SUMO for LEGO NXT-G traditional Japanese style of wrestling. The wrestlers try to push each other out of the ring. they are, the harder it is to push them out of the ring. not match you up against a real Japanese Sumo wrestler; would have as much chance of success as the youngster in theBut we could have some fun building and programming some model Robot stick to the official rules of Mini Robot SUMO, as we are just seeing if we can produce SUMO robots for fun; (but if you are interested in reading the official rules, you can see a summary To push the other robot(s) out of the ring, while remaining in the ring yourself. official mini ring is about 75 cm in diameter, but we will use the black ring that comes with the home LEGO kit - it is a roughly circular black ring with a light-coloured centre. If this is not available, a rectangular sheet of stiff white A3 paper with black electrical tape around the edges will suffice for our
official mini SUMO robots are 10 cms. or less in width andhowever starting off using our present robots would be aWe can then modify them as ingeniously as possible so that they are good at pushing our opponent out of the ring. start of a bout: robots will be placed inside the ring, facing away from eachThey must be controlled only by your computer program; you are not allowed to push them around by hand! use any programming language, but NXT-G is the most convenient, as by now we probably have a fair idea how to use that. quickly write a program that will allow our robot to push the other team’s robot out of the ring? – Have a think about it… will help your robot turn around when it finds the dark edge of a SUMO ring that has a white centre. If you are not sure how to do this, the top line with a high speed dash – just to get a first SUMOWe will think about other sneaky bout-winning three points for a win, and one for a loss;
the winner is the robot with the most points after 2 bouts. If the robots are equal after two bouts, a third deciding bout is run. could use any of your present robots to start off with, and then modify them later, if you think it worth modifying them. One person’s idea of a mini sumo robot is shown above – the idea is that the sloping front will lift the opposing robot’s wheels off the ground, and thus making it easier to push the opponent out of the rink. But is this the only way to build a SUMO robot? – Your idea may Strategy – and other sneaky options… What are the possibilities – are any of the following practical? Can you think of other options in addition to the ones mentionedThere are lots of things you can try – which one is best for your robot in practice? Of course, if you are losing and you are running out of ideas, you can always take a look at what others have done - have you looked at the work of the students of Miss Neilson and Mrs.
Airey (see the main menu to Also, you can look on the Internet for clues; example, take a look at the following YouTube videos… Robot SUMO YouTube 1 - Click here. Robot SUMO YouTube 2 - Click here YouTube 3 - Click here Robot SUMO YouTube 4 (long) - Click here Start competing with your mini SUMO wrestlers! May the best robot win… Good Luck – Have fun - Enjoy! To go to other Challenges - To access a printable three-A4-page Microsoft Word 2003 version of this LEGO NXT MindStorms SUMO Robot-sumo, or pepe-sumo, is a sport in which two robots attempt to push each other out of a circle (in a similar fashion to the sport of sumo). The robots used in this competition are called sumobots. The engineering challenges are for the robot to find its opponent (usually accomplished with infrared or ultra-sonic sensors) and to push it out of the flat arena. A robot should also avoid leaving the arena, usually by means of a sensor that detects the edge.
The most common "weapon" used in a sumobot competition is an angled blade at the front of the robot, usually tilted at about a 45-degree angle towards the back of the robot. This blade has an adjustable height for different tactics. Robot-sumo is divided into classes, fought on progressively smaller arenas: There is also Lego Mindstorms NXT sumo robots, in which NXT robots compete. The robots usually have to fit in a one-foot cube. Classes are further divided into remote-controlled and autonomous robots. Also, there might be a tethered category (varies) Sumo robots are built from scratch, from kits or from Lego components, particularly the Lego Mindstorms sets. Some sumo bots are built with only wood and motors for more of a challenge. The usual size for the wood is 12" by 12". It makes it hard to construct a really large robot with this piece of wood. Two deadly, plastic opponents face off. Their beeps and whirs are drowned out by the deafening cheer echoing in the elementary school auditorium.
Two robots enter the sumo ring. Only one emerges, victorious. Tipped over, out of the ring, parts scattered, wheels spinning in futility... The culmination of many weeks of tinkering, teams from the Robot Club at my girl's elementary school faced off against teams from two other schools in a Lego Mindstorms Sumo death match (ok, they didn't call it a death match... but I sure will). For several weeks I came in every week to help the kids design, build, and code their robots and it was incredibly fun and rewarding. Turns out 5th graders are really smart. The kids had no trouble with the LabView-style graphical programming and had working robots quickly. There were a few physical design issues. Teachable moments in the area of physics were plentiful. How caster wheels work. In the end our school fielded some very competitive robots! One team started a few weeks behind but was able to build a tracked robot (below) based on some instructions I dug up. They fought against time for weeks and finally, in true robot experimenter fashion, got their code working only days before the competition.