Rail-O-Drag

We at VJTI always strive for excellence. Expanding our reign we bring to you our annual Technical Festival- Technovanza’08.This will be held on 13, 14 and 15 January 2008.Technovanza ’08 has an amazing event that hasn’t ever been attempted before. People have raced their robots on land, sand and even waded them through water, but has anyone ever raced them on RAILS. Well, your eyes aren’t deceiving you my friend; you read correct, “rails’. The students of VJTI have come up with the event rail-o-drag which means just that, drag racing your robot along rails, all the while drawing current from overhead lines and having only one purpose in mind, win.Let me first discuss about the track. It consists of two parallel set of rails of twelve metres each. The robots will have to accelerate and then come to a halt within the 12 metres of the track for successful navigation. The track can be looked upon as a 10 metre main stretch plus 2 metres buffer portion. At this point it is important to mention that if the robots do not stop within the prescribed distance, its leads to immediate disqualification. So it’s not only about reaching the finishing line fast but also of bringing your robot to a complete halt within the distance provided. That’s why there isn’t just a need for speed in this event; you also have to figure out how to dissipate it and within a small distance. Also anyone ending up damaging the rails can kiss their chance of winning this competition good bye, as this also calls for an immediate disqualification. The overhead wire will carry a voltage of +12 volts while the rails will be grounded. All further details of the track can be seen in the below figure.Now I shall move on to the robots which have to race on these tracks and these will truly encompass the talent and ingenuity of the participants. When I say "robot" I mean any convinient carriage or module which can move on the rails and which has a attachment to make it possible to drag the external carriages. They can be either wired or wireless, though the latter would be preferred. The robots have to run by drawing power from the overhead power strip exclusively. These power strips carry a direct current of 12 volts. Batteries can be used for other mechanisms such as braking though. This is a unique event in which the ability in stopping your robot is as important making it run. The robot also must have a hook at its end to pull carriages that will be provided by the organisers.The initial rounds are time based, with participants trying to clock in the least amount of time as their robots race within prescribed lengths of the track and with and without carriages. The qualifiers then enter a knock out round, where two robots are pitted against each other and the one to cover ten metres of track the fastest and not overshoot the two meters of track which acts as a buffer, get to go to the next round. And finally the last robot standing wins the prize which amounts to a cool 10 grand.So basically this event requires a good understanding of electricity, D.C motors and plain old speed. So, do you dare to drag?