MTU Sumobot Repeats as National Heavyweight Champion
On April 6th, 2001, the Michigan
Tech Society of Manufacturing Engineers traveled to Pittsburgh, PA to
compete in the annual RI/SME Student Robotics Engineering Challenge at
Robert Morris College. Participation in the event was sponsored by the
Office of Student Activities and the Parent's Fund of the Michigan Tech
Fund. There, Tech Sumo robot once again took first place in the Sumo Heavyweight
competition post-secondary division. The double elimination tournament
also featured teams from Rochester Institute of Technology, the University
of Buffalo, Ohio Northern University (the champion three consecutive times
before our victory last year), Indiana Institute of Technology and several
other schools to round out a field of roughly 12 robots. The double elimination
tournament put two 150-lb autonomous robots face to face in an eight-foot
diameter ring. The first to push the other partially outside of the two
inch black circle earns the victory.
After a quick scare in the
first round against IIT in which MTU's "black box" was on the
line when it found a sudden boost of energy to turn the table and remove
the other robot from the ring. From there, MTU dominated its way to the
final match with its treads cleaned thoroughly in between every match
to battle the fresh coat of paint on the rings. This march to the finals
included a victory over a robot from RIT made from a computer mouse, which,
strangely enough, was the only match in which the mouse was actually pushed
from the ring. In the final match-up, Tech's robot was paired up against
one of Ohio Northern's two entries, which had already been defeated once.
Round one resulted in MTU suffering its first loss to the ONU robot. The
robots were pitted against each other a second time in a winner takes
all showdown, and the "box" pushed ONU out of the ring with
ease. We were declared the champions for the second consecutive year.
The champion robot uses photoelectric sensors to detect where the black
line is as well as where the other robot is, and was one of only a few
robots at the competition with a complete set of sensors to find its way
around the ring.
For more information contact
Tom LaRose, SME chapter President.
4/13/01
