Competitions

RobotShop Microcontroller Instructables Contest

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Tinkerers, hackers, roboticists, and geeks of the world rejoice! RobotShop is partnering with Instructables to bring you an awesome contest.

RobotShop Instructables Microcontroller Contest

Instructa…what?

Instructables! For those of you living under a rock, Instructables is a great website where users can post step by step instructions for making almost anything. If you are unfamiliar with it, the RobotShop Microcontroller contest is a great way of getting started. If you are already an Instructables junkie, then you better hurry and make a submission now!

What are the prizes?

There are several substantial prizes:

The Grand Prize is a 500$ RobotShop Gift Certificate, a DFRobotShop Rover, and a RobotShop/Instructables prize pack (which includes several promotional goodies such as pens, a mousepad, a screw driver, and more)
The Second Prize will be awarded to two winners and consists of a 250$ RobotShop Gift Certificate, a DFRobotShop Rover and a RobotShop/Instructables prize pack.
The Runner-up Prize will be awarded to four winners and consists of a DFRobotShop Rover and a RobotShop/Instructables prize pack.
Furthermore, an extra Special Judge’s Prize will be awarded to the creator of the best project that makes something move with the microcontroller.

As you can see, the prizes are quite substantial and since we are a bit biased toward robots (hard to believe, isn’t it?) we will award an extra special prize for the best instructable that makes something move with a microcontroller.

DFRobotShop Rover - Mobile Tracked Arduino Based

Not enough for you? Beyond this, each participant will also get a 50% discount coupon for the DFRobotShop Rover. Which is like giving away roughly 45$ to every participant for free!

What do I do next?

Simply go to the contest page and read the rules and instructions, create an Instructables account if you don’t already have one and start making.

The contest closes for entries on July 3rd 2011, so you better hurry up and make a submission now!

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Tags: Contest, DIY, Instructables
Posted in Competitions, Fun, RobotShop | 1 Comment »

Google To Send Robots to the Moon

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

As previously discussed, Google (a.k.a. Skynet) is getting involved in the development of very advanced robots. One of their most notorious robotics projects is the Lunar X-Pize competition. See the video below for a global explanation of what the X-Prize Foundation is.

The Lunar X-Prize is a race to the moon for private companies. It was first announced in 2007 and is expected to yield a winner (the first private company to send a robot to the moon) by 2015.

So far, Google has confirmed that 29 teams, from 17 different countries, are participating in the competition. For more information about the competition, and a cheesy dramatization of how it could happen, see the following video.

Via BBC News

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Tags: Moon, X-Prize
Posted in Competitions, Future, Professional | 1 Comment »

Robotshop at CRC 2011

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

As we announced previously, RobotShop was at the CRC Robotics Challenge this year. On this 10th anniversary of the competition we had lots of fun at our kiosk.

RobotShop CRC Kiosk

This is an amazing competition for high-school and CEGEP students, allowing them to design and build their own robot in order to accomplish a meaningful task. The picture below shows all the CRC 2011 teams along with their robots (it is a large picture and could be a very cool wallpaper).

CRC Teams in Random Order

We invite you also to see the CTV News coverage of the event.

For the event, we prepared a robotic game for the participants (and anybody else present) to play with. We called it the RobotShop Challenge and it consisted of two speech-controlled DFRobotShop Rovers. The goal was to be first to deposit a ball in a hole on an elevated platform. The pictures below show a glimpse of the game . We will be putting a tutorial together for anybody interested in putting together their own speech-controlled robot game.

DFRobotShop Rover Challenge

Besides making the students yell commands at robots, we enjoyed the competition and were very happy to see the very diverse and ingenious robots that participated. The collage below, attempts (and probably does not succeed) to summarize the crazy CRC atmosphere in a single image.

CRC 2011

We will be posting more information about this awesome event in the near future so stay tuned. Also, if you are a high-school or a CEGEP student, we suggest you put a team together and participate in next year’s CRC; we would love to see even more crazy robots from more crazy students.

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Tags: CRC
Posted in Competitions, RobotShop | No Comments »

CRC New Promotional Video

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

As we announced previously, RobotShop is going to be present at the CRC 2011. For those of you who are curious about the competition, its objectives and implications in education, we recommend watching the new promotional video below that was recently released.

Also remember that this is the 10th anniversary of the competition so it is going to be a blast. We hope you will visit us at our booth.

