We could have the contest focus on basic functionality, ez-robot territory, and then contests.

AKA Judging functionality based on:
1.what its built to do
2.how it does its job
3.quality of which it does its job

Then, judging ez-robot territory:
1.Navigation-speed, quality,
2.Intelligence-Telepresence,
(what else?)

Then contests:
1.fighting
2.races
3.task completion
4.basic question answering

Best budget robot.

Lol. Well, my cheapest bot was wall-e so far and that hit $300

I think EZ-B would be up to this challenge, what about you!
The winner of this contest gets to save the world!

1. Get in a car , drive it and get out
2. Climb a ladder
3. Open a door
4. open and close valves
5. maneuver an obstacle field
6. remove debris
7. open a hole in a wall with conventional tools
8. connect a hose

I like the real world ideas the best.

@Irobot68, that sounds like the Darpa challenge.

Let's not forget robots made for entertainment purposes.

I think each of the classes mentioned will need a subclass on cost to build. Just like battle bots have a weight class. Less expensive bots cant compete with high dollar ones doing the same challenge.

I didn't see anyone suggest an EZ-Robot to beat the Turing Test yet. Over 10 years ago we did an autonomous fighting robot contest (non destructive to the robots, unless you left their wires hanging out *stress* ) at TRCY.org with Basic Stamp I and II controlled robot. With EZ-Robot we could probably do a pretty neat robot version of "Hunger Games".

I also like the idea of Best Butler/Home Servant robot. Best entertainment robot. Best robot for interacting with children. Best Security robot.

I'm not sure cost should be a factor. I've seen low dollar robots outshine high dollar ones.

There probably should be budget considerations that way the guy who spent 300 bucks can still shine when the over best spent 1000.

Hey @Troy don't be putting an extra 10 years on me! But yes Those challenges were from the Darpa challenge! Of course life shouldn't be so serious and setting up "fun" events would be awesome.....Logistically to get all competing bots together in one place would be very difficult...but perhaps @DJ could "host" a challenge of some type and we could remotely control a bot !

@irobot or a pre designed course / layout could be agreed on so each person could just set it up at home and make a video of their robot.

The smart thing to do so that everyone has a chance at taking part would be to only make challenges which can be accomplished using the items in the developers kit or that come with the revolution robots as standard. Give the option to allow additional parts etc. but if it can be achieved by using only what is pretty much the most basic of robot parts then it'll draw in a lot more interest.

So autonomous navigation of a maze and stuff like that could be a great one using the ping sensor (I guess I'll hold on to my next update of Ping Roam though :))

@Rich, Using only the kits and EZ-Robot bots and bits should be a classification, but possibly not a limit.

But certainly one contest that would be possible is who can program JD with the best dance moves

Alan

I like the budget bot category idea a lot. And the ping/maze challenge as well. Maybe make a glyph or QR nav race as well. It would be cool to see people use those features a little more. I like the rescue concept of find an object and return with it. Not sure if it was mentioned specifically but, Human interaction specifically, conversation. Or would that be more specifically AI than Robotics?

Oh and did anyone suggest Best NON-Robotic use of the EZ-Robot system. It is a micro controller that can be use to other things too. Doesn't someone have an EZ-Fishtank already? Also, may be an EZ-Script competition? Something involving just EZ-Script and ARC. No peripheral hardware. Just to show off the power of EZ-Script. And one more idea, Best SDK Project/Interface. While I haven't looked at it, I'm led to believe that the SDK gets added to your Visual Studio Libraries and therefor you can design your own GUI. (Correct me if I'm wrong about that.) It'd be cool to see some custom desktop interfaces.

And I think it was said but just in case, Best Mobile Interface. GUI/Graphics, Functionality and Overall categories maybe even?

OK. That's all I got but, you all have had some great ideas already. I'm interested to see where this goes.

Yeah Josh has the fishtank, I've been working on some lighting controls.

@Alan, that's what I'm saying, have the challenge achievable with the basic kit but don't limit it to that. This way everyone can join in but those who wish to push it more can add in more sensors, servos, etc.

Also, there's been talk about a dance off between Sixes a while back

@Rich Too much multi-tasking. I mis-read your suggestion. Yes, I agree.

@Antron007. You are exactly correct about what the SDK does. Allows you to interact with the EZ-B from within your own application in Visual Studio.

Alan

A lot of great ideas .......now who's going to organize the contest/challenge? Find judges, set the categories, schedule a time frame, set the rules and find prizes!
Gentlemen, start your bots!

Here is a new AI contest via Video Submission, as listed in servo Magazine March 2014 issue. Deadline is April 15th. http://www.aaaivideos.org/

Oooh, that's tempting... I'll have to check if it's open to anyone or restricted to Canada/America/Guam/Whatever...

My two youngest kids and I plan on attaching Lazer tag gun parts to our robots and have them roaming the house and autonomously trying to eliminate each other. Last summer we bought 3 Lazer tag guns that use infrared emitters and detectors and an ipod, we are going to mod them for our own mech wars.

@shamon how cool is that! I luv it when robot builders involve their families ! Hopefully they have seen the Wall-E movie!