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  2. Click here for reading the tutorial of this event.
  3. Click here for reading the "Metal detecting sensor" tutorial.
  4. Click here to post doubts on the "Xplode" Forum.
"Not only do these abominable weapons lie buried in silence and in their millions waiting to kill or maim innocent women and children; but the presence or even the fear of the presence of a single landmine can prevent the cultivation of an entire field, rob a whole village of its livelihood, place yet another obstacle on a country’s road to reconstruction and development"

-- Kofi Annan

"BOOM!!!"

--the Lost Droid


Thousands of landmines still dot the African landscape. Every year there are over a 100 landmine related deaths. It seems humanly impossible task to eradicate all of the hidden mines. Perhaps this calls for something more than human....

Problem Statement

The task is to build two autonomous bots. One mine-detector bot which has to explore a 7x7 grid to find out the location of the mines and inform the second bot about mines it has detected. The second bot,then,has to cross the arena avoiding the mines and reach a pre-specified end-point.

The event comprises of two rounds- The preliminary round and the final round.

Preliminary round

For the preliminary round the mine detector bot has to start from the bottom left corner of the arena, traverse it and detect mines. For this round only the mine detector bot has to traverse the arena and not the mine avoider bot.

The mine-detector bot should give an indication by lighting a visible LED whenever it detects a mine.

Scoring Rules for the preliminary round:

 

Nd*200-T

Nd=Number of mines detected by the mine detector bot

T=Time of run in seconds

Final Round

Scoring formula is:

 

10000+100*Nd-300*Ne-Td-10*Ta-C-P

Nd= Number of mines detected by mine detector bot

Ne= Number of mines exploded by mine avoider bot

Td= Time of mine detector bot's run in seconds

Ta= Time of mine avoider bot's run in seconds

C= max || (time taken to transfer data in secs - 90 ), 0 || i.e., Participants will be given 90 seconds for transferring data. Any extra time(in seconds) taken by the participants to transfer data after 90 seconds will be deducted from their score.

P=100 if the participant asks for a time out for one bot

P=200 if the participant asks for a time out for both the bots

The winner is the team with maximum score.

No penalty for restarts.

Mission

  1. The mines will be placed at the intersection point the lines in the grid.
  2. The mine detector bot has to traverse the arena, detecting mines and storing the data of the map, i.e. the location of the mines.The mine detector bot must indicate each detection of a mine by lighting a visible LED.
  3. The mine detector bot can move over the mines, without blowing it up .
  4. If the mine detector bot crosses an intersection containing a mine and does not gives an indication of the mine detection it will be regarded as undetected and a penalty will be imposed on the team.
  5. The information of the positions of the mines should be transferred from the mine detector bot to the mine avoider bot.
  6. The mine avoider bot has to follow the white lines and avoid the mines and reach the opposite corner of the arena.
  7. Note : - If a bot comes over a mine, it is said to be blown up.Blowing up of a mine by the mine -avoider bot is defined as a penalty for the team.

Robot Specifications

Each team should have two autonomous bots. The first bot should be a  mine detector bot and the second bot  should be a mine avoider bot.

  1. The mine detector bot must fit in a cube of side 25cm.No part/mechanism of/on the bot should exceed the given dimensions.
  2. The mine detector bot should be capable of detecting mines.
  3. The mine avoider bot must fit in a cube of side 20cm.No part or mechanism of the bot should exceed the given dimensions before the commencement of the event run.
  4. Both the bots can exceed their respective dimensions once the event commences.
  5. The autonomous bots should be On board processing bots. ie the bots cannot be controlled by a remotely kept computer.
  6. LEGO kits or its spare parts or premade mechanical parts are not allowed. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms)
  7. Readymade gearboxes,sensors, metal detectors, development boards can be used but no other part of the robot should contain any readymade components. Simple car bases with no extra features may be used.
  8. Both the bots need to follow lines and traverse only along the grid. In the Xplode video shown on site these rules are not followed, however on the day of the event these rules must be followed i.e., both the bots must traverse along the grid only via following the lines.

