The Trinity College Fire-Fighting Contest is the closest competition (to me) I know about, has anyone else considered entering? In about a month registration opens and I was thinking of entering this year. (definitely will enter next year)
There home page is: http://www.trincoll.edu/events/robot/
And the rules are here : http://www.trincoll.edu/events/robot/Rules/default.asp
The things I need to figure out are:
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Candle detection - When I went as a spectator a few years ago the big thing was a glass encapsulated UV detector with the CMU cam 1 the up and coming contender. I cant find anything on the UV detector and i have a CMU cam. But I want the extra points for building it from scratch.
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Sound start - It's a little tricky in that it has to respond to 3.8khz but not 2.5khz. I'm not worried i have lots of analog experience. This is where I’ll start.
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Navigation - This is the hard bit. The rules require the uneven floors (ramps) and variable door positions. with extra points for returning to the start position and only searching rooms once. But can be as simple as following the wall (without touching it) until you stumble on the candle. I have some ideas for using a SD card and building a map as i go. This part will get a lot of commuting time meditation.
In the rules they worn of a harsh lighting environment. They understate how bad it is. the contest is in a gym with florescent and mercury vapor lights, windows and a hanger sized door that is sometimes open reviling white concrete in direct sunlight. Idon’t think the sun was directly on a arena but I am not sure.
So that just leves me to ask
- Is anyone else thinking of going?
- Anyone have suggestions for a flame detector?
- Does anyone know a good Arduino friendly navigation or mapping algorithm?
- If i go will ignoblegnome loan me the LMR banner for my pit area ;-?
Not going to happen this year,
Too much life got in the way,
The audio pressure detect is done but i need to tweek it to allow me to measure the frequency.
The first experiments in the filter for the flame detector went well.
I decided i am going to have to make a custom board for it. Something like to the spider controller but built around a AT-Megga-8 and using a boost power supply so i can run it off a 3.6V battery pack.
