13. Robotics and Automation Society RAS Competition Page

Post date: Apr 10, 2014 8:58:52 PM

Tal Singer and I testing our robotic car right before the IEEE SAC's RAS Prepared Robotic Competition at Rowan University

On Saturday April 5th, my teammate, Tal Singer, and I represented Temple University in the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) Region 2 Student Activities Conference's (SAC) Robot Triathlon Competition, alternatively referred to as the Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) Prepared Robotic Competition. More information will soon be updated to the "SAC: RAS ROBOTICS" page, but, to quickly summarize, the competition required each participating team to prepare a robotic car to traverse three separate courses. In order for a team to place, their robotics car basically needed to out perform the other competitors according to the rules specified for each course.

Tal Singer testing autonomous and manual control over the "Boulder Field" at Rowan University

Unfortunately, the robotic car prepared by my team did not place in the top three; nevertheless, my team is still proud of what we managed to accomplish within the two and half weeks we committed to the project. Later to come, I plan to update the "SAC: RAS ROBOTICS" with a proper introduction, which will include information such as a more thorough description of the competition, bio of my teammate Tal Singer, and special thanks to certain people who assisted in the project's development; detailed description of the robotic car itself, including the high-level details such as autonomy and low-level details such as the hardware devices employed; and final thoughts on the project, including what could have been done differently to improve our place in the competition.

Testing Tal Singer's Line-Following Algorithm

I will also take some time later to format and upload the majority of the software developed for the project, including the software behind the GUI (for those who are interested in Swing programming with Java) and the MCU (for those who are interested in developing over Parallax's Propeller MCU with Parallax's gcc compiler). Please keep in mind all of this information will be updated over a course of a week or two. Right now, the "Media" page, which includes pictures and videos, has already been added to the "SAC: RAS ROBOTICS" page.

Back view of the robotic car

If anyone wants me to include any special information, or just wants to give me feedback---and all constructive feedback is greatly appreciated---please don't hesitate to reach me andrew.powell@temple.edu!