Rules of the mission

  1. The bots can be powered on-board as well as off-board.
  2. Each team can consist of a maximum of 4 members.
  3. Each team should have unique participants i.e. no two teams can have even a single participant common.
  4. The team members can be from different institutes or colleges.
  5. The mine-detector bot should give an indication by lighting a visible LED whenever it detects a mine.
  6. The maximum time allowed for the mine detector bot to traverse the arena is 10 mins.
  7. The maximum time allowed for the mine avoider bot's run is 5 mins.
  8. The mine avoider bot cannot detect mines on its own.
  9. If either of the bots or both of them malfunctions the participant may ask for a "time out". In that case the timer will be stopped, the scoring will be done taking into account the time elapsed till then and a penalty will be imposed on the team.
  10. If the team is using wired communication, the data can be transferred only after the mine detector's run is complete. No wired communication between the two bots is allowed when any one of the bots is in motion. However, if the team is using wireless communication, the 2 bots can communicate during the entire run.
  11. A "data transfer interval" of 90 seconds will be provided after the mine detector's run. The teams who wish to use wired communication should transfer the data during this period. This time will be considered in the final score. Teams using wireless communication may opt to NOT use this time interval.For them, this time will not be taken into consideration in the final score. All teams MUST mention whether they want to use the data transfer interval prior to the mine detector's run.
  12. Both the bots should have provision for a button to start the bot. The run time of the bot will start as soon as this button is pressed.
  13. Any bot will be considered to have left the arena once it has reached the top-right corner of the 7X7 grid. The mine detector has to be removed from that point once it does that.
  14. Only power supply line will be allowed to the robot. These cords/cables should remain slack throughout the event.
  15. No kind of external control will be allowed.
  16. Only the power source will be allowed to be outside the robot. All other circuitry and sensory equipment should be placed on the robot adhering to the ROBOT SPECIFICATIONS listed above.
  17. The participants will be provided with 220volts 50Hz standard AC supply. Participants will have to themselves arrange for any other power supply required for their robot.
  18. Participants will have to bring their own programmers, cables and soft-wares.No programmers will be supplied.
  19. In case the robot completely loses the trail of the track or it encounters some internal problem, the team has an option of restarting their robot. A maximum of 2 restarts are allowed for the preliminary round and a maximum of 3 restarts for the final round.
  20. If the mine avoider bot blows up more than 4 mines, the team stands disqualified.
  21. The right spirit of participation is expected from the participants.
  22. No hard coding of the robots will be allowed. The definition of hard coding is as explained here
  23. The decision of the ROBOTIX team will be final and binding.

NOTE:
The ROBOTIX team reserves all rights to publish the participants' algorithms on the net. However the participant shall remain the sole author of the content.

The ROBOTIX Team is not responsible for providing an interference free arena

Arena Specifications

 

  1. The arena is a black plywood surface with dimensions "2.74m X 2.74m" divided into an 7X7 grid as shown in the figure.
  2. The arena base will be made of plywood painted black with black mat paint. The white lines will be made of standard white chart paper.
  3. There will be 2cm wide white (standard white chart paper) lines with a tolerance of 10%. on the surface to guide the path of the bots.
  4. The first vertical and horizontal line will be placed at a distance of 65cm from the vertical and 65cm from the horizontal boundary of the arena respectively.
  5. To guide the path of the bots the left bottom corner (starting point) of the arena will have a 50cm long white line leading to the grid.
  6. There is a short vertical line of total length 10cm intersecting the main track (the long horizontal white line) at the bottom of the arena, extending equally on both sides. Both the mine detector and the mine avoider bot need to be placed to the left of this line before the commencement of the event.The location of the placement is the team's choice, and MUST be informed before the run. No manual interference will be allowed until the data transfer interval.
  7. There will be a 50cm long horizontal white line on the upper right corner of the arena as shown in the arena picture.
  8. The dimension of the squares formed due to the grid is 30cm X 30cm.
  9. The mines will be rectangular iron slabs. Two sides of the slabs would be greater than 45 mm each. The thickness of the mine would be greater than 5mm. These will be placed beneath the intersections, with the large area face upwards. The centre of the slab will coincide with the intersection.
  10. The Mines will be placed under a plywood surface the thickness of which will be 6mm
  11. The arena will be having standard classroom illumination. Any extra illumination has to be arranged by the participants themselves.

    Note : These will be beneath the plywood surfaces, and cannot be detected visually.

  12. The placement of the mines will be notified only when the event commences.

The positions of the mines as shown in the picture is just an example
and will vary for the event. This is a sample arena only. The actual arena may differ.

 

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