Thanks to all that attended and competed in the 2nd annual Sumobot Tournament. We had 12 bots in the melee and the winner was Exspurt, built by Rick Brooksbots.com. Check out his bot site for ideas. Jose got second and I got third. That ExSpurt is an awesome bot and Lessor is a tough competitor. Below is an epic battle between Lessor and ExSpurt.
Here is the final bracket showing the winners…
The bracket software was called Bracket Maker HD on the iPad. The iPad projected the results on the wall. The software worked very well for our double elimination competition.
Big thanks to Solarbotics. They provided some awesome prizes for the competition. Check out their website for all your robot needs.
Special thanks to Jeff Johnson for the hot wings and pizza bites. Thanks to Rick, Jule, and Gene for making the drive to Louisville to fight your bots. We hope you had a great time. Thanks to Alex – it is great to have some high school hackers. Thanks to all who dressed up for Halloween. And big thanks to Tim, who put together a fantastic sumo workshop. These simple looking bots can be deceptively complex!
Overall it was a great event! Can’t wait until next year!
LVL1 community member Tim G. and his wife created this great ghostbusters costume for their son Harper.
I have attached the schematic for the proton pack lights. I used a 6V lantern battery as part of the pack so I didn’t need a voltage regulator. The flashlight has a separate 9V battery located in the gun and 6 white LEDs.
The main structure of the pack is made from black coroplast since I had some on hand. In fact I made the whole pack aside from the straps using items I had lying around. For sounds I mounted a small mp3 player on the gun and used the 6V battery to power a set of USB powered PC speakers.
Learn soldering and basic Arduino programming in this workshop. The cost of this workshop also covers the materials cost for a freeduino microcontroller kit. Your assembled Freeduino is yours to keep! Use the vast open resources of the Arduino community to come up with your own electronic applications. This workshop is intended to teach you necessary skills for further exploration in the world of Arduino.
I, Dan Bowen of the White Star Project, recently gave a presentation on the frontier of amateur science ballooning, a type of balloon called the ‘superpressure’. At this I introduce a tool we’re working on to help amateurs solve the problems of these balloons. The event was the United Kingdom High Altitude Society first annual Amateur Balloon Conference on October 15, 2011, in London, England. I was unable to travel there, so I combined Skype live video with a pre-recorded presentation.
Now, background info to get you up to speed on the state of amateur superpressure:
This type of balloon has the potential to stay in the air for extremely long times, much longer than the 3 days flight estimated for the White Star’s trans-atlantic ‘zero-pressure’ balloons. Read the rest of this entry »
Saturday, October 22, 2011 and Sunday, October 23, 2011
2:00 PM - 6:00 PM (ET)
Don’t have a sumobot for this years competition and Halloween party? Want to be one of the cool kids? Do not be afraid the friendly folks at LVL1 are here to help.
Learn the basics of building a Sumobot! It’s a small autonomous 10cmX10cm robot that doesn’t like sharing the ring. More information about Sumobot competitions can be found here.
This workshop takes place over 2 afternoons; Saturday and Sunday. 2pm -6pm The workshop will cover soldering, construction, and programming of your own sumobot.
A laptop is required for both days for assembly and programming.
All parts, tools and equipment needed to build it will be provided. If you already have a FTDI cable for programming the microcontroller, you can save $15 with that ticket option. If you do not have this cable, purchase the full ticket including FTDI cable. A FTDI cable is common with Arduino variants and is very reusable.
ANNOUNCING – LVL1′s 2nd annual Sumobot tournament will be on October
29th, 2011, 8PM at 814e Broadway (our home). There will be a Halloween
party following the fun – costumes are encouraged! All are welcome to
join in the festivities. You may even get to see the world famous fire
breathing pony, Buttercup! You now have a month to build your bot.
UPDATE: The ring we will use is made of MDF painted FLAT BLACK with a GLOSS
WHITE border ring. The rubber surface of the last ring was just to
hard to source, build, maintain and paint.
UPDATE 2: Solarbotics just sent some awesome prizes for the sumo
winners! If you are looking for some sumo parts, please check out what
they can offer… http://www.solarbotics.com/
I just finished programming my gearclock that I showed off last week. I added a Chronodot real time clock so it keeps perfect time! I also wrote up an instructable here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Laser-cut-gear-clock-with-Chronodot/ so you can build your own. I also have some stepper motors if you want to buy them from me (cheap!). Put your Arduino to work! Learn how to use the lasercutter! Brian
Come celebrate a “round number” birthday. Saturday, September 24 from 7 pm until???
At the LVL1 space.
Food and beverages provided.
Bring a snack or a desert if you want.
(Binary numbers just look too old!)
LVL1′s 2nd annual Sumobot tournament will be on October 29th, 2011, 8PM at 814e Broadway (our home). There will be a Halloween party following the fun. All are welcome to join in the festivities. You may even get to see the world famous fire breathing pony, Buttercup! You have a couple of months to build your bot. There will be prizes and eternal glory! Here is the poster Here is how to build your own Sumobot.
Attendees will be introduced to the basics of how to take one’s projects from the garage to commercialization. Speakers will include Tendai Charasika of GLI’s EnterpriseCorp, Alex Frommeyer of Louisville Metro Inventors Council, and Ben Jennings of the Kentucky Science & Technology Corporation (KSTC). This will be a presentation and Q&A, with an emphasis on prototype manufacturing.
