Botball

Botball (Draft 2)
Mary Crowder

There is a place where every degree of measurement matters.
It’s a place where a Game Boy and a box of Legos aren’t just “toys”; they are a main focus for extreme competition.
It’s where creativity joins forces with intelligence and to create the ultimate machine.
This is the land of Botball, a whole new world for students at Douglas Anderson.
Douglas Anderson’s Botball team reached great success for their first year.
Botball was created and is organized by the KISS institute for Practical Robots. The official Botball mascot is Botguy. In the 2005-2006 games, he was a plush toy. He is also used for the setup of the game in red and blue for demos.
In Botball, teams from 13 regions from all over the country first compete within their region. Then the winners compete with the each other for the prize.
The Botball seven week schedule stays about the same each year. It is divided into three parts: the pre-conference season, the regional building and programming season and tournament, as well as the additional national building and programming season and tournament.
The robots usually use Interactive C as the programming language, Game Boys with XBC as the controller, and fragile Legos as the base for building. They are controlled with light cameras and the program that the team designed; teams are not allowed to use remote controls.
Each robot is programmed to perform a task to earn points. “You program it to perform from an exact spot,” said Steven Deshazer, senior. “If you angle your robot even slightly off course, or the placement of the items is in the least bit off on the playing field, it will mess up the entire even for your robot.”
There are many challenges in Botball and they each have a variety of open ended solutions. Scoring also has many different levels. This keeps teams on their toes with strategy design and construction. To solve those complex problems, KISS recommends sticking to the KISS Philosophy of “Keep It Simple Stupid”.
In the judging area, teams watch their robots perform and hope their programming works. Once the robots are placed, there is nothing a team can do but watch.


Sidebar:
The Great 13
*Arkansas
*Florida
*Georgia
*Greater DC
*Greater St. Louis
*Hawaii
*Midwest
*New England
*New York/New Jersey
*Northern California
*Oklahoma
*Pennsylvania
*Southern California
*Texas