Hello Curios Inventor World!

This is my work in progress robot that can play Hockey. My nickname for it is MANOI. My goal is to get it finished before the snow falls so I can play a bit of hockey with it!

There is a history of how this idea originated. I was trying to make my humanoid walk, and I decided to do a simple “shuffle” instead. For fun, I created two foot-size platforms with wheels, like a rollerskate, and attached them to MANOI. I noticed that MANOI was actually “skating”, in a fashion similar to how new Canadians skate.

When you’re new to skating, you start out by “walking”, or moving your skates back and forth in rapid succession. Although you do not go far, you do move forwards due to the friction between the skate and ice.

I tried to mimic this motion with MANOI, using a very simple trial and error method.

So far, MANOI can…
- Go forward
- Go backwards
- Shoot

There is a video of it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbCk1KTlfY4

The forwards motion needs to be tweaked, as well as the shooting subroutine. When the robot moves backwards and shoots, there is too much momentum which causes the robot to fall over. Essentially I will add a case for what last motion the robot did, and adjust the shooting motion accordingly.

The next steps will be to…
- Make sidestepping motions
- Add different styles of shots (Eg,, slapshot, wrist-shot)
- Hook up a Wii Nunchuck to control the bot
- Add music to play when robot gets a goal
- Add FSR to stick
- Autonomous and AI version

I think when it is finished I will add some hockey gear to it. My favourite part is passing the ball back and forth between my robot and I. It’s quite surreal! :)