Question 1: What was the general strategy or plan behind your bot design?

HT24 Crawler was designed to climb the hill and then patrol the top for the remainder of the time.

Question 2: What technologies/mechanisms did you use?

The name comes from the technologies and mechanisms used in the robot. It has three Hi-Technic sensors and 24 wheels.

The sensors:

1. Acceleration sensor, used to detect left/right tilt when climbing the hill
2. Distance sensor, used to detect opponents when on the hill
3. EOPD light sensor, used to detect when the robot was on top of the hill

Question 3: What was the most challenging aspect of construction?

I put a great deal of time in the design to make sure it wouldn’t get high-sided. My first design had three balloon wheels per side, so the middle would still be supported when it was on the top edge of the hill. It also had two small mag wheels in the middle in case one side was pushed off the edge. After some test climbing, the six balloon wheels were replaced with twenty small mag wheels (five rows of two on each side) and the middle two were expanded to four, for a total of twenty-four wheels.

The surface area provided by twenty-four wheels allowed it to climb the hill very reliably every time.

Question 4: Are there any special features you care to talk about?

My favorite thing about this robot was its ability to climb back on the hill, after falling off. Using the acceleration sensor, HT24 Crawler was actually able to turn around, and climb back up to the top of the hill.

Question 5: What surprised you about how your bot behaved/performed during the event?

I was disappointed during the event when it didn’t make it back to the top of the hill, the one time it fell off. It was able to turn around, and climb up, but it didn’t go to the middle of the hill, so it didn’t correctly detect when it got to the top, causing it to stop and roll back down, before climbing up again…

Overall, I was happy to see how well, and how quickly it climbed the hill, and then patrolled the top.