Cornell University Hosts Annual Robotics Competition
ITHACA, N.Y. (WENY) -- Students in a mechatronics class competed against one another with their handmade robots on Thursday morning and into the early afternoon. Building the robots is all for the class' end of the year project, yet is also a competition.
"This is a junior level class, it fulfills the requirements for circuits. We talk about circuits, we talk about programming micro-controllers, and the class ends with a project," said Senior Professor at Cornell for the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Hadas Kress-Gazit.
Kress-Gazit said the event was called 'Cube Craze' and every robot is programmed, built, and is a learning experience for everyone.
"It’s a competition because it’s fun. It makes it challenging and people are competitive, and it’s all in good spirit. But really the idea is for them to experience building a system from scratch," said Kress-Gazit.
Director of Mechanical Development, Ken Bogursky said the event is an opportunity to give to STEM education.
"Engineering is a lot of fun. I think when you do competitions like this, people see just how fun engineering can be. Applying math and science to solving problems in the real world and even for a design competition, those skills go hand-in-hand," said Bogursky.
As the competition progressed, the overall winners had to face off against the Robotic Competition sponsor, ASML. ASML is the world's largest semi-conductor equipment manufacturer, and one reason the company sponsors the event is because they are looking for the best and brightest engineers to intern or work for them.
The winners were Christina Wang, Young June Park, and Will Campisi. The team said the simplicity of their robot allowed it to withstand more attacks from other robots. Unfortunately when the group had to face ASML, they lost.