Robot Rodeo Competition for First Responders and Military Bomb Squad Teams
Sandia National Laboratories recently hosted the seventh annual Western National Robot Rodeo and Capability Exercise, a lively and challenging five-day event that draws civilian and military bomb squad teams from across the country to see who can most effectively defuse dangerous situations with the help of robots. Robots can give first responders a protective buffer, go where humans can't, and provide valuable information before a human responder enters a dangerous environment. The ten-event technical competition provides an opportunity to practice using robots and new technology in a low-risk, but competitive environment. This year, competitors included the Albuquerque Police Department, Riverside County Sheriff's Office from California, Kirtland Air Force Base Explosive Ordinance Disposal team, New Jersey State Police, Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office, Los Alamos Police Department, and the New Mexico State Police.
Transcript
00:00:00 [Music] what we're here for is what we call the 7th annual Western National robot rodeo and it's really a fancy title for a technical competition and capability exercise for our state and local bomb squads and Military EOD teams EOD is the explosive ordinance disposal teams so we have nine teams represented um from around the state so we have all the
00:00:34 state bomb squads we have 10 different scenarios that we set up they have typically about an hour and a half to run a scenario this scenario which I'll touch on they have to go inside this uh a mobile arcade so we got pinball machines and rock music going and lights flashing and they have to work inside that environment with their robot and deal with all that background noise we
00:00:57 have a scenario that's uh based on a mass casual [Music] so we're giving these guys they're expecting some type of rodeo robot scenario on that one and it's purely medical they step out and have to deal with this mass casualty they're the first responder like they got interrupted at a movie then we have some
00:01:14 scenarios here in this high security fence that's the scenario that somebody had left a backpack bomb that they tried to throw up over the fence but it got caught up into the barbed wire and then they panicked and left another one on the ground once they got either that backpack or or found the other one that was already on the ground they used a second robot if they wanted to and took
00:01:36 it over to this live x-ray system that we had and typically that type of X-ray system on the end of one of these larger robots but we decided to change it up and put the X-ray system on the ground and have the smaller robot bring the backpack in and out of the live x-ray system those guys had to work with x-raying the package and determining what's inside while the rest of their
00:01:58 team is still trying to get that backpack that's up tangled up in the the barbed wire how do they get it down to the ground and then x-ray that one if they can and you know that's really the whole purpose of the of the robot Rodeo is to give these guys training you know how well is the operator at at playing with his robot well they're looking at a little screen they're far away and their
00:02:20 three-dimensional world just went perfectly flat and they have to deal with all these realities that I can't just easily look around and get the three-dimensional aspects of this I have to look at my tiny little screen I've got to try and remember what position is my robot in it can get crazy but fun my colleague up in Los Alamos Chris ory and I again this is our seventh year and we
00:02:43 know our New Mexico teams are just never enough training money for them and where do they have access to resources like we have at Sandia National Laboratories they don't so we make that available for them they get some of the best training and who knows maybe they have a bomb call in your neighborhood and we can say hey we help train them they're going to be some of the better teams in in
00:03:03 certainly in the state and in the nation and man that would be good for me to know so I I like that part of what we do [Music]