A Report on Trinity Fire Fighting Contest 2003
April 2003
Fig. 1: The Little Green Machine and the Pain Train, both entered in Trinity 2003.
Introduction
Building a fire fighting robot is quite the challenge. I competed in the
2003 Trinity
Fire Fighting Contest in Hartford, CT with the Little Green Machine and the
robotics club I started at my High School entered the Pain Train. While neither
actually qualified for the event, we all learned a lot.
The Little Green Machine
The Little Green Machine had some terrible failures at the event. He ran just fine
in the arena I built in my basement but never completed a trial run at the contest.
The first problem I had was the motors. I used modified servos, and in my basement
they stayed nice and cool, but they heated up at the event. When servos heat up the
start to jitter and move when you think they are centered and stopped. This left the
LGM spinning around on the floor in between runs.
I also didn't have any feedback on the wheel movements, and had to adjust my direction
and wheel speed by serpentining between the walls, which made the robot real slow.
I also often hit walls.
The next problem I found out about is that the IR sensors were conflicting with one
another and giving bad readings. I had to take five readings and average them to
get halfway reliable data. It is no wonder I was hitting walls all day.
Anyways, I am already starting on next years design. I think I have fixed all my previous
problems and hope to fare better next year. On a positive note, I won second place on
the Robotics Olympiad, a written test on robotics at the event. The prize was great,
a medal and a $50 gift certificate to Acroname.
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