The Robot Wars community justifiably thinks that autonomous robots are slow. Not so. You see, previous autonomous entries used notebook computer brains. Camp Peavy’s Gladiator Rodney used a 386SX with DOS 6.22, programmed in GW-BASIC; same as he did to win the autonomous face-off in 96. But this year he’s wielding an electric chain saw and a 1000 watt DC to AC inverter to run the 750 watt Sears chain saw. The circuitry is simply bread-boarded, like anyone can do by reading a Forest Mim’s Engineer’s Notebook from Radio Shack. Batteries can keep Rodney going for twenty minutes. It all adds up to 85 pounds.
Thumper Defeats Rodney
Camp demo’ed its seek and kill functions for me before the bout. It worked great. Rodney’s two IR sensors found an infrared beacon, turned toward it, moved crisply forward, and turned on the chain saw, lowering it to slice through an imaginary opponent. I thought,
Rodney could be the world’s first autonomous chain-saw murderer!
By contrast, the autonomous contender, Bob Gross’ Thumper, used a Basic Stamp for a brain, programmed in PBASIC. It’s 99 pounds, wheeled, 3 feet tall, topped by the standard infrared beacon supplied by Robot Wars. There are four electrical motors like you would find in a power drill. Drive power takes 720 watts (about 1 horsepower); the lifting/flipping arm power is 720 watts, and each rotating side-mounted arm (a self-righting defense mechanism) uses 360 watts. Very simple, very quick. With reaction times measured in milliseconds, this bot could outmaneuver any human controlled bot. Bob built Thumper in only a month, for just $700, and programmed it in only three hours. The most sophisticated robot here is one of the cheapest and fastest to build.
Thumper vs Rodney: The robots are placed, the switches are set. The designers leave the arena, the crowd waits with mixed emotions. Veterans aren’t expecting much speed. Most of audience just wonders what will happen. The match begins. Thumper immediately finds Rodney, aims at him, then rolls decisively 20 feet toward him with tiny but snappy course refinements. Rodney has barely moved when Thumper lines up, sticks his flipper under Rodney, and SMASH! Rodney crashes to the concrete on his back like a WWF wrestler hits the mat. Then Thumper lifts him again, flipping Rodney onto his side. Camp hasn’t added a self-righting mechanism. The match lasted about 10 seconds.