REU 2008-Building the First USF Small Size Robot TeamChristopher HobbsMentor: Dr. Alfredo Weitzenfeld

Department of Computer Science & Engineering

AbstractIt started with the 1997 defeat of chess world champion Garry Kasparov by Deep Blue, IBM’s chess playing computer. Since this battle of man versus machine, the purpose of robotics was to create robots that would advance artificial intelligence (AI) to a level that replicates the human thought process.  RoboCup, an international robotics soccer competition, supported a platform for the advancement of the AI of robotics. 

Project Objective My duties included constructing the individual components of the robots and assembling them into 3 complete robots. IntroductionRobotics is the science and technology of developing robots. Robotics is a technology that holds many possibilities for application. Currently we have robots that build cars, help with search and rescue, and that aid in education and research. Robots have the potential to do anything that can and will be done by humanity. In the future this list of applications will begin to grow without bounds in relation to the development of better AI. The problem that we face today is creating the AI that will allow robots to echo the reasoning skills of a person. For this reason RoboCup was formed. RoboCup is an international competition centered on designing robots to play soccer. The end goal is for us to construct a humanoid robot soccer team that can beat the reigning world soccer champs in a game. Constructing robots in order to play soccer might seem like a waste of time, but in actuality this unique problem will give us insight on future design problems of such a team.

Methodology and ProceduresThere are 4 essential internal components that allow the programming of the robot to acquire:Kicker Card- This controls the kicker it charges power for kicks of various strengths.DSP Card- This card is the brain of the robot it controls the functions of the other cards.Power card- This sends power through the entire system. Motor Card- This controls all functions of the motors and movements of the robots.To construct the components I had to weld on the individual pieces to their specified positions such as the power converter on kicker card, and the two regulators on the Motor card. My duties also included checking the circuits on the power card and uploading the program to the DSP cards. I also assembled the wheels. Each piece had to be place correctly in order to fit inside the robots casing. I assembled each robot by attaching each card on atop each other in the correct order. Power card being the base kicker card and motor the middles section and DSP on top. Because of the robots nature, constant movement, this had to be done properly in order to keep the components from damaging themselves while the robot was in action.

ResultsAssembled robots competed in RoboCup, international soccer competition, in China in July

ConclusionFuture work will include:

1.Further development of A.I. system governing the robots2.Development of humanoid soccer playing robots for competition.

AcknowledgementsSpecial Thanks to.

•Dr. Alfredo Weitzenfeld•Paolo Aguilar Valiente,•Mr. Bernard Batson•Dr. Miguel A. Labrador•FGLSAMP Organization•RoboCup

Kicker Card

Power CardMotor Card

DSP Card