DPRG mailing list archives: [DPRG] Feedback on Fall Robotic Contest

Mon Jun 11 14:00:39 CDT 2007

Sounds like a good start Doug, I hope your students will do well. If using the BOEbots you are planning to order, they should be ready for some competition in November as a part of a fall semester. After the initial assembly and programming, simple functions detailed in some of the manuals might be incorporated in simple contests at your classroom, witha specific task in mind. One might be as has been done at the meetings, having each student program the device to drive a distance, perhaps to a point, or drive and come back as a next step. BOEbots can do fairly well in line following events, with the appropriate sensors. Many suggestions can be had by posting the questions to the DPRG list, by making sure that dprglist at dprg.org is either in the To: or CC: field. Replies typically go only back to sender, so a Reply To All should get all email addresses where they need to be. 

-robodave

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Benton, Douglas 
  To: David Peterson 
  Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 11:41 AM
  Subject: RE: [DPRG] Feedback on Fall Robotic Contest

  Dave, thanks for the reply....this is helpful.

  This past year, our school made their first showing at FIRST.  I would have joined in that effort, but I won a free trip to Iraq for the winter....call me lucky, if you will.  In getting ready for this fall's classes, I submitted purchase requests for 10 BOE-Bot kits.  I would like to join a competition with the kits in early May (ideally)....this would be a good motivator for the kids.  At this point, since I have very little knowledge of robotics myself, I'm looking for "outside" structure that would shore up my lack of experience.

  Any help to be found naturally (conveniently) within the DPRG environment would be most appreciative.

  Again, Dave, thanks for your time.

  Doug

  PS--I do not know how to post this email to the forum

  Doug Benton
  Pre-Engineering Instructor
  Tulsa Technology Center,
    Riverside Campus
  918-828-4154 (Office)
  918-828-4090 (Admin)
  918-828-4219 (Fax)
  Douglas.Benton at tulsatech.org

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  From: David Peterson [mailto:robodave1 at tx.rr.com] 
  Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 11:31 AM
  To: Benton, Douglas
  Subject: Re: [DPRG] Feedback on Fall Robotic Contest

  Hi Doug,

  It appears a schedule has not been made this year. What has been done so far is small competitions occuring at each meeting time ( usually posted in email messages ) consisting of simple tasks for a robot ( traveling to a point, traveling 10 feet, traveling 10 feet and returning ). I know this does not allow for easy planning for your students, but perhaps a more formal contest will be put together for later on that can be more easily scheduled for.  

  The calender linked on the DPRG website, http://www.dprg.org/calendar.html  usually has the dates for meetings and any events that have been scheduled.  There was a posting a few weeks ago of the summer BBQ get-together at a members house on July 14th ( which usually has a few robot demos ) but other major events had not been scheduled as of yet. Hopefully there will be some sort of Roborama finalized for this fall, and it will allow you time to prepare your students. The club officers linked from the DPRG page http://www.dprg.org/officers.html would be more likely to know what they are estimating for a contest time and type. David Ellis is an officer who had posed the inquiry for contest interest, so perhaps he and the other officers would be more helpful about specifics. 

  Many types of robots have competed successfully in contests, from quickly put together kits like Lego Mindstorms/NXT, Parallax BOEbots, even OWI kits, to elegantly crafted home built robots. Some previous information can be seen from the competition link from the DPRG website, regarding previous contest rules and results. There are a number of pictures available of the contests too, in the gallery link from the DPRG website. These could give a better idea of what types of contests can be done, and the robots that run in them. I'd even seen recently of a Belgium competition that made use of the DPRG contest rules information on the website, to put together a pretty good contest of their own :
  http://wiki.robotmc.org/index.php?title=05/05/2007_Roborama_Belgi%C3%AB_Videos
  Hope this helps, 

  -robodave

  PS: Please feel free to copy this back to the email list dprglist at dprg.org if you'd like more replies. I had not copied it back as your reply appeared only addressed to me.
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Benton, Douglas 
    To: David Peterson 
    Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 8:01 AM
    Subject: RE: [DPRG] Feedback on Fall Robotic Contest

    David, I'm a teacher in Tulsa and I've been following (loosely) the discussions.

    I am interested in getting more robotics incorporated into my classroom activities and I feel the need for outside competition to motivate my students.

    On the DPRG website, I failed to notice an annual schedule of competitions.  As a teacher, I need some type of annual schedule so I can set some goals.  Do you have a schedule or summary of your yearly competitions that I could use as a guide?

    Thanks for any help you can give.

    Doug

    Doug Benton
    Pre-Engineering Instructor
    Tulsa Technology Center,
      Riverside Campus
    918-828-4154 (Office)
    918-828-4090 (Admin)
    918-828-4219 (Fax)
    Douglas.Benton at tulsatech.org

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    From: dprglist-bounces at dprg.org [mailto:dprglist-bounces at dprg.org] On Behalf Of David Peterson
    Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2007 10:16 PM
    To: ellis76016
    Cc: DPRG
    Subject: Re: [DPRG] Feedback on Fall Robotic Contest

    Hi David,

    My thoughts are that it would be good to have some of the standard Roborama contests, Line Following, T-Time, and Can-Can. Quick Trip I'd like to see turned into a head to head event, 2 robots racing to the end and back. I'd also love to have a Minisumo tournament included, perhaps based on double elimination. In addition, it would be great to see a RoboDemo, or Show-n-Tell, or what have you, simply a 5-10 minute demo of whatever your robot can do with award determined by applause or some such.  The timing of the event seems ok, though can't recall what the weather may be like in November, perhaps October would be better? Either month might allow for some student robots if any high schools or university teams would like to enter. That's about it. 

    -robodave

      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: ellis76016 
      To: dprglist at dprg.org 
      Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2007 6:09 PM
      Subject: [DPRG] Feedback on Fall Robotic Contest

      DPRG,

      One of the main topics in today's meeting was a contest this fall.  The main issue was to get the contest advertised. To do so the contest date, type and location need to be set in the next two weeks.  It was  decided to put the following idea out on the list for a couple of weeks and get some feedback.  It was suggested that the contest could be in place of the November DPRG meeting on  the  10th at the Museum of Nature & Science (formerly the Science Place) and the contest would be a standard Roborama.    Of course this is all contingent on getting a contest coordinator.

      Thoughts?

      David Ellis  

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

      _______________________________________________
      DPRGlist mailing list
      DPRGlist at dprg.org
      http://list.dprg.org/mailman/listinfo/dprglist

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

      No virus found in this incoming message.
      Checked by AVG Free Edition. 
      Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.8.13/841 - Release Date: 6/9/2007 8:52 AM

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    No virus found in this incoming message.
    Checked by AVG Free Edition. 
    Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.8.13/843 - Release Date: 6/10/2007 1:39 PM

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  No virus found in this incoming message.
  Checked by AVG Free Edition. 
  Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.8.13/843 - Release Date: 6/10/2007 1:39 PM
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.dprg.org/pipermail/dprglist/attachments/20070611/d522c6cf/attachment-0001.html