OUR ROBOTS
Each year, the RoboMaster competition challenges teams to design and build eight robots to play a game that resembles paintball and League of Legends. For more information on the competition rules, check out the videos on our homepage and our 2022 season robot showcase! The game differs slightly each year, so most robots need to be redesigned every season. Last season, we designed, built, and tested the following robots:
Hero
The Hero is the most powerful ground robot in the game and is able to launch golf balls that deal ten times the damage of pellets that the Soldier fires (see Soldier below). However, golf balls are costly to purchase, and the Hero’s firing rate is limited. This makes it an ideal robot for targeting the enemy team’s outpost and base. While the Hero is the most powerful ground robot because it usually deals the most hit points, it is also heavy and slow, so it is vulnerable to being cornered by smaller, faster robots.
Engineer
The Engineer is unable to launch projectiles and instead acts as a utility robot. The engineer collects minerals from the central resource island, which it deposits in the exchange zone for coins that are used to purchase in game consumables. It can also tow robots that have been eliminated back to a “safe area” so that they can revive and rejoin the game. Additionally, the Engineer can pick up and move obstacle blocks into vital choke points, giving its team the upper hand in skirmishes. Its collection mechanism makes the engineer the most mechanically complicated robot.
Soldier
The Soldier is a small but quick ground robot. Each team can field up to three of this type of robot. Soldiers launch seventeen millimeter pellets and have a high fire rate. While no Solider is individually as powerful as a Hero, three Soldiers together can out-maneuver almost any opponent robot, making them extremely powerful. As a result, they deal and receive most of the robot-on-robot damage during matches.
drone
While the Drone can only be launched for short periods during a match, it can decisively turn the tide of the game. With invincibility and unlimited fire rate, drones have free reign to wreak havoc. The Drone flies over the battlefield, launching projectiles at robots below and serving as the eye in the sky.
Sentry
The Sentry is the only fully autonomous robot on the field. It has six times the health of a Soldier and twice the fire rate thanks to its two turrets. Since the Sentry is mainly a base defender, the base shield disappears if the Sentry dies or deserts the base. A computer on the Sentry uses a camera and a machine learning detection model to enable the Sentry to auto-aim and fire at enemies. The computer also uses the camera and sensors to determine its location and map its surroundings so that the Sentry can navigate the field. The Sentry provides unique integration challenges between computer vision and control systems.
Dart System
The Dart System consists of a dart launcher and four darts. Darts are launched from a static position in the field, and the objective is to take down the enemy outpost and base to earn strong power-ups. Each dart has to travel the length of a basketball court to hit the outpost or base. When it does hit, it deals massive damage, and the earned power-ups can be used anytime during the match to turn the tide in our favor.