The universe of robots continues to expand this year, with more competitions and events than you can shake a manipulator at. (An exhaustive list for 2008 can be found on Robots.net, and more at the NASA robotics site) What's a poor moravec to do? First, look at your travel budget. Hotspots of events are in North America and Japan, in particular, although a determined search can find worthy opponents in nearly any quadrant of the globe. Second, your operational age- many if not most events are geared towards the adolescent group (roughly 8-18 years), but there are 'open' competitive classes for the old codgers. Third, consider whether you operate best in autonomous mode, or have a preference for swarm interaction. Might be interesting to put together a virtual international 'RoboCommunity Team', don't you think?

Here is a small selection of links to help you get started in your quest for glory!

FIRST
For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology
The FIRST organization runs numerous events throughout North America. Most events are geared towards ages 10-14, but there is also Junior FIRST for ages 6-9. Visit the location-based event finder page to look up events in your area. Most regional competitions begin in March 2008, so if you want to start or join a team, you'd better get moving! Here are the main classes of events:

• FIRST Robotics Competition for high-school students
• FIRST Tech Challenge for high-school students
• FIRST LEGO League for 9 to 14 year-olds
• Junior FIRST LEGO League for 6 to 9 year-olds

International FIRST events are also held in Brazil and Israel.

RoboCup
RoboCup is an international robotic competition, with the goal of 'By the year 2050, develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world soccer champion team.' The July 2008 competition will be held in Suzhou China, and has five classes of competition: Simulation, Small Size, Medium Size, Standard Platform and Humanoid. There are also non-soccer leagues within RoboCup, such as RoboCup Rescue and RoboCup Junior. Each of these leagues organizes events, typically on a regional level.

RoboFest
Autonomous Robot Competitions for Student, Grades 5-12 (in USA, that is ages 10-17). Sponsored by Lawrence Technological University, qualifying events run from March to April 2008, with the final World RoboFest Championship on April 26, 2008. Note- there is a qualifying competition being held on April 2 in Kent, UK as well (This event is billed as a 'First Ever': The Education Festival & Robofest UK08). RoboFest events include:

• Game Competition - A team of students competes to accomplish robotics missions using two fully autonomous robots.
• Exhibition - Each team has complete freedom to show off any creative autonomous robotics project they have created.
• RoboSumo, RoboFashion Show, Pentathlon and Vision Based Mini Urban Robot Challenge

 

Robot Sumo
Robot Sumo is type of competition in which autonomous robots attempt to push their opponent out of a defined circular arena. A very comprehensive Robot Sumo Guide has been put together by David Cook, which explains the history and rules of the competition. Although originating in Japan, other groups have formed worldwide (listed in Appendix B of the Guide). Robot Sumo is typically divided into robot weight and size classes:

• Standard (Japanese) : weight of 3 kg, 20 cm W x 20 cm L, any height.
• Mini: under 500 g, 10 cm W x 10 cm L, any height.
• Micro: under 100 g, 5 cm x 5 cm x 5 cm.

Additional classes may be defined by regional competitions as well.

Trinity College Fire Fighting Home Robot Contest
This is coming up soon, April 12-13 2008, at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut (USA). The challenge is to create an autonomous robot that can navigate an arena that models a house, find a fire (lit candle) and put it out, in the shortest time. The competition has multiple divisions: Junior (to 8th grade or 14 years old), High School (grades 9-12), Senior (anyone older than high-school age), Walking (bipedal robots) and Expert. The competition also has several 'levels' of difficulty; Juniors compete in a limited arena in Basic Level. Higher levels of difficulty include challenges such as furniture, stairs, and random clutter. The ability to complete the mission at higher levels of difficulty results in bonus time adjustments.

Moravecs: the self-replicating sentient cyborgs in Dan Simmons' science fiction novels Ilium and Olympos.

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