Israel presents: ROBOTRAFFIC

[Tottanka]

Hey all,

This is the first ever reveal of a new robotics competition starting next year. It is called RoboTraffic, and the main goal is to build small scaled vehicles that drive on the road just like your car, but way safer. It should obey all rules of traffic control, maintain distance and most importantly avoid accidents at any price. The robots are fully autonomous during their entire operation.

The goals are to inspire high-schoolers towards engineering and technology through building and programming a robot, as well as teaching them the basic principles of being a safe driver on the road. Israel is the 2nd highest country in rate of Car Accidents per population, and it is a national crisis. The Technion is looking into solving this problem via semi-auto cars, that will assist humans who drive it when needed.

The Pilot of the project has been presented this week at the opening of a new center at the Technion. The center, named "Leumi Robotics Laboratory" is built to assist and promote any robotics competition in Israel, mostly for high school ages.
The center will support programs like Fire Fighting, RoboCup, It's own new competition - RoboTraffic, and mainly FIRST's FRC and FLL (perhaps later even FTC if that starts in Israel).
The center will provide lectures and presentations of needed relevance to any of those, it will have fabrication abilities, programming options and many proffesionals in those fields at the Technion who will support people.

The center has an open door policy for any robotics team in Israel to come and get immediate help. There will also be weekly sessions teaching high schoolers about Science and Technology.

The RoboTraffic has been developed the past 6 month by Leav (also a member of CD) and myself. We both are FIRST graduates of 06, and are students at the Technion. This year we both acted as the Israeli FTAs for the 09 Tel-Aviv Regional. Here's a short video of our achievements to far.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzgDEimkQRE

Thanks, Liron

[Rick TYler]

It sounds like fun. Good luck with your new event.

[Stu Bloom]

Great job guys! Looks like a cool competition, and it sounds like a fantastic resource for the Israeli FIRST teams. Congrats Liron, to you and Leav.

I hope I can get a closer look if/when I visit next year for the competition again.

[danshaffer]

יפה מאוד!

How much of the computation is done on-board the cars and how much is higher-level planning? What kinds of sensors are you using?
This is great work. Please keep us posted.

[Tottanka]

Originally Posted by danshaffer

יפה מאוד!

How much of the computation is done on-board the cars and how much is higher-level planning? What kinds of sensors are you using?
This is great work. Please keep us posted.

For the models shown we are using 3 optical analog light sensors, 1 IR sensor for the traffic light, and 2 US sensors for each car.

In the future we hope to add a camera, bluetooth, barcode and encoders.

Everything is done on board.

[Molten]

Originally Posted by Tottanka

For the models shown we are using 3 optical analog light sensors, 1 IR sensor for the traffic light, and 2 US sensors for each car.

In the future we hope to add a camera, bluetooth, barcode and encoders.

Everything is done on board.

One question, which side of the road are they going to drive on?

[Tottanka]

Originally Posted by Molten

One question, which side of the road are they going to drive on?

The normal one. As in right.


though we have debated this question while fantasizing on expending to UK, Japan and Australia.

[Jon236]

Liron

Good luck! Are you trying to make Israeli traffic safer? That will be a real challenge!