The only way to really improve is through some friendly competition. This is very true for people who build robots for a hobby. One of the core activities to any robot club are the Events and Contests, and Bufbotics is no different.

At our November 2004 and February 2005 meetings, there was some energetic conversation about a Solaroller contest. BEAM robotics is a great way for beginners to enter into the hobby, with few tools needed and minimalistic approach to materials. So get those soldering irons plugged in and your solar engines charging.

At our May meeting, we built a race track for our Solar Roller competition. And that leads us up to our first-ever competition. See the Meetings Page for date and location.

Other clubs have descriptions and rules for Line-Following (Basic & Advanced), Maze-Solving, Sumo, Fire Fighting, Solaroller, Vacuum Cleaning, and lots of others.

One Idea I have for a contest is something I'm calling a "waypoint race." There will be several waypoints that a robot has to navigate over to. I think this is not an original idea, but I haven't read about anything like it on a small scale. The DARPA Grand Challenge is like this, only on a huge scale. I'm talking about just moving through a large conference room, or maybe a backyard

There will be some type of beacon to identify each waypoint. For instance, waypoint 1 will be identified by a plain old light house. Waypoint 2 would emit some kind of sound, could be in human range or ultrasound. Waypoint 3 would be an IR beacon. Waypoint 4 would be some reflectors that require the robot to have active sensors, rather than the passives that could be used for all the previous waypoints. Waypoint 5 would emit an RF beacon. I'm not sure if I've put these in a good order, my intention is to have each waypoint be increasing difficulty. That way we could have different difficulty levels. When you enter the race, you specify which is your last intended waypoint. Beginners could aim to navigate to number 1 and 2 and then stop. They'd be competing with other similar robots. Likewise, Intermediate builders would shoot for something in the middle, while advanced robot builders would go for them all. The deciding factor would be time to reach the final waypoint, with disqualification if you miss any waypoint along the way.