Spring Break
UMKC Robotics Team picks up
Derek Simons
Issue date: 4/21/08 Section: News
"It's having trouble recognizing the heavy one from the middle weight," Schallert says. "We can fix that."
Bayne says in the competition, the weights will be different, so last-minute adjustments will be needed anyway.
The robot heads for the third cask, turning to run along the line, but then it stops. Two front-mounted sensors have "seen" Cankaya sitting at the edge of the mat. She starts laughing as the pincers head for her leg.
Designing a robot from scratch obviously isn't always smooth sailing. The team has worked two semesters on this project. Monster Truck now has four small 8 MHz computers on board.
"It doesn't use real powerful stuff," Bayne says. "The main limitation is the actual chip has a certain number of pins and that limits how many sensors you have. So, if you put a bunch of sensors on here, you have to have a pin for each sensor. That's why we have four [chips] and they have to talk to each other."
Bayne has been building robots for nine years. He just returned with $5,000 from a national wireless design competition held by a large company in California, Lantronix, where he won third place overall, and placed first in the student category for building a WiFi security robot around the board supplied.
"He's really good at it," Schallert says. "I'm along to learn from these people. I can solder and know what components are and I can put together a board, but programming is not my skill yet."
Bayne is sanguine about their prospects for the next morning.
"I think we have a good chance of doing well," he says, "which is better than we've ever done."
This is the fourth year the team has competed. As to last year's results, Cankaya says they try not to talk about it.
"If the robot loses the [black] line, it's over," Bayne says. "You only get two tries, so even if it works 99 percent of the time, there's that one percent. It's really easy for your robot to look like a complete failure."
Competition update: Monster Truck did well on the first Saturday morning run until, for some reason, "it flew off the board with the third cask," according to Bayne.
"Let's just say we didn't finish among the 10 finalists," Bayne said.
dsimons@unews.com
Bayne says in the competition, the weights will be different, so last-minute adjustments will be needed anyway.
The robot heads for the third cask, turning to run along the line, but then it stops. Two front-mounted sensors have "seen" Cankaya sitting at the edge of the mat. She starts laughing as the pincers head for her leg.
Designing a robot from scratch obviously isn't always smooth sailing. The team has worked two semesters on this project. Monster Truck now has four small 8 MHz computers on board.
"It doesn't use real powerful stuff," Bayne says. "The main limitation is the actual chip has a certain number of pins and that limits how many sensors you have. So, if you put a bunch of sensors on here, you have to have a pin for each sensor. That's why we have four [chips] and they have to talk to each other."
Bayne has been building robots for nine years. He just returned with $5,000 from a national wireless design competition held by a large company in California, Lantronix, where he won third place overall, and placed first in the student category for building a WiFi security robot around the board supplied.
"He's really good at it," Schallert says. "I'm along to learn from these people. I can solder and know what components are and I can put together a board, but programming is not my skill yet."
Bayne is sanguine about their prospects for the next morning.
"I think we have a good chance of doing well," he says, "which is better than we've ever done."
This is the fourth year the team has competed. As to last year's results, Cankaya says they try not to talk about it.
"If the robot loses the [black] line, it's over," Bayne says. "You only get two tries, so even if it works 99 percent of the time, there's that one percent. It's really easy for your robot to look like a complete failure."
Competition update: Monster Truck did well on the first Saturday morning run until, for some reason, "it flew off the board with the third cask," according to Bayne.
"Let's just say we didn't finish among the 10 finalists," Bayne said.
dsimons@unews.com
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