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Tags: CRC
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CRC Robotic Competition 2011

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

Canadian Robotic Competition

The 10th annual CRC Robotics challenge “Mill-bornes” 2011 will take place on February 10 to 12 at Lester B.Pearson High School. RobotShop has been a long-term partner and supporter of the CRC and once again this year we will be present at the competition covering the event. We expect you will be coming to see us at our booth in great numbers!

This year’s challenge is as follows:

You are the CEO of a major logging firm. Your job is to cut down trees, transport them to the mill, sort the lumber after the milling process and finally make sure to replant as many new trees as possible. The robots are trying to remove trees from a forest and get them to the mill, which involves running them through the tubes that make up the mill, sorting the lumber following the mill and replanting as many trees as possible. Robots are grouped into a single team of four robots for each heat. These four robots are attempting to score as many points as possible.

Teams earn points based on the number of trees re-planted and the number of trees cut which make it to the mill. Any parts of the robot left on the playing field are counted against the team. Teams must adhere to guidelines pertaining to the safety, power, and technical aspects of the robot.

This footage from last year’s competition provides a clear idea of the scope of the event (be sure to watch it till the end since it features some nice Daft Punk music):

Aside from preparing a robot for the competition, teams must also prepare a video, website and kiosk. Sometimes the number of students working on the kiosk, video and website can be greater than the number of students working on the robot itself. Having multiple aspects to the competition allows students who want to pursue fields outside of robotics to still be enthusiastic participants in the CRC. Judging is done by a small army of volunteers from robotics companies and organizations.

CRC 2010

CRC Robotics is a non-profit organisation associated with EAST (Educational Alliance for Science and Technology). It offers quality science and technology events to inspire tomorrow’s inventors, engineers, scientists, doctors, teachers and leaders.

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Tags: CRC
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IBM Watson Beats Human at Jeopardy

Monday, January 17th, 2011

IBM really wants to beat humans with their computers. In the past, they created Deep Blue which was able to defeat the human Chess champion. Now, they developed Watson, an information retrieving machine which is intended to defeat the human Jeopardy champion.

Watson has already accomplished this by defeating Ken Jennings, the current Jeopardy champion in a practice round. The machine is likely to defeat Jennings in the real match later this year.

The video below explains more about Watson and the motivation behind making such a computer (besides the obvious taking over the world).

Via Make.

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Tags: Jeopardy, Watson
Posted in Competitions, Miscellaneous, Professional | No Comments »

Bots High, Like Football for Geeks

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

At RobotShop, we sometimes wonder where all the robot parts we sell end up, what robots are being made with them and which robots were successful and which were not.

The impending release of Bots High, a documentary about a group of high school students who build combat robots to compete in the high school division of BotsIQ (the non-profit version of BattleBots, the former TV show), gives us some clues of where at least some of the parts we sold ended up.

Tyler Bond and Fluffy the Robot

The documentary follows a group of students who build impressively complex and advanced robots with the objective of smashing, crushing and completely obliterating other equally complex robots. The matches are certainly fun to watch; sort of like sporting events but much, much geekier.

The videos below show the nature of competition and the crazily powerful robots that participate in it.

Keep watching for even more robotic destruction:

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Tags: BattleBots, Bots High
Posted in Competitions, Fun, Movies | 1 Comment »

Robot Helps You Celebrate The New Year

Friday, December 31st, 2010

From RobotShop we wish you all a happy new year. May 2011 be filled with all the robots you always wished to have.

If you are looking for creative and original ways of celebrating the new year, the THKR-4 is a very good choice to have at your New Year’s party. This robot is one of the competitors for the Robo-One Challenge, where hobbyists make personal robots that can accomplish everyday tasks.

As you can see in the video below, the THKR-4 can serve sparkling wine, pop a party popper, and give a massage while talking in a very high-pitch voice.

Via Robots Dreams.

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Tags: Robo-One Challenge
Posted in Competitions, Domestic and Personal Robots, Humanoids | No Comments »

China wins the Humanoid Robot Olympic Games

Friday, June 25th, 2010

China robots

Event if China was absent from the 2010 soccer World Cup in South Africa, this did not prevent it from winning a different world cup: the soccer category of the robot Olympics.

The Olympic Games for humanoid robots was organized by the Harbin Institute of Technology in China.

18 universities from around the world were there for this competition.

The Chinese were the best in the soccer tournament with their little humanoid robots (see the video below).