Robocup Junior Soccer Workshop Series

These workshops are open to teachers, students and the public for a nominal fee of $10: pre-registration required by contacting Robotics Tasmania (rcelliott@yahoo.com).
The main purpose of these workshops is to help people with minimal experience in robotics  to move to the challenge of soccer (www.robocupjunior.org.au/soccer).However, these workshops are accessible to absolute beginners. These workshops are a good way to get key students excited about the possibilities of RoboCup Junior, via hands-on experience guided by an expert robotics educator.

Three workshops statewide:
ULVERSTONE     Wednesday, April 9, 9.00am-1.00pm: Ulverstone High School
LAUNCESTON     Thursday April 10, 9.00am-1.00pm:  conneXions space at the Scotch Oakburn College Junior School (74 Elphin Road)
HOBART                 Saturday April 12, 9.00am-1.00pm: New Town High School

If you have it, please bring your NXT or EV3 robot, equipped with a Hitechnic IRV2 sensor. If you don't know where to start, Google search for Domabot and download the instructions to build it. We have some extra hardware, but will not be able to supply all the participants with robots and pulsed IR sensors. For more information about Hitechnic IRV2 sensors, see below.
The soccer ball has an infrared LED transmitters inside it. The robots chase the ball by using sensors to look for the IR signal from the ball. Old style RoboCup Junior soccer balls produced a continuous IR signal. Unfortunately, this signal has problems with background from sunlight, incandescent lights, etc. In orderto reduce the signal from background IR, the signal is pulsed at ~40kHZ, like the remote controls used for TV/DVD players. (For more information read this reference:
http://davehouston.org/ir-rf_fundamentals.htm). With Lego Mindstorm robots,  all of the complexity of generating and interpreting the pulsed signal is handled internally by the sensor, making it simple to use in programs and find the ball.
For people who already have robots, you can purchase sensors from these Australian vendors.
Pulsed IR sensor for NXT robots(These work on EV3, but must be disconnected every time the program is run)
http://www.teaching.com.au/product?KEY_ITEM=LEGNX1015&KEY_ALIAS=LEGNX1015
IR sensors for EV3 robots
https://tris10.com/
Pulsed IR sensor plus ball
http://www.teaching.com.au/product?KEY_ITEM=LEGNX1042&KEY_ALIAS=LEGNX1042