The Southern Illinois University Edwardsville robotics team-Fishtank Assassin-took first place recently at the International Beyond Botball competition in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Fishtank Assassin members include Ross Mead, a senior majoring in computer science at SIUE; Jeff Croxell, an SIUE graduate student in Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Jerry Weinberg, an associate professor of Computer Science at the University. "The final match was a repeat of last years final match-up," Weinberg said. "Once again our team found itself going undefeated into the finals of the double elimination contest against the team of Lockheed Martin engineers, called the Return of Pins and Needles. Last year, we took second place after losing two out of three rounds in the final to the same team of engineers."

Weinberg said the competition attracts robot hobbyists, college teams, and professional engineers, who build and program autonomous robots to bring plants and a spaceship crew to a safe location in the face of a pending "warp core reactor explosion."

"During the competition, each member of the crew, represented by the mascot of the Botball competition, Botguy, had to be transported to a safe zone and the door to the zone had to be closed, while the plants, represented by large green foam balls, had to be transported to a solarium," Weinberg explained. "When the reactor goes off, additional points can be made by containing the radioactive particles, represented by small pompons. Fishtank Assassin developed two mobile robots that coordinated their activity to collect the Botguys, close the safe zone door, and then find as many plants as possible to place in the solarium."

Weinberg said the Fishtank Assassin entry was two mobile robots-named Who and What-that used every possible sensor input available to them. It included 11 distance sensors to help itthem navigate to specific locations in the arena, one light sensor for starting, a color camera to track crew members and plants, and a radio module so the two robots could communicate to coordinate their activities.

"The strategy of the Return of Pins and Needles team relied on its robots speed to get to all of the game pieces before their opponent could reach them; the game elements were always retrieved in the same order," Weinberg said. "Fishtank Assassins strategy was to program modular behaviors that could be put in different orders. The order game pieces were retrieved was changed to best match up the strategy of their opponent."

To take points away from their opponents, Weinberg pointed out, Who and Whats first usual move was to navigate near the opponents side of the board and reach over to pick-up their plants and then place them in the solarium. "In a critical defensive move, one of the robots, What, was programmed to hold its out-reached arm over the other game pieces on its side of the board, preventing the opponents large arm robot from getting to them," Weinberg explained.

"In the meantime, our other robot, Who, managed to score most of the game pieces on its side of the board. It was a close match, both sides scoring the same number of crew members and plants. The difference came down to the number of nuclear particles left in the reactor.

"The Fishtank Assassin robots attempted to set off the reactor early in the round to hopefully distribute the particles evenly, but were unsuccessful. The Return of Pins and Needles robot attempted to deflect the particles toward its opponents side; however, some of the particles were deflected back into the reactor. This made the difference in the score, leaving more of particles contained on Fishtank Assassins side."

In March, the SIUE team will next enter a new robot challenge that is an autonomous vehicle competition, in which the team will convert an electric golf cart into a self-guided, self-driving robotic vehicle that will navigate the campus pathways.