Skatebots hit the ice

Over the weekend the Discovery Channel had some footage from last year’s SKATEBOT competition. The University of Calgary’s SKATEBOT event pits autonomous LEGO robots against each other in the ice rink. Contestants all have the same LEGO parts in addition to 2 razor blades, the real ingenuity is how the students choose to move the bots around. Some chop their way, others push, one called the dragonfly mimicked the motions of their human skater counterparts. I couldn’t find an updated page for this year’s event, but if the 2004 page is correct– the next one should be in March of 2005.