The competitors crowded around the course, scanning their rivals and making last-minute adjustments to ensure victory. Cheerleaders in matching shirts stood in the bleachers yelling in support of their friends on the various teams.
But this wasn’t a track meet or a football game. It was a robotics competition.
The crowd urged on 32 student-built robots, which competed against one another Saturday, popping balloons at the 13th Annual Design Competition. The event attracted about 800 participants and spectators to Blomquist Recreation Center, concluding Ford Engineering Week, which began May 17.
The Lithium Addicts team won first place and a $4,000 prize with its robot “Little John.” Arnold and the California Governors came in second, winning $2,000, and Optimus Prime came in third to win $1,000.
“It’s still kind of hitting me,” said McCormick junior David Simons, who was on the winning team. “I always thought it would be really great to be able to (win).”
In the competition, three robots were joined together by a bungee cord in the center of a circular course. At the blow of a whistle, the robots were activated and headed in three separate directions seeking out balloons to pop. Weaker robots were tugged backwards and sideways by the adjoined robots.
The robots used computer programming to operate the motors and most of the robots also contained sensors to seek out the balloons they needed to target. Remote-controlled robots were prohibited.
Red and blue balloons, designating different point values, lined the paths to the outer edges. Each round ended when a robot popped one of the three coveted yellow balloons at the outer edge of the course and doubled their score.
“The premium is on speed, precision and power,” said electrical and computer engineering Prof. Allen Taflove, a faculty adviser to the competition’s student-run executive board. “What’s a better strategy is to combine power with sensors.”
All of the robots in the beginning were split into six groups with the winner of each group and three wildcard robots entering the next round.
Those nine robots again competed in groups of three with the three winning robots advancing to the final round. The final round featured three trials with the winning team determined by the highest average points total from the three trials.
Awards also were given out to The Hermitian team for having the sexiest robot, the Beast and a Half team for having the most team spirit and the Little Bot That Could team for having the most innovative robot.
“It was awesome, though it was very stressful,” said McCormick junior Frank Huebbers, who was a member of the third-place team.
Huebber’s teammate David Klaus, a McCormick junior, said building the robot provided hands-on practical experience with real life engineering problems.
He said that some parts of his team’s robot did not work as expected and it was a challenge to figure out what was wrong and how to fix it.
“I’ve learned the ability to problem solve, to troubleshoot and to be creative,” Klaus said.
But the experience came with a hefty time commitment.
“It’s been our lives for the past six months,” said Klaus, who estimated he had spent a total of 300 hours on the robot.
Most teams began designing and building the robots at the beginning of Winter Quarter. The Design Competition executive board began planning the event and designing the course last October.
Taflove, the competition adviser, said the event provides a creative outlet for the students. He also said the competition gives students an opportunity to apply the knowledge they learn in the classrooms by supplementing their technical knowledge with practical experience.
“These kids are all very highly motivated,” Taflove said. “These will be our best practical engineers. They have the best combination of academic ability, practical ability, motivation, design and talent.”
