The Ruckus Robotics team from Marathon has once again taken the lead in the combat robot market. The crew transported four specially constructed robots to the open-weight combat robot tournament at the Maker Faire in Orlando on November 9.
A wide variety of robotic warriors competed in the tournament, from agile 150-gram competitors to enormous 250-pound monsters. Eight children from middle and primary schools traveled to this high-stakes competition, where over the course of two days, approximately 200 robots engaged in violent combat.
According to Ruckus coach Sean Snowden, the youngsters had been putting in a lot of practice and were ecstatic to play against such formidable opponents. They were ecstatic to compete because this was Florida’s biggest military robotics competition.
The participants, who ranged from bright young brains to seasoned NASA engineers, demonstrated the creativity and enthusiasm that went into these incredible creations. With a fleet of state-of-the-art robots, college engineering teams often descend upon the event.
The events give aspiring engineers a unique chance to network with professionals in the field and gain knowledge from their priceless experience. Even though the event is competitive, participants have a strong sense of camaraderie and are excited to impart their knowledge to the upcoming generation of innovators.
Two of the four bots advanced to the finals, and every bot on our squad won, Snowden added. Many members of our team attended a combat robotics event for the first time, and they are eager to attend another one. Many of the children were so moved by what they seen that they are already organizing the design and construction of their next bot.
The First Lego League and the First Tech Challenge are two other contests that the Ruckus team is participating in. The team built a unique 18-inch cube-shaped bot for the First Tech Challenge that could do duties both driver-controlled and autonomously. A few members of the team went to a practice scrimmage, and even though they were the smallest and youngest team, they scored more points than almost all of the other teams. About 35 high school teams from the Miami-Dade region participated in the scrimmage, which included previous national contenders.
One of the few teams that could use a remote control to move a robot arm to pick up the sample and hang it in the specified target area was the Ruckus Robotics team. The bot needed to be piloted precisely and apply the ideal amount of force to securely grasp the sample and transport it to the target in order to accomplish this feat. According to Snowden, this skill enabled the youthful squad to take the lead in every game in a matter of seconds.
In anticipation of their first practice event in mid-December, the committed Lego League team is developing their bot to overcome a variety of obstacles. Unlike the Tech Challenge, the Lego bot requires no human involvement to function. To enable the bot to finish the tasks on its own, the team must carefully code each movement. Finding novel ways to ensure precision in simple activities, like programming the bot to use an internal gyroscope for exact turns, can lead to major advancements. A variety of tasks require precise changes and imaginative problem-solving to ensure perfect performance.
According to Snowden, it’s fascinating to see the children program the bot and then watch it function without any human input. We are really pleased of them because they are making such great progress.
The fact that all of these children are getting together and enjoying themselves while studying computer code, engineering, and physics is the best part of this. They don’t even know they are studying such complex subjects when learning is this much pleasure.
Visit www.ruckusrobotics.com to learn more about the team and sponsorship possibilities that help to maintain the program free for its members. Those who would like to join the team can send an email to [email protected].
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