RoboCup Junior Rescue Line: Getting Started + Robot Design Tips

Key Takeaways

The Australian Robocup Junior Rescue Line Challenge is one of the toughest test of robotics skills available for student robotics teams. It demands excellent robot design, disciplined, teamwork, and a very high level of coding ability. In this three-part series, we will look at how your team can get started and set yourself up for success in the Roocup Junior Rescue Line Challenge. Good day. I'm Mr. Code. I've been coaching school robotics teams in local, national, and international competitions since 2017. And Robocup Junior's rescue line is one of the toughest challenges out there. What I see a lot of the time is that teams get discouraged by the high learning curve. This video series is designed to prepare you for your first competition and hopefully make your first experience with Robocop a more enjoyable one. Note that I have made this specifically for the Australian challenges that use the LEGO Robotics platform. However, the principles can still be applied to those who are participating in the international competition with different hardware. Now, I spend a lot of time making robotics videos just like these. So, if you enjoy the video, then please consider liking and subscribing to my channel. It is your support that lets me continue making content, so I thank you in advance. The rescue line challenge involves a search and rescue operation where an autonomous robot has to follow a black line while overcoming different obstacles, debris, and a range of different lines in a modular arena formed by tiles with differing patterns. The final challenge is to rescue a victim represented by a silver can. The modular tiles for this competition are divided into three pools. The base pool, which are basic paths for your robot to navigate. The physical pool, which are tiles that contain a mechanical obstacle that your robot should overcome. The examples of these are the seesaw, the debris field, the bridge, and speed bumps. The logic pool, which are tiles that test your robot's programming, such as the water tower, maze, and various intersections. And in addition to that, robots need to fit through a 270x 270 mm gap for the Riley Rover, which is the youngest division and open divisions, which are the oldest divisions. Or the gap can be 180x 180 mm, which is for the primary and secondary divisions. Many tiles can also be placed on supports to create an incline or form a bridge as well. At the end of this course is a rescue tile where the robot needs to remove a silver can from a green toxic spill zone. The can can be placed anywhere inside the zone. So, the robot needs to actually find the can. And to count as a successful rescue in the Riley Rover division, the robot only needs to push the can out. For the primary division, the robot should push the can out and then find a way back into the line. For the secondary division, the robot should control the can and release it outside the toxic spill zone before finding its way back to the line. And finally, for the open division, the robot should capture and lift the can onto a raised platform before finding its way back to the line. For more details about the scoring and the rules updates, check the link in the description below. And before we go through the robot design tips, I want to thank the sponsor of today's video, More Educational. Ever since Creator Academy started making Lego education videos, we have been greatly supported by the experts at More Educational. They are an authorized partner of LEGO Education with over 26 years experience working with LEGO Education products. So, if you're in Australia and you want to buy genuine LEGO education products like the ones shown in this video, then make sure you visit the more educational website. Now, there isn't a single best robot design for the rescue line challenge, but there are some very important considerations to make in order to avoid common problems. To best follow the line and solve the logic challenges, your robot should have two color sensors in front of the robot. Your robot should comfortably drive over all of the physical challenges that involve inclines, ramps, debris, and speed bumps. Your robot should have a way of detecting the water tower in the water tower challenge. And finally, your robot needs a way of locating the can in the rescue tile and performing the rescue. Now, here is a basic robot design that our students have created that does quite well in a Riley Rover division. If you are in high school or in the open divisions, then you will need to add some kind of claw or a mechanism to control and lift the can out of the rescue tile as well. Now, this robot's name is called Trucker because of the Lego truck tires that it uses. You can get a link to the instructions on how to build Trucker in the description below. Uh even though I don't recommend you using Trucker directly in a competition, uh we know that it does quite well, but with some additional modifications by your team, I'm sure it will do even better. Let's have a look at some of the key features of Trucker. You can see that there are the two color sensors placed in front of the robot on a floating fourbar mechanism. Now this ensures that the sensor moves up and down parallel with the robot to maintain the same distance to the line even when entering an incline or crossing obstacles. Another great addition to cross obstacles better is to add an omni wheel to the back instead of keeping a caster ball like in your basic spike pine robot robots. Uh, and because caster balls can get caught on speed bumps because of the sharp angle. You want the back wheel to be a little bit bigger so that it can cross these wheels. I mean, cross these obstacles better. On top of the robot, we have a distance sensor that detects the water tower. And it is dual use because it is also used to locate the can in the rescue tile. You can see that the wheelbase of this robot is quite wide so that it can keep its balance even when moving up or down inclines or the seessaw. Now, in our next video, we will look at how to write the essential code for the rescue line robot. Coding is one of the most important skills you can learn that can translate to any robotics platform. If you're enjoying this content, then you should consider joining my channel membership. For the price of lunch, you can get access to hundreds of hours of Python and Scratch coding lesson replays for advanced students. By becoming a member, you also directly help support my channel so that I can keep making more robotics content. Become a member today by hitting the join button below. I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.