Chinanews client, Beijing, May 25th (Reporter Ren Siyu) Have you seen the robot version of the "e-sports game"?
Recently, hosted by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League and hosted by Beijing Institute of Technology and Shenzhen DJI Innovation Technology Co., Ltd., the 20th National College Robot Competition RoboMaster 2021 Mecha Masters College Series·Regional Competition (Northern Division) was held in Beijing.
During the four-day schedule, 62 teams from Northeastern University, Harbin Institute of Technology and other universities shed their blood here, and each "hero" played in the battle is a robot designed and developed independently by students.
How burning is the "peak duel" between them?
RoboMaster 2021 Mecha Masters High School Series · Regional Competition (Northern Division) site.
Photo by Ren Siyu, China News Service
Duel between robots
Walking into the RoboMaster Super Rivalry arena, it is like being in a passionate sports event.
In a court the size of a basketball court, robots flexibly shuttled through the track full of organs, fighting with the enemy. "Bullets" flew across the scene, and huge LED screens hung over the stadium. The commentators were broadcasting the tense game. .
The game adopts the strategy of pushing the tower mode. The red and blue teams have different maneuverability robots for shooting confrontation, destroying the opponent's main base and destroying the opponent's vital forces.
For 7 minutes in each round, the opponent's base will be attacked first or the team with the highest remaining HP will win.
Following the referee's order, the engineering robots of both sides rushed to the center of the field first to compete for randomly dropped "gold ore". The gold ore can be exchanged for gold coins. The more ore picked up, the more projectiles and supplies can be obtained. .
Source: Photo courtesy of the organizer
The ground attack system is composed of infantry robots and hero robots, which can fire ordinary plastic projectiles and golf-shaped large projectiles respectively. Their primary task is to defeat the opponent's outpost and break through the first line of defense of the opponent's base.
Source: Photo courtesy of the organizer
RoboMaster combines robot competition and e-sports presentation methods, adding many e-sports elements to the event. Someone once described its battle like a robot version of "Glory of the King":
In the arena, the outpost is like a "tower" in the game; the spinning windmill is an energy mechanism. If the robot can hit accurately and successfully, it will get the "energy bonus", which will greatly increase the attack power in a short time.
When the infantry robot's "health bar" runs out, it needs to be dragged by the engineering robot to the resurrection zone to resurrect.
RoboMaster 2021 Mecha Masters High School Series · Regional Competition (Northern Division) site.
Photo by Ren Siyu, China News Service
In addition to the ground attack system, sentinel robots and aerial robots are also installed on the scene. One can conduct automatic defense and counterattack against enemies entering the base, and the other can provide high-angle fire suppression.
This year's competition system has also been upgraded, adding a radar system and a dart system that can provide global vision and ultra-long-range attacks.
"Hot blood moments" in the arena
In the 4-day Super Rivalry, 32 teams competed in the group stage and the knockout stage to compete for the place to advance to the national finals.
This is not so much a fierce robot competition as it is a high-tech showdown between young engineers.
In the arena, robots are charging ahead; in the operating rooms on the left and right, operators from major universities are remotely operating from the first perspective; at the same time, the team’s R&D representatives stand outside the field nervously watching the game. As soon as each game is over, they will quickly rush to the arena, seize the time to repair and debug the machine, and prepare for the next game.
Source: Photo courtesy of the organizer
In just 7 minutes, the test was not only the performance and stability of the machine, but also the tacit understanding, collaboration and on-the-spot reaction of each team.
As the protagonist of the competition is a robot, unexpected situations often occur in the arena.
For example, some hero robots suddenly dropped due to a malfunction and were unable to move during the whole process; some engineering robots were suddenly unable to grab gold ore and could only watch the opponent transport back one resource after another; some infantry robots overturned when they swooped. , And even engineering robots accidentally entangled when saving infantry robots...
Although there are accidents, bloody moments often appear.
In order to win the competition, each team used "black technology" in the development of robots.
For example, some robots specialize in hiding in hidden places. With their precise shooting ability, a single soldier can lay down the opponent's outpost; some engineering robots use force to push two "bloodless" infantry robots in one breath. Transport back to the live area.
The situation of the game is changing, and the situation will be reversed if you are not paying attention.
Just as the audience saw an infantry robot deep into the enemy area and seemed to be surrounded by two robots, it tenaciously killed each other with one hit and two, and it ran back to the base camp with "residual blood" at high speed.
Source: Photo courtesy of the organizer
Solo fights, collective melees, chase and interception, remote "slings"... In the game, there are not only domineering and calculating strategies, but also inspiring games that turn against the wind, which often attracts a lot of cheers in the audience area.
On the day of the RoboMaster 2021 Super Rivalry·Regional (Northern Division) finals, after fierce competition, the Dalian Jiaotong University team defeated the Northeastern University team 3:1 and won the championship in the northern division.
Source: Photo courtesy of the organizer
"Proving Ground" for Young Engineers
After successfully winning the Northern Regional Championship, the members of the Dalian Jiaotong University team held each other and wept with joy.
"We are very excited, and it also means that our efforts over the past year have not been in vain." said Ren Junkai, captain of the TOE team at Dalian Jiaotong University.
The fierce fighting in just a few days is behind every team member's day and night preparations.
"Each team is actually the same. Starting from October when the rules are released each year, they have been preparing to the present, and then preparing for the national finals in August. It is almost a whole year of hard work."
The team members of Dalian Jiaotong University celebrated their championship.
Photo courtesy of the organizer
In this test of "tactics + technology", robots must not only have strong combat and shooting capabilities, but also have flexible actions and defensive capabilities to evade projectiles.
These cool performances involve the integration of knowledge from multiple disciplines such as machine vision, embedded system design, mechanical control, inertial navigation, and human-computer interaction.
In a sense, the Mecha Masters can also be said to be a "game of learning hegemony".
Ren Junkai introduced that in their nearly 30-person team, there are mechanical group, electronic control group, vision group, etc., "from mechanical structure to circuit, to embedded control, and machine vision, from the bottom to the top. Only by interlocking can the overall function of a robot be realized."
Source: Photo courtesy of the organizer
Unmanned driving, AI algorithms, electronic communications... It seems to be a competition, and the technology and creativity in it are also closely linked to the development trend of the future society.
It is understood that the annual competition rules will be iteratively upgraded to promote the young engineers to further improve their technical strength.
"It is very worthwhile to be able to participate in such a competition during college," said Ren Junkai, who is still in his junior year.
The fierce duel is behind, from Dalian Jiaotong University, Northeastern University, Harbin Institute of Technology, Taiyuan University of Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology, North China Institute of Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Harbin Engineering University, China University of Petroleum (Beijing) 10 teams successfully advanced.
Next, they will continue to prepare for the RoboMaster 2021 Super Rivalry·National Tournament to be held in Shenzhen at the end of August.
It is foreseeable that it will be a more intense "battle".
(Finish)