The Minnow Project

Faculty

Tucker Balch

Manuela Veloso

Site Contents

Project Goals and Status

Team Members and Responsibilities

Project Goals and Status

teams

Currently, we are focused on building prototype robot hardware and integrating it with the TeamBots architecture. The robot will be fully autonomous with wireless communication and color vision. Onboard control is provided by Java-based software running on a Linux microcomputer. Color images are captured by a miniature color video camera and a video capture card. Real-time color blob detection is provided by CMVision.

Milestones reached:

February 10: we demonstrated autonomy.
February 28: we demonstrated tracking of a red ball.
April 5: 1st Minnow (named Mia) built and Linux installed.
April 11: All video drivers and camera installed. Autonomous, Minnow 1, put into use.
April 25: Wireless Ethernet put into use. The HammerHead Team is now wireless and free to roam the world.
Apirl 30: WIRE-2000 Workshop: Minnow 1, successfully demos our team's Goalie behaviour (implemented by the diligent and creative work of grad students Rosemary Emery, Kevin Sikorski, and Ashley Stroupe) by tracking and stopping an (on-goal) soccer ball - to the delight of the gathered crowd at WIRE-2000.
May 17: The second robot, Minnow 2 (named Brandi), has been put into action.
May 31: The third robot, Minnow 3 (named Briana), has taken its first, fledgling gasps of oscillating electric fields.
July 18: PBS visited to shoot our robots. Go here to see pictures of that.
July 20: The fourth robot, Minnow 4 (named Julie), has become an active team member.
August 1: We moved into a *new* lab!!!
August 15: Our attacker and half back behaviours are solid.
August 24: Left for Melbourne, Australia with our robot team to compete against other teams from around the world!

Photo gallery

Team Members and Responsibilities

Tucker Balch:

TeamBots

Manuela Veloso: Project leader

Jim Bruce: Vision software and hardware

Brian Chemel: Cye robot Java API

Rosemary Emery: Simulation and integrated control of the Cye robot

David Garmire: Web site and software engineering process support

Scott Lenser: High level control and planning

Ashley Stroupe: Sensors

John Sweeney: Multi-robot localization