Hey all,

I have been given the (awesome) task of building a robot for the lab.  The robot comes from a competition called the FIRST Robotics Competition.  It is an annual international competition where high school students (guided by mentors and teachers) build robots which must accomplish a task such as picking up basketballs and shooting them into hoops.  Obviously our robot isn’t going to be a baller, but it will hopefully have some pretty nifty features!  At the moment it will ‘simply’ be constructed to be controlled via a remote joystick.  However, seeing as we are an image and signal processing research group, I am sure it will be moving around by itself in no time

I have finished constructing the base of the robot, apart from connecting the chains, and am now busy doing research to find out how the robot needs to be wired (which is a pretty daunting task as my computer science skills lack any engineering knowledge…).

The robot is being built in our lab downstairs,  I will be posting progress updates for anyone interested.  Also, anyone is welcome to pop in and join in the build if they want \:D/

Finally, below is a link to the 2011 FRC promo video if anyone is interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=W-8e07n3JQY#!