Competitions

This page showcases the different events that the club participates in, or knows about and would like to participate in. The Bot Brawl is CIRC’s main contest that we put on every year, so it warrants a page unto itself. This page is for everything else. There are all sorts of contests going on that the club would like to know about, so if a great contest is not shown here, let the webmaster know about it. The “About Us” page has his contact information.

January Challenge on Sunday 28, 2024

UPDATE: Location changed to Tom’s house in Peoria, IL. If you would like to attend, email president@circpeoria.org.

ORIGINAL: We will be hosting a Challenge on Sunday, January 28th. A Challenge is an informal competition and Build Session all in one. We’ll be competing against each other in an informal manner, working on our bots, and collaborating. One can think of it as a day to build robots and see how well they work. The events we’ll be focusing on this time are Line Follow, Line Maze, Mini Sumo, Cone Stalking, and Drone Racing. Registration is not required. There are no prizes. Anyone is welcome to attend. You can bring a hobby bot or not. Questions are welcomed. We’ll start at 10 AM and stop sometime in the late afternoon. There is no schedule of events. Note: If you have some other bot you want to bring, work on, test, or talk about, then bring it with you. We don’t mind being distracted. If you have questions, contact president@circpeoria.org

SUMMARY: The first Challenge & Build Session went well. We dusted off some of our bots that had not been used in a while, sometimes years, and set to figuring out their needs and capabilities. More than one battery was found to be corroded and all hope those bots are not destroyed. We had some very casual contests and discussed methods to make improvements. In between these Challenges, much building and testing went on with the sharing of expertise.

Line Follow – Mike, Matt and Bruce were able to get their line followers functioning. Bruce had installed faster motors in his Zumo and was able to produce times that were about half of its previous times. This time, about 12 seconds, was close to Matt’s time with his 3pi. Mike’s self made bot was faster than both by about 5 seconds. We didn’t worry about exact times.
Line Maze – Matt’s 3pi was able to solve the Line Maze course in a admirable manner, though we did not time it. The struggle for the bot was finding nodes that were not there. We weren’t sure what was causing this, but guessed that it was seeing lines on the course laying under the mat or was thrown off by ripples in the course surface. After removing perceived problems, the bot completed the course.
Cone Stalker – Matt and Karl were able to get their bots to touch the 3 cones. Both bots were given the way points and moved to the cones following a self derived course that avoided cardboard boxes used as obstacles.
Robomagellan – Davide brought the club Robomagellan bot, Wheel-E, and shared his understanding and plans for the lovable bot. After having it for only a couple of weeks, his model in Gazebo is nearly ready to test the operating system. Karl was able to spend a lot of time with Davide to explain different details of the Wheel-E operating system.

All in all, the Challenge & Build Session was a success.

January 21, 2024 at 12:58 pm | Announcements, Competitions | No comment

Bot Boogaloo 2020 is on Cancelled

Conditions never got right for a contest in 2020.

Below is what we hope to do in 2021.

It will be similar to our past events with only slight modifications. We hope to again have it at Illinois Central College in East Peoria, Illinois, in room 212/213 of the Academic Building. It has worked out well to host it there, so we’ll do it again.

Parking will be available in Lot V. If it is full, Lot C will work well. Note that College Drive is a one way road going counter clockwise around the campus.

The competition will start around 10:00 AM and finish in the early afternoon. People can arrive as early as 8:30 AM. Contestant check in is from 9:00 AM to 9:40 AM. The order of events will be weather dependent. We will have the indoor events when rain is most expected and the RoboMagellan will be held outdoors when rain is least expected. The final decision will be made Saturday morning between the organizers and contestants.

We will accept mail-in entries. If you are mailing in an entry, email me so we can anticipate your robot(s). Bruce at president@circpeoria.org

Registration will be opened once we make a final decision in mid-May. You will be able to register via BuildersDB. Walk ins are welcome Saturday morning during the check in time. Please email me if you plan on entering Saturday morning. It’s not mandatory, but it will help us plan and get better organized. Bruce at president@circpeoria.org

Events

An entry fee of $20 is charged for each robot preregistered, or $30 if not preregistered. Day of the competition walk ins are welcome. Art Bot entrants are not charged. There is no charge for people just watching. It’s only the robots that we charge.

Sumo: Autonomous sumo bots (example video):
Mini Sumo (500 g)
Mega Sumo (3 kg)

Line Course: Autonomous line following bots (example video):
Line Following
Line Maze

Cone Stalking: Autonomous indoor cone touching bots Cone Stalking rules

Art Bot: Something fun and free form that does not require a registration fee. Art Bot rules

RoboMagellan: We’ll use Seattle Robotics Society’s RoboMagellan rules

April 8, 2020 at 8:04 pm | Brawls & Boogaloos, Competitions | No comment

12th Annual UNI Mini-Sumo Smackdown Competition

The organizers of the UNI MiniSumo Smackdown invite you to compete in their mini sumo competition to be held on Friday, April 21, 2017 from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM at the University of Northern Iowa. The unique nature of this contest is that competitors can mail their robot entrants to the organizers and they will assign someone to operate the robot as per the owner’s instructions. Pretty cool, you don’t have to even be there, which is nice on the budget. The only downside is that the owner does not get to see their robot cream the competition. Another upside is that the owner does not get to see their robot get creamed by the competition. I guess it depends on how you look at it. ?

Here is a link to the site with the announcement.

February 21, 2017 at 1:11 pm | Announcements, Competitions | No comment