Robo Fighters - MindStorms Future?

[DrJB]

A bit of history first: During the late 80's / early 90's, there was a required undergraduate Mechanical Design course at MIT (2.70 Introduction to Design) where students designed and built their own bots, based on parts provided by various sponsors (Ford, Polaroid, 3M, ...etc). At the end of the semester, the final competitions took place in a large auditorium and many faculty/students attended to watch/support/rate the contestants. The course was so popular that the EECS (Electrical Engineering & Computer Science) Department developed their own version, and called it 6.270 Autonomous Robot Design. Instead of ordinary building blocks, the toolbox consisted of many Lego parts (beams/gears/axles) and a micro-processor. The goal of the course was to design robots (of course) but the emphasis was on programming the micro-processor board. That idea is where the MindStorms brick originated, and in fact, if you check the RIS box, there is a mention in there that an MIT team helped with the development.

Fast Forward 25 years later, now there are robot competitions in many schools around the US/world (copied/adapted from MIT 6.270).

I stumbled upon a video on youtube, where the robots now are actual 'humanoid/fighters'. The question that immediately came to mind is: When will we ever see robot competitions based on such model? This is very different from the original 6.270, but nonetheless a 'natural' evolution.

Are you aware of any such competitions based on lego designs?

Edited April 11, 2015 by DrJB

[BusterHaus]

One of the most active competition categories using Mindstorms is Sumo Bots. Two robots are set up on a circular mat and there are a number of ways to get points, but the simplest goal is to be the last robot on the mat. There are ton of videos to watch. This competition reminds me a lot of BattleBots. A lot of the Lego designs I've seen focus more on looks than performance, which is great, as one of the most effective robots on BattleBots had a pretty boring design.

As for biped competitions, I don't think you'll see those unless the next iteration of Mindstorms shrinks the control brick drastically. It is very difficult to build a stable, fast biped with the current components, so the competitions would be over quickly (when a robot toppled over) or move at a snail's pace. Wheeled robots are definitely the way to go if spectators are to have fun.

[Boxerlego]

To think about it I have seen a LEGO video where two LEGO EV3 are battling it out to turn the other one off.

[kieran]

Wow, the video of the fighting robots is fun to watch.

[syclone]

Mine NXT 2.0 humanoid never walked But the wheeled or tracked ones worked perfectly...

[miguev]

Those biped fighters are fun to watch, and must be even more fun to design, build, program and operate... but with only EV3 and Technic in may hands, I'd be happy if I just manage to build a Sumo Bot to play with a nearby friend.