Tour the Stairs 2014
new contest for indoor autonomous robots
Do you want some indoor challenge in the time before Christmas? Can your robot climb the stairs? If yes then you already completed the first step towards participation in our new competition Tour the Stairs! It is going to be part of European Robotics Week in Prague by the end of November. UPDATE: 13/1 — Official video
We have decided to organize a new robotics competition with Christian (the main
organizer of robotics festival, part of European week of robotics — see
cafe-neu-romance.com). After several changes
won the name Tour the Stairs. The time and place is well defined (even for
the far future — 48th week). This year it is on 26th-29th November 2014,
Gallery NTK in Prague. We expect that the contest will evolve as long as you,
robotics, will be interested. The long term motivation is „food and drink
service robots”, which can offer food and drink in the Galery or other places
(restaurants, hospitals, houses for elderly people, etc.). The Gallery has two
floors connected with two different stairways and that will be the challenge we
start with in 2014.
Rules overview
The task for this year is relatively easy — climb the stairs. Well, it is not that
trivial, because the robot has to be autonomous and there are two kinds of
stairway: straight and spiral. The contest will take place in turns on both
stairways (yeah, the Gallery visitors have to have some way to go up and down),
and the robot finishing on higher step wins. Note, that speed is not important
(there is 3 minutes time limit)
It was already mentioned that the contest will take place in Prague, Gallery
NTK in Dejvice, where you can come during the year. You can train there during
the festival (Wednesday to Friday, the contest will take place on Saturday).
There are standard restrictions for the robot: it must not be dangerous for the
people and the Gallery environment. It has to have big red emergency STOP.
Moreover the width is limited by 50cm (so two robots may fit on straight
stairway in the future) and length is limited by 1m.
Extra note, that the robot has to touch every step, i.e. it is not allowed to
jump several steps, for example.
Stairway (rough measures)
Straight
- step height 16cm
- step length 30cm
- step width 111cm
- length of landing 93cm
- number of steps 5+16
Spiral
- step height 16cm
- length of outer side 43cm, inner side 13cm
- step width 109cm
- length of landing outer 127cm, inner 42cm
- number of steps 10+11
Note: expect couple centimeters tolerance — for example first step is
approximately 14.5cm hight. The color is in both cases black.
Motivation music
- Led Zeppelin, Stairway to Heaven
- Richard Muller, Po schodoch
UPDATES
4th September 2014 — Two categories
Christian already published contest propositions
http://cafe-neu-romance.com/program/cnr-2014-competitions and you can see
that there are actually two categories of „Tour the Stairs”: LEGO and service
robots. I think that it is a little bit pity to separate them, especially for
the first year contest, on the other hand kids may not be afraid to participate
.
23rd October 2014 — Registration Reminder
Just a short note/reminder that registration dead-line for the contest is
31st October 2014. Already registered teams can add homolation video
within next two weeks and this way automatically homologate for the contest.
See you in a month!
4th November 2014 — Teams
There are three teams registered for Tour the Stairs 2014:
R-team, KRA Písek and
TeaPackSystems. Do you think
that it is not many? Well, to be honest I expected more teams, but if you
remember the first Czech Eurobot 10 years ago
(!), there were also only three competing teams and it was a great event .
This year I would give a chance to people who overlooked the dead-line till
17th November 2014. Note, that for these late registrations is
videohomologation required!
You may consider the task simple, but it is not. Two teams wrote that they will
have to rework their construction (one robot is made from Merkur and the other
from FisherTechnik), because it does not work as they expected … so maybe you
are solving similar problem, just do not give up .
Here is at least the first homologation video of six-wheeled robot:
Note, that it is necessary to climb one step only and it is enough to do it
once .
I would also add some links:
10. November 2014 — KRA Písek (video)
I asked already registered teams for some pictures and videos, even if their
robots do not work properly yet. I naively hope that this way we will get more
interested participants and it will motivate you to built the robot even now
.
Thanks a lot KRA Písek for sharing their first pictures and videos of robot
Kombajn:
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19. November 2014 — Kickstarter, TeaPackSystem, homologation
The situation is the same even after extended registration dead-line. There are
three teams ready to compete and two of them send us homologation video. KRA
Písek sent new homologation video, where
their robot kombajn climbs whole staircase. This is surely strong rival.
We will see how they will deal with spiral staircase.
TeaPackSystems equipped the robot with
RaspberryPI. The robot is now capable to detect
steps via sonars and better calculate approaching angle. There is maybe camera
too so the whole action will be recorded (?).
I would add an interesting note from Pavel S. He wrote me about walking robot
project available on
kickstarter
(here is a related
article).
So this is also posibility how to get staircase climbing robot … and
„homologation video” looked cool .
20th November 2014 — R-team
Now the 3rd competitor (R-team) published video of his stair climbing robot:
with comment: The function of STOP button was self-demonstrated. It felt down
on the last step and it stop itself.
thanks
23rd November 2014 — Jessica homologation
This is a homologation video of the 4th „competitor” —
minidrone Jesscia:
28th November 2014 — Program
The contest will take place on Saturday November 29th, 2014 in two blocks:
10am-12am and 2pm-4pm. There will be half an hour straight staircase
attempts followed by half an hour of twisted staircase (in total 8 rounds). The
results announcement should be around 4pm.
29th November 2014 — Results
| Rank | Team | 1st straight | 1st spiral | 2nd straight | 2nd spiral | 3rd straight | 3rd spiral | 4th straight | 4th spiral | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | KRA Písek | 6 | 1 | 11 | 1 | 21 | 21 | 21 | 21 | 103 |
| 2. | R-team | 16 | 1 | 21 | 3 | 21 | 3 | 21 | 3 | 89 |
| 3. | TeaPackSystems | 4 | 20 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 24 |
| 4. | Jessica | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 15 |
The winner of Tour the Stairs 2014 is team KRA Písek! Congratulations
. And if you think that it was easy it was not … but you should come and
see …
(note, this report is slightly more detailed in Czech version)
5th December 2014 — Contest video
Thanks to „extended TeaPackSystems team” you can now have a look at Tour
the Stairs 2014 video:
It is actually very good document! You will see there break of gear box of
„kombajn”, falling down R-team, smoking motor controller of TeaPackSystems
and several Jessica attempts including complete flight with the rope.