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Ashland, Oregon HOME Valley & State Sports Nation & World Opinion/Editorial Classifieds Business Columnists Local Issues Obituaries Weather Archive Revels Etcetera Backpage Hot Topics Most Viewed Forum Photo Galleries Video Readers Polls O-Zone Online Games Movie Preview Special Sections Real Estate Guide Menu Guide Shakespeare Subscribe Contact Us Rate Card Place an Ad April 21, 2006 Robots to take center stage By Alan Panebaker Ashland Daily Tidings Electronics junkies of the Rogue Valley will unite Saturday in the Rogue River Room in Stevenson Union at Southern Oregon University. With sumo robot battles, Lego building for aspiring robo-fiends and technical line following, president of the SOU Robotics Club James Cooper said he hopes to see RoboMAXX 4 trump the small turnouts of recent years. ABOVE: Robotics club member James Cooper, right, prepares for his robot’s sumo battle with fellow clubber, Keith Orman on Friday. BELOW: A softball-sized robot moves around a circle with sensors guiding it to stay on the table. Photos by Orville Hector | Ashland Daily Tidings “I’ve been infatuated with robots my whole life,” Cooper said. The SOU junior first got into the robot scene as a child watching the TV show “Lost in Space.” Cooper studied in the electronics program at Rogue Community College, and his robotics career exploded from there. The shaggy, bearded bot enthusiast, took a bow to fellow member of the Southern Oregon Robotics Society Keith Orman Thursday before the two sent their sumo robots into a mock battle Thursday. The softball-sized, buzzing, spinning machines are equipped with sensors that detect the white line at the outside of the sumo ring and others that look for the opponent so they can push them out. Since sumo robots are controlled entirely by built-in sensors, there is nothing the owners can do but sit back and watch. The slow whirring of tiny robots may seem anticlimactic, but members of the robotics club like Tara Greenwood said the opportunity to learn about technology makes it well worth it. “I’ve learned so much about electrical stuff,” Greenwood said, “and it doesn’t cost as much as tuition.” While most of the robots that the club uses in the sumo arena are built from kits, Saturday’s competition will also host an open robot competition where machines are judged on originality and ingenuity and design. These bots are the ones that really get robotics club member Cody Mitchell Chavez’s juices flowing. The ability to create moving, lifelike mechanical creatures out of what would be junk to most people is Chavez’s, and most sci-fi enthusiasts, dream come true. “A lot of the stuff from these things we use anyway,” Chavez said. “For example you can go to a yard sale and get an old Polaroid camera and use it for robot parts.” The pride and joy of the robotics club — which they will bring out Saturday — is a near-life-sized machine that can move, hear and talk like a person. Cooper explained how the starship robot sits on an old dolly to roll around, is powered by a motorcycle battery and uses a laptop computer for its brain. “It talks and has voice recognition,” Cooper said. “It just has a hard time understanding when there’s a lot of background noise.” The robotics club will put the finishing touches on its sumo bots today to make them meaner, faster and tougher than the competition, they hope. With robots, it’s always getting better. RoboMAXX will begin at 10 a.m. and finish at 5 p.m. Admission is $2 for children, $3 for students and $5 for the general public. For information and registration, visit http://www.mystic-awakening.com/RoboMAXX/. Leave a Comment: --> Copyright © 2006 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers. All Rights Reserved.