Each autonomous robot has been created by a team of three students. The course's other instructor, Jim Young, professor of electrical and computer engineering, notes that 40 percent of the students in the class are nonscience majors. The course has no prerequisites. Young says that many of the students entered the fall '98 course with very little technical knowledge, yet all 36 robots in the class qualified for competition. A student's grade is not determined by where his or her team's robot will place in the contest.
Final rankings are more about bragging rights.
The robots sport a variety of innovative features, such as pop-out appendages, claws and nets. Turning that bucket of stuff into a robot seemed daunting, Sung says. We took our robot apart three times. In the process of building a robot, Sung and her classmates acquired some basic skills in computer use and programming, electronic assembly and problem solving. Designing a winning robot requires strategy, imagination, common sense and devotion, she says.