First day @ Suzhou

Today started with a lot of work on our robots. To be honest, they were not completely working when they got here, and due to transport and other circumstances, besides the ’scheduled work’ there is a lot more to solve, repair, invent, design and build.

Besides the dealings with our own two robots, there is some time fortunately to walk around in the main Expo room. Over 300 contestants (all in all- I’m not sure I understood the Chinese guide correctly) divided over about 100 teams participating in various categories: humanoid soccer, fish soccer (polo?), rescue robots, home robots, etc.
In lot of the leagues, the technology is very similar over all contestants. Especially in the teen size humanoid league a lot of teams are participating with robots build with dynamixel servo’s. Most have directly build a robot with the robotis kit and use the camera as its main sensor. The camera is used for detecting whether the robot has fallen to the floor (dark/no image). Some use accelerometers for balancing and a few use a gyro for active balancing. When they use one, they use an RC gyro (normally used for model RC helicopters)

A clever solution comes from a German team which uses a Nokia telephone as brain. The bioloid servo system comes with a controller which has an optional bluetooth interface module. Unfortunately bluetooth is not allowed, so the team equipped the standard Bioloid controller with an RS232 coupling. Using the telephone’s camera and irda connection the telephone controls the robot. The telephone also comes with a 3d accelerometer which can be used for robot stabilization.

So, a lot of inspiring ideas, lots of people, and hopefully tomorrow a robot that can at least stand still 🙂