Robot Competitions!!!

Now that you are done building your own robot (My tutorial on how to build your own robot in 10 steps). Now, your robot is all set to take off for its purpose. In order to make your robot more popular, take your robot to some competitions. There are various competitions going on for robots.

The most popular competitions are for the Line Followers. If you are a beginner, then I would recommend you to design a Line Follower at first and then develop it. Some Common criterions that the competitions has are:

1. Your robot should follow a line (Circuit) defined.
2. The arcade has obstacles, sharp 90 degree turns, and arch.
3. Your robot should touch the finish line as early as possible.
4. In some competitions, they define some dimensions for your robot. Most commonly, they want the robots to be less than or equal to 1Kg.
5. Some competitions may set rules like you will have to use only the batteries rather than a plugged power supply.

I know some competitions which are of much value and are of more fun!!

The IIT Line Follower Competition: The IIT’s (Indian Institute Of Technology) Line Follower Competition, being held every year is one of the most popular Line Follower competitions in the world. Last year’s line follower competition was simply awesome. I too participated in it, but had some flaws in my bot.

Galelobot Competition: This is held in Bandhung every year. This is also another interesting competition for you to get thru. This competition, which was held last year was of great success.

ROBO Games: This was formerly known as ROBOlymbics. As it says, its the biggest robotic competitions in the word. There are a wide range of 70 events in this competition. This is open for all types of robots ranging from line follower to Combat robots to walking humanoids to soccer bots to sumo bots and even androids that do kung-fu. And other thing is that, there is no age limit!! Anyone can compete.

ROBO Cup: This is another competition for line follower. This competition is held every year at different places. This year, it was held in china from 14th to 20th July. If you have missed this, never worry, the ROBO Cup 2009 is already open!!

BOT Ball: This competition is dedicated to the students. The students designed robots can be made to compete here. This is organized by KISS Institute for Practical Robotics. You are made to build about 4 robots ( in a team).

ROBO Fest: This is another great opportunity for us to display our robots. This is a yearly once competition, held by LTU. This is dedicated for students only!!

Micro Mouse: This competition is open to all. But this is not held frequently. This is an IEEE based competition.

These are the competitions which would help you get started to be a pro robot builder. You can also Google for robotics competitions.