It's time for all the descendants of R2-D2 to celebrate their greatness at the Penn State Abington Mobile Robotics Program annual competitive event. Each year, teams work to create a robot that can master a specific task such as extinguishing the flame of a candle or an obstacle course that takes team members and spectators on a scenic tour of the Abington campus.
The event, which is free to the public, is scheduled for 1 to 4:30 p.m. Saturday, March 31, at Penn State Abington.
Participants ranging in age from second grade to college and professional levels will compete in the Fire-Fighting competition and the Mini-Grand Challenge.
Based off of the Trinity College Fire-fighting Robot Contest, this is the 13th year Penn State Abington is hosting this competition. In this contest, participants design an autonomous computer-controlled robot that can maneuver its way through a maze of four rooms to find a lit candle. Once the robot spots the candle, it must then extinguish the flame. Although rules and regulations vary slightly depending on the age level of each group, one rule stays the same -- each robot must operate fully on its own, without the assistance of its human creators.
The Mini Grand Challenge 2007 requires robots to travel around campus while avoiding obstacles and tackling off-road detours. In addition to completing the course, robots are ranked in how well they entertain spectators with displays and sounds effects.
"The Mini-Grand Challenge should be a challenge for the competitors, and interesting and entertaining for spectators," said Bob Avanzato, coordinator of the program, and associate professor of engineering at Penn State Abington. "What makes the competition really neat is that, after making it through the one-half mile to one-mile course, the robots will need to leave the path and cross a field to find a particular location."
The contest is dedicated to educating the public and local community. Participants ranging from kindergarten to seniors in high school are assisted by college and professional level mentors to map out GPS coordinates used to navigate their robot.
The top winner is awarded a $400 prize.
For more information on either events, go to http://www.cede.psu.edu/~avanzato/robots/contests/firefighting/index.htm online.