2013 Foster Challenge "Cat bot"

VEX V5 General Discussion General Forum
#1

Yes, you read that right, Cat bot, vs Claw bot. A slight detour from our normal summer challenge.

I have a cat. I have a cat in a confined space, my townhouse. My cat is approaching my pant size, so spend a few moments in CADing out a cat with a 42" waist and wears 2XL polo shirts. Not a pretty sight. We both need exercise, and this is where you come in.

Challenge is “exercise the cat, but don’t kill her” My cat loves the 2’ stick with the 2’ of string and the three feathers on a swivel hook. She can play for hours and hours and hours and I got bored typing that in.

Challenge: **Entertain Belle (the cat) for 10 minutes (600 seconds). **

Category 1A: Robot is on a counter (height is important to cats, so let me put you up 30" to give you some help)

Category 1B: Robot at the top of the stairs. This give you the flick down, troll the cat up, flick down, attract the cat,flick down troll up option.
Category 2: Find the cat and entertain them, – Bonus points, but I live in a quad level house, so you rolling down the stairs to the cat’s amusement will not win points.

Required stuff: Feathers. I recommend feathers on a stick ™ for about $4 at your pet place. But if you want to build an arm, use a winch, pneumatics to launch the feather, go for it.

Don’t hurt the cat

Submissions: Start a thread, your robot. Minimal is a picture or CAD of the robot. +5 bonus for a vid of your cat at play, +10 of a human over age 10 playing. For those of you who are only children, the 10 point bonus is extend to parents that are willing to play the role of the cat.

Don’t hurt the cat

I have all the parts, and I will build the best design and “Belle Test It”

**Her **choice is final.

Prizes:
$100 in Vex parts for the on the counter version
$100 in Vex parts for the stair version
$200 in Vex parts for the mobile version providing it does not hurt the cat or bang my furniture. Find the cat and entertain her

Claw bot bonus *“Really, you didn’t see this coming?”
*
A claw bot with a toy will be scored higher (by lots) than a plain robot that is a toy is attached to + $50

Clawbot wins! So Octoclaw https://vexforum.com/showpost.php?p=309190&postcount=1 if it would pet the cat for 10 mins would win. So clawbots are still a contender.

#2

Questions via pmail:

*$50 bonus for a claw? * Yea, love the claw bots, you love them, claw makes you $50 more. All hail the claw bot. Oh, no octoclaw with 8 cat toys, remember you are dealing with a cat brain, Octo-toy will make those brains explode.

Not related to this years game? Right, but think to 2016 game Cat Capture. Think the gateway field, but with high sides. Cats are released into the field, and you need to entice them (R7 No pushing the cats) into your zone. In the last 5 seconds you need to drop the gate to Capture your cats (R1 Must not injure any cats )

*Cat toy?? *-- Yea, lazy this year, crowd sourcing to you guys. But you can get VEX parts, so it’s a win-win.

This isn’t part of this years game. Yes but all of the key builders go their bot done 3 weeks after the announcement. So they and you are bored. Plus you need a venue for your 12 wheel Mecanum drive, here is the place. Plus it’s summer in Texas, the IFI guys are looking for demos, so here is a snap easy chance for them. Plus it’s a pretty easy contest to win, how hard can a cat toy be? Design it and reap the parts. Plus bragging rights go a long way around here.

#3

I WOULD PLAY THIS GAME (VF automatically converts all caps to lowercase >_<)

#4

That sounds just as hard as cat-herding!! :eek:

#5

Are there extra points for a CATapult?

#6

I believe that has the potential to damage the cat.

#7

Laser Pointer?

#8

R1: Must not hurt the cat. So Catapult is out, unless you are throwing an alternate toy (stuffed mouse, etc.) to entice the cat. Remember she isn’t going to retrieve, so you need a way to get it back. Unless you have a huge basket of items to launch, remember the 600 second time, throwing things one at a time may or may not work.

Laser pointers work, if you don’t shine them into the cat eyes. So on the floor only.

Not seen Murdomeek here recently, so I’ll pre-ask about explosive, pyrotechnics, etc. R1: Must not hurt the cat. R2. Must not damage the field (in this case my house) Miss you Murdomeek, check in with us!

#9

Are cat toys allowed to be part of the robot, for example can the laser pointer start out inside a grappling mechanism or does the robot need to find and pick up the laser pointer?

#10

It can start out as part of the robot.

But won’t you still need a claw to push the on / off button? :rolleyes:

#11

Exactly what I was thinking… :stuck_out_tongue:

#12

With the initial postings there were some good comments and ideas, and Belle was excited!! But we’ve both noted that there were not any submissions, so she has gone to her cat cave to sulk.

Thanks for your interest in the 2013 Foster Challenge. Stay tuned for the 2014 Foster Challenge!

#13

Now with Lasers!

Back in the PIC days, we used the CMU camera for some lightweight light following.

The CMU camera people have a kickstarter for their latest model of the CMUCam, the pixy

Note in the comments update section, now comes with a laser pointer demo.

Nice thing is that most of the processing is on the PIXY, so that this now moves vision back into the realm of the existing VEX processing.

#14

You just got them another backer! I am all over this one. I can see this ending up on someones VEXU robot!

#15

Argh, me too, another pan/tilt pixy backer.

We will get this interfaced to ConVEX as soon as it arrives.

#16