March madness may be over, but competition is still fierce among Brigham Young University engineering students participating Thursday in a robot soccer tournament, the culminating experience of a two-semester electrical and computer engineering class.
Designed, built and programmed to score goals, the students' robots--MadMax, Xnor, Executor, Prometheus, Taz, Hannibal and Zico--will go head to head in a soccer tournament April 5 in the step-down lounge of the Clyde Engineering Building. The first round of competition will begin at 2 p.m. and the second at 3:30 p.m. The winning team will take home $1,600 in donated prize money.
Faculty advisors Randy Beard and Jim Archibald say the robots are a great way for students to synthesize information taught in the classroom.
"Aside from a few ground rules, we leave the assignment pretty open ended," says Beard, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. "The students have to decide what they want to accomplish, set a schedule and work to meet their goals. The whole experience gets them excited about engineering."
The silicon-based strikers, each small enough to fit within a space no bigger than a 7-inch cube, use microprocessors and computer programming written by the students themselves to navigate the playing field.
When the games begin, students hit a button and the robots must successfully execute their programming without human interaction. A camera above the playing field captures images and sends them to a computer that detects color changes on the field as movement. The computer then transmits information to the robots to react to those changes. When the yellow ball moves across the green field, the computer sends signals to the robot's wheels to engage the ball and kick it toward the goal.
As part of the class, students are required to attend two lectures each week. One lecture addresses the technical aspects of robot creation and the other, taught by a former Hewlett-Packard vice president, provides insight into the business side of engineering.
Team Prometheus' Steve Olsen, a senior from Seattle, says he sees the class as practical preparation for the professional world.
"It's been a team experience--we've had to organize ourselves, demonstrate leadership skills and meet deadlines," says Olsen. "It's given us a perspective on what a business situation might be like in the real world."
Each of the robots demonstrate a different take on the assignment--team Taz designed its robot with a spinning roller made of pink erasers that helps control the ball, while team Prometheus' robot boasts a carbon dioxide-powered pneumatic kicker.
And though no extra points are awarded for style, Olsen says his team outfitted its robot with sculpted aluminum flames on the side.
"We're going for the aesthetically pleasing look," says Olsen. "Hey, when you spend eight months on a project like this you have to let your spirit show somehow."
