Competition report day 1

After arriving in Seattle, Team Applied Robotics wasted no time setting up our equipment. On Monday evening we could already set-up our frame and see the competition bays. Other teams were also busy setting up and we recognised quite a few of the robots from previous videos posted online.

The next morning, on Tuesday, we were back at the Washington State Convention Center ready to set-up for our official run at 14.00. The robot arm was stuck in traffic and only arrived on site 4 hours before our run, but luckily we were well prepared. Having practiced the entire set-up and calibration before, it took Simon and John little time to attach the gripper and camera, wire the vacuum cleaner motor and to calibrate the positions of the robot and the camera. We had plenty of time left over to test our entire system and we made some successful runs, picking items out of the cabinet. We were the only team picking multiple objects in quick succession. Soon a crowd had gathered and were filming our fast and smooth picking operation.

Around 13.00 we heard that the first team to compete had dropped out, so we would be the first team to compete in an hour. The judges arrived and confirmed the process. We got to choose a random usb stick containing our picking order and shelf layout. Ten minutes before time the judges filled the shelf. A crowd of about 50 had gathered around our bay and we started smoothly, picking the yellow duck dog toy in no time, landing us 11 points. The robot performed a wrist flip to get to the next bin in the bottom left hand corner. To grasp the second item, the glue, the robot rotated 90 degrees to pick it from the side. This resulted in the camera getting tangled in the vacuum cleaner hose and meant that upon moving into the bin the robot went into an emergency stop. We applied for our 5 minute reset period in which the shelf was restocked and we adjusted the hose cabling. After the reset we picked the first object successfully but unfortunately it got tangled again at the second object. This was the end of our official run.

Immediately afterwards, we took the opportunity to demonstrate our capabilities to the crowd. By slightly changing the orientation of the glue bottle we had a very successful run, scoring a hypothetical 67 points. Unfortunately for us, this run did not count.

During the rest of the afternoon we watched other challenges, talked with teams and gave a few interviews. By the end of the day we were still in third place. The main distinction between the teams was if we managed to pick one object or zero. No teams picked more than one item on the first day and most teams also used their reset time. While we had an unfortunate run, our system was capable of picking an entire shelf successfully, something the other teams on Tuesday didn't show. We got the comment that our system was "ready to be sold for production next week", compared to the last minute testing and hacking going on around us. About two thirds of the teams will have their runs on Wednesday.