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Handling the Booster

This documentation describes how to handle the Booster T1 and K1 in different situations.

Inactive

TODO

Turning On

The robot can be turned on with a short press on the power button. After booting up, it will say "waiting for higher level services", followed by "waiting for lower level services". If everything started correctly it will say "body ready". This process can take a few minutes.

General Use

When turned on, the robot can switch between different states as shown in the following image (Source: RoboCup SPL Rules 2023):

States

  • From every state you can switch into the Unstiff state by touching all three head buttons for at least one second (blue arrow).
  • You can switch from Unstiff to Initial to Penalize to Playing and back to Penalize with a press of the chest button (gray arrows).
  • Standby, Ready, and Set can only be reached in some demos or via the GameController.
  • Calibration is described in the calibration chapter (purple arrow).

We recommend to keep the robot on its stand-structure when unstiff and pressing the main switch button to bring it into initial for a standing pose. While in playing the robot uses its neuronal network for walking, so lifting the robot up (even when standing!) is prohibited and dangerous. When manual penalized the robot can be lifted up.

To prevent damages to the robot itself a restrictive fall will be active once the robots torso is tilted too much. Here the robot uses a semi-damping mode to reach a standing position but also to prevent damages to the motors. As stand-up motions are currently not supported, the robot needs to be hold upright without much movement to allow a transition back into standing.

This behavior is deactive when manual penalized.

Possible Problems

Here we list possible problems that can occur while the Booster robot is being used.

  • Emergency: The emergency button was pressed and the robot is unstiff. Bring the robot into the PlayDead state and then release the emergency button.
  • Unstiff while playing: The robot itself has some safety features, which can trigger this fail-safe. One reason could be a joint overheating.
Last update: September 26, 2025