Humanoid Robotics Competition: Follow Up

It may sound cliché, but it appears that everyone was a winner at this year’s Humanoid Robotics Competition, an IAP course inspired by the Japanese Robo One competition.

Ten students spent three weeks building and programming the KHR-2HV robot from Kondo concluding with an exhibition and demonstration on January 30th. The competition was originally intended to be a tournament with a winner declared at the end. When the time came, however, the students were more interested in informal battles between the robots. The robots performed for a full house with 60-70 people in attendance.

Oliver Chatot, one of the course organizers, was enthusiastic about the outcome. "The robots functioned at a higher level at the end of the course this year then they did last year. All four teams produced robots that were able to walk and fight. Also there was a great variety to the fighting techniques and movements. In fact, we had to change the combat rules because there were some new combat moves we hadn’t seen before."

The original rules centered around robots knocking each other down a certain number of times. However, several teams had combat moves that start from a prone position and used the momentum of getting up to create a powerful kick or punch. In response, the rules were altered so that the robot who is pushed off the combat surface first would loose.

Once again, the course seems to have been successful in sparking interest in robotics among the course participants. One student is interested in pursuing a UROP based off of coursework and four students (ranging from freshmen to graduate students) are interested in helping with next years’ course. When asked if he would be involved in the course again next year, Olivier said "yes! Absolutely."

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