AAAI Hosts the National Botball Tournament!

AI Magazine Volume 23 Number 1 (2002) (© AAAI) Articles AAAI Hosts the National Botball Tournament!

Cathryne Stein, Darcy Schein, and David Miller

■ Botball is a national program in which teams of robot building and programming to engage middle and high school students design, build, students in understanding the practical appli- and program small autonomous mobile robots to cations of science, engineering, and math. compete in a highly charged interactive (but non- More and more middle and high school stu- destructive) tournament. Botball students learn to dents are venturing into the complex world of program in c, construct feedback and control AI as they program their robots to accomplish loops, create electromechanical systems, and integrate it all together while they work on a team. complex navigation and manipulation tasks. Botball takes place in regional tournaments across Botball is a program for middle and high the country and culminates in a National Botball school age students. Teams register online in Tournament traditionally hosted by the American the fall at www.Botball.org, and the program Association for Artificial Intelligence at its annual takes place in regional Botball events across conference. This program puts reusable equipment the country throughout the spring. Each into schools and, at the Botball Teacher Work- regional program kicks off with a professional shops, trains teachers in robotics and the integra- development workshop for teachers to give tion of robotics into their curriculum. Botball them an introduction to robotics, allow them appeals to a wide variety of students and brings out hands-on experience with the Botball kit, and the best in each, challenging them to solve real- world problems in a dynamic environment at their offer methods of using robotics to support cur- own level. riculum in a variety of subject areas. Each team receives a robot kit at the teachers’ inety-four robots, working in teams of workshop. The 2001 kit contained two micro- two, participated in this year’s National processors (a handyboard and an RCX brick); a NBotball Tournament, sponsored by the variety of customized sensors and motors, American Association for Artificial Intelligence including servos, pneumatics, and LEGO con- (AAAI) and held at the Seventeenth Interna- struction materials; software; documentation; tional Joint Conference on Artificial Intelli- and other goodies. The processors are pro- gence. The robots, programmed in a multitask- grammed in an interactive, multitasking ver- ing dialect of C, exhibited standard AI sion of C that allows the students to execute behaviors such as target tracking, multiagent code fragments, as well as programs, encourag- cooperation, and adversarial planning, all in ing students to dive right into programming an unpredictable dynamic environment. There and helping them to learn on the fly. were two unusual things about this group of After receiving their kit, students have about robots, seldom seen at a professional confer- six weeks to design and build two robots to ence: (1) all the robots worked and (2) none of play this year’s game. Botball emphasizes a the designers-programmers were old enough to learn-by-doing approach, and robots are to be vote. created completely by students. Adults can Presented by the KISS Institute for Practical serve as mentors, but students do all the work. Robotics, a nonprofit educational organiza- In addition to working on their robot, students tion, the Botball program uses the activities of also create their entry for the web site compe-

Game begins when the lights go on; robots must start, stop, and steer without remote controls.

Robots have 90 seconds to score points by positioning their colored balls and tubes on the game board (1 point) or in the goal (2 points).

Goal points are doubled when the goal is moved onto a team’s side.

Goal points are also doubled if a robot climbs into the goal.

If both goal conditions are met, the goal points are quadrupled.

Additional points are scored for placing an object on a post.

Scoring is determined by ball position at the end of the round.

Figure 1. Participants Get Ready for a Botball Game. Figure 2. 2001 National Botball Tournament Rules.

tition at this time, designing a web site that dis- robot into the goal. Such a challenge allows plays their solution to a robotics-related chal- students to be creative in their solutions. Some lenge. robots follow search patterns or perform sim- In the Botball 2001 game, robots scored ple line following or obstacle-avoidance rou- points by positioning colored balls or tubes tines. Other teams use two robots to track tar- onto the game board or in the goal (ﬁgure 2). gets using mechanical and computational Bonus points were awarded if the team placed solutions. a ball or tube on a post. Teams had the oppor- Whatever their approach, middle and high tunity to double or quadruple their points by school students are solving real-world prob- moving the goal to their side or moving their lems in a dynamic environment. Michael

