The Wall Race focuses on the basic robot skill of wall following. Each robot will follow along a wall, make a turn, and proceed to make contact with a box.  After making contact, the robot must retrace its route, contacting a second box located behind the robot's starting position. Two robots will run at a time, on either the left or the right side paths. The robot that finished first is the winner.

Wall Race Rules

Robots

There are many ways to make a wall following robot. Robots designed for Polyathlon may already have enough sensors, or could be easily modified with 1-2 distance sensors to do the job. Another option is to use a Pololu Romi or Zumo kit with a Protractor Proximity Sensor.

Code for the above example using a Pololu original Zumo with Protractor Sensor can be found here: https://github.com/robogao/WallRace

The Wall Race competition was designed with several goals in mind:

• Head to head competitions are much more entertaining for audiences to watch.

• Participation is greatly increased when the event can be done using popular robot kits with only minor modifications.

• Wall following is a basic robot skill but is not part of any existing AHRC event.

• Avoid building any new playing fields or other equipment as much as possible.

• Maybe in the future a wall following event can be added to Polyathlon.