ACM SIGBots Hosts Qualifying Event at PurdueCS - Advance to VEX Robotics World Championship
04-15-2019
Purdue’s ACM SIGBots recently hosted 16 university robotics teams in the largest Vex U Qualifying tournament this year. The competition was held in the Lawson Computer Science Building where Purdue SIGBots competed in qualifying rounds, scoring 8-0 and wining the final elimination-style tournament. The SIGBots team also competed in Monroe, MI and Fairmont, WV earlier in the year. There, they also won the qualifying rounds and beat the competition by winning the Excellence Awards and Robot Skills Awards. Due to their performance this year, Purdue’s ACM SIGBots team has received an invitation to the World Championship competition hosted in Louisville, KY on April 24thto 27th.
The Vex Robotics competitions are well known amongst middle school, high school and university robotics enthusiasts. The rules are modified for the university division, allowing the Purdue’s SIGBots team to fabricate and 3D print their own mechanical parts, as well as create custom electronic sensors. For competition, the team constructs two robots to compete in a game that changes every year. This year’s game involved picking up and launching 3-inch plastic balls to toggle flags to the team’s color. Additionally, the competition awarded points for flipping and positioning caps (disks with a protruding center on both sides and different colored faces). Points were awarded for flipping the cap face to the team’s color and additional points were given for placing them on elevated posts a few feet above the floor. Each match is 2 minutes long: during the first 45 seconds, the robots must be completely autonomous, while the remaining 1:15 is driver-controlled.
The Purdue SIGBots team members specialize in different aspects of robotics such as software, mechanics, strategy, electronics, and PROS development. The team includes students with majors from CS, ChE, CompE, ME, IE, Math, Stat, ROET, NET, and Cyber Security. In addition to honing the necessary technical skills, participation with the SIGBots team builds leadership and followership prowess, useful in transitioning from a university to a professional career. “This past year, I learned how to manage small teams working towards one final product,” says SIGBots President, Lucas Baston. “Each of our project teams contributes to the robot in a different way. Making sure that all the subsystems integrate properly has developed my technical and leadership skills. Learning how to work with and lead people with different perspectives and personal goals is a skill I know I will use for the rest of my life.”
SIGBots Roster:
President: Lucas Baston – ChE 2020
Vice President: Jonathan Bayless – EE 2019
System Admin: Benjamin Kallmyer – NET & Cyber Security 2020
Software:
Software Lead: Shubham Jain – CS 2021
Eric Burghardt – CS/Math/Stats 2019
Joe Busse – CS 2021
Kurtis Dressel – CS 2021
Nathan Moore – CompE 2020
Brendan Moore – CS 2021
Oliver Kreftka – CompE 2022
Jacquie Yu – CS 2022
Mechanics:
Mechanics Lead: Joseph Skowronski – ROET 2021
Josh Walker – ME 2019
Kumansh Furia – ME 2021
Luke Bayless – ME 2022
Jenna Jeon - ME 2022
Alex Neil – ROET 2022
Chris Ridenour – CompE 202
Alexander Vuong – ME 2022
Strategy:
Strategy Lead: Drew Geisler - IE 2021
Walter (Tom) Yarrow – CS 2022
Electronics:
Electronics Lead: Ritwik Pandey – EE/ROET 2020
Joe Bormann – EET 2019
PROS Development:
PROS Lead: Alex Brooke – CS 2020
Elliot Berman – CS/STAT 2019
Writer: Emily Kinsell, 765-494-0669, emily@purdue.edu, @emilykinsell
Source: Lucas Baston, lbaston@purdue.edu, http://purduesigbots.com