Singapore Robotic Games Symposium
31 July 2003
Faculty of Engineering, National University of Singapore (map)
(Free Parking available at Kent Vale)        
Symposium Registration                         Pictures (including speakers)

The mechanical and mechanism design for wall climbing robots
Yoon Eng Tong (Lecturer, Engineering Design Section, NYP)

There are many possible ways to design a wall climbing robot. Various mechanisms can be adopted by a robot to scale walls, these include use of linkages, wheels, cams, gears and many other mechanical components. In this symposium, the basic design methodology to to design the mechanism of a wall climbing robot will be discussed.

Creative locomotion design of legged robots
Goh Kim Tjai (Lecturer, Engineering Design Section, NYP)

Legged robots are always more fascinating than wheeled robots due to their capabilities in maneuvering on rough terrains. There are many designs for the legs of these robots which range from single degree of freedom to multiple degree of freedom. In this symposium, the discussion will be focus on the various designs of such legs, methods of implementing them and selection methodology.

Robot Colony – Building it in a simple way
Sunarto Quek (Lecturer, Ngee Ann Polytechnic)

A robotic problem can often solved in many ways and at different technology domains. For example, to detect and grab an object effectively, one can solve it at the mechanical level (using guide), at the electronic level (using simple sensors) or at the computational level (using vision). In general, the solution at the lower level (mechanical) is often simpler but less flexible while that at the higher level (computation) the opposite. It is therefore important for one to always look at the lower level first for solution. This helps to avoid unnecessarily complexity in the robot design. In this presentation, Robot Colony is brought up as an example to illustrate the point. The task of this robot is to collect pellets of different colours and dispose them at the designated areas. The sub-tasks the robot has to carry out are to search for pellets, identify the colour, collect and dispose the pellets. We shall see how this can be done in a simple way.

Mr Sunarto Quek is a lecturer in Ngee Ann Polytechnic. He obtained his Master degree of Science in AI and Robotics from University of Edinburgh in 2000. His interests include vision processing, mobile robot and robot learning. He has been participating in several events in the Singapore Robotic Games in the last few years and has won first prizes in Trash-bin disposal robot and Robot Colony events. He is now a committee member in the Robotic Games Society (Singapore).

Robot Sumo for Beginners
Lai Shiu Mun, (Section Head/ Mechatronics Engineering, ITE West (Dover))

Robot sumo is one of the most popular robotics events in the world, where two robots try to push each other out of a circular ring. The radio-controlled robot sumo is an excellent platform for students to exercise their creativity and develop their skill in robot development.

The presentation will be conducted in three parts. The first will discuss common attack and defense strategies. This will be support by video clips of robot sumo in action. The second part will deal with the hardware consideration in constructing a typical robot sumo. It will discuss the trade-off between strength and mobility as well as selection of material. Finally, the presentation will take a look at the control system. It will discuss typical arrangement of servomotors that work with limit switches to control the movement of the robot sumo.

Target Audience: Robot hobbyists, secondary and tertiary school students

An Efficient Maze Solving Algorithm for a Micromouse
Hui Tin Fat (Alpha Centre, School of Engineering, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, htf@np.edu.sg)

In a competition, the performance of a micromouse is largely dependent on two factors. They are the maze searching ability and the maximum maze cruising speed of a micromouse. The maze searching ability of a micromouse reflects on the elapsed time for it to reach the goal and the elapsed time for it to finalize the dash path. The dash path is crucial for a micromouse to score its fastest runtime. This paper demonstrates a method of using a simple expert algorithm to complement the Bellman flooding algorithm to tackle a maze-solving problem. Considerations are given to a limited on-board processing power and memory space. Results from implementation and simulation of the algorithm using for a competing micromouse are presented.

Gladiator Robot
Peter Lim (Lecturer, Temasek Engineering School, Temasek Polytechnic)

The gladiator event of the Singapore robotics games is a popular event and has been well participated since its inception. The gladiator robot is an autonomous robot that weighs no more than 10Kg with a maximum size of 300mmX300mmX150mm. It is designed to push its opponent out of a 2 X 1m raised arena. This symposium will describe the stages of Design, including material selection of the gladiator robot. A section will be devoted to the motor driver, Microcontroller and software algorithm.

Networking in Robotic Application
How Woei Mun (TSO, Temasek Engineering School, Temasek Polytechnic)

The Intelligent robot Contest is a new event and different strategies have been adopted by different teams. Our strategy is to use a single robot to collect, sort and deposit the different coloured balls. Because of this the robot control system is complex and requires a large number of Inputs and Outputs (I/Os).

Traditional Embedded systems are usually limited in the ability for expansion. The focus of this presentation will be a look at our implementation of a distributed processing system where a modular approach, like that of object oriented programming, implemented in hardware and firmware. With this system, in place we will be able to cater to the ever expanding needs for an autonomous robot system.

Pole balancing robot and some control strategies
Jagannathan Kanniah (Singapore Polytechnic)

The pole balancing robot control or conventionally called inverted
pendulum control has been a classic control problem. When pole
balancing can be done using an appropriately designed controller,
the control of position while maintaining the pole close to normal
causes a few difficulties. Using a classical control strategy is
problematic.However fuzzy logic is readily usable. Some aspects of this problem are
discussed in this talk.

