COMPETITION
2014 Engineering Physics Robotics Competition
Every summer, 50-60 2nd Year, UBC Engineering Physics students get together to take on a daunting project course: ENPH 253. This course pits the students, in teams of 4, against each other in a race to design and build a fully autonomous robot, which then must complete a challenge. A competition is held at the end of the course to see which robots are the most successful at the challenge. Along the way, students learn to work in teams, manage their own schedules, and of course gain enormous technical experience.
The challenge presented to 14 teams in this year's competition was Indiana Jones themed: each team must build a robot adventurer, capable of navigating the Temple of the Zipline. This Temple takes the form of an obstacle course designed to test each adventurer.
The robot will traverse said Temple by following black electrical tape, with the motive to collect treasure, specifically, The Idol. Along the way, there are three artifacts to collect, each worth 1 point. The robot must then climb a hill, follow more tape, then scramble across a treacherous rockpit. At this point, the robots must track the Eye of the Idol, a 10 kHz infrared signal beacon in order to get the final artifact, The Idol, worth 3 points. When The Idol is picked up, or knocked off of its platform, the Temple of the Zipline collapses. The collapsing temple, in this case, takes form of 5 stacked blocks falling over, obstructing the Temple's entrance.
Finally, to score any points, the robot adventurer must return home with the artifacts and/or The Idol. There are two paths that are available:
Option 1: follow the Beacon of Hope (another IR beacon) back to the tape and avoid the boulder.
Option 2: (somehow) ride the Zipline of Danger, to glide back to safety with all the loot.
The figure below shows the playing surface and outlines all the significant aspects of the competition.
A very quick overview of what the competition entails (featuring Bryan Puteryko, Carley Schwarz, Zachary Morris, and Saman Jaffari, our classmates):
Indy on the Rocks
Out of 54 students, 14 teams, our robot, Indy on the Rocks, placed 3rd overall. It was a hectic summer, but to get into the top three was very rewarding.
Check out the Chronicles of Indy on the Rocks, a summary video of our design, development, and performance at this years Engineering Physics Robotics Competition, Indiana Robot and The Temple of the Zipline:
Acknowledgements
Team 4, Indy on the Rocks, would like to express enormous gratitude to the following individuals, without whom we would never have had this opportunity:
Professors
Andre Marziali - ENPH Program Director - for being incredibly knowledgeable, understanding, and supportive.
Jon Nakane - ENPH Project Lab Head - for putting up with all the broken TINAHs, and valiantly fixing them.
Bernhard Zender - ENPH Project Lab Head - for the wonderful zany contraptions and ideas, which helped inspire many of our designs.
Teaching Assistants
Dillon Melamed - for the confidence in our abilities to bounce back and be relevant.
Koko Yu - for the patience to help us even when we didn't need it.
Andrew Cavers - for the awesome side stories about rock climbing, and the appreciation for our carabiner.
And our classmates, for going through this extremely rewarding, fun, and intense ordeal with us.
