2013 RoboCup Junior in Tasmania
The 2013 programme had regional events scheduled in the North-West, North and South Tasmania, with a State final at the Sir Raymond Ferrall Centre at the University of Tasmania in Launceston. Activities scheduled included Soccer, Dance, Dance Theatre, Rescue and Premier Rescue.
The Tasmanian events were run according to the Australian RoboCup rules which can be see here. In some previous years the Tasmanian robotics organization has produced its own guides which have included modifications to the Australian RoboCup rules. This apparently did not happen this year.
Tasmanian State RoboCup Junior Events
The Tasmanian RoboCup Junior event was held in Launceston on Saturday 30th August, 2013. The events contested were RoboCup Rescue and Premier Rescue, RoboCup Soccer, and RoboCup Dance. The official report will appear here, the following are my own strictly unofficial musings...
There was a large and enthusiastic attendance, with a reported 80 teams competing, most in the "Rescue" category. Trying to keep up with what was going on with the Rescue events, I did not have the time to spend with the Robot Soccer and Dance, but I heard that there was one GEN II soccer team, and three of the larger soccer league. Four robots from two of the latter teams can be seen below.
The aim of the Rescue event is for the Rescue robot to follow the line, and “rescue the victim” by pushing the “victim” (a can) out of a “chemical spill” (the large green area). The Premier Rescue is similar, except that the “victim” has to be lifted up and then placed on “safe high ground” (an orange block of wood). The Rescue had to be completed before the victim became unconscious (a 2 minute limit). The Rescue events were run over four rounds. The Rescue robots ran on one of several identical courses, with the Premier Rescue event run after the Rescue event, using the same course. Points were gained depending on the number of course tiles traversed, plus a bonus if the “victim” is rescued.
The courses are designed to be more difficult with each round. An example of an early Rescue course is shown below.
A Premier Rescue course is shown below.
A Premier Rescue course that used ramps is shown below.
This Premier Rescue courses became more difficult in the Finals. Note how close the ramp is to the curves - this made the course very difficult for longer robots, who jammed against the ramp as they tried to follow the curved guidelines.
It was good to see two Primary Schools entering the difficult Premier Rescue event, including this remarkable two-NXT robot.
I did not manage to get the final scores, but these two results of the preliminary rounds may be of interest (click on the first image to enlarge it). These are the results after the RoboCup Rescue Primary School Division:
and after the Secondary School RoboCup Rescue Preliminaries:
The final results will be made available on this web site.
Australian RoboCup Junior Event Rules.
The Australian RoboCup Junior 2013 rules can be obtained from: Rescue, click here; Dance, click here; Soccer, click here.
www.DrGraeme.net - Tasmanian RoboCup Junior Dance, Soccer and Rescue contacts for 2013 - Note that the information above is my personal opinion only, the official Robotics Tasmania web site is here.