Six UA College of Engineering students are constructing a 250-pound battle robot, capable of causing serious destruction, to compete in a TV show.
Vic Verbalaitis El Inde Arizona Nick Sivertson groaned as he set the cardboard box on the workshop desk.Beside the box, wires weaved in between motors and batteries laid out on a strip of wood. A transmitter, which looks somewhat like a video game controller, accompanied the array on the table.Some of them had always dreamed of building a battle robot capable of pure devastation.
Given three minutes in the ring, two Battlebots operated by opposing teams try to cause as much damage as possible to their competitor. The bots feature weapons systems that they use to impair their opponents, with some of the more popular weapon types including flippers, flamethrowers and horizontal or vertical spinners that can rotate at hundreds of miles per hour.
The “Battlebots” competition is no stranger to college students entering the ring; the show has featured robots from student robotics teams at the University of California at Berkeley, MIT and the Rochester Institute of Technology, among others. The design of the Sting bot has changed many times throughout the team’s months-long process, with almost 20 design iterations so far. One early build of the bot came in at 380 pounds and had to be scrapped to fit the Battlebots heavyweight division requirement of 250 pounds.
“One of the big things about the project is that we wanted to build a Battlebot, but at the same time, we wanted to leave a lasting thing at the university,” Hurworth said. “I really wanted to make sure that other students coming in that are interested in robotics have the opportunity to learn and grow.”
As an inveterate “Battlebots” fan, Ramirez said he is excited at the opportunity to participate in a competition that has been so important to him. Choudhary, the software systems lead for the project, works on coding the telemetry system for Sting. The telemetry system allows the team to analyze Sting’s motor speeds and temperatures in real-time, so they can make quick strategic adjustments during a fight.
After completing their application to the “Battlebots” show in February, Hurworth said the team was contacted by one of the producers in March. Hurworth said the producer liked their application, but asked that they add a flamethrower to their design. Hurworth also said the producer invited the team to compete in an exhibition match during the “Battlebots Destruct-A-Thon” series in Las Vegas during May.
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