Sumo and Minisumo
There are a number of different sumo events. I’ve had 3 minisumo robots, which appears in Robogames as 500 g Autonomous. I’ve watched a few of the 3kg autonomous matchs. THe 3 kg events were started in Japan, and coulod see some very tough competitors come from ther. Their events copnsist of school teams competing, going through many teams(500? 1000?) to have their top 5 sumos come over to compete in autonomous and RC 3 kg events. The robots are limited to 3kg weight and 20cm by 20cm in size, and in the past had made use of vacuum, to hold them on the 5’ (154 cm) ring better. Used to have a video of a sumo operating a search pattern on a vertical wall. I think current rules are geared towards magnetics, as the ring material has changed to steel I think. Sumo speeds can get to 5 meters per second The US primarily started with the 500 g sumo from efforts by Bill Harrison a number of years back. Minisumos are 10cm by 10cm and compete in a 30" ring. (77cm) no vacuum allowed, autonomous only. The 1 kg is a lego addition since the bots built with the mindstorms stuff tended to be a little heavy or large for minisumo, but too light for full sumo. The 100 g is microsumo, I think 5 by 5 cm, and then 25 g nanosumo, 2.5 cm by 2.5 cm. The last 2 are getting just way to small, but some have funwith them.
Minisumo is much easier cost wise to get into, and is a lot of fun. Most competitions were double elimination (the robot had to lose twice to be knocked out). The robot must be programmed to wait 5 seconds before moving. Then it’s simply use the best pushing or strategy to get the other robot out of the ring. Simple things like keeping your robot in the ring can help the robot win the match. I’ve seen minisumos that blindly drove off past the other robot. Next is trying to find your opponent. And then maybe track your opponent and decide what to do next. Things like weight, traction, speed, and precision are good to keep in mind in building and programming. Here is a couple pics of my first minisumo, that actually did ok in competition a couple years, til I went against the originators in Seattle. Sarge was a fun little robot, that I still have, though he needs work at the moment.
Sarges' rubber washer wheels got replaced by silicon sealer at one point, by slowly squeezing it out of the tube while the wheels were rotating, letting a layer dry, then repeating. Lead weight was added to get as close to 500 g as possible. The next minisumo was Nestor, based on a Mark II chassis, and most recently Grendel, scratch built on a Tamiya twin gearbox. There are a number of videos online of minisumo and sumo matches, that would be very educational.
Other competitions I've been in have been local events with the club, which don't appear to be similar to anything at Robogames. These were Quick Trip, T-Time, Line Following, somewhat simple contests. I've recently been interested in what has been called Robo-magellan, an outdoor robot navigation event that I have not competed in yet. There are a number of these competitions throughout the US. They appear to have that at Robogames too. Firefightling is another that might be interesting. Even balancer race too.
