August 2nd, 2012 § § permalink
After weeks of silence we are going to restart the Swarm Bot team Project this week.
We did some progress making a couple of test boards and wiorking robot base inccluding the first infrared beacon design but other tasks needed to be done before.
Now it’s the perfect time to start all over again and bring it to an successful end. Our plan is to send this to maybe two competitions (more about this later)
If you are interested to join the team then become a member. Members don’t have to pay additional for working in a team like this.
You are afraid that you are not smart enough? Well, nobody in our team is an expert for swarm robots yet, so please just bring in whatever you can.
Please also have a look at the Wiki to see the progress we already made: http://wiki.xinchejian.com/wiki/Swarm_robots
May 15th, 2012 § § permalink
Our goal is build a robot football team that can play football (soccer) in a public space. The robots can be remote controlled by children and adults, as well as play autonomously by themselves.
We believe that this exhibition will draw tremendous media attention and foot traffic given the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship that will take place in June 2012. In addition, it will be the first robotic football exhibition in China where the audience can participate.
Two robotic teams with seven players will play on a special football field (table size or larger). Audience members will be able to remotely control the robots. The robots can also be automatically controlled, allowing the robots to play by themselves or against human players. Each robot will be designed to wear the jersey of the color of the participating teams in the European Football Championship.
We believe this exhibition will get coverage in local media, given the interest in European football, the uniqueness of the robots, and the audience participation.
Sponsorship
XinCheJian is asking for 50,000 RMB from the main sponsor of the Soccerbots Exhibition. These costs are the minimum requirements to cover the basic materials, components, tools and support costs. Due to the extreme time constraints, half of the funds (25,000 RMB) must be provided before May 18th 2012. The overall engineering cost of the Soccerbots exhibition is estimated at well over 200,000 RMB when taking into account the cost of the expert engineering team donated by Xinchejian.
The exhibition will be on loan to a space designated by the sponsor for the duration of the event. Given the transportation costs, the sponsor will need to provide the field based on a design and set of specifications provided by XinCheJian.
XinCheJian will provide four robotic teams of seven players, remote controllers for the audience to play, the special football field sensors, the special game ball, and recharging units for the robots. All robots, playing field, remote controls, and equipment must be returned to XinCheJian at the end of the exhibition.
Soccerbots Swarm Robotics Team
XinCheJian has assembled a team of two senior engineers, Michaelis Lutz and Edward Jiang, with over 10 years of robotics experience. Assisting them to build the robots will be more than 10 part-time engineers and designers.
Project Lead Engineers:
Michaelis Lutz
Xinchejian Project Engineers:
Spencer Featherstone, Mika Lin, Valentin Gauffre, Raymond Walintukan, Tim Lan, Chong Yang, Robin Lee, Chris Carey, Infy Zhang
XinCheJian supporting team:
Ricky Ng-Adam and Kevin Chen (proposal), Otto Mao (translation)
Previously Built Robots:
Mr. Lutz and Mr. Jiang have built multiple robots at XinCheJian including:
- “Insectbot” autonomous robots
- Hacked RC car, turned into an autonomous robot
- R2D2 autonomous robot
- Micro-sized line-follower autonomous robot
- Four-legged autonomous walking robot
View a list of projects and pictures here:
Parting words
At XinCheJian, we believe this would be a unique and attention-grabbing exhibition. This will be the first robotic football swarm game in China, which could draw interest from both traditional media and social media. Most important, we think the robots will attract lots of people who will come to watch the robots playing football!
Our organization has positive visibility in the local media including magazines and TV media, many online social networks (such as Weibo) and our own blog. Our sponsor can gain positive exposure by associating itself to this ambitious and attractive project.
We have a strong self-interest in seeing this project succeed and driving traffic to our sponsor to build an audience for the project and enhance our reputation as a creative and innovative space.
概念图Concept Proposals
Figure 1: Audience members watching the Soccerbots playing football.
Figure 2: Proposed 3D model shell for the soccerbot robot exterior.
Figure 3: Concept of external skins for soccerbots, based on European Football teams.
March 19th, 2012 § § permalink
Simple Analog Line Follower
One of the easiest way to participate in XinCheJian’s next robot racing compeition is to build a simple analog line follower robot.
No programming skill required at all!! You will not only learn some basic knowledge about analog circuits, but also gets to exericse your soldering skills.
With only less than 10 common electronic parts and recycled bottle caps as the wheel, you can construct a very simple line follower, arguably the most simple one ever!
This workshop is suitable for people who are interested in soldering and robotics. Participant must be 10 years or older.
Please register here: http://xinchejian.com/event/?ee=117
December 12th, 2011 § § permalink
Thanks to Innovati in Taiwan for sending us a sample that we had fun assembling on Sunday afternoon. Great gift idea for the holidays.
Although rated as 12+, the assembly is definitely not trivial and it would probably be best to have an adult helping; we had Angie, Paul, Ricky and Angie’s friend help out with the assembly and it still took an hour or two…. And we’re still not sure the neck servo is assembled correctly.
The kit retails for NT$1200 (about 254RMB or USD$40).
December 6th, 2011 § § permalink
December 1st, 2011 § § permalink
Spencer from the new website Usable Devices (“Devices that work, those that don’t and those that need to be created!“) has already some interesting writing on its blog with both technical articles such as an attempt to build a robot for the next roborace, a flattering article towards XinCheJian with a profile of two out of the three founders (the other being of course Min Lin Hsieh) and a report on the presentation from MakeSense at the last Wednesday Open House. Always interesting for us to get an outsider perspective to our space and insights in more of the local projects!
November 23rd, 2011 § § permalink
It’s always good to make stuff, nothing beats the self accomplishment of making something and finishing it, if you make bits n bytes all day, come and make bits n bobs.
This week at XinCheJian we have something for everyone.
He QiChen dubbed the “Mitch Altman of China” is a young creative entrepreneur with a very bright future. His latest idea is called Toy Story (云端漫步) which has got him noticed at the latest startup weekend. Learn more tonight as He QiChen presents his Vision.
Also going on tonight is a Christmas team, tonight is brainstorming. Some interesting things are already coming up on the mailing list so come and make something you can be proud of and share with others to make this December one of a kind.
If this doesn’t do it for you, this Sunday is robo-racing weekend, a great time to make your robot or modify it to race better is tonight.
November 2nd, 2011 § § permalink
Show your support for He Qichen’s Quadcopter project on DemoHour：http://www.demohour.com/projects/297265
October 6th, 2011 § § permalink
September 29th, 2011 § § permalink
We’ve got：Mega ADK, USB Host Shield, Midi Shield, X-Board, FTDI Basic，detail informations can be found on www.DFRobot.com.
September 29th, 2011 § § permalink
Hi All!
The toy hacking contest is coming to the last stage – Vote! You can find all the final submissions there and check them in detail.
Please vote for XinCheJian’s Beckoning Cat (no. 2) and help to spread the words to your friends, the poll ends on October 7th!
http://www.seeedstudio.com/blog/2011/09/28/toy-hacking-contest-vote-for-your-favorite-project/
Thanks!
Video on YouTube
September 26th, 2011 § § permalink
Another exciting afternoon racing robots with friends. 
Taken by @vnsavitri
Taken by Ricky
