We are happy to announce that mini-competition are back. We are beginning with these 2 first event that are very popular at the robot games. Completions will happen on Saturday Mornings, at the Aerospace museum of Calgary.

August 28 – Mini-Sumo: beginner to master.

September25- Full size sumo – autonomous and  remote controlled.

Other competitions will be Announced and schedule later for October and so on.

Mini competitions are the  perfect opportunity to get started in robotic competition. So you can test your robot and settings to improve your level for the annual Robot Games.

-Competitors: Fees for the mini-sumo will be around 5$. please refer to WCRG 2010 rule book. Confirming your presence in advance would be appreciate, by emailing to:  info@mail.robotgames.com

http://www.festo.com/cms/de_de/5890.htm

In Google translated German:

Air is the element of AirJelly. The remote does not swim through water jellyfish AirJelly as AquaJelly, but literally glides through its central electric drive and an intelligent adaptive mechanism by the sea air. For AirJelly consists of a helium-filled ballonet.

As the only energy source used AirJelly two lithium-ion polymer batteries to which the central electric drive is connected. This transfers the force to a bevel gear and then successively to eight spur gears, which move about cranking the eight tentacles of the jellyfish. Each tentacle is as a structure with Fin Ray Effect® trained. The drive of a balloon by means of peristaltic motion is currently not in the history of aviation. AirJelly is the first indoor flying object with peristaltic drive. The jellyfish moves through this new drive concept based on the reaction principle of their propulsion, gently through the air.

There’s also an AirRay – a mechanical manta ray

From Facebook, via Wowee

And how true it is.

http://blog.beetlebum.de/2010/03/08/arduino/

I got this email recently, and I thought I would share it verbatim, as I don’t think I could capture his passion.

In recognition of the 20th anniversary of BEAM,  I will be announcing a new contest that will be sponsored in part by G-Prime.   No spoilers yet, however.  Read below and get tinkering though – news forthcoming!

Hello Mark,

Thank you for your reply. Sorry I haven’t been able to get back to you quickly, work has been taking up all my time lately. Anyway I thought I’d send you a few pictures of some bots I built with recycled materials and components. The first bot I ever built probably has the most recycled parts on it probably because I was a student at the time .

You can check out some pics on flickr and post them on your blog if you’d like.

You can also check out some of my youtube vids as well, if you want to see my Rocket pummer and Shadow guide robot in action (2 separate videos) .

Recently my colleague and friend, Chris, has started up a not-for-profit group (called United Greenworks) that recycles old consumer electronics and other materials. The main goal of the group is to reduce the amount of re-usable electronic/mechanical components & other building materials that are filling up our landfills or that are going to foreign countries as e-waste. The group has been very successful in Grande Prairie on a small scale thus far and as a result Chris (who is also a robot builder) and I (and others) have been salvaging an abundance of very useful motors, chips, solenoids, wires, connectors, sensors, power supplies and switches out of old PC’s, printers, audio equipment, and Photocopiers. Photocopiers are the holy grail for us robot guys, just one has everything you need to make a bunch of bots for years to come. We have 6 photocopiers coming to us and it seems like just the beginning.

Chris and I are both passionate about the environment, electronics, and building robots and would love to show people and share with people how to reuse old electronics for new projects such as robotics. We would also like to share some of the free parts we are accumulating with other robot enthusiasts. I myself am a big fan of BEAM bots and the whole junkbot/solar concept and would love to see a category at the Western Canadian Robot Games that incorporated this area of robotics.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration Mark! Oh and thanks for the Sparkfun Freeday post, it’s nice to see others frequent that blog, Chris and I aren’t the only ones.

Regards,

Jeremie (aka skater_j10)

Good little video, courtesy of Trossen.

http://bit.ly/7BPVkW

This video demonstrates learning by example in an artificial neural network that controls the motion of a mobile robot. The robot uses four sonar sensors and three IR sensors to detect the ranges to nearby objects. A wireless controller is used to initially remote control the robot past some test objects while the robot records the sensor readings and motor control signals. This data is then used to train a 2×7 artificial neural network (2 motors and 7 sensors). Once the network is trained, it is used to control the robot without intervention from the operator.

Last Saturday we had a special edition of our weekly meet up. We asked our members to bring some of their robotic creations, and that was totally awesome. I’m proud to say that WCRS we have skilled and creative robot builders.  We are looking forward to challenge our robot builders in our next annual RobotGames .

Thanks everyone who made the show and tell event a success.

Botone, Created by Terry, was driving around nicely, using an Arduino, a ping sensor & 3 servos

A robotbuilder proundly showing an autonomus roverbot that he built and programmed

A new locally made product, from G-Prime, a very handy power supply board for robots,

Mini-sumo wrestlers upgraded with a laser cut sheet metal chassis kit

An arduino powered rover, built around an acrylic chassis

Kids are so quick learners, and Lego Minstorm is perfect to get started

Dave is telling how his BEAM walker robot is working

there was a lot of action and projects of all kinds on display

A science fiction festival,  a robotic society… lets put them together and there we go.

And so we did last Saturday, by offering a demonstration for the public of Con-Version25.  We put our robots in motion, explaining-  how they behave, what is their duty, how they are built.

To promote the Robot Games 2010,  we had a mini sumo wrestling fight and  Micro-tanks mine sweeper driving around in the crowd . We Also had a member’s new creation, a mini replica of Johny 5, from the movie Short Circuit.

We also introduced our new RS Media, from WowWee. He is a humanoid type of robot, with walking capablities and other features like multi media and customizable routines.

It was a very good experience  and we are looking forward to Con-version26

RS Media humanoid type robot.

Mini sumo on the wrestling ring

Mini sumos escaping from the ring to meet people

Hi Everyone,

I am very pleased to announce that June 27, 2009 the WCRS will be holding a mini sumo matchup.

Sponsored by Solarbotics, we have a grand prize of a Sumovore Mini Sumo Kit to give away.

To register for the event, please send an email to president@robotgames.com no later than June 26, 2009.  If you do not register in advance, we cannot guarantee your ability to compete.

Please note that the spirit of this competition is to have fun, so tell your family and friends, and let’s all make it a great day!

We will be holding the games at the Calgary Aerospace Museum.  (Map)  Event will start at 10:30am sharp
There is no charge for registration for this event, however we would like to encourage people to purchase a yearly membership to the Aerospace Museum.  You will also receive membership to the WCRS included as an added benefit.

Good luck to all competitors, and any WCRS members that would like to volunteer for judging- please email me directly.

Mark Martens
President, 2009
WCRS

Hey Guys!

Videos of the 2009 Western Canadian Robot Games have been posted.

The page might take a bit to load, so be patient with it.

http://www.robotgames.com/2009-robot-games/videos/