Balancing Robot Race Rules

Name of Event:	Blancer Race
Robots per Event:	One
Length of Event:	3 minutes
Robot Weight Range:	50 lbs
Robot Dimensions:	3'x3'x3'
Arena Specifications:	Straight line, 20 feet.
Robot Control:	Remote Controlled
Engineering Principles:	Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science
Event Summary:	Segway-style two-wheeled balancing robots must quickly run a race without falling over.

Object:
The objective of this contest is to complete the course in the shortest period of time, while staying balanced.

Robot:
A balancing robot is defined as one of the following:

A two or one wheeled robot that can maintain its balance without any external support.
The robot must not be constructed in such a way as to damage the environment or other robots. See "Safety" for other restrictions. No robot may weigh more than 50 pounds, nor may it use an internal or external combustion engine. The robot must fit inside a 3'x3'x3' cube for the entire duration of its run.

There are two classes of balancing robot race; autonomous and remote controlled.

Autonomous - Once the robot starts the course, it cannot be touched by an operator, or be remote controlled, or it will be disqualified.
Remote Controlled - Balancing must be autonomous. Driving can be controlled by an R/C unit.

Course:
Robot starts behind a white, starting line. Clock starts when robot crosses the starting line. Finish lines are approximately 20 feet from the starting line. There are two white finish lines, placed 24" apart. Clock stops when robot remains stationary with its wheels or legs between the two lines for more than 10 seconds.

Obstacles may be placed on the course, at the discretion of the robot owner. Each obstacle traversed will apply a scoring multiplier to the robots time to complete the course. See "Scoring" for more details.

Course boundaries will be determined prior to race. Robots that stray outside of the course boundaries on a given run will have 2X, the time outside the boundary added to their score.

Scoring:
Robots will receive a score corresponding to the number of seconds from start to finish.

Obstacles are assigned a scoring multiplier between 0.1 and 0.9, prior to the start of the competition, and will reflect the difficulty of traversing the obstacle, and other factors the judges determine to be relevant.

Some possible/recommended obstacles are:

Ramps (up and down)
Road Cones (drive around or slalom)
Uneven surfaces (carpet scraps, Astroturf)
Speed bumps (dowel pieces placed on the ground)

Each robot is given 3 tries to complete the course. The best score from each of these tries will be used as the final score.

Each robot will have a maximum of 10 minutes to complete the course.

Scoring will be at the sole discretion of the judges.

Judging:
One or more judges will officiate the contest. They will ensure the spirit of these rules are followed and impose scoring penalties or remove a robot from competition if the robot is operating in an unsafe manner or not complying with the spirit of these rules. The decisions of the judges are final.

Safety:
Each robot weighing more than 5 pounds must demonstrate a suitable fail-safe stop mechanism before it will be allowed to compete. Suitable safety stop mechanism: The robot builder is responsible for devising the safety stop mechanism. Some possibilities:

A wireless mechanism operated by the handler
Wired tether operated by the handler walking alongside the robot
Some other mechanism, with prior permission from the judges.
In any case the safety stop switch must be fail-safe: The robot handler must demonstrate that by dropping, or letting go of the stop mechanism the robot comes to an immediate stop and makes no further movement. The stop mechanism does not need to cut primary power as long as it can be demonstrated that the robot reliably comes to a complete halt.

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