Vietnamese students' boredom of the 2009 Robocon exam

Limiting direct opposition and demanding solving difficult technical problems, the 2009 Robocon exam made Vietnamese students reveal their weaknesses.

The 2009 Robocon exam was inspired by Japanese custom of procession (Kago). Accordingly, a pair of manually controlled robots will "lift" the robot automatically through a number of obstacles to the destination where it is empty. There, the robot on the palanquin will be dropped, approaching the drum and knocking three hours to signal the victory.

Limit victory by . "tricks"

However, compared to the previous exam, the division of the game field into two separate sections limits the mutual interference between teams. Invisibly, the new exam dismisses the thoughts of using robots to prevent in the competition, the strength of Vietnam's robocon teams in previous years of competition.

The stadium of Robocon 2009, from the starting point (blue and red), the robots of each team must go uphill, move through the target poles and drop the automatic robots to beat the drums at the destination.

Do Duy Phuong, a member of VJC team, Hanoi University of Industry said: "The competition floor is separated by a small wooden board so it is hard for the two sides to interfere with each other. blank provided that both robots arrive at the destination at the same time ".

"This will lead the teams to seek victory by technical level rather than tactics," said Tran Xuan Thuy, director of the Army Defense Academy - Air Force.

Must invest high quality

Commenting on the exam questions in 2009, Dr. Phan Xuan Minh, Department of Automatic Control, Hanoi University of Science and Technology said that this year's exam made it more difficult for students. "The results of the test round at the Hanoi University of Technology this year did not have any teams that won the absolute score, while every year must have at least two to three teams," Dr. Minh said.

Automatic robots are easy to fall in bends like this.Photo: Tuan Linh

Dr. Minh commented further, the Robocon 2009 exam requires teams to combine the flexibility of automatic robots and manual control robots and solve the problem of establishing dynamic equilibrium for robots. That is, when robots that control "piggybacking" automatic robots must ensure that the automatic robots are not "rolled" from the "palanquin". "The difficulty of this year's exam requires students to calculate more mechanical structures and this is the weakness of Vietnamese students," said Dr. Minh.

The robot must "carry" the drum-beating robot (automatic robot) to overcome obstacles.If the balance is not guaranteed, the drums will fall off the palanquin and must start again.Photo: Tuan Linh

In addition to mechanical factors, Dr. Minh said that to ensure winning teams need to pay attention to modulating the control pulse width (PWM) for the robot moving motors, avoiding the "jerky" situation. "every time a player issues a move.

Without investing in technical problems, controlling the robot by hand expects the flexibility and skill of the player.Photo: Tuan Linh

Participating in the competition field, at Ho Tay Gymnasium, Hanoi, Nguyen Van Tuan, captain of the Sao Bac Industrial School, Hai Duong Robocon team, the control of robots almost relies on . skill The finesse of the hands. "Although it is possible to improve the robot's self-balancing and smooth movement with soft control techniques, but because of the time rush and . it is difficult, the decision team still uses" hard "control plan. like every year, accepting the phenomenon of jerking, " Tuan said.

Meeting difficult exam questions but Tuan did not show any "boredom" of other teams. Through observing the robots of the teams to try the field, Tuan commented: Most of the robot (with the most important role in moving) are similar in terms of control structure, difference, reasonable price. in the drum mechanism of automatic robots.