Hello everyone! If you saw my other RoboGames posts, then welcome to another one. Last year I competed in a challenge called Open Lego and built a replica of the original Star Tours attraction. (see RoboGames of 2017). For this year, I decided to go a level higher and compete in Best of Show. It's just like Open Lego except with advanced robots.
The kind of robot I built was an interactive game where you use a joystick to move led lights around on a board. Whenever you pushed down on the joystick you had the power to draw whatever you wanted. I also added a timer and a list of different ways to play in case someone wanted a challenge. I used my portable phone chargers to power up the robot. However, when I put one of the chargers in, I never had to recharge it. And we were there for like 10 hours! I expected to use another phone charger after a couple of hours.
Something I really liked was last time I got a bunch of weird comments about my robot (again see RoboGames of 2017). This time I got a grand total of zero weird comments! All that happened was I would say ''Hello. This is the Matrix Drawing Board.'' I then showed them how to work the game, and then asked if they would like to give it a try. If they said yes, I let them draw whatever they wanted. When they walked away, I'd push the restart button and do it all over again. If no one was coming my way, I'd start drawing something and someone would come over to see what I was doing.
At one point, I did get chance to check out all the other robots people had made for different challenges. There was one robot that I saw on Instagram the other day that plays Chess with you. I also got to see a goat robot made out of stuff like wood, bananas, spoons, lights and a pair of fake teeth. I had a nice conversation with the creator and it turned out he was one of the three judges for Best of Show. I also saw a 30 foot tall tower that lit up in different ways, and a NXT Lego robot that played the ''Pirates of the Caribbean'' theme on a piano. On my second break, I decided to watch some Battle Bots. And I'm so glad I did! Because there were two wedge bots going up against a robot that had a sharp spinning drum. About two minutes in, it looked like one of the wedge bots went up into the air, crashed down, and broke into three big parts.
The last thing I'd like to say is the end results for Best of Show. For some odd reason, the judges split up. So for the first round, I talked to two judges which went well. When the third judge came, I talked too fast and tripped up on my own words, and I was all over the place when explaining that my robot can be for fun, or for brain games. Somehow I turned that simple line into a speech that sounded like I was coming up with stuff the robot could be used for right on the spot. After hours and hours of waiting, we saw the judges in a different spot. And yet somehow they still had paper work. The judges had the score sheet out, so we got to find out what place I came in. Out of 27 people, I got 5th place! That alone is a victory. Beating a robotic-self driving wheel chair is the other half of the victory for me.
