Help me Compete in an International Robot Competition

Alexandra Eilertsen Start Date: Feb 22, 2017 - End Date: Apr 27, 2017
  • Educational/Research Trip
  • Study/Degree Abroad
  • Professional Development
  • Lithuania

My Travel Story

by: Alexandra Eilertsen Start Date: Feb 22, 2017 - End Date: Apr 27, 2017
  • Educational/Research Trip
  • Study/Degree Abroad
  • Professional Development
Hello I'm Alexandra. I'm a 22 years old female studying Robotics at Aalborg University, Denmark. I will participate in a robotic competition in Lithuania this May, with my study group. We consist of three students at our sixth semester and this is our bachelor project. The robot has to be fully autonomous and able to recognise and retrieve an object.

The competition is called "Robots Intellect". The goal of the competition is to have a robot autonomously get to an area, find an object and bring it back to the starting point.
Further information can be found at the following link (sometimes their server is down, so if the link doesn't work please try again later):
http://www.robotsintellect.com/en/main/

We have a working prototype from last semester which can be seen driving in the video. This semester will be used to get the robot running on an outdoor track, getting it to recognize and pick up the object.

We have ordered the robot hardware and a currently waiting for it to arrive. Meanwhile, we're working on producing a gripper for the robot and getting reliable GPS data. The design of the robot and the gripper can be seen in the two pictures.

The money will be used to fund the shipping of the robot and our travel to the competition. Local travel in Lithuania has already been taken care of.
  • Lithuania

Updates

3

  • Vicky Almost Assembled

    Vicky almost assembled
    Three weeks have passed since we received all the parts for Vicky and a lot of assembly work was done. First, the emergency stop had to be included into the system. Second, the motor controller was mounted and the cooler for possible overheating was mounted as well. High circuitry wiring has been put in place and relays to control the battery power flow. Lastly, the fuse box was wired to avoid short circuit.

    As most of the assembly is done, more focus has been put on the control programming as well as adjusting EKF parameters for localization. In the video below you can see a short summary of the assembly presented by our lead technician Vojtech Vesely.

    https://youtu.be/Oi3X6hcfe7E

  • We Got Our Gripper Parts

    We Got Our Gripper Parts
    Since the last update we've gotten most of the parts for our gripper. We're only missing a few assembly parts, which should be done early next.

    We also decided to dismount the shelves from a TurtleBot and we're going to mount it onto the Jaguar to provide a structure to mount the sensors onto.

    The GPS is now functional although we're still missing the wireless connector.

    Now the focus is to get the Stereo Camera to be able to recognize objects to be used for the mapping. We're also working on navigation and guidance by GPS.