Robotics Competition Game Board & Rules w/ Tetrix/Prizm (Engineering/Robotics)

These documents are for coordinating a high school robotics competition. The competition was designed around the Tetrix/Prizm robotics platform, but other platforms such as VEX could be used. I developed this game board/rules in part out of a frustration that existing competitions focused little on programming instead relying primarily on controlling robots with remote controls. This competition seeks to bring a focus to computer science by asking students to develop programs during the actual competition in order to compete.

The provided Robotics Competition Instructions discusses the structure of the competition:

“This year's competition is broken into three challenges. For each challenge you will be presented with a game board and a set of objectives for your robot to complete. Your team will then develop a program and make any necessary modifications to your robot to meet the objectives and comply with the rules of the challenge. Each challenge will provide you opportunities to score points. At the end of the competition, the scores from each challenge will be tallied. The winner of the competition is the team who scores the most points.

Considering that you will spend your time during the competition writing programs and making modifications to your robot, you will not be shown the challenges until the day before the competition. Though you will not be able to develop programs for the competition in advance, you can still prepare by developing programs which complete the tasks listed below. Be sure to save each program you create and bring a copy with you to the competition. In addition to completing the following programming tasks, construct a robot that has a footprint of no more than 18in x 18in which includes an ultrasonic sensor and a line sensor and bring it with you to the competition. The integrated development environment (IDE) that you will be using is Arduino and the robotics platform is Tetrix.”

Students are provided seven programming tasks paired with creating graphical flowcharts that should prepare them for the competition. An example of one of these programming tasks is: “Write a program which has your robot drive straight until it senses a black line on the ground. The robot should then turn around and drive to its starting location.”

Included is a PDF showing the three game boards and game rules. Each game board can be made using 12”x12” light foam tiles and black borders. To help the robot function autonomously, the color of the tiles should be chosen to allow the use of the line sensor. I used white foam tiles for the primary game board and an off-white color for the starting location and scoring areas. I used black edge pieces for the borders. For game components, I used regular steel soup cans with color tape wrapped around them and USPS boxes. To mark specific parts of the game board, masking tape can be used. Not shown in the documents, but PVC pipes can be used to create boundaries around and inside the game board for creating new competition game boards in future competitions.

This product includes:

• Competition Introduction & Instructions
• Competition Layout & Rules
• Autodesk Inventor part files for the three game board and a drawing file discussing the rules