Lego Robots

As part of testing the first generation of Lego Mindstorms robots for research purposes (others in the lab have interfaced them to neural simulation software and neuromorphic vision sensors) we participated in the Robovision 2000 competition held to launch the Lego Vision Command camera and software. Teams from universities in Germany and Switzerland were given 60 hours to design a robot to complete one of two tasks. The one we chose required the robot to travel along a line, recognising and dislodging blue balls positioned on four pedestals along the way. Below you can see a prototype of the robot on the test track, the blue balls and the Vision Command software running on a laptop.

Our design involved a robot on caterpillar tracks which used light sensors to follow the line, and a custom-made Lego cannon to shoot the balls off the pedestals. Below is a view through the lens of the camera on the robot, showing what it sees at the point of recognition of a ball, and just after the ball has been shot off the pedestal.

As a backup, a tethered mini-robot was dragged behind the main robot. It had flapping wings which were wide enough to knock off the balls in case the cannon missed or ran out of ammo. This was named the "baby dragon", leading to the naming of the main robot as the "mother dragon".

At the final presentation at the Frankfurt Museum for Applied Arts, we won the category for the most creative solution, but our robot was too slow overall to win the competition.

More photos available at the Migros Kulturprozent website.