Robot Tour C [TRIAL]

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Robot Tour C [TRIAL]

Post by bernard »

Robot Tour is a trial event for Division C and might not be run at all tournaments. Check with your tournament to see if it will be run.
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Re: Robot Tour C [TRIAL]

Post by Little-Acorn »

In previous years of the Robot Tour trial event, the Rules manual has included a diagram of the track, with dimensions etc. But the 2023 Rules manual does not have a diagram of the track, only the text of the Rules for Robot Tour themselves. There is a note saying that we can find a diagram of the track "in the website". Anybody know where that is?

There is such a diagram on https://scioly.org/wiki/index.php/Robot_Tour (scroll down). But it doesn't specifically say that that's the track for the 2023 trial event season. To me it appears identical to the tracks from 2022 and earlier seasons. Is it, in fact, the track we will use in the 2023 Trial Event season?

Inquiring minds want to know! ;-)
Last edited by Little-Acorn on September 16th, 2022, 10:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Robot Tour C [TRIAL]

Post by Little-Acorn »

Also saw in the 2023 rules that the track surface measured 2 meters by 2 meters. I'm one of those rare souls who lives in the United States, and was figuring on building a Robot Tour track out of plywood. But the biggest sheet of plywood I can find is 4 feet by 8 feet, which is about 50% *less* wide than 2 meters by 2 meters.

I could splice two sheets of plywood together, but my carpentry skills are limited at best, and I might wind up with a ridge or bump where they join - not good for keeping a wheeled robot on course.

Anyone know where I can find a sheet of plywood that's 2 meters by 2 meters, without having to import it from England? Or, is there some other material that comes in 2m x 2m size (or larger), suitable for a Robot Tour track surface?

Thanks all!
Last edited by Little-Acorn on September 16th, 2022, 10:59 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Robot Tour C [TRIAL]

Post by knightmoves »

Little-Acorn wrote: September 16th, 2022, 10:52 am Also saw in the 2023 rules that the track surface measured 2 meters by 2 meters. I'm one of those rare souls who lives in the United States, and was figuring on building a Robot Tour track out of plywood. But the biggest sheet of plywood I can find is 4 feet by 8 feet, which is about 50% *less* wide than 2 meters by 2 meters.

I could splice two sheets of plywood together, but my carpentry skills are limited at best, and I might wind up with a ridge or bump where they join - not good for keeping a wheeled robot on course.

Anyone know where I can find a sheet of plywood that's 2 meters by 2 meters, without having to import it from England? Or, is there some other material that comes in 2m x 2m size (or larger), suitable for a Robot Tour track surface?

Thanks all!
I am informed that 2m square sheets of plywood do not routinely exist in England either. Standard large plywood boards in England are 2.44m x 1.22m.
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Re: Robot Tour C [TRIAL]

Post by Little-Acorn »

Thanks for your reply, knightmoves. My calculator tells me that 2.44m x 1.22m is very close to 8' x 4', give or take less than a percent. Hmm. Which tells me that the good folks in England have building houses or tables or whatever, out of American style 8x4 plywood sheets all along, correct?

Well, I put together a duplicate, near as I can get, of the diagram of the Robot Tour track from last year's rules, life size on a CAD system. Turns out the blacked-out tracks the robot is supposed to run on, are just a little bit bigger than 4' x 4'. Maybe they're supposed to be exactly 4x4, but I got my dimension estimates slightly off.

I'm now trying to print it out on my printer, the largest piece of paper you can feed it is 11" x 17" (B size). Sounds like I will wind up with eighteen sheets of 11x17 paper, taped together in a 3x6 block, roughly. Printing all those out in exactly the same scale, well aligned, is possible, but very tedious. So I took a break to ask everyone here:

Is it possible to buy a large piece of paper with the entire track printed on it in life size, from scioly.org? Can they mail it to Robot Tour enthusiasts, rolled up in one of those long, stiff double-walled triangular cardboard mailers? I used to coach FLL (FIRST Lego League) teams in San Diego, CA years ago, they would print out the contest map (lots of pictures, roads, etc. for the robots to travel on, rather similar to this Robot Tour track) on an 8' x 4' vinyl sheet, and mail them to participants. They weren't free, of course.

