Two freshmen are joining forces to form the Penn State Competitive Engineering Team, with hopes of eventually building a heavyweight BattleBot to compete in a national BattleBot competition.
Each BattleBot, a robot engineered by teams and made to fight other robots, is designed to include unique functions to defeat another robot, usually including advanced mechanical and electrical engineering mechanisms. The sport of BattleBots was developed in 1999 and has continued to grow in the past six years.
New BattleBot competitions for high school and college students, called BattleBots IQ, exist to inspire, educate and engage students in the art of robot building.
Andrew Peterson (freshman-mechanical engineering) has been competing in BattleBot events for about three years. Peterson said competing was tough at first, but his current robot, Titanium Joe, is ranked third out of 150 competitors nationwide.
Titanium Joe is a four-wheel-drive robot designed to destroy another BattleBot. Its wheels protrude beneath and above it, making it capable of running right side up or upside down. Titanium Joe uses a 10-pound steel drum, which Peterson said spins at 100 mph, as its weapon. He said the drum has teeth that can gouge a competing robot or cause it to flip over.
It took Peterson about six months to create the finished version of Titanium Joe -- his first model of Titanium Joe was not as successful at defeating other BattleBots.
"I spent probably two months designing it and four months building it," Peterson said.
Titanium Joe was designed using SolidWorks computer software. Peterson said the robot was designed to dismantle quickly, so it could be fixed and accept recharged batteries in the limited time between matches.
"Really, the most important thing is that it's easy to fix," Peterson said.
Peterson said it was also important to keep Titanium Joe lightweight.
"You want it to be as small as possible, because if you don't, you're wasting weight. You only get so much weight to build the robot with," Peterson said.
Like professional boxers, BattleBots compete in different weight classes.
Dawn Wendell, a graduate student majoring in mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is an experienced BattleBot competitor.
Wendell said the robots compete in weight classes ranging from 150 grams to 340 pounds. Wendell competed with the MIT BattleBot team for four years and currently competes solo with her own 12-pound BattleBot.
BattleBots can win a match by either knocking out its opponent or, if both robots survive the match, one can be declared the winner by a panel of judges, Peterson said.
The judges choose the winner based on the damage the robots cause, and the strategy and aggression they demonstrate. Titanium Joe, which is undefeated in competitions, has won six matches through knockout and three through judges.
Peterson said he recently met Roman Sandoval (freshman-industrial and computer engineering), a student who has a background in engineering technology but was unfamiliar with BattleBots.
Peterson introduced Sandoval to the world of BattleBots and together, they decided to start a student organization to build a Heavyweight BattleBot.
Mechanical engineering professor Alok Sinha teaches a course, ME 456 (Industrial Robot Applications) on robotic engineering.
Sinha said the new club will provide a good opportunity for further education on mechanical engineering. He added that creating BattleBots will be good for student engineers in the future because many high-paying agencies, including the Department of Defense, are recruiting people with experience in design combat and soldier robots.
Jean Landa Pytel, assistant dean for student services in the College of Engineering, said she supported the new organization.
"We recognize that a significant portion of a student's education occurs outside of the classroom," Pytel said.
If anyone wants to start or join a club that enhances their engineering skills, Pytel said, "more power to them."
After successfully recruiting 12 other BattleBot fanatics to join their team, Peterson and Sandoval launched the Penn State Competitive Engineering Team.
"We are currently contacting other campuses and universities such as MIT and Carnegie Melon to understand the competition held around the nation, the sponsors that promote their teams, new members and their constitutions," Sandoval said.
The team is looking for sponsors to help finance its project, Sandoval said.
Peterson and Sandoval are want sponsorships to cover the materials needed to make a BattleBot, Sandoval said, including titanium, magnesium, aluminum and electrical components.
The team is deciding what type of BattleBot to craft for the 2006 competition.
Sandoval said there is no yet a concrete design for the BattleBot. The team members will participate in the design process once the team is developed, he added.
"We want to find the most efficient and most effective design for our BattleBot," Sandoval said.
Wendell said that when the team does build a robot, they would compete in BattleBots IQ, an independent spin-off of BattleBots that focuses on education. BattleBots IQ is a competition directed toward high school and college students.
"Currently BattleBots co-sponsors various combat robot events and also runs educational programs for the high school and college level," Wendell said.
While Wendell said the competition required a lot of research, time, and energy, she said she believed the BattleBots IQ program would enjoy success in the future.
"It'll definitely continue to grow; it's a great way for students to apply their knowledge," Wendell said.
Peterson said that his participation in BattleBots competitions in high school was his reason for choosing mechanical engineering as his major.
"I really like the design process for engineering and trying to be creative in that capacity," Peterson said. "When I'm not working on my robot, I'm always in the stands; even though I've been in this for three years, there are still matches that make my jaw drop," he said.
