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Eolo
During the night before the fifth ItLUG Legofest, Antonio Ianiero and I
designed and built this rather unconventional robot to take part to the robotic
Sumo challenge (see the
Events - Legofest V
section of the
ItLUG site
if you want to find out some more details about that event and the other
competitors).
And it WON!
Partly to joke and partly to be provocative, we went for a brute force approach
and built the less "robotic" of the competitors, a strategy meaningful only by
virtue of the rule that stated a face to face start.
The element of originality in Eolo is its locomotion system, entirely
pneumatic, based on the pneumatic motor described in the wonderful
CSSOH'S Lego Pneumatics Page.
The motor is supplied by 7 air tanks pre-loaded by manual pumping. So the RCX
is there just to open the valve at the start!
To reduce the chance for the opponent to avoid Eolo, it features an extra-large
bumber. At the beginning the bumper stays upright to keep Eolo inside the size
limitations of the tournament (32x32 studs), then after the start it gets
pushed down through a second motor.
In consequence of this architecture the software is really a short piece of
code: at the start activates the motor to open the bumper, then wait 5 seconds
(to accomplish the rules) and finally opens the valve to start the pneumatic
engines.
Eolo has no sensors, and no chance to stop or change direction. It just pushes
in the hope to get the opponent off the field. But if the latter succeed in
avoiding it, Eolo kills itself running stupidly up to the border of the field
and
over.
In the picture you can see the Code Pilot and some battery boxes (3). They're
there just to add weight up to the allowed limit.
Front view, bumper closed.
Rear view. Some of the air tanks were really loosely secured!
Eolo facing Davide (by Marco Beri).
Top view, RCX and other stuff removed.
Bottom view.
The right side of the pneumatic motor.
Close-up of one valve of the motor.