Cooperative robotics and robot-soccer systems
Arun Raj Vasudev and Prahlad Vadakkepat (National University of Singapore)

This talk gives an overview of multi-robot control from the viewpoint of robot soccer systems.

The study of mobile multi-robot systems is a natural extension of work done on single robots, with the difference that cooperation between individual robots becomes a major area of investigation. There exist several real-world tasks where multiple robots acting in parallel and in cooperation with one another are more effective than singleton robots, and the recent advances in digital technology has made research on such systems more feasible than ever.

Robot soccer systems were originally posed as a benchmark problem for multi-robot control, and their effective use as a metaphor can provide valuable insights about the field. It is hoped that in this regard, the talk will be of some assistance to those interested in cooperative robotics.

Taking LEGO Mindstorms to the Extreme
Soh Chio Siong

This presentation will discuss how adults have stretched the LEGO Mindstorms Robotics Invention System to the extreme using the inverted pendulum problem as an example. This involves using custom hardware and software to overcome the restrictions imposed by the original LEGO components. The outline of the talk is as follows:
• RCX (Programmable Brick) Internals
• Custom (non-LEGO) sensors
• Alternative Programming Languages for RCX
• LEGO Balancing Bots
• Balancing Algorithms
• Demo
• Discussion

Dr Soh Chio Siong (commonly known as CSSoh on the Internet) is a public health physician who has a penchant for things scientific, mechanical and electronic. Since he was a child, he has built crystal sets, microscopes, telescopes, steam engines, digital clocks, and computers among other things.

Dr Soh became interested in using LEGO as a tool for creative learning in 1998, with the purchase of some LEGO Dacta sets and later on, the LEGO Mindstorms Robotics Invention System set. He developed a special interest in pneumatics, particularly pneumatic engines and is the author of the world-renowned site on LEGO Pneumatics (www.ozbricks.net/cssoh1 now re-located at www.fifth-r.com/cssoh1).

His current interest is the use of LEGO in the teaching of science and creativity. He thinks robotics should be the fifth R, after Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic and computeR.

He is an active member of the LUGNET community and has led many interesting discussion threads. (LUGNET is the world-wide Lego Users Newsgroup on the Internet).
In September 1999, Dr Soh’s RCX Controlled Air Compressor Tester (www.lugnet.com/robotics/?n=7047) created quite a stir on the LUGNET Robotics discussion list. CSSoh's Lego Pneumatics Page (www.ozbricks.net/cssoh1) was voted LUGNET's Cool Lego Site of the Week for 9-15 Jan 2000. This was the first site from Singapore to receive this recognition from LUGNET

In June 2000, Dr Soh, in collaboration with P.A. Rikvold and S.J. Mitchell of Florida State University, participated in a poster presentation at the Gordon Conference. The presentation, entitled "Teaching Physics with LEGO: From Steam Engines to Robots", can be viewed at www.physics.fsu.edu/users/rikvold/info/gordon00a.html.

In September 2003, Dr Soh participated in a Global Robotics Learning Project using LEGO as the Common Language with Tonya Witherspoon and Larry Withman of Wichita State University, Kansas, USA. At the Wichita State University Global Learning Conference on November 13-14 2003, Tonya Witherspoon and Karen Reynolds presented on the project, "Robotics Around the World, An Online Global Collaboration using LEGO as the Common Language." The presentation received the "Global Learning Excellence in Technology Innovation Award for 2003." (http://webs.wichita.edu/dt/newsletter/show/?NID=1995&AID=4538)

Dr Soh is co-author of two Lego Mindstorms books: “10 Cool LEGO Mindstorms Robotics Invention System 2 Projects” and “10 Cool LEGO Mindstorms Ultimate Builders Projects” both published by Syngress Publishing Inc in 2002.

The Great Escape - Robots are seeking employment outside factories
Gerald Seet (Assoc. Professor, School of Mechanical & Production Engineering, Nanyang Technological University)

Robots are traditionally associated with automobile assembly and material transfer through the use of AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles). To a large extent this perception is still relatively accurate and valid. Recently, however, robots have been increasingly being imbued with greater levels of intelligence and autonomy.

Modern day robots are being fitted with a larger array of sensors enabling it to perceive and interact with its environment. Vision systems enable the robot to ‘see’ the world around it. Manipulators with in-built tactile sensors, enables it to feel and grasp the objects. Voice synthesis and recognition modules allow the robot to interact with humans natural.

In the not too distant future, it can be expected that robots could take on the more mundane and dangerous tasks. With a greater level of intelligence, they could be deployed in unstructured environments like homes. They could be the next generation of domestic helpers who would perform their tasks tireless and willingly 24 hours of the day. They could also replace humans in tasks, which are considered dangerous like deep-sea exploration, inspection, peace-keeping or even for war.

In this talk, highlights of research at the Robotics Research Centre in the areas of customised ‘service robots’ would be presented. This includes underwater robotic vehicles, walking machines and educational robots.

Gerald is currently an Associate Professor with the School of Mechanical and Production Engineering, Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. He lectures in mechatronics and system design at undergraduate and graduate level. He holds a concurrent appointment as Director of the Robotics Research Centre. His main research interests are in mechatronics, underwater mobile robotics and hydraulics. He frequently provides industrial consultancy in these areas.

Gerald plays an active role in the promotion of engineering and robotics to industry and young students through his service on a number of committees, including the Singapore Robotics Games and on national engineering organisations.