52 AI MAGAZINE Articles

Coblenz, a student from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Vir- ginia, who is now a freshman at Carnegie Mel- Andrew P. Hill High School Team 1, San Jose, California lon University, described it this way: “Botball Andrew P. Hill High School Team 2, San Jose, California extends the hardware design to another level: Broad Run High School, Ashburn, Virginia software design. The resulting systems allow Cary Middle School Team 1, Dallas, Texas more advanced teams to use their skills more Cary Middle School Team 2, Dallas, Texas completely. For example, my team studied Episcopal High School of Houston, Bellaire, Texas problems in software optimization, computer Episcopal High School of Jacksonville, Jacksonville, Florida vision, sensor usage (including the difficulties F.H. Peterson Academies of Technology, Jacksonville, Florida imposed by noise and solutions thereto), con- Fletcher High School, Neptune Beach, Florida trol techniques, artificial intelligence (includ- Foothill High School Team 1, San Jose, California ing autonomy), and other issues.” Foothill High School Team 2, San Jose, California Each regional Botball tournament takes Foothill High School Team 3, San Jose, California place about six weeks after the kickoff. Stu- Gabrielino High School, San Gabriel, California dents bring their robots to the tournament Glen Burnie High School, Glen Burnie, Maryland (along with friends and family) to showcase Gunderson High School, San Jose, California their work in a highly charged, double-elimi- Hampton High School, Allison Park, Pennsylvania nation tournament. Although it is not intend- Hillsdale High School, San Mateo, California ed to be destructive, there is often lively inter- Holy Trinity Episcopal Middle School, Bowie, Maryland action between opponents’ robots. Independence High School, San Jose, California Fortunately, robots have a chance to show off Jordan High School, Los Angeles, California their special talents in the seeding rounds, MAST Academy, San Diego, California where they get to run unopposed just prior to Middlesex School, Concord, Massachusetts the start of the double-elimination phase. Norman High School, Norman, Oklahoma Seeding round scores are figured into the for- Norman Homeschool, Norman, Oklahoma mula for determining which robot is the over- Oliver Springs High School Team 1, Oliver Springs, Tennessee all winner of the tournament. Awards are given Oliver Springs High School Team 2, Oliver Springs, Tennessee at the end of each tournament, including tro- Rose-Hulman Explore Engineering, Terre Haute, Indiana phies for the best web sites, seeding rounds, Sallisaw High School Team 1, Sallisaw, Oklahoma double elimination, and overall performance. Sallisaw High School Team 2, Sallisaw, Oklahoma Of all the Botball tournaments, clearly the Schiller Classical Academy, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania grandest of all is the National Botball Tourna- South Vermillion, Clinton, Indiana ment hosted by AAAI. AAAI gives travel grants Tennyson High School Team 1, Hayward, California to top teams from each regional; however, all Thomas Edison High School Team 1, Alexandria, Virginia teams are invited to participate in the national Thomas Edison High School Team 2, Alexandria, Virginia tournament. This year, 47 teams from 10 states Thomas Edison High School Team 3, Alexandria, Virginia traveled to Seattle to participate in two days of Thomas Jefferson High School Team 1, Alexandria, Virginia competition and to experience the AAAI Thomas Jefferson High School Team 2, Alexandria, Virginia Mobile Robot Exhibition. A full list of teams Thomas Jefferson High School Team 3, Alexandria, Virginia participating in the National Botball Tourna- Tilden Middle School Team 1, Rockville, Maryland ment at AAAI appears in figure 3. The overall Tilden Middle School Team 3, Rockville, Maryland winner of the National Botball Tournament U.S. Grant High School, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was team 2 from Foothill High School in San W.C. Overfelt High School Team 1, San Jose, California Jose, California (figure 4). The Double-Elimina- W.C. Overfelt High School Team 2, San Jose, California tion Winner was Episcopal High School from Wakefield High School, Arlington, Virginia Bellaire, Texas, and the seeding rounds were Wellesley High School Team 1, Wellesley, Massachusetts won by team 1 from Thomas Jefferson High Wellesley High School Team 2, Wellesley, Massachusetts School for Science and Mathematics in Alexan- Woodrow Wilson Middle School, Terre Haute, Indiana dria, Virginia. “The past decade has seen a revolution in robotics as AI techniques integrate with tradi- Figure 2. 2001 National Botball Tournament Participants. tional control to achieve greater heights of autonomy in robotic function,” says Jim Hendler, professor of computer science and students this new approach to robotics and director of the semantic web and agent tech- prepares these motivated teens to become the nologies at the Maryland Information and Net- AI students and researchers of tomorrow.” work Dynamics Lab at University of Maryland Already there is some crossover between Bot- at College Park. “Botball teaches high school ball and the AAAI Mobile Robot Exhibition. In

SPRING 2002 53 Articles

First Place Foothill High School Team 2 San Jose, California

Second Place Episcopal High School of Houston Bellaire, Texas

Third Place Wellesley High School Team 2 Wellesley, Massachusetts

Figure 5. Participants Work on Their Robots during the 2001 Botball Game. Figure 4. Top Finishers at the 2001 National Botball Tournament.

addition to participating in Botball for a sec- Cathryne Stein is the president and chief executive ond year in a row, Mark Sherman, a high officer of KISS Institute for Practical Robotics, a school student from California, exhibited a national, nonprofit educational organization. Stein robot he built. “I wanted to participate in the is also a cofounder of the organization. Under her exhibition because I saw what people did the direction, KISS Institute has developed several educa- year before and liked it. I don’t like just watch- tional programs, including KISS Institute’s Botball ing, I want to do,” says Sherman. “Participat- and Robots in Residence Programs, through which ing gave me an opportunity to present my several thousand students have participated in some form of robotics activity. She enjoys teaching robot- ideas to others.” Sherman and his fellow Bot- ics to young students and has a particular interest in ball participants are the future of robotics and the factors surrounding girls and technology. Her e- AI. With these bright students leading the mail address is [email protected]. charge, we have much to look forward to.1 Botball is presented nationwide by the KISS Darcy Schein has served as program manager for Institute for Practical Robotics, a private, non- Botball at the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics for profit, community-based organization that the past two years. She brings a background in com- works with all ages to provide improved learn- munications and human relations to the organiza- ing and skills development through the appli- tion along with six years’ experience in nonprofit cation of technology, particularly robotics. In work. Her role is to oversee the operation and growth 2001, 181 participated in regional Botball tour- of Botball in the United States. naments. What is KISS? It’s a philosophy: Keep It Sim- David Miller is the technical director of KISS Insitu- ple, Stupid. KISS Institute believes that high tute for Practical Robotics as well as the Wilkonson tech does not have to be overly complicated or Chair Professor for Intelligent Systems in the intimidating. We want today’s students to Mechanical Engineering Department at the Univer- appreciate and enjoy being on the creative side sity of Oklahoma. He received his Ph.D. in computer of technology, so they are inspired to stay in science from Yale University in 1985 and since this the field, creating improved and innovative time has taught computer science at Virginia Poly- technology for us. technic Insitute and State University, helped to develop Mars rover technology at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and helped found IS Robotics as well as the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics. He has Note worked with dozens of robots and thousands of stu- 1. For more information about Botball, please see dents, teaching courses for kindergartners through www.Botball.org. Ph.D.s.

54 AI MAGAZINE