STUDENT COMPETITIONS INITIATIVE

Department of Electrical Engineering

University of Washington

Teams of students and faculty members are invited to submit proposals for participation in local or national competitions and similar activities.

The instructions are provided here for guidance, please do not let them restrict your imagination, creativity, and enthusiasm.

Proposal guidelines can be found at

http://www.ee.washington.edu/faculty/mamishev/personal/sci.html

The Department of Electrical Engineering will provide seed funding of up to 10K to support this activity using the Ford Gift. Long term support is also available. Faculty will also receive one quarter release time for these activities. A highly qualified technician will support the team. Proposals from faculty only or students only are also welcome, since matching of interests may take place at a later stage.

Proposals should be submitted to Alex Mamishev or Denise Wilson no later than January 15, 1999. Applicants (and everyone else in the department) will be notified by February 1, 1999 of proposal approval. We may have more than one winner if it makes sense. A joint committee of faculty and students will make the decision.

It is the intent of the student section of IEEE at the University of Washington to play both a leadership and participatory role in a technical competition chosen by the faculty in EE from a "short" list of choices solicited from undergraduate EE students. Options for faculty guidance and sponsoring of the competition include:

As a possible mechanism of decision-making, students surveyed in core courses (EE370, EE331, etc.) will select their three top choices from the following competition choices. Faculty interest and release time will then determine which of the three top choices are supported as department events.

Make your selection from the list below or dream up your own.
 

LOCAL EVENTS
`University of Washington Sponsored "Design for Education" Engineering Competition

Possible options: Design of a mechanical computer, robot design demonstrating human or insect locomotion, etc. This competition would focus on the ability to communicate a difficult technical concept through a "visually intuitive and entertaining" engineering design. The value of the final design would be judged based on how well the audience (grades 6-12) were able to understand the primary concepts of the design competition. Examples include:
  • Compare and contrast various image or sound compression algorithms using visually intuitive models.

• Demonstrate how various forms of power generation work (solar, hydroelectric, fossil fuel, nuclear).

• Build a macro scale model demonstrating how a microelectromechanical array of mirrors, actuators or other devices work.

 University-wide robotics competition among many teams of our students Many schools have classes that culminate with internal competitions. Some of them address real-world problems, such as detection of plastic landmines, and some of them are more entertainment-geared. Examples include:

• 6.270 MIT LEGO Robot Design Competition http://web.mit.edu/6.270/www/home.html

• Northwestern University robotics competition

 II. NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL ROBOTICS COMPETITIONS Robotics contests are probably the most popular and entertaining among college competitions. Several possibilities are listed below. Georgia Tech Aerial Robotics Competition:

            http://avdil.gtri.gatech.edu/AUVS/CurrentIARC/IARC2000intro.html

For the past seven years collegiate teams, with the backing of industry and government have fielded autonomous flying robots in an attempt to perform missions that required robotic behaviors never before exhibited in a flying machine. In 1990, the term "Aerial Robotics" was coined by competition creator Robert Michelson to describe a new class of small highly intelligent flying machines. The suc-cessive years of competition saw these aerial robots grow in their capabilities from vehicles that could at first barely maintain themselves in the air, to the most recent automatons which are self-stable, self-navigating, and able to interact with their environment-- especially, objects on the ground. The primary goal of the competition has been to provide a reason for the state-of-the art in aerial robotics to move forward.Challenges set before the international collegiate community have been geared to produce advances in the state-of-the-art at an evermore aggressive pace. The initial mission to move a metallic disc from one side of an arena to another with a completely autonomous flying robot was seen by many as almost impossible. Those lacking vision labeled the competition as a "crash and burn" event or a source of demoralization for the students, while pundits in the media predicted that it would be the year AD2000 before that mission was achievable. AAAI-99 Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibition http://www.aic.nrl.navy.mil/~schultz/aaai99/

The mission of the Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibition is to serve AAAI, AI-robotics researchers, and the larger AI community by promoting innovative research through events which appeal to media and sponsors, while conducting these events in a format that facilitates comparison of approaches, but at low risk to individual or institutional reputations.

The contest allows teams from universities and other labs to show off their best attempts at solving common tasks in a competitive environment. Teams compete for place awards as well as for technical innovation awards.

 ACS Robotics SIG Robotics Challenge http://members.xoom.com/robot_sig/comp99/

Stock Car Derby:

Four autonomous racecars at a time compete against each other for speed. Not only does each car have to give its best, it has to look out for the other competitors or else risk a pileup.

Sumo Wrestling:

Based on real Sumo Wrestling rules, your autonomous robot is required to locate and push, flip, roll, shove, throw, hurl, or otherwise remove the opposing robot from a 1.5m ring in the shortest period of time. Originally initiated in Japan, Sumo Wrestling competitions have spread to robotics competions all around the world.

