built by Matt Meerian

Target Environment Locomotion Method
Indoors Treads
Sensors / Input Devices Actuators / Output Devices
2 photo-transistors
IR detectors
DC motors
Control Method Power Source
Autonomous Battery
CPU Type Operating System
Programming Lanuage Weight
Time to build Cost to build
URL for more information
Gravedigger was designed for a competition during Open House at KSU in 1996. The competition was laid out on 8 sheets of plywood with a gate between each section so the robot would know to run the next program. Gravedigger had the best time of any entry into the competition. There were about 16 robots entered

Line Following: 2 photo-transisters near the front of the robot determined if the area beneath was light or dark.

Maze: Since the maze was made of 90 degree angles, gravedigger simply went in, detected a wall, aligned against it, turned right, went forward, detected a wall, turned left, etc. until it was out. Gravedigger entered the maze going forward and exited going backwards. It exited backwards to pick up a golf ball on the next section.

Half-Pipe: Gravedigger went in and picked up a golf ball. Next, it turned to go up the half pipe. It would usually make up to the 4th mark. The higher the golfball went, the more time bonus received.

Beacon Chase: IR beacons were over paddles that turned the beacon off. Gravedigger went to the center, circled looking for an IR beacon, find it, and proceed to it until it was off. It would then repeat the sequence.

Bridge and Tunnel: The hardest part of this section was navigating across the bridge. Since there was nothing to keep the robot from falling off of the bridge we designed a clever strategy. Starting at the bridge, it went straight for 90 ticks, left, straight for 120 ticks, right, straight, right, and then down off the bridge and through the tunnel. As it topped the incline going backwards, his front end would lift up and release the golf ball from the Half-Pipe section.

Blind-folded football: Gravedigger would get a fix on IR beacon over the exit, and head towards it for 3 seconds. After which it had plowed through 2 guard robots. Fortunately, it was much larger than the guard robots. The only problem was that it couldn't see IR beacon when it was right underneath the exit. It helped to back up and look for the IR beacon again.

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