Hi Guys,
I've recently been given the opportunity to build a soccer kicker robot with a $1000 budget.
The soccer robot is for this competition : http://rcj.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/rcj2009/soccer-rules-2009.html (http://rcj.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/rcj2009/soccer-rules-2009.html)
Its basically two robots - one goalie and one kicker, that push an infrared emitting ball into the opposing team's goal.
(http://rcj.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/rcj2009/soccer-versionA-field-view1-w300.jpg)
Here's a video:
T'n'T - RoboCup Junior 2007 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh7rnQ7QNEU#lq-hq)
I want to focus on the kicker robot in this thread, because the goalie robot is relatively easy to build.
The kicker has the following restrictions - size/diameter: 22 cm height: 22 cm weight: 2.5 kg
The kicker has to locate the IR ball on the field, and then navigate around to push that IR ball into the opposing goal.
Locate infrared ball - I'm thinking a CMUcam or Blackfin camera OR an array of infrared sensors. With the camera I guess I could either put on a physical IR filter ( like those found for digital cameras) or I could just have the camera search for the color that bluish/purpleish IR light seems to emit( human eye cant see it , but your cellphone camera can).
Navigate Around - either using cameras or ultrasonic, or a combination of both.
Push the IR ball - probably a linear actuator or a spinning motor wheel
Obviously depending on which method I use I will have to move up on processors - meaning if the Axon can't handle my hardware , I'll just use two Axons or maybe just a nano-ITX board. As for mechanics , I'll just build a nice platform that uses the fastest , strongest motors I can find :)