#sumorobot

This blog is made to describe each of the materials, steps and results of a project made for the school subject of robotics.

Objective:

Creating a robot sumo team made with materials easy to acquire at home and electronics stores. As well as its participation in a small sumo fight against competition from classmates robot. This, following the rules of the mini-sumo fights that generally dictate that the robot sumo (autonomous) must push his opponent robot until it is out of the ring and thus lose the set.

Materials:

-H-bridge -2 Tupperware (as chassis) -Arduino UNO -2 Line sensors (infrared) -Ultrasonic sensor -Gearmotors -9 Volts battery -Motor -Tape Isolate (to unite all) -stranded wire -Wheels -Mini-Breadboard

Procedure:

1.Generate a basic idea of the project.

One should think with the help of its team of an objective for the project, the platform you want to use, the programming language that you plan to use and therefore, the materials needed to perform it, and the role of each of them within the project.

We decided to use Arduino as software and hardware platform, which is based on C, because we had already some of the materials (including sensors and Arduino UNO) also, it is one of the easiest platforms to use for beginners and it is convenient due to its capability of accepting different kind of libraries in the same project. Due to this, Arduino is one of the most famous platforms used for school projects.

2. Get the necessary parts

Once you have created the basic idea, its time to look for the parts needed to build your sumo-robot. Think smart. Think in the cheapest and easiest way to do your project. As well as to look with your classmates if someone has already some parts that could be used in the project and collect money from all of them to buy all the stuff that is left.

3. Assemble the mini-sumo robot

In our specific case, we pierced the sides of the tupperware so the wheels could go out of it. We assembled the electronics by getting everything wired using a mini breadboard and Arduino. The pins we used in the Arduino would be the ones that we will use in the code. We also installed, with the help of the isolate tape, the sensors, motors and battery inside the tupperware (some cables of the mini breadboard were out of it but that didn’t affect anything at all).  4. Add code

As we had said before, we used Arduino, which is base in C in order to create the software of our robot. The main objective of the code for the mini-sumo is to look for the other robot inside the ring and try to push it until this one gets out of the ring. The robot should not pass over the white lines that surround the black ring surface. So, in order to achieve this we had to program a code in which our sumo-robot would look for the other one and if the robot sees something in front of it, it should go straight forward in order to push the enemy. It should look for the enemy robot without getting out of the ring and with the help of the sensors, if the robot sees a white line, it should go backwards and keep looking for the enemy robot. If our robot is being pushed by the other one, our robot should avoid it and try to escape from the trap in order to look for another angle to push the enemy robot.

In the next note we will post our code.

5. Turn on

Try your mini-sumo robot several times using any object as an enemy robot in order to look if there are any mistakes either on your code or in the electronics and correct them.

In co-operation with Estonian IT College, Tech Sisters is organizing a sumo robot programming workshop for girls. We start from the very beginning and no previous programming experience is necessary. The workshop ends with a small competition. The workshop is targeted mainly for students from 9th to 12th grade, but we accept also younger girls and university students. The workshop takes place on 24th of November at 10:00 during Robotex in TUT Sports Hall (Männiliiva 7). Workshop is in Estonian and free of charge, but we have room for only 16 people so registration is necessary. You do it here. Hurry, before the places get filled! There are more robot programming workshops for total beginners during Robotex, which you can check out here.