Freescale Challenges Engineers With Robot Design Contest

Engineers who want to test their design mettle will get achance in an upcoming contest that calls on them to take a nine-inch tallwalking robot and make it respond to touch, motion, vibration and otherexternal stimuli.

Freescale Semiconductor,which announced the contest at the Embedded Systems Conferenceyesterday, said it has introduced a sensor development kit in the form of anine-inch tall, four-degree-of-freedom bipedal robot for the contest. The kitincludes a 32-bit processor, a three-axis accelerometer for balance and amechatronics circuit board that allows designers to write software for therobot's sensor applications. Freescale said it will give away the robots andboards to contestants who complete a training course at the FreescaleTechnology Forum (FTF), June 20-23 in San Antonio, TX.

"The whole idea of the robot is to show how easy it is toget it up and running," notes Eric Gregori, embedded firmware productspecialist with Freescale.

Contestants who attend FTF and take the two-hour trainingcourse will have an opportunity to work on their robot designs in an on-site FTFLab. "Contestants can take their robots to the dedicated lab and there will beextra parts there and computers and people to help them out," Gregori said. Headded that if contestants bring their own laptops, they can work on the robotsin their hotel rooms.

The kit and the robot will allow users to experiment withacceleration, magnetic, pressure and touch sensors, as well aselectromechanical controls. The standalone circuit board combines a 32-bitColdFire microcontroller with controls for sensors and actuators.

Freescale's Make It Challenge will give contestants a littlemore than a day to produce a working robot with sensor-based capabilities.Entries will be judged on the final day of the conference by Joe Grand, formerhost of the Discovery Channels, PrototypeThis! First, second and third place winners will receive $3,000, $2,000 and$1,000, respectively, among other prizes.