Robot Sumo is a competition based on the idea of robots shoving each other out of a ring. It's (nominally) non-destructive, unlike BattleBots and the like. The robots are autonomous, so there's a much greater emphasis on sensors and on-board intelligence.
I'm documenting my Sumo robot build as I go. This is my first robot. I am nominally trained as a software engineer, but I've done a lot of personal study on the electrical side of things as well. My mechanical skills are pretty poor. So I'll be constructing the electronics from scratch and going for a lot of prefab mechanicals where possible.
The rules for Mini Robot Sumo are, roughly: put two robots in a ring. The last one in the ring is the winner. Each robot must be no more than 10x10cm, 500g in weight, and be completely autonomous. My thoughts immediately turn to the wedge factor - how do I defeat wedges, or build a better wedge? I considered spring-loaded flippers to move my robot out of the way; grippy rubber to push a wedge into the ground; out-navigating the opponent robot; a flippable design. Most of these are reactive strategies that ultimately leave me on the defensive. I'd rather be on the offensive the whole time, even if I am more vulnerable to a popular strategy. At the moment, I'm not sure what I'll do about wedges, but I don't think it'll be that important in the end. You can only make a wedge so good; you mount it close (or dragging on) the ground; you weight it right; you get lots of traction behind it. Other challenges, such as not running off the edge of the ring, and figuring out where the other robot is, will be far more interesting and important.
So I'm going to need a robot. I'll start with a simple microcontroller board. This is something that I've had plenty of practice with.