Indiana Robotics Invitational

Last Saturday we headed over to Lawrence North High School to see our niece's robotics team compete in the Indiana Robotics Invitational. It was our first time going to a Lunacy match. It was pretty cool.

Basically, teams are given the same parts and are required to design a robot to perform a task. In the Lunacy game, robots are designed to pick up 9" game balls and score them in trailers hitched to their opponents’ robots for points during a 2 minute and 15 second match. Additional points are awarded for scoring a special game ball, the Super Cell, in the opponents' trailers during the last 20 seconds of the match. Lunacy is played on a low-friction floor, which means teams must contend with the laws of physics.

Here, some of the teams are setting up for the next match.

Here, the robots are going at it. For the first 10 seconds the robots operate without human intervention. Then, humans take over and control them remotely, trying to snatch up lunar 'rocks' (balls) and put them in the trailers pulled behind. There's lots of strategy and coordination that goes into each game. It's fast paced and fun!

The matches go fast (3 teams vs 3 teams). There were over 50 teams at the meet. As soon as one match is done, the next teams are lined up ready to compete.

My favorite team (besides our niece's) was the Exploding Bacon team! You can't go wrong with a name like that!