Introduction

Brainstorming

Team:
Ben Mossawir
Aren Sandersen

Coach:
Tenbite Ermias

Introduction

Meet Wilt.  Standing an impressive 12” tall with a wingspan of nearly 13”, Wilt is the prototypical robotic basketball player.  Before we describe the details of his impressive physique and illustrious career, let’s take a look at his early days…

Wilt is our entry in the Winter 2001 March Madness tournament of EE/CS118.  The details of the competition dictate that each team must enter a robot of specified size, cost, and processing power, which can successfully make a shot on each of three baskets on the court.  In addition, the robot has the opportunity to score bonus points from either 1-pt (free throw line), 2-pt (dunk), or 3-pt range.  Each robot is given 2 minutes to make as many shots as it can.

One of the first decision we had to make when deciding how to proceed in designing and building Wilt was to examine our strategy for winning.  We considered many possibilities in our first brainstorming session, but ultimately decided that lobbing three-pointers was the best way to score a large number of points in a short amount of time.  Provided we could be accurate enough, this would not be substantially harder than shooting free throws and would not require the time it takes to move from basket to basket when dunking.

In addition, we realized that since accuracy was a limiting factor, it was in our best interest to carry a many balls on-board the robot as possible. That way, we could make up for the quality of our shots with the sheer quantity of them.  As it turns out, we were able to carry 32 balls (actually, 31, but let’s just play along) so assuming (unrealistically) that we made every single shot, that would be 96 points.  And scoring nearly 100 points in a single game would put us on par with real-life basketball legend Wilt Chamberlin.  So, although our robot did get around (the court, that is), you now know where the name really came from…

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the people who supported us through this rather intense project.  Of course, we have to start with the teaching team of Professor Carryer and Tenbite.  We also appreciate the suggestions and advice from our classmates (Team Yellow Jackets) who proved fierce but gracious competition.  Meanwhile, there were a host of people whose contributions, though not mechanical, were instrumental in helping us get through the sleepless nights and caffeine comas. Special thanks goes to Sabine Gounder and Katy Innes for their unflagging support and patience.

Brainstorming 

As we considered the various strategies that we could adopt in constructing our robot, we developed several possible leads:

Cerberus: This three-headed beast would actually consist of a three independent robots that would begin in the central location, then disperse to their respective baskets and proceed to dunk a ball into their basket when the beacon flashed.  By using three robots, we could eliminate the time wasted in driving back-and-forth between the baskets while also bypassing the complexities of aiming and launching the balls.  Ultimately, this option was discarded because there was simply not enough time to undertake the complexities of building one, let alone three, robots in a two-person team. 

The Law: Using a super long arm or ramp, this robot would be stationary at the free-throw line, but would be able to reach out using lazy tongs or an extensible ball ramp, to deposit the balls in each basket.  Again, this design would eliminate some complexity in terms of not requiring the ability to shoot or drive, but it would still need to aim.  Most importantly, it would difficult to raise the balls up to the height of the ramp and we could only score one point for each basket.

Turret Punch: Another stationary approach would be to using a turret mechanism that once positioned at the free-throw line would fire balls in the direction of the appropriate basket by rotating into alignment.  Although it eliminates the need for a drive train, this still requires the ability to aim, launch, and rotate.  At that point, you may as well just move back to the 3-point line first and do the same thing, because at least then you’ll get more points for it.