Patrick F. Taylor Hall hosted a mechanical spectacle April 4, as four robotic teams battled it out at the University’s first annual Bengal Bot Brawl.
The teams, consisting of students from the University’s College of Engineering, clashed their 30-pound weight class robots for the chance to compete in the Robot BattlesTM at the 2017 MomoCon in Atlanta, Georgia.
Battlebots nicknamed T. Swift, Atlas, Goliath and Laura took to the combat stage as hundreds of students, faculty and members of the public came to enjoy the metal-on-metal action.
One person in attendance, mechanical engineering student Girguis Sedky, said he expected to see some tough competition. What he didn’t expect was the number of spectators.
“I was expecting that it would be very competitive,” Sedky said. “But I was very surprised by the turn out.”
The competition featured one-on-one, sumo-style battles between the student groups. If one robot was able to knock the opposing robot off the stage or disable its movement for more than 10 seconds, that robot won the bout. Three bouts made up one round of the competition, with two bouts securing a win for the round.
As the competition proceeded, teams were allowed 10 minutes of time between rounds to repair their robots. While some might think a sumo-style battle is simply about pushing, combat robots from multiple teams used maneuverable metal arms to strike and pick up opponents. In fact, during two separate bouts, robots were seen producing smoke from their interior mechanisms.
Three of the participating teams conceived and designed their battle bots as part of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering’s Capstone Design Program. After several months of hard work and collaborative thinking mechanical engineering senior Ryan Moreau said he was glad to have participated in building his team’s robot, Atlas.
“I really enjoyed the process,” Moreau said. “I had a great team that I worked … We had four individuals from mechanical and electrical engineering, and they were just great.”
Someone else who enjoyed the fruits of students’ labor was Professor Dimitris Nikitopoulos. As chair of the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department and head of the Capstone Design Program, Nikitopoulos said it doesn’t get much better than this.
“I don’t think there is a greater satisfaction for a teacher to see his or her students perform,” Nikitopoulos said.
At the end of the day, only one team could proceed to the Atlanta competition as the victor of the Bengal Bot Brawl. After tallying the results from the three judges, team “Goliath” reigned supreme as the University’s first robotic competition champions.
With all expenses paid, their team will now travel to Atlanta to compete in the Robot BattlesTM May 25 through 28. According to its website, Robot BattlesTM is one of the oldest continuously running robotic combat competitions in the world.
The College of Engineering hosts the first annual Bengal Bot Brawl on Tuesday, April 4, 2017, in Patrick F. Taylor Hall.
