Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!cat.cis.Brown.EDU!agate!darkstar.UCSC.EDU!news.hal.COM!olivea!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!yeshua.marcam.com!news.kei.com!MathWorks.Com!news.duke.edu!convex!cs.utexas.edu!news.uta.edu!utarlg.uta.edu!zsc0961
From: zsc0961@utarlg.uta.edu (COLLINS,ZACHRY,SHAY)
Subject: Re: Flying robot comp.
Message-ID: <1AUG199410265296@utarlg.uta.edu>
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Sender: news@news.uta.edu (USENET News System)
Nntp-Posting-Host: utarlg.uta.edu
Organization: The University of Texas at Arlington
References: <31e6d4$2nj@planchet.rutgers.edu>
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 1994 16:26:00 GMT
Lines: 30

In article <31e6d4$2nj@planchet.rutgers.edu>, josh@planchet.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) writes...
>There was a blurb in the current Popular Mechanics to the effect that
>the Ga. Tech (?) flying robot competition came off again this year 
>without a winner.  What are the rules, specs for the robots, tasks
>they have to complete?
>--JoSH
> 
The competition is based on the idea of totally autonomous flight.
The competition takes place on a 60' by 120' arena, with a barrier
dividing the 120' length at the 60' mark.  There is what is called
a "pickup ring" and a "dropoff ring" placed at a predetermined
position on either side of the barrier.  The pickup and dropoff
rings are 6' in diameter with a 6" side.  In the pickup ring are
6 randomnly placed disks.  The takeoff area is on the same side
of the barrier as the  pickup ring.  The task is to take off from
the takeoff area, go to the pickup ring, find a disk, and move it
over the barrier, placing it in the dropoff ring, and keep doing
this, one by one, until all of the disks are moved.
Scoring is based on such factors as time to acquire a disk,
time to move it to the dropoff ring, etc.  There is also 
scoring based on the design of the aircraft, and scoring based
on a paper which is submitted before the competition.  It is
true that no team has acquired a disk in the 4 years that the
competition has been going.  This is no trivial task, speaking
from experience.  For complete details, you should contact
Rob Michelson at Georga Tech.  I don't have his email address
handy, but if there is interest, I will post it.
-Shay Collins
ZSC0961@utarlg.uta.edu

