Minesweeper Configuration

Minesweeper is described here. But, in summary, the robot was required to drive to, and park on, light up floor tiles.

For this game, we used a curved mirror, mounted high on the vehicle, with an upward facing camera below it:

Minesweeper attachment

This structure allowed the robot to see the entire arena, if the robot was in the arena centre. The strategy (should have) worked as follows:

  • If the robot can’t see a red blob (i.e. “mine”) then it drives towards the centre of the arena (as measured by the front and left-facing time of flight sensors).
  • If it can see the mine, then it drives towards it.

This was all tested at home and worked as expected. Sadly, at the competition it did…. nothing! Oh well, the lesson is make your robot reliable above all else!