Creating a SumoBot from scratch (and Lego)

Recently, the SumoBot competition which is being organized by the local IEEE Student Branch caught my attention.

The goal of the competition is to build your very own intelligent robot, which is capable of pushing another robot out of a playing field (hence the term SumoBot).
The robot will be built using Lego, and the brain will consist of a microcontroller, which will process input coming from various sensors (distance, light, ...) and steer the Lego engines to make the robot move.

Last Tuesday, the kick-off of the SumoBot competition was held, during which it became clear that a lot of students (Bachelor, Master and Phd) were interested to join in on the fun.

Although I waited until the last minute to actually join in, I don't think I'll regret it. It seems like a good way to learn (a lot) about electronics and AI. And of course, being able to make a robot do stuff you want it to is just cool.

After buying the microcontroller package for just €30 and opening it, I realized that my knowledge on electronics would be seriously tested.
Here's a shot of what was in the package:

I need to solder this all together to one (hopefully) working electronics board.
Since I had never soldered anything before, this seemed like quite a challenge.

Luckily, the organizers were very helpful with ignorant people like me. They carefully explained me how the soldering should be done, and how to start this thing off best, i.e. by starting with the small, low parts.

Since then, I've spent two hours carefully soldering some of the parts on the board, resulting in this:

I hope I'll find the time soon to finish up on this.

In the mean time, I've (literally) dusted off my collection of Lego, trying to find bits and pieces which might come in useful when designing the robot. I knew my love for Lego System and Lego Technics would come in handy some day...

In the next few weeks, I'll be gradually building and programming my SumoBot, in order to kick some serious robot ass on April 28th, when the actual competition is being held.

Stay tuned for more...