Robotic Blogs

A robot challenge has been announced that will test robots' abilities to recognize objects as well as their skill at understanding language.

The robot contestants will be given a list of objects located around their competition arena where they will be expected to go get them.

The robots will be required to look up the name of the objects on the internet - for example from Google image search - then find the required items.

From the website:

Integrating a mobile robot with the vision research adds another interesting layer of complexity that would not ordinarily be available in a purely computer vision competition. Semantic understanding of the objects could also be expanded to scene understanding as well.

So the objects will be located in proper context for example office items will be set up in a simulated office.

The final rules for the competition will be posted this week. Contestants are required to pass a qualifying test to get into the finals.
The final event will be held at the Twenty-Second AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence held in Vancouver July 22-26 2007.

The Semantic Robotic Vision Challenge

The Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation, ARCAA, has launched a competition for students and hobbyists. The UAV Challenge - Ouback Rescue will be held in Queensland, Australia in September 2007.

The contest will have prize money up to $40,000 (US $30000) in categories of airborne delivery and search and rescue. There will also be a category for the best documentary film on how the participating team created their contest entry.

The judging for the contest will be based on the performance of the unmanned flyer through a course as well as a report and presentation of the design.

The vehicles will be limited in size to weigh no more than 100 kg (rotary) or 150kg (fixed wing) in the competition configuration.

The contest is open to high school students only from the state of Queensland but to university students or hobbyists worldwide.

more info...
ARCAA | UAV Outback Challenge 2007

Singapore's Defense Science and Technology Agency, DSTA, has announced a competition to encourage scientists and engineers to design a robot for urban combat.

The objective of the TechX Challenge is "to inspire and engage the wider community of engineers and technologists, challenging them to defy conventional thinking and stretch the boundary of science and technology for defence and national security." The winner will get S$1 million (US $650,000).

The competition will be for robots to find targets in an urban setting in a limited time. The robots will be required to operate autonomously. They will need to negotiate obstacles outside and inside buildings and be able to climb stairs and take an elevator.

The robots will be tasked to go to a specified floor of a building, find the target, mark the target with a squirt gun and return to the starting point. Iif no one completes the mission within an hour there will be no prize awarded.

The contest is open to everyone. Every team manager must be a Singapore citizen but team members can be from anywhere.
Also, there will be a qualifying round of events before the final competition.

Each team must complete their application by May 2007. The first qualifying rouunds will be in May 2008 with the final competition in August 2008.

The FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robot competition kicked off the 2007 season by announcing the playing field challenge and parts kits for this year's contest.

The high school teams are given six weeks to design and build their competition robots for the first round of the competition.

According to the press release, over 32,500 students from 1300 teams will be participating this year.

Excerpts:

In this year’s game, “Rack ‘N’ Roll,” students’ robots are designed to hang inflated colored tubes on pegs configured in rows and columns on a 10-foot high center “rack” structure. Extra points are scored by robots being in their home zone and lifted more than 4” off the floor by another robot before the end of the 2 minute and 15 second match.

In 1992, the FIRST Robotics Competition began with 28 teams and a single 14 x 14 foot playing field in a New Hampshire high school gym. This season, over 1,300 teams will participate. Thirty-seven regional competitions will lead up to the 2007 FIRST Championship at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, April 12-14.

USFIRST.org