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Lego robots in volleyball tournament

Posted by Hemos on from the better-then-a-web-lego-bot-by-a-spike dept.

Mike Knell writes "The Irish Times has an article on a robot volleyball tournament held at the British Association Festival of Science in Sheffield yesterday. Teams from five universities took part in the contest to design and produce volleyball-playing robots from off-the-shelf Lego, with the 'droids developed by Trinity College, Dublin emerging as the victors. "

12 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Foiled again! by SirSlud · · Score: 3

    I knew I shouldn't have sold all my lego. I really really wanted to become a world player in the volleyball robot field, but who knew lego would be the way to get me there! Arg!

    Are they going to release this series next year? Town lego, space lego, Tecnique Lego, and Robot Volleyball Lego? Heehee.

    --
    "Old man yells at systemd"
  2. Add a new line to your resume: by messman · · Score: 2
    Lego (TM) Voleyball Technology Guru.

    (Sorry, I am slightly brainwashed by /. banners)

  3. Hmmm. by Signal+11 · · Score: 2
    Sonar - interesting idea. Me and a friend of mine have been toying with various methods of "mapping" an area to determine where the bot is, and other such things. Our idea was to use an infrared "beacon" to determine distance from it, or to start at a known point and work from there based on touch sensors. Obviously sonar has definate advantages over both. I'd be interested in seeing the circuit diagrams and interface for this sonar device.. it sounds intruiguing.

    Any ideas how to interface this with an RCX? It seems incredibly difficult - you would need a specialized i/o port to process that amount of data. Anyway, I'd like to hear from you guys...

    --

    1. Re:Hmmm. by SEWilco · · Score: 2
      Polaroid OEM also sells the sonar rangefinder modules because they have a number of uses. See the Robotics Sonar FAQ. I also found a page which describes robotic sonar uses, and another ultrasonic robotics page.

      There are also other devices which could be used for position sensing, such as wireless joysticks or electronic whiteboard devices.

  4. Re:Infowar... by Tower · · Score: 2

    Yeah - my space Legos have had EMP capabilities since as long as I can remember - I just didn't have the power! My lego army is preparing to take over the world... one square centimeter at a time...

    >The NSA'll be wanting to recruit them!!
    NSA Legos - No Such Android...

    --
    "It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
  5. Here are some pictures, and the full rules by jcupitt65 · · Score: 5

    The BBC has a page up about it here.

    There are some pics of the robots, and a little summary of the rules. They also link to mindstorms and the official volleyball page.

  6. Dr. Gerard Lacey by volsung · · Score: 2

    He's one of the guys at Trinity College who worked on this thing. His page is here. He mentions Lego Robotics at the bottom, but he has no link to anything. Maybe something will appear there eventually.

  7. Yes by Fastolfe · · Score: 2

    Yes, mirrors reflect IR light. White -> Red blocks also reflect a great deal of IR light, whereas Black -> Green blocks tend to absorb it.

  8. Re:Does anybody know... by SEWilco · · Score: 2

    Most optical mirrors (normal mirrors) also reflect IR, although ones with IR-absorbing plastic on them would be a problem. Polished copper also reflects IR well.

  9. A sonar? You got that with the basic kit by Enoch+Root · · Score: 2
    Slightly OT, but...

    For those who wondered how they could build a sonar for the Lego Mindstorm kit... Some of you don't know it, but there's already one included in the basic kit!

    It's simple. The Brick communicates via the infrared port. Which means it sends communications via infrared.

    Now take a look at the light sensor. Wouldn't it be fantastic if it could read in IR? Well; it does! And very well at that. The thing is flooded when you emit directly into the light sensor.

    So you can use a light sensor and the PBrick to act as a sonar, by constantly emitting IR light (via messages to other bricks) and see how it registers on the light sensor.

    "There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."

  10. Re:Infowar... by SEWilco · · Score: 2

    The link in this comment mentions that the problem was actually IR interference. No mention whether it was intentional.

  11. That's called a "proximity sensor" by SEWilco · · Score: 3

    That is called a "proximity sensor". Sonar uses sound. Coarsely detecting that something is nearby is a proximity sensor. Using light to measure distances is rangefinding. Using your own light beam to measure distance and direction is lidar. Using light from another source is photography.