RobotWars101

To what extent would AI be allowed in an ant i.e. would a completely AI controlled ant be acceptable?

Apart from taking the fun and skill away from the game, I think AI could help with things like weapons control etc...

Or on the more extreme, cluster bots could work with each other using AI and only a "master" bot would have radio control.

What do you guys think?

As far as I know there is nothing against any amount of AI in an antweight. In fact, I would be one to encourage it, as it will eventually get us more kudos with the "proper roboteers". As well as make it more interesting.

I would have added AI to my own robots, if I knew how!

Simon

For my A-level I'm building an Autonomous Ant, for the purposes of driving practice. Weight is gonna be an issue, but if I can get it vanguely near 150g, I'll be showcasing it at AWS19 (complete with at least it's ramming bar weapon)

I think an effective AI antweight is a tall order at the moment!

Currently it's hard enough (at the hobbyist level) to produce a good autonomous sumo robot or maze-navigating "mouse" - even given a weight limit of 500g or more.

Someone tried an automatic weapon on a heavyweight and it was probably less effective than an operator-controlled weapon.

Don't let me put you off though, I never said it couldn't be done! There are certainly no rules against it and I would also encourage it.

For anyone interested in autonomous fighting robots I would suggest mini-sumo is the way to go. 4" footprint and 500g weight limit so not so far removed from ants. There is also some support in the UK already:

http://www.minisumo.org.uk
http://www.robotbuilder.co.uk (look on their forum)

omg check these out, its called PICAXE. They are the cheapest microcontrollers (that are actually easy to program) i've ever seen.

http://www.rev-ed.co.uk/picaxe/

I've ordered the 8 pin version to try it out, it only cost me ?13 inc. vat & p&p.
Comes with the development board, software, battery box, a PICAXE-8 and programming cable.

The PICAXE-18 has direct servo control capabilities.

I can't believe I haven't seen these before, I've heard of the BASIC stamp and normal PIC's etc.. but these are so cheap and easy to use. You can program them in-circuit so you don't have to dismantle your ant everytime you wanna change the code.

dont have to dissmantle? wheres the fun in that

PICAXE has been around for a while i tried a simple project but i have what is commonly know as ''idiots syndrome'' or ''fat fingers'' that coupled with the fact i had no idea what i was doing lead to the likely conclusion i'm leting someone else do the work

I'm alright I got a National Diploma in Electronic Engineering sitting behind me. Only major problem I've found with the PICAXE is the very limited program space. But this can be overcome by attaching a EEPROM to it.

with the larger picaxe's I think you get around 400 lines of code. I have a few 28A's kicking around and I could easily make an AI pushing ant in 150g. if would be slightly harder with a weapon.

I would say asn AI ant would be allowed 225g limit rather than 150g, this is just me though as people need incentives to build one.

Depends what the weapon was

The code limits are the biggest restriction on Picaxe's - especially for any kind of AI...even keeping it on the arena will take a bit more than 400 lines of code I would guess. Probably end up with one processer per wheel. The weapon is easy enough with either a microswitch sensor or a light sensor to see when you are near something....so you hit the arena a few times, who cares!!!

AI ants in america have their own catagory (www.buildersdb.com for more info). I think they get a slightly higher weight limit dont they?