Fort Collins Robot Fire Fighting Challenge

Saturday, March 8, 2008     11AM - 2PM.

The 2008 FCRFFC was a big success! Robots from all over northern Colorado (and southern Wyoming) gathered in Fort Collins to try their hand at extinguishing the candle. We had only a few successful runs, and nobody attempted the "Robot Hide & Seek" event this year, but everyone had a great attitude and a lot of fun. The room was packed with excited spectators who seemed to greatly enjoy the show as well.

The first-place winner was George Mitsuoka with his LEGO bot "Physignathus", which extinguished the candle in 1 of 3 trials with a total score of 20.19.

The second-place winners were Anthony Grasso and Arthur boo, whose "Rain Bird Bot" was also mostly LEGO; it extinguished the candle in 1 of 3 trials with a total score of 56.95 (though it did require a little human help -- but they were very deserving of the prize anyway).

My own demo bot "Sponginator" successfully put the candle out in 2 of 3 tries, with a total score of 72.12. The one failure was a sensor problem: the candle was about in the middle of the large room (the "kitchen"), and Sponginator stopped in the doorway, looked around, and entirely failed to see it. More careful calibration of the IR sensor may have helped.

Thank you to all who helped, including the many great volunteers from both Front Range Robotics and SHARC. Many thanks also to the participants and spectators, without whom the volunteering would have been rather pointless. Everyone had a great attitude, pitched in wherever needed, and generally pulled together to make it a great day.

Some pictures of the robots are available on the Front Range Robotics event page.

Check back soon for more pictures from the event.

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