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It has to be said (since I had one previous run-in with the legal department of the LEGO company, but that's neither here nor there), that this page is in no way affiliated with the LEGO Company (Canada or otherwise) and is not endorsed by the aforementioned company.
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| See the Official rtlToronto 8 homepage here |
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Keep Your Trash Outta My Back Yard!!!! |
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The Event - rtlToronto 8 - Buy the Batteries in Bulk
The Date - Saturday, June 9, 2001
The Competition - Keep your trash outta my back yard!
The Challenge - Keep the black blocks in your back yard while putting the white blocks into your opponents back yard
The Rules - can be found here
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I decided to try and build a 'bot for this competition earlier than 2 days before the actual competition. With this in mind, I spent some time on the long Easter weekend building the 'bot. The pics you see here are preliminary--subject to change without notice and may not look like the 'bot I'll show up with on the day of the event. |
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The Runamok 'bot is together and the preliminary programming is done. Further testing and tweaking is necessary to hash out all the rough bits.
I'm finding this challenge to be more exciting due to the emphasis on the programming and building logic.
To build a tower, though difficult, required a pretty complex and precise 'bot but not much coding. For both block stacking competitions, I built the 'bot from the ground up, and when the 'bot was done, I'd write the code. Not much actually changed on the robot after it was made, however.
This time, I have noticed that, instead of the 'bot dictating the programming, there is a fine balance between modifying the program and modifying the 'bot.
Where's the line, which side of the line is the 'bot on, what colour is the block, where does the 'bot take the block--All logic problems that have to be remedied both by codeing and physically changing the 'bot.
Quite nice.
Went to Home Despot (I mean Home Depot) after work tonight and picked up some lumber. To test the new 'bot I decided to build a mini-arena. It's one quarter the size of the original arena, being 4 foot by 4 foot instead of 8 by 8.
Shoulda realized that my 'bot, being almost 2 feet long, would be almost too big for the mini-arena. Oh well, it's just for testing.
Coding and tweaking are coming along. The question now is, how much of this do you do and where do you stop?
Maybe when it's time to go to bed, which it is now. 'Night all, stay safe
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The day of the competition--My 'bot is in pieces for a (hopefully) last touchup. Jeff looks on thinking that it wouldn't get all back together |
| Chris is putting some final touches on his code. |
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Ben and Iain doing more codeing. |
| Ka-On checking out his 'bot on the playfield. |
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| Pics from the competition. |
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Rob's drive/steer block gathering 'bot. |
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| Ka-On rewrites code and modifies his 'bot on the fly. |
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Someone brought this really neat walking robot. |
| More pics from the competition. |
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Rob showed up with a window climbing 'bot--It was really inspiring! |
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