Bots Compete in Rescue Competition

 The finals of the 10th Rescue Robot Contest is happening in Kobe, Japan this weekend. Twelve teams and their robots that made through the preliminaries on July 4th will be competing on time and skill to "rescue" silicon rubber dolls from rubbles.

 GetRobo was fortunate enough to be in Kobe to see the preliminaries and wanted to share some photos.  

 The competition field is a 1/6 size mock-up of a disaster stricken area. (As many will recall, Kobe was hit by the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995 which claimed more than 6,000 people. The contest initiated to raise awareness of disaster prevention and the hope that robotics will be of help in future undesirable events.) At the preliminaries, one doll was laid under wooden pillars and another was situated inside a house. Each team was given 8 minutes for the robots to remove the rubbles, roof and/or walls of the house and then carry the dolls safely to the goal without causing too much negative impact onto their bodies.

 

(Photo1: A robot by Team Kobe City College of Technology pulls out the injured.)

 Since there are no restrictions on how many robots you can use, all teams had multiple robots which had different roles.

 

(Photo2: Two robots from Team Rescue Gorilla B of Osaka Electro-Communication University each carrying a doll)

 

(Photo3: Team Rescue Gorilla B's 3rd robot laid out a carpet over the bumps so that it can reduce vibration which may have a negative impact on the dolls while being carried by the other 2 robots.)

 The robots are remotely controlled using WiFi. Team members were allowed to look directly at the field to control the robots during the preliminaries.

 

(Photo4: Team Rescue Gorilla S, also of OECU tries to figure out how to rescue the doll inside the house.)

 Although, the finals will be more difficult because teams are only allowed to use the visions of the cameras on the robots and one set up from above by the contest organizer. So some teams practiced trying to set up an extra camera in the field to obtain additional visual data.

 

 (Photo5:Team Andus of Hiroshima University tried to elevate a robot so that it could hang onto the overpass in the middle to set up an additional camera, but was unsuccessful.)

 

(Photo6: Aichi Institute of Technology had a Tetsujin Robot which carried around a balloon to float a camera in the field.)

 The team that got the highest score at the preliminaries was Mecha! of Okayama Prefectural University.

 

(Photo7: Team Mecha! skillfully rescues a dummy.)

 

(Photo8: Mecha! was the only team that used the VUZIX eyewear.)

 Other teams mostly used a game controller, but there was one that had an original master-slave system.

 

(Photo9: Team K.U.R.C. of Kyoto University developed a master-slave system to control a robot.)

 

(Photo10: The master-slave system controlled this robot with two arms. Although, the right arm came off during the run and had to be fixed.) 

 

(Photo11: The dolls were made of silicon rubber coated sponge and weighed up to 1kg. Inside were lead bars.)

 

(Photo12:The electronics catch the air that puffs out of the holes when the doll is squeezed. Too much air = too much negative impact on the doll = point deduction.)

 It was really fun to see the various robots and ideas. Too bad I won't be there for the finals. Maybe next year.......

 UPDATE: At the finals, Team Rescue Gorilla B won the "Best Performance Award" scoring the highest points. The most prestigious "Rescue Engineering Award," which takes in account not only the scores but a comprehensive technical evaluation by judges, went to it's brother team, Rescue Gorilla S. Congratulations!!!