mwtilden@watmath.waterloo.edu (Mark W. Tilden) (01/14/91)
On Jan 6th, The New York Times ran a front page feature on a robot
sumo-wrestling contest that occurred recently in Japan. It had over
three-hundred Japanese entrants. Does anyone have a copy of the rules or
know of someone who might? Thanx in advance.
Is all.
--
Mark Tilden: _-_-_-__--__--_ /(glitch!) M.F.C.F Hardware Design Lab.
-_-___ | \ /\/ U of Waterloo. Ont. Can, N2L-3G1
|__-_-_-| \/ (519) - 885 - 1211 ext.2454,
"MY OPINIONS, YOU HEAR!? MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! AH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"mwtilden@watmath.waterloo.edu (Mark W. Tilden) (01/19/91)
In article <1991Jan14.041341.3107@watmath.waterloo.edu> mwtilden@watmath.waterloo.edu (Mark W. Tilden) writes: > >On Jan 6th, The New York Times ran a front page feature on a robot >sumo-wrestling contest that occurred recently in Japan. It had over >three-hundred Japanese entrants. Does anyone have a copy of the rules or >know of someone who might? Thanx in advance. Well, so far no one has sent the info I asked for, but I've had numerous requests for elaboration, so here it is. I've attempted to formulate what the rules might be from careful study of the article and it's pictures. Hopefully this might be sufficiently accurate enough to build a viable competitor. I will post if I get any more info. The object is to push a single competitor over the edge of a 5' circular wrestling ring. The ring is raised above the floor approximately 2"and I assume, perfectly level. The internal floor of the ring appears to be burnished black arborite with a 2" white border. The border is flush with the internal surface. Competitors start 1 foot apart, 6" from the ring center. There is no surrounding wall of any type. The competition seems to have been to build a robot sumo-wrestler that initially must fit in a 1 foot cube (there is a unlimited height exception for antennas). After battle has started, the competitor can raise or extend any devices or limbs it wants (or chaff. One photo distinctly shows ball bearings spread about the floor, obviously dropped by a competitor designed to withstand such a tactic. Pretty sneaky). Althought the robot must have a self-contained power source, competitors can be controlled remotely by human operators or an on-board intelligence. All competitors seem to be cubical tanks of various types. No robot can use any powersource which involves a combustion process. No robot can deposit any fluids or 'mines' of any sort on the ring surface, only non-intelligent chaff like ball-bearings. No robot can actually launch any attack upon an opponents hardware (cutting wires, using spring-rams to destroy mechanisms) and, I would suspect, all intentional contact between opponents must be within half an inch of the floor. Competition continues until one entrant leaves the ring. If both entrants are incapacitiated (ie: flipped) then the sortie is restarted. All competitors must be self mobile (no cinder-blocks). Robots cannot use any gravity-assisting devices (ie: suction cups, compressed airjets, ect.). And finally, competitors must not damage the ring surface. The article states that the competition was sponsored by Fuji Software Inc. of Tokyo and that this was the second such annual competition. The winners wound up being low, sleek wedge designs which flipped their opponent in high speed ram tactics. Super-smart designs with vision systems and edge detectors were quickly eliminated. Most of those designs, by the way, were industrial lab entries (Sony, Phillips, Hitachi, ect.). Everybody faced everybody in round-robin eliminations, but winners were classified in either radio-controlled or self-contained catagories. The ultimate winner was a radio-controlled wedge built by Hiroshi Nonomura. In the self-contained catagory, Mozu built by Satoshi Masukawa claimed the prize. Evidence is that wetware still beats out software in matters of aggressive tactics. Both winners are students at Waseda University (a high-tech private school in Tokyo). Of the three-hundred competing teams, there was not one female entry. American entries were desired, but not present. I think that the winners from the recent MIT Mech Eng 270 course (as shown on Scientific American Presents. PBS, Wednesdays) would qualify, but the article mentioned that they could not get the funds for travel. Is all. -- Mark Tilden: _-_-_-__--__--_ /(glitch!) M.F.C.F Hardware Design Lab. -_-___ | \ /\/ U of Waterloo. Ont. Can, N2L-3G1 |__-_-_-| \/ (519) - 885 - 1211 ext.2454, "MY OPINIONS, YOU HEAR!? MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! AH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"
jpexg@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu (John Purbrick) (01/19/91)
In article <1991Jan18.185918.18933@watmath.waterloo.edu> mwtilden@watmath.waterloo.edu (Mark W. Tilden) writes: >In article <1991Jan14.041341.3107@watmath.waterloo.edu> mwtilden@watmath.waterloo.edu (Mark W. Tilden) writes: >> >>On Jan 6th, The New York Times ran a front page feature on a robot >>sumo-wrestling contest that occurred recently in Japan. > ...... > Although the robot must have a self-contained power >source, competitors can be controlled remotely by human operators or >an on-board intelligence. All competitors seem to be cubical tanks >of various types. >-- >Mark Tilden: _-_-_-__--__--_ /(glitch!) M.F.C.F Hardware Design Lab. There are two classes of competitors: radio-controlled and autonomous. It would be hard to come up with anything more calculated to excite the Japanese imagination than a fight between electronic gadgets. John Purbrick