My university (Worcester Polytechnic Institute, or WPI) placed third and first (I was the third) netting me 80 bucks towards my next robot project :-). I even bet the other guy from my school that he was going to knock me out after I spent 2 hours debugging his bluetooth x.x.
The competition itself was fairly straightforward, and honestly thrown together kinda last minute. They merely gave us iRobot Creates and bluetooth dongles. A thrown together field made out of 2 by 4s had randomly placed chairs/wooden walls and virtual walls throughout the course. The virtual walls were broadcasting at a short range, acting as buoys. Two robots would begin on opposite sides of the course and then would autonomously hunt down these beacons using floor-coverage and obstacle-avoidance algorithms. Honestly I've thought of 50 better ways to do it then mine but my wall oscillating algorithm did quite well. I could have taken first if I didn't get stuck in a canyon (three walls to form an almost rectangle that is closer together, or slightly bigger than the robot) a bit longer than I should have.
It was interesting, interesting enough that I'm thinking of getting my school to host a similar event. We would have a more obstacle intensive course, though.
Oh well, good way to spend 9 hours I suppose. And the 80 bucks is nice :-)
