2nd Annual UNI Mini Sumo Ship-In contest

Just two weeks away! UNI is again hosting the annual Ship-In Mini Sumo contest. This is the second annual. Send your robot to town to compete with others. If you want in, sign up now! The future of Mini Sumo competition is at hand, and we should have even better video equipment with live webcast this year.

Last year we had one Ship-In, plus our students. Our students showed them to be fairly tough competitors, and now they've got big heads. Since the class runs every other year, we have lost some students to graduation and jobs, and a few will be back to compete. We already have a couple Ship-In's, so more than last year, but overall it looks like a light field this year. With total competitors down, your odds are good for winning. What an opportunity for bragging rights! Please, this year, all you guys who thought about entering should actually enter, and do it soon! Just two weeks to go!

What better example of showing your robots have matured, than you send them off to compete in a contest on their own, and then watch the Live Webcast as they "duke it out" with other robots from across the country (or the world? Yes, at least one international competitor). Last year, we had over a hundred live viewers including a dozen different countries looking on. The room is beautiful, and the video production quite professional. So this really has the potential of growing into a very significant robot event.

Following below are details from the sponsor.

Randy

We have reserved the Great Reading Room in Seerley Hall for 8 am to Noon, Thursday, April 26, for the "Second UNI Mini-Sumo Robotics Challenge." [This was where we held the event last year.] Updating what we sent out last year:

The 2007 Mini-Sumo Robotics Challenge--hosted by the University of Northern Iowa Physics Department

  1. The Second UNI Mini-Sumo Robotics Challenge will accept a maximum of 12 robots from outside UNI for the April 26 event. Those wishing to enter should e-mail Cliff Chancey at snipped-for-privacy@uni.edu. He will validate their entry within 24 hours, or let them know that the challengers have already been selected. Those selected will receive shipping information.

  1. There will be a entry fee. Checks or money orders should be made out to "UNI Physics Department" and included in the submission. (Covers return postage, etc.)

  2. The UNI Physics Dept. will return-mail each of the 12 challenger robots to their owners using the packing materials that the robots arrived with, where possible. The Department will make a good faith effort to return all robots in operating condition but we cannot guarantee this. We will use proper carriers (US Postal Service, Fedex, or similar) but this is the extent of our promise. Challengers must accept the normal risks of shipping sensitive equipment.
Reply to
RMDumse
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Randy,

Could you post the url for the webpage where the video will be streamed? It will be late Thursday evening for me here in Chiba (early Friday morning actually) but I plan on staying up to watch. It was fantastic last year, and I'm really looking forward to it turning out even better this time.

Reply to
tempusmaster

I forwarded your request to Rick Seely, our A/V guy there. He has not responded yet, with a URL we can count on. I'm sure I'll be able to provide you a link soon.

Since we don't have the students with their own contest this year, the production will go much faster, total time maybe less than an hour, where last year it approached two hours. We may have some filler material with the local highschool (affilitated with the University) and their robotics club. We'll see.

Thanks for the kind words on last year. It's really great to know the webcast is being watched around the world. We detected over a dozen different countries watching last year, so we were very pleased with the outcome.

-- Randy

Reply to
RMDumse

Thanks for the interest.

Here's what they've given me.

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This is where the link to last years Mini-Sumo contest is. Shortly they promise they will have a link there with more information about this years contest.

It is shaping up nicely. I think we will be shorter this year, but we did get some Ship-Ins and some return students. Should me a nice match, running about an hour. I think we'll try to get going by 9:30 CDT.

-- Randy

Reply to
RMDumse

One more notice about the 2nd Annual UNI Mini-Sumo Contest.

We're on Thursday morning, the 26th, starting at 9AM Central Daylight Time. We will have a Lego's First group open for us, showing their kids and accomplishments, and about 9:30AM we'll begin our Mini Sumo double elimination contest.

We've got an impressive field of competitors, the majority Ship-Ins, and some very nice looking Mini Sumos. A thanks to the competitors, you've done a very nice job, most with quite detailed operating instruction.

So you can go to the UNI Multimedia site,

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and find the link to the live web broadcast, and watch in real time. (To be added. Don't mistake the archive of last year, for the live event.)

As with last year (that link is on the page as well as archive) this years contest will also be recorded and place on the site for later viewing, if you can't see it live.

Please join us, though if you can. The university has gone out of its way to make these Ship-In contests possible, have reserved a beautiful room, and are providing professional level video coverage. And they keep web statistic, so they know how many people are watch, and in general where they are from. (Last year we have over 100 viewers from a dozen different countries.) So you can help support us, and the continuation of this contest for robotics, just by logging in to the event.

Thanks,

Randy Dumse Senior Adjunct Instructor - Physics

Reply to
RMDumse

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