Is scioly.org planning to sell such life-size, one-piece pictures of the Robot Tour track to us coaches or the schools we're doing this Trial Event on? Where can we order them? What did they do for life-size Robot Tour tracks last year, and the year before?

Called around here in San Diego, and found out that a few places in town will print out a picture, 48" x 48", for between $180 and $200. That's a little steep. Found one online place that will do it for $100. Still not cheap, but may be more bearable. Is this how teams got their Robot Tour tracks in previous years? If scioly.org did this in large quantities for us, might they be able to get a discount? Particularly since the track does not seem to change from year to year? Again, where can we order one?
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Re: Robot Tour C [TRIAL]

Post by Little-Acorn »

For that matter, I've got a roll of large, blank, white "banner paper" on a garage shelf. And the width of the track's paths looks a lot like the width of standard black plastic electrical tape. Don't know how perfectly round I can get those 50cm circles, and how perfectly round they need to be. It might made a "good enough" first pass at a Robot Tour track. Has anybody done this?
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Re: Robot Tour C [TRIAL]

Post by Little-Acorn »

Here's the only picture of a Robot Tour track and robot I've been able to find so far. Boyceville HS in Wisconsin, I think around March 2021. Looks sort of like somebody simply got a big piece of paper (48"x48") and put electrical tape on it. Can see a few places where the tape crossed over itself where the circles touched, and got wrinkly. Robot appears to be made partly from Erector-Set parts, of maybe stock from one of the robot-supply shops. Vertical 1/4" dowel can be seen on the front.

Image

Can't tell what the on-board brain is. Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Lego EV3, etc.? SO Rules don't specify what it should use, so I guess the field is wide open as long as it can get around the curves in the path. Lego Robot Inventor 51515 is probably out since that uses ONLY lithium batteries, which are forbidden. But the others can all be run on AA Eveready Energizers, either single-use (Alkaline) or rechargeable (NiCd, NiMH etc.).
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Re: Robot Tour C [TRIAL]

Post by Little-Acorn »

Got tired of calling people to see if they have any hints for printing out a large 4'x4' track. So fired up the CAD system, made four circles, sized them right (I think) for diameter and rim thickness, put them on the image with paths intersecting, then put in the straight parts.

Isolated each section to its own 11x17 page (biggest my printer can handle) printed them out, taped them together, three sheets wide and five deep. Made a few small mistakes, which can be seen if you look close. Later I'll pad the outer areas with blank paper to give the robots space to go out of control (though of course they would never do that :D ). But it will probably never be 2 meters by 2 meters.

First picture. Larger robot is an Arduino, smaller one is a Lego EV3. Both still need work, but satisfactory progress is being made, I hope.

Image
Last edited by Little-Acorn on September 19th, 2022, 3:56 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Robot Tour C [TRIAL]

Post by Little-Acorn »

Well, well. There's a full-size PDF of the track from the 2020 season at:
https://www.soinc.org/sites/default/fil ... 8_x_48.pdf
Would have been nice to know about that, tho I probably wouldn't have done anything differently.
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Re: Robot Tour C [TRIAL]

Post by brian9640 »

Unfortunately the track and rules for Robot Tour have been changed from past years. The line following and printed tracks was giving too many issues for teams and event supervisors. Teams were able to preform very well on their own printed tracks but would have issues on a different printed track. The national group made the decision to move away from printed tracks after several issues at in-person tournaments. The new rules are based on navigating the track by position tracking and additional sensors. The main concept of the event is the same, but the line following and printed track requirements have been removed.

There is a presentation on 2023 Robot Tour I hope to have on the National website under the trial events soon. Along with some additional information.
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