Brigham Young University

Soccer Playing Robot Competition

April 21, 1999


SPARCC Team

Soccer Playing Autonomous Robot with Camera Control

From this page you will find the following sections:


MEET OUR TEAM


Team Member
 Anticipated Graduation Date & Degree
 
E-mail
Ronald Ward 
(left)
     
    April 1999 
    BS Electrical Engineering
e-mail Ron
Jonathan Waite 
(middle)
    April 1999 
    BS Electrical Engineering
e-mail Jonathan
Jed Kelsey 
(right)
    April 1999 
    BS Electrical Engineering
e-mail Jed
SPARCC 
(middle front)
    April 2034
    BS Soccer/Electrical Engineering
N/A
Advisors:    Dr. Randy Beard,    Dr. James K. Archibald

INTRODUCTION

The robot SPARCC was invented by the three BYU Electrical Engineers featured above.  We were given the MIT HandyBoard, a radio link, and a computer console and told to produce a robot that played soccer autonomously.  We spent a couple of months deliberating over alternative ways of implementing the various functions the robot would need to perform.  An initial drawing of the robot was made by Jonathan.

A unique feature about SPARCC is that it has a pneumatic piston for a kicker.  A CO2 cartridge must be inserted in the rear of the robot.  Then with the mere flick of a switch a valve opens, sending high pressured air down a red tube to the piston, and BAM, the ball is on its way to the goal.

The initial drafting and designing took roughly 30% of our time.  The hardware aspect of SPARCC took about 20% of our time and the software took the other 50%.  On average, we each spent about 5 1/2 hours per week over the course of two semesters working on the project.

RESOURCES/EQUIPMENT

        Resources         Equipment


PROPOSED DESIGN SOLUTION

    An initial drawing of the robot was made. We also sat down and drew up these plans for some of the software systems:

PROGRAMS AND FILES

Note: Winzip 7.0 was used to create the following zipped files. Where a password is requested, use "sparccteam" to extract the files.

IMAGES

Frontal View Side View Kick View
Back View Belly-Up View Computer Interface
Playing Defense Frontal View Glamour Shot

Click here to view pictures of the other robots and the soccer game.

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