Mobile Robot Navigation Contest For Undergraduate Design And K 12 Outreach

Penn State Abington has developed an autonomous mobile robotics competition to support freshman design, K-12 outreach, undergraduate research opportunities, and curriculum integration. The contest, Robo-TrailBlazers, encourages participants to explore a variety of robot navigation solutions including line-following, wall-following, and cooperating robots. Participants in recent contests have ranged from second grade to college seniors. The contest supports a wide range of educational objectives and promotes interest in engineering and science. 1.0 Introduction Penn State Abington has developed autonomous mobile robotics educational resources to support freshman design, K-12 outreach, undergraduate research opportunities, and honors coursework in robotics [1,2]. One key component to the successful implementation of these activities has been the effective use of robot competitions. One contest, “Robo-TrailBlazers,” has been designed to meet the educational needs of a wide range of participants. This contest has been offered at the Penn State Abington campus (Philadelphia, Pa. area) each December since 1998. The contest is free and open to students of all ages and backgrounds. The contest allows and encourages participants to explore a variety of navigation solutions including line-following, wall-following, and cooperating robots. The robots in the competition can also control the motion of an electric model train, which acts as a moving obstacle. Solutions have included simple “random walk” approaches, fuzzy logic-based line following, and mapping algorithms. A teleoperated division in which robots can be operated in a non-autonomous mode has been established for K-4 grade. Participants in recent contests have ranged from second grade to college seniors. The flexibility and accessibility of the contest support a wide array of education objectives including course integration, club activities, freshman design, science fairs, senior design projects, and more. An overview of the basic robot contest rules and strategies as well as results of recent competitions will be presented below. 2.0 Robot Contest Rules and Strategies The objective of the Robo-TrailBlazers contest is to design an autonomous robot, or a collaborating team of robots, which is capable of navigating from a start position to a goal position, on a 8 foot by 8 foot flat arena, in a minimum amount of time (see figure P ge 767.1 Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright ” 2002, American Society for Engineering Education 1). Robots must fit within a 12 inch by 12 inch by 12 inch volume at the start. A 4-inch high wall encloses the perimeter of the arena. Robots can choose a variety of strategies ranging from following a white line path to the goal, to navigating around obstacles and climbing over model railroad tracks to reach the goal. Alternatively, a wall-following approach can be employed, or a combination of strategies. A robot or robot team has a total of 3 minutes in the arena during which any number of attempts at the solution can be undertaken. The minimum time from start to goal position achieved by a robot or any member of the robot team at any time during the 3 minutes will be the score for that match. Robots within a robot team may communicate and cooperate in any manner. An electric model train will be blocking the white-line path on a grade crossing (see figures 1, 2, 3). The train can be commanded to move away from the crossing as a result of breaking a beam of IR light in the corners of the maze. The train will return to the grade crossing when the beam if IR is reestablished. The start position (18 inch by 12 inch area) is located in the southwest corner, and the goal position (18 inch by 12 inch area) is located in the northeast corner. The IR beams are located in the northwest and southeast corners of the maze. The control of the train by a robot is one challenge that encourages solutions involving a team of coordinated robots. In one approach, a robot in a team will be programmed to break the IR beam in order to allow the other robot in the team to pass the railroad grade crossing unhindered by the train obstacle.