WCRG Line Following Track

This is the line following track that was used at the 2002 WCRG (Western Canadian Robot Games) Competition in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Scoring was done using a point system:
Distance points: 100 x % of circuit completed
Un-interrupted completion of stage: 50 points
Time Bonus: 500 / number of seconds to complete course
Penalty for an unmodified kit: -50 points
Penalty for picking up robot: -20 points per intervention

Each track is scored separately and added up for a total.

The black line is black electrical tape, 3/4" wide. The squares are about 4 feet square, and painted white.

Short Circuit

This is the first, and simplest of the tracks. Nice gradual curves, nothing particularly difficult. Bigger...

Hill Climb

You can see the "hill" in the back corner. Some of the robots had trouble with the hill due to low ground clearance. This track also introduces right angle corners, which many of the bots had trouble with. Bigger...

Square Route

Every corner is a right angle, or worse, the introduction of acute angles. The area in the top left was the area that Marauder had the most trouble with. The lines are only 2.5" apart (which didn't cause any trouble for Marauder but some bots didn't like it). The hard part was the inside corner where it folds back on itself. You're basically doing a U-turn with a square U where the legs of the U are only 3.5" apart. Since Marauder is 4" square, sometimes the line sensor would miss the second leg of the U. There were also some gaps, the longest being about 3". Bigger...

The Integrator

Nasty! Tracks that cross back over themselves and a couple of back to back actute turns. Bigger...

All in all this is a fairly challenging set of tracks. Marauder completed all four, and required two interventions on the Square Route and two interventions on the Integrator. If I remember correctly, all of the other bots required many more interventions on these two tracks. A few of the bots were able to beat Marauder time wise on the Short Circuit track (I think the fastest was around 20 seconds, and Marauder was around 35 seconds), but the extra interventions put them further behind on the other tracks.

Home - Line Maze 2006

Copyright 2010 by Dave Hylands