Just announced on NXTLOG, the new challenge sounds very interesting. Quoting:
Given the set of Olympic sport,
The 2008 Summer Olympic Games will be held from August 8 – 24, 2008 in Beijing, China! We are challenging all you to create a robot that can compete in one of the summer sports on the Olympic program.The submission deadline is Aug 31st.
Given the set of Olympic sport,
Swimming, Diving, Synchronized Swimming, Water Polo, Archery, Athletics (track and field), Badminton, Baseball, Basketball, Boxing, Canoe/Kayak Flatwater, Canoe/Kayak Slalom, Cycling, Equestrian, Fencing, Football (soccer), Gymnastics Artistic, Gymnastics Rhythmic, Gymnastics Trampoline, Handball, Hockey, Judo, Modern Pentathlon, Rowing, Sailing, Shooting, Softball, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Tennis, Triathlon, Volleyball, Beach Volleyball, Weightlifting, Wrestling,there are many ways to be creative. I personally will avoid any kid of running, since what's the fun in designing a machine that can move faster than people - we already have them. But a Judo robot? Now this can get challenging! Why don't they have Sumo at the olympics - we already know how to build Sumo bots :-)