"Elephant" will defend the title.

Without Rempeln to the temple, with a trunk build and skill with their robot "elephant" Dresdener students want only to be German champions and then to the World Cup. In night work signed, soldered, programmed the young workers - and to locate a certain intelligence. "

 

Concentrated look, the three students on the wrinkled machine in the middle of the table. In "Elephant" are the lights out, he's just stopped. Hectic breaks but not enough. "A few minor bugs has' elephant 'yet, but we get out," says Markus Kühnel, 23

DDP
Robots "Elephant": A German World Cup hopes

The mechatronics student has about 40 times 40 centimeters large robot, together with 14 fellow students from the Technical University (TU) Dresden develops. With the "elephant" to the team on Saturday in Dresden his defending champion Germans. Klappt do not want to TU students on at least one of the first three places come to participate in the Robot World Cup in France, 21 to 24 May entitle.

The aim of the robots autonomously small wooden cylinders and cuboids record and alternately successive layers, so that an entity in the form of an arch created. The higher the "Temple", the more points there. Here are two robots on a two by three meter board against each other. A game lasts approximately 90 seconds.

Robot Rempler prohibited

Many evenings and nights, the TU-Dresden-Robotics Working Group (TURAG) in the last six months in a basement room and spent the TU drawn, soldered and programmed. "Then you get with the times already Koller," says Kühnel, since the founding of the Group 2003 and is at three World Championships participated. The biggest success so far was second place at the Championships 2007.

The challenge this year, Kühnel particularly tricky. There are stringent rules. There will be punished if the opponent's own robot anfährt or he does not evade. "To avoid this, we have an adversary detection system that works with ultrasound," says the student. Complicated the handling of the blocks of wood, mainly because of the different forms.

The cost of production amounting to 10,000 euros more over the university, the majority of components are sponsored by companies. "Elephant", which takes its name because of the proboscis bears, with which he absorbs the pads is the most sophisticated robot in the group developed. "It consists of several modules, which replace the defective parts easier," says one of the peculiarities Kühnel. With a maximum speed of two meters per second, he is also faster than on its predecessor.

Programmed to detect enemy

"Elephant" go perfectly with a certain intelligence "before, Kühnel says:" If, for example, he noted that the time will expire soon, he listens to with collection - even if he was not all his subjects with vollgeladen blocks - and tries instead quickly build up a tower. " In addition, the robot, so it provides its programming to identify an enemy structure. All this is in about 20,000 lines of code set.

Dresdner take the German advance Scheid seriously, even though the competitors in their own country are not particularly numerous. Only eleven teams have reported to the German preliminary.

In previous competitions, it still points to the fact that the robot ever losfährt says Kühnel. "There has served virtually the driving off to one of the first places to show." In international competition, the higher level of experience. Above all, the French were again noted: "There will only advance when cutting more than 200 teams."