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Electrical and computer engineering major Alyssa Batula ’09 (Cleona, Pa.) entered the Autonomous Robotics Competition without any previous robotics experience and learned how to apply theory to real-world situations.
“I learned that being able to simulate the real world on a computer makes life a lot easier, but just because something works in theory or even in a simulation doesn’t always mean it will work in the real world,” says the Marquis Scholar. “Also, a lot of the time the simplest approach can be the best.”
Batula and fellow electrical and computer engineering major Kavinda Udugama ’09 (Kandy, Sri Lanka) won the computer science department’s first annual autonomous robotics competition Nov. 10.
Under the moniker Team Whatever You Like, they competed against three other teams made up of students and staff members.
The competition, which was organized by Jeffrey Gum, visiting instructor of computer science, and Jeffrey Pfaffmann, assistant professor of computer science, allowed students with ranging technical abilities to explore autonomous robots and gain a deeper understanding of computer-controlled devices.
Participants programmed a Hemisson robot, which has two wheels for legs, giving it full mobility and allowing the device to twirl around its own length. Hemisson robots have infrared sensors that can detect objects in their paths, such as walls. Each robot can only be trained to sense and respond to its environment by performing simple tasks.
Batula and Udugama successfully visited all five of the competition’s targets in a time of 15 seconds.
Rich Santillo, user services specialist for information technology services, and Michael Costello, network engineer for information technology services, made up Team RTFM. They finished second in 22 seconds.
Team R&D consisted of electrical and computer engineering majors Richard Polley ’07 (Wexford, Pa.) and Daniel Sheehan ’08 (Winchester, Mass.). Team Wiggle Bot was made up of Marquis Scholar Michael Dominguez ’07 (East Stroudsburg, Pa.), who is pursuing a B.S. computer science and A.B. engineering; Trustee Scholar Bryan Culbertson ’07 (Charlottesville, Va.), a computer science major; and Teruhisa Haruguchi ’07(Saitamashi, Japan), who is pursuing a B.S. computer science and A.B. with a major in mathematics.
“I was pleased with the way the competition turned out,” says Sheehan. “I had fun.”