Freshmen engineering students reveal their robot designs in Saturday's competition
By Rosemary Peters
For the past four months, engineering students across campus have been designing and building robots to battle in an upcoming UP competition to see who can claim the title of the best design student.
The freshman design project, which is a required competition and a component of the Engineering 110 class, is a competition for students who are enrolled as engineers, whether they are majoring in civil, mechanical or electrical engineering.
From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. this Saturday, engineering students will present their robots at the competition in the Chiles Center. The students have worked to design, construct, test and demonstrate that their robot can move blocks of different shapes and weights.
"What was cool was that we were able to build a radio controlled device. This device will have to move two types of one-square-inch blocks from the starting zone into one or more of the four scoring zones in a two-minute period," freshman Jacob Lampe said. "To make sure we would have a working device in time for the competition, my team worked really hard and kept to a schedule we created."
The number of points earned by the teams will depend on the value of the blocks and their final positions when "time" is called.
There are four winning categories and there will be four winners from each category.
The categories are Most Points, Most Cost-Efficient Device, Most Time Efficient Device and Most Creative Design.
In order to make the competition fair, all students were given a handbook with certain rules and regulations concerning the way they could build the robots. These handbooks also included three sketches of the competition area to help the designers decide how to build their robot in order to get it through the course.
Another rule that was enforced to keep the building process equal was a list of materials that each team was allowed to use to build the robot.
Each team was provided with a construction kit of tools and materials during the first two weeks of class. This kit included a toolbox and other building equipment.
"We want our engineering students to learn to work as a team, learn how to follow through from design to the competition. We also want them to consider all sorts of factors and to understand the economy of engineering," Kitty Harmon, the dean of the School of Engineering said. "We just want them to see what engineering is about and to get a taste of how to design a project."
Although it is a required class, many students consider it to be one of the most fun projects they do as engineers.
"The freshmen engineers love this course," professor Peter Osterburg, who teaches one of the five Engineering 110 classes, said. "It's a lot of fun for them with memories that last a lifetime."
Not only do the students get to learn about several key factors that real engineers encounter every day, but they actually get to build a robot.
"I found this project to be entertaining and fulfilling," freshman Kirby Wigton said. "It gets me excited for the next semester."
The freshman engineering students have poured a lot of time and effort into the competition. Freshman Dallas Lund, even sustained an injury from building his robot.
"While I was using an exacto knife to cut cardboard for the robot, my hand slipped and I sliced my finger open. It was like a scene from Kill Bill. I was rushed to the hospital, where I had to get seven stitches. It was okay though, because I had a cute nurse helping me," Lund said. "But seriously, even with the injury, it was an amazing and entertaining project, and I would definitely love to do it again."
