The objective of this project is to design a sumo robot, or sumobot, which is an autonomous machine with the ability to push its competitor, another robot, outside of the dohyō, or ringed battle area, while not being pushed out itself. The autonomous nature means that the robot may not be controlled by a person through physical touch or a remote, but rather through programs of code written into a microprocessor which, in our case, is an Arduino. The program must control every aspect of battle, including sensing the dohyō’s boundary and detecting the opponent, where the motors will then act accordingly to attack or evade, depending on the situation. For example, an input of white infrared light to an IR sensor facing the ground would cause the Arduino to realise that it is no longer on the black battle-space but rather the white out-of-bounds border. The program would then run the portion of code that the programmer intended for this situation, which may instruct the robot to rotate 180°, then move forward, getting the robot out of dangerous territory. One of the most important balances in the entire design is between being tough enough to resist numerous impacts and lay devastating hits to opponents, and being quick enough to dodge the opponent’s attacks or take advantage of advantageous positioning. Each battle takes place with two robots in the ring, both with the same objective: to push all components that are directly connected to the competitor’s microprocessor outside of the white border. The format of the overall competition is a March Madness style tournament, where one battle victory results in the advancement to the next round, until a champion is crowned.
Following are assignments completed throughout the semester, including memos and a final video project:
This memo describes various aspects of the project, including: Problem Constraints, Benchmarking, and Engineering Specifications. The Problem Constraints describe the limiting factors regarding this project, such as money or required components, while the Benchmarking section reviews products and systems found from secondhand research, and how data from competitor’s robots can improve our design. Finally, the Engineering Specifications review the metrics and target values developed which show what the sumobot must do to satisfy the customer needs.
Analysis and Redesign Memo (Link)
This memo contains the data that we collected, the methods we used to collect it and an analysis of the data. It also contains a potential redesign of the project and the reasonings why we decided to make the changes that we did. Our concept generation and concept selection processes are also included.
The objective of this memo is to provide updated information regarding the status of the Sumo Robot Design Project.
Final Video Pitch Project
The Final Video Project acts as a pitch from the team to upper management or instructors to explain the competitive advantages of the robot. Also included are a Functional Decomposition chart (showing steps and stages of the final system design) and a Bill of Materials.