The CREATE Society at UNSW Australia is building a giant pacman game for the Vivid festival in Sydney. Pacman and the ghosts have been brought to life as robots with LEDs and omnidirectional wheels, roaming a 3 metre wooden maze. The robots will be controllable by players but are also capable of autonomous movement.
The robots have been constructed from laser-cut and 3D printed materials, as well as off-the-shelf components such as omnidirectional wheels and programmable LED strips. Autonomous robot movement will rely on a combination of line-following and robot vision.
This installation will be part of the Intel display in Martin Place, and will be on display from 22-24 May and from 29-31 May.
With only about a week to go before we present the installation at Vivid, we are hard at work finishing off the project. As you can see from the project gallery, most of the hardware has been built, and we are now finishing off the software side of things. In particular, we will be testing out the robot control software (path planning, collision detection etc) at this Friday's makerspace. Stay tuned to our facebook page for the latest updates and photos.
This project is already well under way, but we've been in such a rush building it that we haven't had time to put up much documentation for the public. We will start by uploading photos here immediately, along with some project details. You might also be interested in the press release from UNSW.