Game Overview: Virtual Sumo Bots
Teams compete together (virtually!) in a friendly version of a sumo wrestling style ‘Battle Bot’ contest. Two robots compete in a ring with the objective of pushing the opposition out of the ring. The ring is defined as the inner black region bounded by a white circle. Beyond the white circle is considered out. For the virtual 2020 season, we will be using the simulation tools in the Virtual Robotics Toolkit software. This software will simulate the robot actions and movement, and determine the winner based on which robot gets pushed beyond the white ring, and off the platform.
Season-Specific Resources
For the safety and protection of Unified Robotics® teams and their participants, the 2020 Unified Robotics season and events was conducted virtually. All events were conducted via Microsoft® Teams or live-streamed. Teams will work together using the video call and screen-sharing platform on Microsoft Teams.
Our goal was to keep this virtual season as similar to past seasons as possible. Unified Robotics participants still teamed up in groups of 2-6 students that consist of half partners and half athletes. Teams were still encouraged to build and program one robot to compete in the Sumo game. Together, via Teams, they built a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® EV3 robot using the LEGO Digital Designer application. To program the robot, students still used the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 software. Once the robot was completed, the students can test their robot and code by downloading it and uploading it into the Virtual Robotics Toolkit, where they simulated their robot on a Sumo Competition field.
Even though Unified Robotics looked different this year, it was still equally important to stay connected with schools and encourage students to participate.