Robo-One 23 Tournament Results

The 23rd Robo-One biped robotics tournament was held in Tokyo earlier this month.  Actually two tournaments in one, the weekend saw the 7th Robo-One Light tournament on Saturday, September 14th, and the main Robo-One (Light Class) tournament on Sunday the 15th.  Yes, the nomenclature is a bit confusing, in English at least.  Robo-One Light is a fairly recent tournament for beginners; only certain approved off-the-shelf robots are allowed to compete.  In the main Robo-One tournament, any robots are allowed, and the vast majority of them are custom builds.  However, because the increasing size (and expense) of the robots was making it harder for most hobbyists to compete, a “light class” was created for custom robots under 3 kg.

Over 100 robots (listed here — the last two numbers in each row are height in cm, and weight in kg) showed up to compete in the main tournament, which had room for only 48.  So to participate in the tournament on Sunday, each bot had to first compete in a qualification event that took place on Saturday (alongside the Robo-One Light tournament).  This qualification event was a 4.5-meter foot race, made even more challenging by the placement of five thin rubber strips on the path, making the terrain slightly uneven.  Many robots were unable to complete the course at all.  The fastest robot this year was Metallic Fighter, by Team Meta, with a time of 11.15 seconds.  (The previous speed champion, Frosty, veered to the left and fell off the track this time around.)

The 48 best robots in the foot race went on to compete on Sunday.  A new rule this time prohibited the side punch which had become such a mainstay of previous Robo-One battles, forcing the builders to come up with creative new moves.  The full results can be found here.  Two of the top three winners were high school teams; in first place was Laio by Kobe Municipal Science and Technology High School, and 3rd place went to Newtrino-Nero by Hida-Kamioka High School.  In between (with 2nd place) was frequent champion Garoo, by Kumama-san.

This video shows the third-place match between Gattender and Newtrino-Nero.

Many more videos from the tournament are available at Biped Robot News Japan, though unfortunately the final match was not captured with very good quality.

About 40 robots participated in the Robo-One Light tournament on Saturday; the winner was “Dragon S.”  I’m still looking for a more detailed list of participants, since it would be very interesting to see how the various commercial robots fared.  Watch BotScene.net for more details as they become available.

The next tournament — Robo-One 24 and Robo-One Light 8 — is scheduled for February 15-16, 2014.

[via Biped Robot News Japan and Robo-One]