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

Radar II was designed to detect the opponent. It does not use any edge detection, and relies on physical contact with the other robot.

Question 2: What technologies/mechanisms did you use?

One side of Radar is setup so that one of the two motors on that side is connected to an input. Both of the motors have their own output port. When the program runs, it runs one motor and floats (idles) the other. The motor that is idling generates a current, and this is read by the RCX as a raw value. As the robot is spinning around (this looks like the line on a RADAR screen, thus the name) the robot waits for the current to change. If the value goes down, the opponent is in front of you, and you push forward. If the value increases, the opponent is hitting the back of the robot, and you try to escape.

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

Radar II was the second version of Radar, which I first took to to Fort Wayne tournament, so the physical design had not changed much, and was pretty much an afterthought. The hardest part was probably to get the rear detection part of my software working.

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

See question #2.

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

I was very happy with how Radar performed at the event. The program and the robot worked the way I expected it to, and it did very well against most of its competitors, eventually coming in third.