Monday, May 24, 2010

Gaming Robot

I have never heard of the game Quarto! but it looks like a pretty neat game. What’s more is that YouTube user BlaMule has built a really cool robot to play and win the game against a human competitor.

There are so many things I like about this robot. First, I like that it is a fast mover; there aren’t many pauses and when it gets moving it doesn’t stop and wait. The second thing I like is that it is a polar robot rather than a Cartesian (x-y) coordinate robot like the first version. That adds some complications to the programming, but this robot handles them very well and seems to be very accurate. I also like the linkage movement meaning that the gripper extends when in the lowered position and is retracted when in the up position. That shows me that the creator had to figure out how that linkage would work which is a task in itself. I like how the end part of the arm is very lightweight and the gripper is controlled using the older Lego Flex parts, which I don’t see done very much.

Very nice build!

2 comments:

  1. A brief explanation of Quarto can be found here:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarto_(board_game)

    I like this... looks well designed!

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  2. Wow! That review is a huge compliment! Thanks so much!

    Blaise Muller alias BlaMule

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