My students James Weis, John Wu, Bert Chou, Isaac Yang, and PJ Yurcak programmed this robot to autonomously navigate a maze, locate a fire, and extinguish it as part of the 2006 Trinity College International Robot Fire Fighter Competition in Hartford, CT. They were my first students to compete in the competition and yet came in 8th place out of a field of 24 international competitors. This is a short video of their accomplishment. Once programmed, their robot makes all of its own decisions — it is NOT controlled by humans via a remote controlled device! Nor does it move with dead-reckoning techniques — it can navigate any maze. Oh, it also starts by itself when an on-board microphone hears the fire alarm go off. Their robot is also smart enough to get back home once the fire is out. My students built their firefighter on top of the Mouse robot manufactured by Robodyssey Systems. Therobot’s brain is NetMedia’s BX-24 microcontroller, which is programmed using the BasicX language. I am the author of the world’s only BasicX textbook; if you are interested in learning how to program your own robot, see my website at www.basicxandrobotics.com.
Video Rating: 5 / 5
