Re: DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals June 5-6
 

Talking to the members of my schools team. The reason that humanoid is because they are built to operate in areas built for humans. Driving a car, walking up stairs, opening a door are just some of the things that are built for humans. Just because the DRC checked for certain tasks, doesn't mean they are the only tasks they will go against in a real world application.

Re: DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals June 5-6
 

The bipedal, humanoid form has its benefits. Chief among them is the ability to put on an enemy's uniform after you knock him out during a covert op.

Re: DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals June 5-6
 

Well, a leg is A method of pushing a pedal, another method would be a linear actuator mounted in a specific location. Also, wheeled robots can get out of the car, as one evidently has.

My point is that while the humanoid robots CAN do each of these tasks, (well, some of them at least) there is no logical design decision that leads to a bipedal conclusion when focusing on the tasks in this competition.

This doesn't mean there isn't a good reason and everyone is just crazy and wasting money. in fact, Electronica1 has already explained that the robots were less designed for the competition and more for the real world. It just means that I am confident that a robot designed to complete this range of tasks (along with those in the DRC trials of course) would not be bipedal.

I would, however, have to disagree that a bipedal design would be beneficial in any human environment. All of the quadrupeds in my home seem to be much more adept at climbing the stairs than any of the bipeds. I'm glad to have seen a few of those in the finals.

Re: DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals June 5-6
 

I thought there was supposed to be a ladder at the end, not stairs. When I first read the challenge years ago, I thought 'yea! that'll push the frontier in mobility!'. Did they change that at some point, or am I misremembering?

Disasters have a wonderful history of taking out stairs. Robots can't exactly take stairs with them to climb something. If a robot finds stairs in-situ it can't move them to where it wishes they were. If stairs are detached they usually break up into pieces and therefore can't be re-used. If a single stair is missing most robots simply fall through the stairs. If stairs are slippery they're basically impassible for a robot, especially if the railing is gone. If stairs are partially submerged, then it's basically game over for most robots, even if they're waterproof and float. In the world of moving up and down, stairs are to FRC arms as ladders are to FRC elevators: both work, but the simpler version is remarkably more effective in the vast majority of scenarios.

Maybe next year's FRC game should include a ladder climbing function, but without the arbitrary silliness of the 2013 rules. That'll show DARPA there's no need to water down the challenge. Maybe the ladder is contained behind a barrier, and the only way to get into the zone is to duck through a hole, or something.

Alex, I'm with you on the quadrupeds. They can tackle stairs and ladders equally with ease.

Re: DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals June 5-6
 

"Ladder-climbing" was part of the DRC Trials in 2013, but (1) they looked more like steep industrial stairs like the kind you'd see between two different roof levels and (2) for some reason they morphed into standard stairs for the Finals.

Re: DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals June 5-6
 

They did simplify a few of the tasks for the finals due to the fact it was one constant, non tethered run.

For those of you interested, here is team Valor's recap.

Re: DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals June 5-6
 

Congrats to KAIST and Hubo, IHMC and Running Man, and Carnegie Mellon and CHIMP for their prize winning performances!

KAIST 화이팅!!!

Re: DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals June 5-6
 

To clear up some confusion about the reason so many teams went bipedal:

While my team was demoing the robot at the FIRST booth, I met the president of Team HKU, who took us on a tour of the pits at the DRC. Many of the bipedal robots are derived from the "Atlas" robot, which was designed by DARPA and then purchased ($2mil!!) by many competing teams. They had some open source software but had to generate a ton of their own software, along with hardware modifications to compete in the announced challenges. Therefore, many of the teams ended up focusing their efforts on autonomy rather than hardware construction of humanoid bots.
Of course, a robot purpose-built to carry out the listed challenges would have been much more effective, but these bots served to compete in other similar challenges in previous years (DRC Trials, etc). Of course, teams like NASA JPL decided to design their own purpose-built bots and were very impressive.

Most interesting fact I learned: many of the international teams were unable to order robot parts and have them delivered to Asia (for example, McMasterCarr refuses to ship to Hong Kong/China). This made it especially difficult to troubleshoot and replace broken parts. Thus, many teams brought full Atlas spare robots as a parts source.
Also, the vehicle used in the first challenge could not be shipped internationally, so many international teams were unable to test their bot on the selected vehicle (instead, they opted to have the robot walk the course, leading to an inside joke calling the DRC the "Desert Running Challenge"

Demoing at the DRC was amazing -- we had hundreds of kids (and adults) driving the team's robots from the past couple years. Big thanks to FIRST for coordinating the demo and setting up an entire half-field and even an FMS.
Also, the team got to meet both Dean Kamen and Woody Flowers, who were both strolling around at the event.

Re: DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals June 5-6
 

Also, I should point out one team in particular, Team Grit, who used mainly FIRST based parts for their robot. Notice the Talons, banebots gearmotors, AM kit Wheels, and even the 120amp breaker kill switch!

Otherwise, a large portion of the robot, particularly all the planetery gearboxes, are all 3D printed.