Page 32 - Build Your Own Combat Robot

Robotica Chapter 1: Welcome to Competition Robots 13
Robotica is a new type of robot combat where bots must complete several courses
before they can fight each other. This type of contest has different design require-
ments; brute strength doesn’t guarantee that the bot will win the contest. Bots
need to be more agile and creative to solve each challenge. In this contest, you
must keep up-to-date on the rules because the challenges change dramatically
each year.
There is only one weight class for the Robotica robots. The maximum weight is
210 pounds., and the robot must fit inside a 4-foot-by-4-foot-by-4-foot cube at the
start of the match.
To give you an idea of the different types of events Robotica contestants face,
the following are details on qualifying obstacle courses from the first two televi-
sion seasons.

Season One

In the first season of Robotica, bots had to survive three different preliminary
rounds. The first event was the Speed Demons race, where two bots raced around
a figure-8–shaped track in opposite directions. The first bot that finished eight
laps won the race. If the 2-minute time limit expired with both bots on the track,
the race was ended. Points were given to each bot for each lap finished. The bots
were allowed to crash into each other when their paths crossed.
The second event was the Maze event. Here, the bots had to navigate to the cen-
ter of a maze and overcome several obstacles, which included a teeter-totter ramp,
a weighted box, spiked paddles, speed bumps, a guillotine, and a waterfall. The
first robot to the center won the event. Points were given to each bot for each ob-
stacle successfully navigated.
The final event was the Gauntlet event. Each bot had to crash through five in-
creasingly difficult obstructions. The obstacles included a pane of glass, a wall
made of pint-sized metal cans, small bricks, stacked cement blocks, and a large
weighted box. Two bots ran identical parallel courses, and the first bot that
moved the weighted box won the event. Points were also awarded for each obsta-
cle the bot went through.
The bot with the most points after the three events won the preliminary round
and got to fight the winner of another set of events. The final match, called Fight to
the Finish, took place on a 16-foot diameter ring 8 feet off the ground. To win this
event, your bot had to push the opponent off the ring to its death on spikes below
the ring.