Biped robot competition?

Dear colleagues and enthusiasts,

as a diploma thesis at faculty of electrical engineering, I am developping biped walking robot (at this moment without upper part of body). I am curious, whether are there any robot competitions for such biped (humanoid) robots?

I know about humanoid robot soccer, but it is too complex topic for me. In the Robot competition FAQ, I have found SAE Walking robot competition, which seems to be interresting (and I guess it is for any number of legs).

Do you now about any other (easy) competition suitable for the very beginner biped?

Thank you for your pointers. Best regards, Marek Peca.

Reply to
marek
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Reply to
Randall P. Hootman

Dear Randy,

thank you for this suggestion, it looks very well, their photogallery impressed me. But I think I am out of their size specification -- my robot is too high when standing (about 50cm). What a pity... (but, they write "to fit in the box" -- ok, he can fit, if knee joints appropriately turned).

Best regards, Marek P.

Reply to
marek

--The thing that comes to mind re: walkers were the competitions the Brits put on called the Techno Games. Carried briefly on US TV; not sure if it's still going on or not, but there were a couple of very kewl walkers developed there. One biped wound up getting made into a kit that Parallax sells. 'Course nowadays the "state of the art" for kits are the Japanese and Korean kits that sell for around $1,600 apiece (yeowch!!). OTOH if you can getcher hands on a couple of R/C servos and find some of the softwar these beasties are running you can do the same thing very quickly and very cheaply. I saw one made of ..get this: popsicle sticks! Not only could it walk, the thing could do a sort of forward roll, then get up off the ground and keep walking. Will see if I can find some links for this.

Reply to
steamer

The problem with walkers, as I see it, is that you need a *lot* of torque to move the payload. And the power requirements go up for larger payloads. The Japanse Robo-One bots are cool, but they seem to be fancy remote controlled toys. They don't have the payload or endurance to use a powerful CPU for autonomous action.

I'm starting to design and build a medium-sized robot (it should stand three to four feet tall when it's done). This robot will have three legs, mainly because I have always wanted a build a tripod.

The problem is that the more powerful RC servos use a *lot* more power. I'm still going to try it with 1/4 sized servos and the Hitech robotics servos. It should be an adventure.

-- D. Jay Newman

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Reply to
D. Jay Newman

I believe that that is a wrong assumption. If walking would take so much energy, why can humans hike for hours, but fail to hold out their arm for five minutes. Obviously, walking takes less energy than holding out one's arm!

It does take a lot of energy and toque to get up from the ground, especially in the knees, but once you are standing up and you have a good walk cycle, bipeds hardly use any energy. It is essential though to have a correct joint order and position. Robo-one's are definitely too simple for efficient walk cycles.

My biped is 40cm and uses 4 Amps when getting up from the ground, but less than an amp to walk. With 2400Ah NiCads, it can walk for over two hours. And that's not even NiMh yet... .

Matthias

Reply to
Matthias Melcher

--Well for bipedal and powerful take a look at what's been happening with the Tetsujin competition. Admittedly these aren't autonomous systems, but they're only one step away, so to speak. IIRC the current weight lifting record is over 400 lbs, heh. Deets at the Servo magazine website; I think they started the competition.

Reply to
steamer

bad example... Holding out your arm uses muscles that aren't normally used, and tire easily due to them being weak actuators...

you can move 5 pounds with a small solenoid, but hold it there for a long time and the solenoid overheats and burns the coil. Same thing with your arm, but your brain is hopefully smart enough to put your arm down before you start damaging muscle/tendon, etc....

Better example:

human can walk for hours, but not jump rope..

walking requires little energy, because you are using weight distribution/ balance to move forward. Lift your leg (only lifting the weight of your leg), move it forward, lean forward. Your body falls towards your forward leg, and you move forward.

Jump rope: each time you jump, you are lifting weight of entire body. No balance involved, no falling with the assistance of gravity to help you.

Reply to
aiiadict

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