In 1999, the University of Kentucky's College of Engineering will be home for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ SoutheastCON. This paper describes the theme of and gives an overview of the rules for the proposed Hardware Design Competition that will take place as a part of that event.
The 1999 SoutheastCON Hardware Design Contest has the theme, "A Grand tour of Kentucky." This theme highlights features that make Kentucky a unique state, presented in the form of a tour to be driven by an autonomous vehicle.
Theme: "A Grand tour of Kentucky"
The State of Kentucky contains a wide variety of landscapes and cultures, from large urban areas such as Louisville to the horse farms of Lexington and central Kentucky, from the mountains of Appalachia to the mines and caves in the western reaches of the state. In this contest, an autonomous vehicle makes a grand tour of these four regions of the Bluegrass State, and may choose to tackle the challenges of any or all of them.
The vehicle designed by each contestant must be self-propelled, autonomous and may not be remotely controlled in any manner. It must fit within a volume of 8" by 8" by 12" high at the start of the contest. The aperture between track sections and may not be taller than 12" at the beginning of the round as the mine and ending sections offer only a 12" clearance. The vehicle must also be of sufficient stature as to be able to break the infrared beams scoring beams, which are positioned at 2½" or 4" high. There are no restrictions on vehicles increasing in size after the start of the round. It cannot contain any flammable liquids, gases or explosives.
The vehicles cannot project any objects in the playing field or out of the playing field. All parts of the vehicle must remain attached (i.e. the vehicle cannot split into separate pieces.) The vehicle must remain in one piece, and cannot propel, or bring in any objects. The vehicle must be safe, and therefore must not risk harm to the spectators, the judges, or the playing surface in any manner.
The vehicle shall not spew forth flames, emit toxic gasses, or damage the track.
The track is divided into the four regions of the state, making for a prodigious and possibly formidable carpentry job. Here is a run-down of the sections and their challenges:
- The City
- In this first, urban region, the vehicle, following a white line on a black background, must press a button on an Automatic Teller Machine.
- The Bluegrass Auction
- Next, the vehicle must rustle a horse for sale at the Bluegrass Auction. It must locate the "horse," pick up the "horse," and deposit the "horse" safely at the auction house.
- The Mountains
- Essentially a test of your vehicle's brute strength, this region makes a challenge heretofore not attempted in the Hardware Design Contest: the vehicle must climb a hill! Those who make it to the top have the luxury of a grand vist a from the mountaintop — be sure to take pictures! For convenience, a white line marks the path.
- The Mine/Cave
- Let's go spelunking! In another test of navigational skills, the vehicle must manuever the corridors of a mineshaft in the dark, with nothing to guide it but the walls.
The board playing surface is constructed on 4' by 8' plywood board divided into the four listed above. For consistency, each section is worth maximum 55 points, and all sections use a minimum aperture of 8".
This part of the competition will take place on a 3'11¾" by 1'11¼" flat black surface. The playing surface will be bounded by 8" high walls painted with a flat black paint. There is a 12¼" tall building in the center of the town which will be painted with a city outline in white enamel paint on a flat black. The building is 1'10" by 6¼" located in the center of the playing section. The starting section is in the lower right and the exit is in the lower left of the playing field. A ½" white line is painted directly from the starting area to the exit and around the building. The ½" white center lines are centered 4" from the bottom side of the course and 6" from the side walls. The course begins at start and follows the course as described below.
Teams "On Deck", will be given two minutes to prepare their vehicles before the "hands-off" warning is issued. After the warning, the starting buzzer will be sounded within 30 seconds. At the start of the contest, the car is to remain within the starting square until a buzzer sounds. This will occur sometime within 30 seconds of the "hands off" warning as issued by the emcee for then contest. Cars that prematurely break the starting IR break-beam, which is reflected by a mirror so as to cover both exits from the start position, will be considered "Sooners", and will accrue half of the possible points for each obstacle they successfully negotiate and a maximum time of five minutes.
At the sound of the buzzer, the cars are free to go, and the timer starts counting. The vehicle has the choice of taking the "bypass" and heading straight for the exit to the next section, or going around the building and making a withdrawal from the ATM (i.e., pushing the button). The ATM (button) is located 4" above the surface of the board and halfway along the back of the buildings. The switch specifications are given appendix.
Vehicles exiting this section will obtain 5 points, and successfully pushing the ATM button will be rewarded by 50 points
To give a little more detail in what this design should entail, this is an explanation of some of the more difficult parts of the track and the hardware involved in the design. Schematics can be found in the Appendix.
For the Bluegrass Auction section of the contest, each team must locate a ball bearing representing a horse, and deliver the horse from the pasture to the sales pavilion. When the team has completed this task, they are finished with this section of the contest.
The Bluegrass Auction section will be 23 ¾" X 4" with an 8" opening from the edge of the board inward at both the entrance and the exit to the section.
The Bluegrass Auction section of the playing surface will be flat and will be painted with a flat forest green paint with a white line centered four inches from the edge of the board. However, the line will be painted to go around the sales pavilion which will be a 4½" diameter by 5" high cylinder in the lower left corner of the board. The white line will arc with a center point at 16" X 16" from the pavilion corner of the board, with a radius of 12". All directions are oriented with the entrance being in the lower right, and the exit being in the upper left. The section, except for the white line and the sales pavilion, will be painted green to represent a horse pasture.