 AHRC Vacuum Contest http://www.botlanta.org/vbr1_5.htm

The Atlanta Hobby Robotics Club will hold a household vacuum robot competition January 2000. The contest objective is to create a task-oriented robot to autonomously vacuum a typical household room. The robot should be able to navigate around ordinary objects without damaging them, while providing a level of cleaning comparable to a manually operated vacuum or good carpet sweeper. Testing will be done in a simulated room, complete with a chair, floor lamp, and speaker-box.

Judging will be based on the quantity of "dirt" that the robot is able to remove from the simulated room. Each robot will be allowed two or more six-minute trials. Scores will be based on the best trial. Robots that return to the start box before the six-minute time limit has expired score a "recharge" bonus.
 
 

 Cal Poly RoboRodentia http://www.ieee.calpoly.edu/cs/

Autonomous robots run through the maze searching for "cheese"
 
 

 RoboCup: The Robot World Cup Initiative http://www.robocup.v.kinotrope.co.jp/02.html

The Robot World Cup Initiative (RoboCup) is an international research and education initiative. It is an attempt to foster AI and intelligent robotics research by providing a standard problem where wide range of technologies can be integrated and examined, as well as being used for intergrated project-oriented education.

For this purpose, RoboCup chose to use soccer game as a primary domain, and organizes RoboCup: The Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences. In order for a robot team to actually perform a soccer game, various technologies must be incorporated including: design principles of autonomous agents, multi-agent collaboration, strategy acquisition, real-time reasoning, robotics, and sensor-fusion.

RoboCup is a task for a team of multiple fast-moving robots under a dynamic environment. RoboCup also offers a software platform for research on the software aspects of RoboCup.
 
 

 SAE Walking Machine Decathlon http://www.sae.org/students/walking.htm

Students have the opportunity to design, build, and test a walking machine with a self-contained power source. During the competition, the machines perform ten tasks that challenge students to think creatively. Students participating in this competition have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with technologically advanced components and systems necessary for the construction and development of robots and other complex intelligent machines.
 
 

 Seattle Robotics Society Robothon http://www.kelleys.org/robothon/

Micromouse, Firefighting, Line Following, Sumo, , Robot Art,Floor Exercise, Lego Robot Wars, Grand Maze, Rope Climbing, Solar Racing.
 
 

 Trinity College Fire-Fighting Contest http://www.trincoll.edu/events/robot/index.html

The goal of the 1999 contest was the same - to build a Robot that can find and extinguish a fire in a house. The challenge for the entrants was to build a computerized (not radio-controlled) Robotic device that can move through a model of a single floor of a house, detect fire (a lit candle) and then put it out. Robots that accomplish this task in the shortest time won.
 
 

 International Ground Robotics Competition http://www.secs.oakland.edu/SECS_prof_orgs/PROF_AUVSI/2000igvc.htm

The teams design and construct an autonomous robotic vehicle that can negotiate the competition course, which requires navigating around obstacles and keeping within a 10 foot wide path delimited by white lines painted on grass, blacktop and sand
 
 

 III. VEHICLE COMPETITIONS

SAE's EcoCar 2000 competition

http://www.sae.org/students/ecoschol.htm

The goal of the schools participating in the competition is to improve the education of the student engineers on their teams through building an advanced technology vehicle that competes successfully in EcoCar 2000. Success at the competition includes safely fielding an operational vehicle that is at least as energy efficient and environmentally clean as the original vehicle. To accomplish this goal, the schools' objectives are to establish a team of student engineers that researches, designs, plans, constructs, and tests a modified production vehicle donated by their sponsors and participates in as many events at the competition as possible. By building a team of student engineers and a vehicle that participates in EcoCar 2000, schools provide their students with a life-shaping educational experience that prepares them to be future leaders of the global automotive industry and allows them to compete with their colleagues from around the world in a safe and prudent manner.
 
 

 Sunraycer Solar Car Competition

http://www.me.berkeley.edu/calsol/solarraces.html

• Taking place every two years, Sunrayce is a competition among solar car teams from American colleges and universities. Sunrayce '97 ran from Indianapolis, IN to Colorado Springs, CO. Sunrayce '99 will be from Washington D.C. to Orlando, FL. Hailed as the "most popular new sport on campus", working to compete in Sunrayce gives college students in many different fields the opportunity to put their minds to work to build the winning car.
 

IV. OTHER

  Computer Society International Design Competition

http://computer.org/CSIDC

Applications are due by December 1, 1999.  The IEEE Computer Society’s CSIDC is a new system design competition for computer science and computer engineering undergraduate student teams.  The goal of the contest, which has a $25,000 total first prize, is to advance excellence in computer design education.  Teams of three to five undergraduate students should apply.  Each team will receive the same kit of resources and a description of an existing situation that could be improved through technology.  They then create a working model of a device to address the challenge.  The CSIDC will culminate in an intensive three-day competition at the CSIDC World Finals in the Washington, DC area on June 25-27, 2000.