First Level of Play: Robot must find a randomly placed IR emitting beacon as fast as possible and run into it to stop the clock. Fastest wins.

Second Level of Play: Obstacles will be present in the arena which the robot must find its way around to hit the beacon.

The Nashua Robot Builders is a small, informal club of people who like to build computers, electronics and do programming. We meet monthly to discuss various neat things we've found and want to do.

 We also do show'n'tell of our projects to bounce ideas off each other and come up with better ones. Sometimes we do tutorials of various
 hardware and software items and every year we go to the MIT 6.270 Robot Contest.

Beacon: Omnidirectional IR emitting beacon located 1 foot above the ground. IR will be 40 kHz IR light which can be recieved by Sharp IR sensors. Light will also be modulated at a 1 Hz frequency, so there will be 1 second long pulses of 40 kHz IR light, followed by 1 seconds of no IR light..

We already have information online about our last contest.

Why don't you go and take a look at it.

Playing Field: Jay Francis' garage. (flat concrete pad, moderate light) Players may place locator beacons around the area BEFORE the beacon is placed and turned on.When playing with obstacles, robots may not deliberately push or move obstacles, at judge's discression. Its doesnt count if you hit the beacon with an obstacle..

We suggest that even if you don't compete, that you come on by and watch! Contact us at the email addresses below for more information.

Obstacles: Will be made of two 2x4s strapped together or some solid cinder blocks, whichever we can get more easily. Consider them virtually immobile obstacles no more than 6 inches high. They will be placed randomly on the playing field but wont be moved around.

Play: Each robot gets 3 runs. All robots start at the same place and before each run the beacon is randomly placed in the arena. Shortest average time wins. Runs can’t last more than 5 minutes.

Size of Robot: Smaller than 1 foot by 1 foot by 1 foot, at all times.

Other: Same as before, no dangerous robots, caustic stuff, fire, explosives, nuke power, etc. Tethered robots are OK. (ie: moving 'bot cabled to your laptop or PC) Anyone may attend, just ask for directions first please so we know who's comming.

Date: 2nd Saturday of March, 1997, 1pm.

Location: Jay Francis' garage ( jfrancis@tiac.net )