The 2015 Student Robotics competition has started with various Kickstart events. Kickstarts were held at the University of Southampton, the University of Bristol and Facebook HQ in London. There is also a Kickstart event occurring in Munich soon.
There are 54 teams competing in this year’s Student Robotics competition, coming from across the United Kingdom and Germany. We have generated a map of where all competing teams are from this year.
The game: Capture the Flag
This year’s competition is all about retrieving flags from around the arena and putting them into the competitor’s zone to get points. The flags are built from wooden cubes on ball casters.
Read more about the new game or for full details please reference the rulebook.
Kit upgrades
Student Robotics volunteers have worked hard producing a whole range of new kit for Student Robotics 2015. These upgrades include:
Power Board
This year comes with an all new Power Board which allows for the control of up to six external powered components.
Brain Board
The new Brain Board is the Odroid U3. It’s a small but powerful Linux computer with a 1.7GHz Quad Core ARM processor and packs 2GB of RAM. These boards are similar to the Raspberry Pi, but are often reported as being between 6 and 12 times more powerful.
Tablets
There is an all new way of debugging robots this year, which is through the use of a tablet. The tablets connect to the Brain Board through WiFi and gives the ability to view logs and start/stop the robot remotely — without chasing the robot half way around the school!
We are also working on streaming the camera and having control over individual components.
Servo Board
The new Servo Board allows for control over up to 12 servos simultaneously.
Interconnect
The new inter-board communication system has been upgraded entirely to USB. This makes communication faster, wiring easier, and the kit more robust.
Final words
This year’s competition should be an exhilarating event, and all of the Student Robotics volunteers are looking forward to seeing how well the robots compete!
The Student Robotics team