Design and construct one of the two devices passing a ball between them to advance towards a slowly moving target.
Two robots (*) advance towards a target, by passing the “ball” between them, with a single “kick”. Touching the “ball” twice in succession by the same player is not allowed. To make the action more meaningful, the robots must be in continuous forward motion with a specified (*) minimum speed, except for possible short interrupts.
The target (*) location can be slowly altered during the course of the chase.
- The “ball” (*) is an A4 sized photocopy paper crushed into a ball.
- The distance between the two robots will not be smaller than 20 cm throughout the chase and both robots and the ball should always be inside a virtual circle of 1 m diameter.
- A “kick” can be classified as a “pass” only if its distance to the “passer” is clearly larger than its distance to the “receiver” at the final position (i.e., it crosses the perpendicular bisector of the line segment joining “passer” and the “receiver”).
- Robots must be completely self-contained with no sensors, cameras etc. outside the robot. Active communication between the robots and use of stand-alone cameras overlooking the field of action is not allowed.
- Robots must broadcast a signal (*) as soon as they make the passing kick.
- The playfield is bare floor, in any color, with no bounding walls or curtains. The game will start with both robots about 2 meters away from the target.
Possible Extra Feature
Automatic turn passing without utilizing the broadcast signal.
(*) Common standards to be satisfied to make cooperation of robots possible, such as means to make robots identifiable by the other, color of the ball, properties of the “target”, etc., are to be decided upon by a joint standards committee, composed of representatives of teams undertaking the project.