Beefhouse
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General Information
BEEFHOUSE was a robot created for the NEIRG 3kg sumo competition in Fort Wayne, IN and also the CIRC sumo competition in Perioa, IL. Beefhouse is named after a restaurant located somewhere down highway 63 on the way to Perioa, IL. Beefhouse greatest achievement was placing 3rd in the 2006 NEIRG competition.
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Video
2006 NEIRG Competition
The camera used to take this video was low quality and ran out of memory but vividly displays Beefhouse dominating another robot. However, Beefhouse's weakness was soon discovered and exploited by all the other competitors. The weakness was that Beefhouse only turned one way, and thus our opponents had quite a speed advantage in detection. This problem was alleviated in 2006 with the addition of a second ultra sonic and logic to determine which direction is the best to turn at initial start up.
Beefhouse Vs. Mr.Roboto (RND 1)
Beefhouse Vs. Mr.Roboto (RND 2)
System
Block Diagram
Beefhouse's simplified block diagram:
Electrical Schematic
Beefhouse's electrical schematic:
Chassis
Chassis Specs
- Width: 19.9cm
- Length: 19.9cm
- Height: 7.0cm
- Weight: 2lbs 12oz (without batteries and electronics)
Battery Technology
Regulator
A linear regulator was used to covert the incoming 14.4 Volt DC to a 5 Volt TTL compatible power for the micro controller and sensors. The linear regulator chosen was the 3 pin LM7805 IC. It is very easy to use however inefficient as is any linear regulator.
Sensors
Line Detection
Four QRB1114 Infrared Sensor were placed one at each corner of Beefhouse's chassis to detect the outer ring and keep the robot from commiting suicide. The orginal logic only allowed for two conditions full forward if a line is behind Beefhouse and full reverse if its in front of Beefhouse.Chris Cooper and Kevin Townsend worked on creating algorithms that could possibly make the robot more evasive by looking at different scenarios of inputs.
Robot Detection
Beefhouse uses a SRF04 Ultrasonic Sensor for robot detection. The basic principle is that Beefhouse spins and uses this sensor to measure the distance all objects are from the robot by measuring the amount of time a sound wave takes to travel and reflect back to the sensor. If an object is detected within a certain distance (The diameter of the ring) the robot will "charge" in the general direction. If the target moves outside the range of the sensor Beefhouse will begin spinning until the target is relocated.
A second SRF04 Ultrasonic Sensor was added to Beefhouse and mounted 90 degrees from the front sensor. The logic behind this was that upon initial start up the robot would be able to determine which direction to spin and would drastically decrease the detection time of another robot. An issue that was to Beefhouse's demise in the 2006 NEIRG competition. The code was written to first check this sensor and if a robot was detected it would turn the robot to that direction, if there was no robot detected it would turn the opposite way.
Motors
Lynx Motion Gear Head Motor - 12vdc 50:1 120rpm (6mm shaft)
Motor Specs
- Voltage: 12vdc
- RPM: 120
- Reduction: 50:1
- Stall Torque: 123.20 oz-in (8.8 kg-cm)
- Outside Diameter: 37mm
Motor controller
Micro controller
Code
| FILENAME . | VERSION | DATE . | CHANGE DESCRIPTION . |
| Beefhouse v2.0 | v2.0 | 2/17/2008 | New Code Example |