At both the entrance and exit of the section, a sensor will be placed 4" above the surface to determine when the vehicle enters and leaves the Bluegrass Auction area of the playing surface. This sensor will be an infrared beam, that when broken, will register as either the entrance or the exit of the vehicle.
A "horse" stand will be placed at a predetermined spot of the lower left of the section's playing surface. The stand will be painted with the figure of a horse, and will contain a slot in which a steel ball bearing will be placed. This stand will be 5" tall and at least half of the ball bearing will be exposed above the stand. The sales pavilion cylinder will contain a 4" diameter hole with a funnel.
The vehicle must enter the Bluegrass Auction section from the 8" opening, and exit the section in the opposite 8" opening. Each team has a choice for this section of the competition. They may decide to bypass this section, and proceed through this section without completing it in order to save time for other sections. However, the teams interested in completing the sections will opt to perform the tasks necessary to gain the 50 points for this section of the competition.
In order to complete this section of the contest, the team must follow the following guidelines. When the vehicle enters the section, it must find the horse and retrieve the steel ball bearing located thereon. The exact location of this horse will be 6" left from the entrance and 10" up from the lower wall. The square stand will be rotated from being square with the walls a fixed angle. Once the steel bearing has been retrieved, it must be delivered to the sales pavilion and dropped inside the funnel. The vehicle will then leave the section, activating the exit sensor and allowing the scoring signal to be sent to the overall electronic scoring system.
Scoring for this section will be simple. If the "horse" is picked up from the pasture, the team will receive 10 points. If the "horse" is successfully placed into the holding tank at the sales pavilion, the team will receive an additional 40 points, giving a total of 50 for this section of the contest. However, the ball bearing must remain in the holding tank until the vehicle leaves the area for the signal to be sent that the section was completed (you don’t want to be a horse thief!) Anyone successfully exiting the section will receive 5 points for doing so. Therefore, a perfect score for this section of the contest is 55 points.
After visiting the plains of the bluegrass, the tour of Kentucky next travels to the mountains of Appalachia. The sloping roads of the mountains pose a challenge heretofore unknown to the SoutheastCON Hardware Competition — climbing!
To enable a vehicle to climb a grade, its weight must be low enough that its drive mechanism can propel it up the hill; alternatively, you could say that the drive mechanism must have enough horsepower to propel the vehicle’s weight up the slope. Any way you slice it, there must be design compromises to make it possible for the machine to climb a hill.
The challenge of climbing is likely to be a good one. Therefore, the scoring for the mountains is very easy: fifty points are awarded when the IR beam at the top of the ramp is broken. This IR beam is placed 2½" above the mountain's surface. Those machines which can't cut it don't get the points — even if the machine gets up to one inch from the top, burns out, and rolls backwards down the ramp in a billowing cloud of blue smoke. If your machine makes it to the top, breaks the beam and then blows up, you'll get the points 50, but you won't finish, either....
Machines which make it all the way to the top also get the luxury of a nice view from the mountaintop whilst turning around on the 31½" x 24½" platform for the return journey. If you’d rather go down in reverse, you can, but who wants to do that?
A total of 10 points for this section are awarded when the vehicle reaches the end of the contest, which is essentially the end of the "no man’s land" outside the mountain and the mine.
The mountain consists of a fifteen degree grade, all the way up to a maximum elevation of fourteen and one half inches (14.5"). Since the challenge here is only the climbing, a white line marks the path up the mountain and along the turnaround at the top. To aid your climb to the top, coarse grade sand paper has been secured to the ramp then painted green with the white navigation line as shown in the Appendix.
Go to the pictures and schematics in the Appendix section to learn how to build your own mountain!. The mountaintop is completely removable to allow access to the innards of the mine/cave.
The mine section runs completely without lines or light, so the rules for this section are just that the teams must navigate by some means other than line-following; i.e. they must follow the wall or bounce off of it or whatever. The 50 points will be broken down into two chances, 25 points each. After pushing open the "door" to the mine, the teams will get 25 points for making the first turn inside the mine and the remaining 25 when they make the last turn inside the mine(closest to the ramp). The end scoring will be a break beam, as will the mine scoring. At this point, the vehicle can re-acquire, turn right and enter "no-man’s" land, which marks the end of the game as well as of the grand tour!
For consistency, each section is worth maximum 55 points, 5 of which are awarded for successfully traveling through the section at all; therefore there is a maximum score of 220 points, and a minimum score of 0. However, if a vehicle is pointed in the correct direction at the start of the contest and is capable of moving, a score of 5 points should be easily achievable.
The game is timed starting at the sound of the buzzer, so that in the event of a tie, the faster vehicle (shortest time) wins. The game is over when the vehicle enters no man’s land or after five minutes elapses, which ever comes first. In the event that a vehicle cannot reach the end in five minutes, the score at that time is taken as the final score.
| Event | Points Awarded |
|---|---|
| Start | 0 |
| Pressing the ATM button | 50 |
| Leaving the city area | 5 |
| Picking up the "Horse" | 10 |
| Successful deposit of "horse" at sales pavilion | 40 |
| Leaving the bluegrass auction area | 5 |
| Successfully completing mountain obstacle | 50 |
| Opening the mine door upon entry | 25 |
| Passing through the mine exit | 25 |
| Reaching the end | 2 x 5 = 10 |
| Total | 220 |