Teams are tasked with building a robot that can autonomously identify the side of the area it's on, navigate to the factory (coal dispenser), collect coal, then dispense coal into buckets mounted on seesaws. The objective is to tip as many seesaws as possible with coal to win the game.
The arena is split into the blue and green sides. No interactions will happen between the opposing teams except for tipping the seesaws. Beacons are placed at the coal dispensers and between the buckets to aid in navigation.
In addition to achieving the required tasks to complete a full game round, the robot must also:
Automatically determine which side of the arena it's on
Electro-mechanically indicate the side of the arena at the beginning of a game
Provide an indication of when a game round in progress that deactivates once time expires
Fit within a 320 mm by 320 mm cube at the beginning, and may expand up to 480 mm by 480 mm in length and width and 570 mm in height after the game starts
Contain at least one PIC32 SPI leader and one PIC32 SPI follower device
Fall within a total budget of $200 per team
Beacon Detection
PIC Destroyer rotates until it detects the beacon and indicates which side it is on with a flag indicator servo.
Line Following
The robot uses 5 tape sensors to stay centered on the line during navigation to the dispenser and buckets.
Coal Collecting
It uses a rack-and-pinion–controlled gripper to pick up coal from the dispenser and deposit it into the robot’s bucket for collection.
Bucket Lowering
PIC Destroyer uses its pusher arm to lower the buckets prior to dispensing coal.
Coal Dispensing
It positions its own bucket above the game bucket and dispenses coal by rotating its bucket floor.
PIC Destroyer begins by rotating out of the starting corner, using signals from the IR sensor and limit switches that detect the walls until the beacon is located. If Beacon L is detected, the robot identifies that it is on the green field and rotates the flag-indicating servo in one direction; if Beacon R is detected, the flag servo rotates in the opposite direction.
The robot then turns toward the line leading to the coal dispenser and follows the line to reach it. At the dispenser, PIC Destroyer collects six pieces of coal using the grabber arm and deposits them into the robot’s bucket, dropping three pieces on each side. It then follows the line to the nearest game bucket and pulls it down using the lever arm. Once the game bucket is lowered as close to the ground as possible, PIC Destroyer positions its own bucket directly above it and releases half of the collected coal by rotating the bucket floor.
Next, PIC Destroyer follows the line to the middle bucket and repeats the process, dispensing the remaining coal. Finally, it follows the lines to the furthest bucket from the dispenser and pulls it to the ground using its lever arm, allowing the PIC Destroyer to win 3 buckets in the allotted game time.