Update from the IEEE at UIC Robotics Team

Robots​.com is proud to sup­port the IEEE at UIC Robot­ics Team. This aca­d­e­m­ic year, the group of col­lege stu­dents designed, built, and entered a robot in the Jer­ry Sanders Design Com­pe­ti­tion. They returned from the col­lege design com­pe­ti­tion inspired and ready to build an even bet­ter entry for next year.

Unex­pect­ed Challenges:

IEEE at UIC Robot­ics team mem­ber, Michal Talar­czyk, shared about the highs and lows of the team’s com­pe­ti­tion expe­ri­ence: ​“The Jer­ry Sanders Design com­pe­ti­tion itself went well on the first day of com­pe­ti­tion, we were one of the top scor­ing teams. Unfor­tu­nate­ly after being struck by a fly­ing robot our elec­tron­ics for our hand (H‑bridges) fired and we weren’t able to com­pete anymore.”

Learn­ing From the Competition:

Despite the tech­ni­cal set­backs, the team ral­lied and used the com­pe­ti­tion as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to brain­storm about new ways to approach the design chal­lenges and pre­pare for unex­pect­ed events.

“One of the good things we got out of the com­pe­ti­tion is that we found out what improve­ments we need to make,” said Talar­czyk. ​“The most impor­tant improve­ments for us to do are to make the con­trols of the robot­ic arm more nat­ur­al, do more test runs, pro­tect our elec­tron­ics as well as have spares and have a bet­ter grab­ber that has more room for error to pick up objects.”

Back at IEEE:

While most of the oth­er teams at the Jer­ry Sanders Design Com­pe­ti­tion use con­trollers designed for RC air­planes, the IEEE at UIC Robot­ics Team has decid­ed to cre­ate their own.

“There are dif­fer­ent awards giv­en at the com­pe­ti­tion oth­er than win­ning such as best design, and most inno­v­a­tive,” team mem­ber Christo­pher Magrud­er said. ​“We are going to try and blow every one’s mind.“

Talar­czyk said the team has an inno­v­a­tive new design for the con­troller. ​“Cur­rent­ly we are hard at work on the robot going for a whole new design for con­trol­ling it and it’s very excit­ing. We are try­ing to make a mechan­i­cal arm that the oper­a­tor wears and when they move the robot will mim­ic their move­ments.” Find out more about the IEEE at UIC Robot­ics team.

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