From the beginning we'd had lots of ideas, but the practicality of most of them, while not beyond us, meant that just getting on and making a video was more time important. The venue was to be a garden, giving us three different surfaces very quickly, grass gravel and paving. Obstacles are easy to find, but they have to be ones which the robot can negotiate, so small steps are ok, garden tools etc.
One thing we didn't have was something which would mean the robot would be able to climb higher than itself, so as the garden was hosting us, we decided to make something for the garden and constructed a bridge over the garden pond, "The Bridge of Pi's" out of reclaimed pallet wood.
Not very 'robot like', but just the practicalities of making an interesting course. :)
Similarly, we needed a obstacle which the robot would have to manipulate before continuing, so for our video, we made a 'kissing gate', something which is very common on farmland to provide a pedestrian gate which can't be negotiated by animals but doesn't require closing.
Again, reclaimed wood is used to build a simple and portable obstacle.
The robot enters via one side, moves the 'gate' to the other and then drives out. In practice the driving in proved to be the biggest problem!!!!
The rest of the challenge is populated with farm characters/animals and a few signs to give a 'tour' feel. The following pictures just give an idea of what it looked like and some of the features.
This is a view of the garden we were fortunate to use, driving round it twice used up our 5 minute video allowance! It had gravel, grass and paving to give us the required three surfaces, though in the end it had several more!!!
The video is linked here......East Devon PIrates
Starting from the beginning.....
The Lamb Joint......
Wolf Hall......
The World's Simplest Maze....
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